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Author Topic: Extreme weather  (Read 111600 times)

RSL

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #260 on: July 27, 2019, 03:21:41 pm »

Too little, too late. We've passed the point where a cup sufficed several decades ago.

Right now it already takes a lot more to even stabilize the situation at a 2 degree Celsius Global temperature increase.

If you are seriously interested in doing something about it, I suggest reading a copy of "Drawdown". The choice of "the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming" might inspire you.

Cheers,
Bart

Hi Bart, I'd probably read it if I had time, but I've been seeing and reading about the end of civilization -- due to global warming, due to population overload, etc., etc., etc., (seems to me the most recent one was Algore's movie) -- for the past fifty years. Every one of those predictions has turned out to be wrong. This one will too.
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LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #261 on: July 27, 2019, 03:25:16 pm »

Yeah, it might make you feel oh, so good and righteous, but it does squat for the climate, even if 7.5 billion people would do the same.

I, for one, love my a/c (just not AOC) in my car and home.

Actually, I found that the little things add up.
For example, you might start with posting just a few thoughts a day, and over the years it could add up to over 14,000 entries.
Or if I remove every day 35 japanese beetles from my blackberry bushes, in one month that adds up to over 1000 fewer beetles on this world. In more practical terms, that means saving my bushes, improving the air quality in this neighbourhood and eating daily organic and highly anti-oxidant fruit for the whole summer.

And to reduce dependency on the AC, I have two large maple trees shading half of the house. They started quite small.
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RSL

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #262 on: July 27, 2019, 03:31:19 pm »

Or if I remove every day 35 japanese beetles from my blackberry bushes, in one month that adds up to over 1000 fewer beetles on this world.

Sorry, Les, it doesn't mean anything of the sort. While you were removing those 1,000, another 50,000 hatched.
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LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #263 on: July 27, 2019, 03:37:58 pm »

Sorry, Les, it doesn't mean anything of the sort. While you were removing those 1,000, another 50,000 hatched.

I ain't no quitter, Russ. With any luck I can neutralize another 1,000 before the end of this season.
If I haven't killed the 1,000 beetles, they and their offsprings would have produced another 100,000. As I say, in practical terms it means I can keep eating my berries and admire my bushes.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2019, 03:43:58 pm by LesPalenik »
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RSL

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #264 on: July 27, 2019, 03:55:11 pm »

Well, at least it'll keep you busy.
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Rob C

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #265 on: July 27, 2019, 03:59:01 pm »

I ain't no quitter, Russ. With any luck I can neutralize another 1,000 before the end of this season.
If I haven't killed the 1,000 beetles, they and their offsprings would have produced another 100,000. As I say, in practical terms it means I can keep eating my berries and admire my bushes.

Which illustrates perfectly why every little bit helps.

It may not solve anything by itself, but many different little bits help things along in all sorts of ways. The worst aporoach is to give up and keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.

LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #266 on: July 27, 2019, 04:00:39 pm »

Well, at least it'll keep you busy.
Actually, it doesn't take much time. A few minutes in the morning and then repeat the exercise in the evening. So far, it hasn't interfered with my Lula postings.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #267 on: July 27, 2019, 04:01:31 pm »

... The worst aporoach is to give up and keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.

Actually, that is my preferred action. After all, Bart told us it is already too late, so why bother? Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #268 on: July 27, 2019, 04:08:45 pm »

I personally rarely, if ever, use straws, however...

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #269 on: July 27, 2019, 07:33:43 pm »

I personally rarely, if ever, use straws, however...

Now you'll be buying them to support Trump?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49090643
Quote
Thousands of Trump-branded plastic straws have been sold on the US president's official campaign website - at $15 for 10 - since they were launched as an alternative to "liberal" paper straws.

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: July 27, 2019, 08:00:21 pm by Bart_van_der_Wolf »
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RSL

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #270 on: July 27, 2019, 07:50:42 pm »

We could go back to paper straws. Remember those? But then the tree huggers would be bitching about using wood to make straws. Bart probably would come up with a chart.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #271 on: July 27, 2019, 07:58:57 pm »

We could go back to paper straws. Remember those? But then the tree huggers would be bitching about using wood to make straws. Bart probably would come up with a chart.
Here in New Jersey, restaurants are switching over to paper straws.  I hate them.  They have a funny feeling in your mouth.  They tend to get soft and fall apart.  They suck.

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #272 on: July 27, 2019, 08:07:14 pm »

The status quo, still accelerating:
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LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #273 on: July 27, 2019, 09:26:57 pm »

Here in New Jersey, restaurants are switching over to paper straws.  I hate them.  They have a funny feeling in your mouth.  They tend to get soft and fall apart.  They suck.

Why do you need the straws? They will make you flatulent and old looking.
I grew up behind the iron curtain and we had to learn at a young age how to drink straight from the cup or bottle.

Quote
“When drinking out of a straw, the movement of the mouth area that you have to make will encourage the breakdown of collagen and elasticity more quickly, causing unnecessary wrinkles and lines.”

https://www.littlethings.com/dangers-drinking-straw/2
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #274 on: July 27, 2019, 10:13:06 pm »

Why do you need the straws? They will make you flatulent and old looking.
I grew up behind the iron curtain and we had to learn at a young age how to drink straight from the cup or bottle.

https://www.littlethings.com/dangers-drinking-straw/2
More flatulence?  That means more CO2 as well. So I'm killing the whales and causing global warming too.

LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #275 on: July 27, 2019, 10:29:34 pm »

More flatulence?  That means more CO2 as well. So I'm killing the whales and causing global warming too.

I'm not sure about the whales. On many occasions the whales get injured and killed by cruise ships.
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #276 on: July 28, 2019, 12:13:35 am »

I'm not sure about the whales. On many occasions the whales get injured and killed by cruise ships.
Read item 7 in your link regarding whales. 

LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #277 on: July 28, 2019, 12:42:23 am »

Both, the tiny straws and gigantic ships are a problem. As to the effects of flatulence, the methane in the air can indeed warm up the atmosphere, and indirectly also the oceans.

Quote
Warmer ocean temperatures and melting sea ice in the polar regions may jeopardise the ecology of the Arctic and Antarctic feeding grounds of many large whales. ... Climate change may also impact the areas of the oceans in which whales live, including migration patterns.

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-zealand-whale-strandings-linked-ocean.html
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Ray

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #278 on: July 28, 2019, 01:41:56 am »

No climate event of the last 2,000 years looks like humanity’s
Warm or cool periods you may have heard of were regional affairs
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/the-only-global-climate-event-of-last-2000-years-was-ours/
Cheers,
Bart

Thanks for the link, Bart. This report seems to be consistent with Professor Stephen Schneider's recommendation that climate scientists should be prepared to sacrifice some of the the truth in order to be politically effective.

I had a look at the abstract of the report in Nature.com, and discovered the headline is:
"No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era"

'No evidence' is not 'evidence'. Didn't you mention in a previous post that temperature records prior to the 1850's are not as accurate as current records because they rely upon proxies, such as ice cores, tree rings and sediment analysis?

Another comment on the report:

"Raphael Neukom and colleagues assess the global patterns of climate variability during the Common Era, using data compiled from nearly 700 proxy records of temperature changes. In their Nature paper, they report that before the 20th century, climate epochs did not occur simultaneously across the globe as previously thought."

Less than 700 proxy records to examine the degree of global consistency of climate changes during the past 2,000 years, compared with the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of instrumental records we have for the 100 years or so since industrialisation!! Wow!! It's no wonder that Climatology is often described as a 'soft' science.  ;)

The other point I take issue with is, 'as previously thought'. The global extent of the Roman Warm Period, the MWP, and the LIA have always been contentious due to a lack of sufficiently accurate and widespread data.

The Michael Mann 'Hockey Stick' graph which seemed to obliterate the existence of the MWP as a global event, was severely criticised because a number of scientific studies already existed at the time, at least implying that the MWP was global. The issue led to a court case in which Mann struggled to defend his reputation.

Another issue which seems like an excellent example of a 'strawman argument', is the following comment.

Quote
“Climate has changed without humans before, so humans can’t be changing it now” is not a logically valid argument, FYI. It's the equivalent to arguing that we can't cause forest fires, since they occurred before we were around.

I've never heard any such argument from the skeptics. It's understood, at least by the skeptics whose opinions I've come across, that there are numerous influences on climate, which are too complex to accurately quantify. Only a fool would claim that humanity's activities have no influence on climate.

I would argue that it's a universal truth that nothing is permanent, although the degree of permanency varies enormously depending on the nature of the subject. Most complex systems are constantly subject to change. All life- forms change as they age, and eventually die. Buildings and infrastructure gradually decay, mountains gradually erode and new mountains are gradually created due to volcanic eruptions and plate tectonics, and so on.

Everything is subject to a process of 'cause and effect'.

I would say it's a reasonable hypothesis that the current warming might be more homogenous and synchronous, globally, than certain previous warm periods, due to mankind's increased activities in general, including, in particular, changing the environment by cutting down huge areas of forests, building cities, suburbs and roads world-wide, which create an Urban Heat Island effect, and ceasing to return our natural waste products such as crop residue, faeces and urine, back to the soil.

It's only reasonable to assume that emissions of CO2 due to the burning of fossil fuels must contribute at least something to the current warming, even though water vapour is by far a more significant greenhouse gas in total.

What concerns me about the demonisation of CO2 is the disregard, and even denial of the benefits of increased CO2 levels, which can be demonstrated in a 'hard science' way through repeated experiments, growing plants in an environment with increased CO2 levels, and observing the results.

Since we know with certainty that CO2 is essential for all life, and that most plants thrive on elevated levels, why not exploit the benefits to improve the environment, instead of ignoring the benefits?

The environment can be improved through reforestation. Newly planted forests will grow more quickly in elevated levels of CO2 and the increased precipitation that inevitably results from warming will also help.

It's also well established that modern agriculture tends to degrade our soils, reduces the biodiversity of the soil, and reduces the carbon content of the soil.
Changing this system for the better would potentially happen more quickly and more profitably with elevated CO2 levels. Instead of trying to eliminate CO2 emissions, why not sequester the carbon in the soil to restore the natural biodiversity of the soil, as well as continuing with the development of alternative forms of energy such as solar power, which would obviously be of great benefit as fossil fuel supplies dwindled and became more expensive, regardless of concerns about climate change?
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RSL

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #279 on: July 28, 2019, 08:14:38 am »

The status quo, still accelerating:


Good for you, Bart. I was pretty sure you'd come up with a chart.
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