BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 04:15 PM

What is climate change to wry trouble making poets?

It's knowing the massive bridge is out twenty kilometers away
and speeding headlong to try and save a little time and money
It's the dehissent execution of poetry of life on Earth.
It is quiet lieing to the children about the curse.
a melancholey bride dieing of uterine cancer.
It's the question that knows its sad answer.
It is the slow motion astroid of violence.
Its the fatal crash of Noah's ambulance
Some dieing of thirst in mere years
and others of hunger with no tears.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 06:33 AM

Well I did give you the source for those numbers. You did get things wrong in your rather sloppy post about vulcanism and you won't find too many flaws in my last few posts. Not because I'm an expert but because I check my information on reputable scientific websites before posting. It takes a bit of effort but it's worth it I think.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Sep 22 - 03:31 AM

Checking my facts before hitting send does not make me a expert.

And that doesn't include reading the New Scientist every week obviously. But hey! The response could have asked "where does the information come from?" But (mae culpa) someone's narcissism button was duly pressed and the eruption duly delivered. Is prodding our "PhD on everything (majoring in twitchy opinionates)" really a sport for intelligent people?

Of course we could have, and did, ask our own tame PhD Geologist, a Brother-inLaw, but hey! How much information do you need to silence a know-it-all? And is it possible?

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Sep 22 - 05:51 AM

This table shows how the rise in atmospheric CO2 has accelerated since the 1960s.

Average CO2 rise
(ppm per year)

1960s        0.86
1970s        1.22
1980s        1.58
1990s        1.55
2000s        1.91
2010s        2.41

(Source: Met Office)

In addition, a milestone has now been passed in that CO2 levels are now 50% higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The current measurements are taken at the Mauna Loa observatory and historical measurements, the ones relating to the start of the Industrial Revolution, are gleaned from studying ice cores.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 05:59 PM

As a point of information, there have been no North Atlantic hurricanes in August to date. That's quite unusual, but can be explained via meteorological vicissitudes rather than global warming issues.

Tropical storms/ hurricanes/ tropical cyclones have very different origins from Atlantic depressions. The latter are always linked to the jet stream, unlike the former, which are not. A very active zonal flow of depressions is completely unconnected to the genesis of tropical storms.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 04:35 PM

A depression is not a hurricane.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 11:55 AM

It's not a slow start at this moment. There are 4 depressions at once in the Atlantic.

I grew up emmeshed in nature from the Catskills to Rockey mountains, from the plains to the mighty rivers, from ancient sites to NYC. Lakes that had 6 foot pike fish are now sterile from acid rain. I have seen nuclear waste stored adjacent to playgrounds, secret pollution pipes and hazardous waste dumps bigger than most villages a few football fields away from Niagara Falls. I have seen people bleed from their mouth and ears from their brief exposure to hazardous material. I know what evils are now hatching from the bottom of the sea we thought we could hide.

Smiles on faces of children are changing to kids with dead or angry eyes. Perhaps I see things from an entirely different point of view but I don't see ruins, olde churches and palace sightseeing destinations as the wonders of Earth. I see injustice and pain, hunger and poverty. Be that due to empathy or pessimism I am not sure. Profound pathos and poverty are coming in my mind's eye as half the world will eventually become immigrants at the gunpoint of climate change.

These things I have seen do not inspire hope but hope for even a change too late is better than none at all.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 06:26 AM

Cheers for the timeline link, by the way. I forgot to mention it! Excellent stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 05:38 AM

Checking my facts before hitting send does not make me a expert.

As ever, individual weather events, no matter how catastrophic, can't be ascribed to global heating with certainty. But the cluster of events this year across the world should be worrying us: unprecedented combinations of heat and drought in North America, China and Europe and now destructive floods in southern Pakistan following record rainfall, to name but a few making the headlines in just the last two or three months. Between 1911 and 2003 the UK highest temperature record stood at 36.7°C. In 1990, then 2003, then 2019, it was beaten. Last month the previous record of 38.7° in 2019 was wiped out not once but at 46 different weather stations, reaching 40.3° at one of them.

Of course, the deniers will always find grist for their mill. The North Atlantic hurricane season has got off to a very slow start. And there's always the next cold snap...

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Aug 22 - 03:31 AM

The post before this one demonstrates a very poor understanding of vulcanism, unfortunately.

