Disaster World temperature heading towards 3C - The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

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It's the final call, say scientists, the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures.
Their dramatic report on keeping that rise under 1.5 degrees C says the world is now completely off track, heading instead towards 3C.
Keeping to the preferred target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will mean "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".
It will be hugely expensive - but the window of opportunity remains open.
After three years of research and a week of haggling between scientists and government officials at a meeting in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C.

 

[CWCchange]

@Big Bad Fish sort of has a point. It's the lack of giving a fuck ingrained in the culture in those areas that's attributing to the problem more than it is the sheer number of humans in the same space. Not only that, but it makes any further attempts by western first-world nations to cut down on our emissions a moot point when they're going to do nothing save laugh at us for hamstringing ourselves for nothing while throwing plastic into the ocean and smogging up their industrial areas so badly you'd think you were in Silent Hill.

'Tis true. Red tide is currently a big problem down here in Florida, and everybody is blaming our environmental practices while completely ignoring all the plastics and Styrofoam washing ashore from Haiti and Cuba which has gotten worse in recent years.

The point of all this is that simply killing off human beings is not a solution to the problem. Their numbers will be replenished soon enough elsewhere and the base problem won't be solved. One can only find a permanent solution in changing mankind's behavior when it comes to use of the resources allotted to him and how he uses technology. If this requires a complete "fall-out" of the industrial system, so be it.

TL;DR read the subtitle.

Good luck changing Pajeet's behavior on the environment when his own government can't get him to use a toilet.

 

[thejackal]

Ok, so that takes care of electricity. But I was talking about energy as a whole which WWS does jack shit to address. We will need some replacement for Jet A, Bunker C, and #2 Diesel going forward. We are going to need heat and industrial steam for manufacturing and refining. We are going to have to replace the petroleum and gas we use as feedstocks.

Most people, as you obliquely imply, are too stupid to realize that we need different fuels for different tasks. Heating a home is different than running a tractor or powering a laptop. That said, we have plenty of liquid fuels still in the ground, and if things really get desperate the US has got enough coal to turn the planet into Venus via gasification.

I'm a pragmatist in most things including energy. We need an "all hands on deck" approach (and to not to STUPID SHIT like pushing ethanol and coal when we have plenty of nat gas and oil) in order to a) keep industrial and consumer costs the lowest in the world (good job US!) and b) not over-heat the damn planet by 2050 and fuck our kids.

The Jackal's plan would be to keep building Nat Gas plants (don't export it, keep it here in the US) and burn that for baseload until we can transition to solar and other point sources from now until 2040 or so. We don't need coal, fuck no, and we don't need to be burning diesel to plant corn to turn it back into diesel and gas.

FFS, does anybody respect the laws of thermodynamics? Stupidity.

'Tis true. The red tide is a big problem down here in Florida and everybody is blaming our environmental practices while they completely ignored all the plastics and Styrofoam washing ashore from Haiti and Cuba.

The red tide is mostly due to industrial and residential sewage run off from Florida farmers and home owners. Too much shit (literally) and phosphorous in the water. The solution (sorry) is more government oversight and regulation. Doesn't mean that you need a permission slip to take a shit in the woods near the beach but it would mean that big farms and polluters are held accountable.

From what I can gather from friends and family in Florida people are pretty worked up about it. Hopefully they realize that the only solution is to regulate. Same thing Cleveland found out when their river caught on fire.

 

[Clem Fandango]

An extra 3 degrees would be great for the UK. We'd just need to militarize the English channel to stop everyone scrabbling up from Africa and the Middle East.

 

[Rand /pol/]

I'll either be dead in 40 years, or so old that I won't care.

I did my part to save humanity by not having kids. You're welcome you ungrateful fucks.

"Just have your entire family tree and centuries of struggle and hardship go down the drain cause LOL I'LL BE DEAD WHO CARES"

 

[ColtWalker1847]

The Jackal's plan would be to keep building Nat Gas plants (don't export it, keep it here in the US) and burn that for baseload until we can transition to solar and other point sources from now until 2040 or so. We don't need coal, fuck no, and we don't need to be burning diesel to plant corn to turn it back into diesel and gas.

Throw in some AP1000's to shave off some baseload demand as they shutter those coal plants and you got yourself a deal.

