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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Jun 21, 2018 - 10:42am PT
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Ed B,
it might help you to stop focusing on particular alarmist exact predictions, which are often oversimplified and distorted in most media.
There are thousands of good articles on big topics as this. It is your job to filter out the chaff. Most reporters are not climate scientists.
Exact causes of deaths from famine and strife can never be pinpointed.
But here is one example of a media source that has done some filtering of information. http://www.climatecentral.org/
Such inexactness does not change the overall consensus scientific predictions, which are a range of estimates depending on which scenario is chosen of how much GHGs we continue to emit. The emission rate is driven by how much we speed up shifting to green energy and conserving fossil fuels.
The direct impacts of an increased greenhouse effect are warming of air and sea (at different rates), which leads to both ice melting and sea level rise, and ocean acidity.
All of these are obviously already happening. And are caused and explained ENTIRELY by humans emitting GHGs. These are the FACTS. There is NO evidence of any other cause. Previous geological eras and ice ages did not have 7 billion high impact people changing the world.
Other effects are more secondary or indirect, such as changes in ocean currents, storm tracks, extreme weather, shifting of species towards the poles, etc. Some feedbacks can be multipliers such as releases from carbon sinks in the ocean and tundra.
And some effects such as how many people die are quite dependent on our responses such as migration, war, and aid.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jun 21, 2018 - 10:55am PT
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tell me something that we can visit in five years, that if you are not correct, you will admit it..
This general trend will continue. Certainly over 15 years. Very probably over 10. Most likely over 5.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jun 24, 2018 - 12:57pm PT
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Some day the property values for those at chronic risk of flooding from climate change will collapse.
I'm a little surprised that banks even give out 30-year mortgages for those locations. I know a lot of it comes down to government guarantees, either implicit or explicit. For instance, when insurance companies started upping rates to cover hurricane losses in Florida based on climate change, the state screamed bloody murder and started giving explicit government guarantees to cover catastrophic losses. This might be financially viable in 2018. But future Fl tax payers are now on the hook for whatever happens going forward. This is eventually going to go very poorly as ever larger bills come due.
But even if tax payers subsidize coastal home owners insurance, people aren't going to want to buy property that frequently floods. And even if it doesn't currently flood, once they start asking themselves, will I be able to sell this property in 10 or 20 years without taking a loss? It is easy to imagine a situation in which a trickle of home owners trying to get out turns into a stampede and millions of homes become worth less than the mortgage and owners start walking away from them and letting banks foreclose just like in 2008.
Bubbles can last a long time. Just as long as there is a greater fool to buy and this country has a lot of fools. But the tide will turn eventually.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Jul 10, 2018 - 11:03pm PT
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IMO, the only solution is an international treaty to phase out fossil fuel burning over the next 30-50 years. Start with internal combustion engines and move on to power plants. No "catch up" prescription for lagging economies e.g. Kyoto. Mandate new technology in stages.
Not sure how to solve the aviation problem. Or nitrogen-based fertilizer issue.
Like you said, it might be too late--but it's better than the present course.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jul 10, 2018 - 11:37pm PT
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The kids who did this are the ones in charge of climate change policy in USA now:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Of course it's a very serious issue and I was opportunistic in sharing this awesome video here for some levity... but there is a moral lesson that transfers nicely.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Jul 11, 2018 - 06:09am PT
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I'm looking for high ground (something out of the 1000yr flood plain), without surrounding slopes that could slide, in a sufficient rainfall zone to have a water supply and ability to grow some food, at elevation high enough to not be 120 degrees all summer, but somewhat protected from forest fires.
I don't even know where that would be. I'm all ears if you have suggestions.
Go East, old man.
Virginia is nice.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Jul 11, 2018 - 08:44am PT
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Malemute
Ice climber
great white north
Jul 10, 2018 - 08:53pm PT
Heat waves bother you? Under Trump climate policies, add another 12°F
America faces monster 131°F heat waves in the coming decades
Trump is to blame. Obviously.
Derp
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Jul 11, 2018 - 10:45am PT
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I agree with you, trumpy is indeed the most powerful single person presently stopping progress on climate policy. And is therefore now to blame.
Only the sketchy brained would think otherwise.
He is now pushing all the BS put out over the last 30 years by the kochs, exxons, inhofes, bushes, heatlands, alecs, repugs, crichtons, watts, pruitts, fauxspews, etc.
more top deniers:
https://www.beforetheflood.com/explore/the-deniers/top-10-climate-deniers/
https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-deniers-in-trump-administration-2518894384.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/climate/google-search-climate-change.html
https://ecowarriorprincess.net/2018/03/key-tactics-climate-change-deniers-use-how-counter-climate-denial/
http://redgreenandblue.org/2018/06/14/climate-change-deniers-dont-want-businesses-adapt-thats-bad-business/
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jul 11, 2018 - 04:14pm PT
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CO2 sequestration?
Clean energy?
Dream on, people, because if you open your eyes, you will see the truth, and it’s very scary.
There is no sense of emergency as people are distracted by the little things, like illegal immigration or abortion.
Even if we come up with a plan within the next 10 years, It will be too late anyway.
Enjoy the life when you still can.
I think it is foolish to put all our hopes on some game-changing technology saving us. But it is certainly possible that some game-changing technology might.
I think a middle age, heavy smoker with early stages of emphysema is a reasonable analogy. Yes, we need to cold quit cigarettes. Cold quitting won't repair the damage already done. Going from 2 packs a day to 1 pack a day will slow the disease progression. Maybe it will buy time for new technology. Maybe it will just buy a little time to adjust to the new normal.
The world in general and the US in particular has a lot of wealth and technology. There is lot that could be done to mitigate effects. But I don't see that we will have the political will to do so. An example that I given before, the country should plan on abandoning southern Florida. If it was done over the next hundred years, it wouldn't cost as much in lost property and destroyed lives as if we let it repeatedly flood before suddenly deciding after one flood too many to not rebuild this time.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 11, 2018 - 04:20pm PT
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There is no sense of emergency as people...
phagocytize their 10 trillionth burger.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jul 11, 2018 - 04:22pm PT
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IMO, the only solution is an international treaty to phase out fossil fuel burning over the next 30-50 years. Start with internal combustion engines and move on to power plants. No "catch up" prescription for lagging economies e.g. Kyoto. Mandate new technology in stages.
Not sure how to solve the aviation problem. Or nitrogen-based fertilizer issue.
Like you said, it might be too late--but it's better than the present course.
There are some things that markets are very good at. We don't need to outlaw internal combustion engines or decide ahead of time how to solve aviation CO2 production.
You just steadily ramp up a tax on CO2 equivalent and the market will solve everyone of these problems for you.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Jul 11, 2018 - 05:29pm PT
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^^Respectfully, this is a bad idea. Getting government addicted to the revenue a "carbon tax" would generate would only make them a bigger part of the problem than they are now.
Although it pains me to say it, mandates are a more effective solution here. As long as they are even-handed, well-defined, and universal.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jul 11, 2018 - 11:01pm PT
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And why would you expect them to be even handed, we'll defined and universal?
How is that any more politically likely than a well run tax scheme?
Picking winners and losers is really problematic even by wonkish experts. When it is done by politicians who are bought by lobbyists, good luck with that...
I would be fine with a law that said that all money raised by such tax had to be evenly distributed back to US citizens and have the courts actually enforce that.
The reality is that I expect our political institutions to do jack and squat so we are only talking hypotheticals anyway.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Jul 12, 2018 - 01:41pm PT
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A carbon fee should never be mentioned without calling it revenue neutral.
RNCT = revenue neutral carbon tax or RNCF = revenue neutral carbon fee.
Every dime it takes in would be paid back by lowering income taxes.
So the revenue net is zero. There is no new tax, it's a tax shift from low carbon users to high carbon users, to pay for external costs.
This carbon fee is not to be confused with fuel taxes for highway & transportation maintenance. That fuel tax needs to be increased just to pay for highways since the federal tax has not been increased in 30 years.
Mandates are usually easy to screw up with loopholes, exceptions, and massive bureaucracy. They amount to the government picking winners and losers instead of the market responding to proper incentives. Take the last act of Scott pruitt for instance, which was to say the EPA will allow an unlimited number of brand new trucks to be built with ancient polluting diesel engines. They actually pollute more than the total pollution caused by the VW diesel cheating.
Another example: energy storage. California decreed that pumped hydro does not count as green energy. but they do count batteries, which are far more expensive. This happens with mandates because insiders lobby for their pet projects.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jul 14, 2018 - 11:00am PT
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^^^
I still hope that someday the world will take serious steps to address the problem. As opposed to the rather mild steps we've seen so far.
But it is not my expectation.
As far as a carbon tax:
The market would respond far more efficiently to a carbon tax than to mandates. A carbon tax could certainly be revenue neutral. Either because other taxes were lowered or because you directly returned the money raised to the population as I suggested earlier.
There are real concerns about a carbon tax. If you increased a CO2 tax from say $10/ton up to $1000+/ton in 30 or 40 years. At the beginning it wouldn't raise much money, the tax would be too low. There would be a period where it would be raising a huge amount of money as the tax was high enough to bite but the market was still in the process of decarbonizing. Once the tax gets really high and the market has almost entirely shifted away from CO2 generating activities, the revenue would plummet. If you had cut taxes during the high carbon revenue years, you would then have the politically difficult issue of raising them back again.
That is why I think it may be better to take the amount of carbon tax raised each quarter, divide it by the population and return it to the people. Yes, the people will take a hit when the carbon revenue dwindles, but that is more politically manageable than trying to raise taxes back.
But I literally expect Miami to be underwater before any of this happens.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Jul 18, 2018 - 08:13pm PT
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A mail carrier died of heat stroke on her route in Woodland Hills during that heatwave. It wasn't a walking route, but it was 117 and the mail trucks don't have AC.
Ironic, since AC is a big part of the problem.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 20, 2018 - 01:20am PT
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Coal chutes for every apt in Stockholm. Musta been nice to breathe there in the winter...
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Jul 20, 2018 - 07:04pm PT
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The time scale is different. Volcano or asteroid will happen on a geological time scale. 2100 is a human time scale.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Jul 21, 2018 - 01:23pm PT
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the last time co2 levels were at todays level sea level was 60 feet higher,
we are guaranteed 3.5'c increase in temperature by 2100
humans have never lived in a world this hot
xcon, I'm with you on this.
To the extent that most people focus on climate change at all, it is in the context of the year 2100. It's not like climate change is going to stop at that point in time. The amount of baked in sea level rise is huge. Its not clear how much will happen by 2100 but it will be 50+ feet on a time scale of centuries.
People freak out about what might happen to stored nuclear waste tens of thousands of years into the future, but won't lift their gaze above the year 2100 for climate change.
And I agree with the comments above. I don't think it very likely that climate change would make humans extinct. But it could certainly knock civilization back to medieval times.
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