They're actually pretty cheap to run and they are good for 60-80 years once built. It's the upfront costs that are the disincentive. Too many cases of fully/partially built plants being closed without generating a watt. Because the NRC and activist groups are dickheads. Remember Shoreham.

Gen IV is a couple decades away. If we jump all over it now so it will be fully ready to integrate in 20 years. Which should time out nicely as all of the old 70/80's nuclear plants should be shutting down around then.

 

[NN 401]

I don't mean to hand wave all this away but human beings have dealt with extreme, and natural, switches in climate before. We survived.

Yes, we are going to have to tighten our belts, gird our loins and figure out the best way to save as many lives and preserve quality of life.

EMBRACE IT.

The chicken littling is a waste of energy and resources. And we sure as fuck don't need to dis incentivize the one economic system that actually has caused the Third World birth rates to drop, aka CAPITALISM.

India and China are in the boat they are in because of early experimentation with Socialism, in the former, retarding social mobility and the latter did the same goddamn thing and then turned up the dial to 11.

In my mind poverty, global warming, and the floating of ideas where we start murdering the "undesireables" are handmaidens to communist/socialist ideology.


Lastly, at this point there is no real reason to not invest in nuclear energy if you give a flying fuck about global warming.

 

[Eekum Bokum]

The Planet has gone through far worse shit than the crap we are doing, iif we can't survive this we deserve to go extinct.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

The red tide is mostly due to industrial and residential sewage run off from Florida farmers and home owners. Too much shit (literally) and phosphorous in the water. The solution (sorry) is more government oversight and regulation. Doesn't mean that you need a permission slip to take a shit in the woods near the beach but it would mean that big farms and polluters are held accountable.

From what I can gather from friends and family in Florida people are pretty worked up about it. Hopefully they realize that the only solution is to regulate. Same thing Cleveland found out when their river caught on fire.

Doesn't all that stuff eating the runoff help fix carbon though? Perhaps red tides are our friend.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

"Just have your entire family tree and centuries of struggle and hardship go down the drain cause LOL I'LL BE DEAD WHO CARES"

Get over yourself. You and your family aren't that special in the grand scheme of the earth.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

So basically everyone who lives below sea level and a few miles away from the poles will be fucked, and folks living in colder environments are going to sweat more buckets in their lives, but everyone else will be fine. What's a few million of the population lost to Mother Nature's ire?

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Get over yourself. You and your family aren't that special in the grand scheme of the earth.

Plus setting back human quality of life through deliberately gimping our freedoms and economic power would also be spitting on their legacy.

Tech solutions only. Not one step back.

So basically everyone who lives below sea level and a few miles away from the poles will be fucked, and folks living in colder environments are going to sweat more buckets in their lives, but everyone else will be fine. What's a few million of the population lost to Mother Nature's ire?

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I'm skeptical even of that. They've been predicting this for decades and all that's happened is a few sandbars that barely qualified as islands got submerged. Most I'm worried about is altered weather patterns causing agricultural disruptions until things adjust and more severe weather.

 

[Fork Cartel]

I predict a 4C rise. No one will do anything.

Nobody is going to accept lifestyle cutbacks. A handful of radicals are nothing; everyone's content to preach about the hard necessities while never undergoing them. All talk.

Nobody is going to try and reform the system because we keep hearing about how the technology isn't there yet, solar needs to pave over deserts, wind plants grind up birds, nuclear plants are all Chernobyls waiting to happen and fusion is still eternally 20 years away and the oil interests all have the government firmly in-pocket anyways.

Green activism is all futile and stupid and just gets you even angrier and more depressed than you probably were before.

Whenever you see news of climate change, my firm standing advice is to scroll by and not read them. Don't even look at the headlines.

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

The future of electricity is point production from solar + batteries. You're going to be selling electricity to your neighbors in some cases. This is also going to have the benefit of a more robust power grid, a decentralized one that doesn't rely on a series of long range transmissions.

Solar and batteries. I should have died laughing, but I can't bring myself to care anymore.

Also, consumers need to stop eating so much beef and choose to spend their money on sustainable products. We don't necessarily need communism.

I'd like to know what you think is unsustainable about beef. If you are talking about 3000 head feedlots, don't worry those won't exist in 50 years. All the phosphorus used in fertilizer is mined from mineral deposits. In 75 years all known deposits will be exhausted. The only way to make agriculture sustainable is to move toward closed-loop systems. Creating closed-loop ag systems requires grazing which means livestock.

 

[Cthulu]

consumers need to stop eating so much beef

Press F to pay respect to the reefs and island niggers

 

[thejackal]

Solar and batteries. I should have died laughing, but I can't bring myself to care anymore.

I'd like to know what you think is unsustainable about beef. If you are talking about 3000 head feedlots, don't worry those won't exist in 50 years. All the phosphorus used in fertilizer is mined from mineral deposits. In 75 years all known deposits will be exhausted. The only way to make agriculture sustainable is to move toward closed-loop systems. Creating closed-loop ag systems requires grazing which means livestock.

Do you know what the EROI is on solar versus fracking? I'd hazard a guess you don't know that over the lifespan of the panel solar wins. Shale oil currently has an estimate EROI of 5. Current solar tech is estimated at 6.8.

Batteries aren't there yet, but they should be (or with a fuel cell hybrid) in about 10-15 years.

As for beef, it will be made in a lab, and it will be powered by electricity. You're not going to have ranches in 2050. It won't be cost competitive. Not even close.

 

[Linako 2.0]

I'll either be dead in 40 years, or so old that I won't care.

I did my part to save humanity by not having kids. You're welcome you ungrateful fucks.

Oh yes, because one person in the first world becoming a genetic dead end is somehow going to out weight the billions of pahjeets pooping out babies and the Chink Chongs destroying the environment for short term profit.

 

[Rand /pol/]

Get over yourself. You and your family aren't that special in the grand scheme of the earth.

My family has lived in America for centuries and many in my family have died so I could be free. The least I could do is carry my last name on.

 

[Fareal]

Don’t worry about the planet. The planet has endured a number of mass extinction events before and kept right on spinning.

The planet will be just fine. It’s the people who live in areas that will be disproportionately impacted by sea level rises and changes to weather systems that are fucked.

Move higher and away from coasts and major watercourses. If you can afford it.

 

[QWXXP Surprise!]

Totally not a racist. So your solution is to exterminate certain "inferior" populations? Just come out and say it.

I mean, those countries that are rapidly industrializing really don't give a fuck about what they're doing to their environment. I don't think holocausting them was what the other guy was saying (Maybe so, I'm not an internet Mind-Reader)

There's a lot of virtue-signalling from China, for example, about how they're "Going renewable guiz! fuck the US!!11", but they have no problems not enforcing any kind of standard to make their air breathable, or the water potable. Yes, the US and other first-world countries exacerbated the problem by outsourcing our manufacturing industries to countries that don't have any fucking standards. But now a lot of this is on them- they could be using what's now common knowledge to help reduce their impact on the environment, to help control their godawful fucking pollution, or to make sure they don't poison their fucking waterways and cause a water shortage.

I don't know. I'm not a politician, I'm not an environmental scientist. I just do my part to make my corner of the world, that I have control over, a bit less shitty, but a lot of people don't have that mentality. Nothing I can do to force people to feel a certain way.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

All the phosphorus used in fertilizer is mined from mineral deposits. In 75 years all known deposits will be exhausted.

Funny thing about stated reserves is that they don't mean what people think. The numbers people cite are reserves at current market prices. Not that it is all that is available. Far from it.

Remember a couple years ago when the Bakken Field in North Dakota boomed like crazy then fizzled out when the price of oil fell? That oil wasn't supposed to exist according to most calculations of "reserves" the peak-oil chicken-little weirdos cited. But, hey, $120/bbl crude so drill baby drill. I won't even get into the Green River Formation and it's ~1.5 trillion recoverable barrels. We ain't running out of oil any time soon.

The same goes for phosphorus as it is actually fairly common. It is just that phosphate rock is more rare. If it came down to it we could use wood ash or other low-grade common sources as feedstock.

That said, they aren't fertilizing often with phosphorus in most places. The soil has adequate quantities and the crops do not remove much. Which is why they farm there. Adding phosphorus and potassium and other minerals every year are more of a Scott's turfbuilder home and garden kinda deal. Farmers only do it when there is a soil deficiency and quantities used are low.

It's nitrates that are the biggie with them. So much so that anhydrous ammonia is practically synonymous with fertilizer.