Ah! We have an expert. On everything. Specialising in vague negativity.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 11:49 AM

Agricultural methods use polluting materials that will also kill people. Changing to regenerative methods will help a little.

I heard a story this week about municipalities and even individuals suing the top global polluters (LafargeHolcim is the largest cement company and seems to have drawn some of these suits) to cover part of the costs of dealing with environmental impacts. Hard to say if any of those will be successful or will impact how the companies operate. This article suggests it can be greener than it is now. "Decarbonizing"

Two aspects of the Portland cement manufacturing process account for the vast share of its carbon footprint. Cement is overwhelmingly made by burning fossil fuels like coal and petcoke in cement kilns—akin to large furnaces—to heat limestone (raw material) to very high temperatures (~2,640°F/1,500oC). The heat induces a chemical reaction that transforms the limestone into clinker, which is then ground together with gypsum to form cement. Emissions from fuel burning are responsible for ~40% of the lifecycle CO2 emissions in cement (often referred to as the embodied emissions) (Figure 3). The other ~60% are the result of an unavoidable chemical reaction (calcination) that occurs when the limestone is heated, which releases CO2 from calcium carbonate in the limestone.

Gotta find a cleaner way to make that clinker.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 11:38 AM

Wow

I grew up in the same mountain range that Scotland has after being split away by the Atlantic ridge millions of years ago. It is the oldest eroded mountain range on Earth. I could climb them easily but a 'new' mountain range, no way.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 11:16 AM

Obligatory XKCD: Earth Temperature Timeline. Scroll down to the end, and watch the graph turn at right angles.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 22 - 10:32 AM

I can not predict volcanism and never have, but I can predict RUNAWAY man made global warming on a pace never seen before.
If you think things seem dire now, in 65 years the climate will be 10 times worse but mostly survivable in a very hostile way.
In 200 hundred years - not as survivable.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 05:47 PM

Isostatic rise has occurred with regard to Scotland, but Scotland is not in a seismically or volcanically active zone. The vast majority of these activities occur at plate boundaries. Imaginative proposals for other triggers require evidence of the sort that was gleaned at Santorini.

But this: "Steve objects to my lay description of lighter and drierI used to simplify and communicate better" is just my calling out lazy and downright unscientific statements (again!). You do not communicate science better by issuing careless and inaccurate "information." In this regard, allow me to also correct your statement about the last glaciation: it occurred from around 115,000 years ago to around 12,000 years ago. You put lots of energy into trying to defend your inaccuracies. You would avoid that if you'd just check your facts before posting. I haven't posted anything in the last few hours that I haven't checked on reputable websites first.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 05:24 PM

What the world needs most is birth-control - sweet human birth control - so that all those born (fauna, flora, folks) have a good life.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 05:17 PM

That is an insightful and usful point Filk.

Earth is always on the move, constantly, if slowly, changing. Temperatures rise and fall in cycles over millions of years. The last ice age occurred just 16,000 years ago, when great sheets of ice, two miles thick, covered much of Earth's Northern Hemisphere. Though the ice melted long ago, the land once under and around the ice is still rising and falling in reaction to its ice-age burden.

This ongoing movement of land is called glacial isostatic adjustment. Here's how it works: Imagine lying down on a soft mattress and then getting up from the same spot. You see an indentation in the mattress where your body had been, and a puffed-up area around the indentation where the mattress rose. Once you get up, the mattress takes a little time before it relaxes back to its original shape.

Steve objects to my lay description of lighter and drierI used to simplify and communicate better, as we pump out water or gas or oil. Fracking poisons ground water and leads to earthquakes. Sometimes it leads to subsidence. I am most familiar with NY and midwest to Michigan which is still rising like an unburdened mattress. In Maryland just south of the former ice shelf we are sinking half a foot over the next 100 years. All this data is obtained by NOAA satellites.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 05:01 PM

In fact, it could well be the case that volcanic eruptions are made more likely on many island locations by a FALL in sea level. This tentative conclusion was reached after a study of the geology of the huge caldera of Santorini in the Mediterranean, which carries evidence of many eruptions before The Big One 3600 years ago (one of the biggest eruptions we know of in recent history or prehistory). These can be dated and correlated with changes in sea level.   

"The mechanism is quite simple: falling sea levels remove mass from the Earth’s crust and the crust fractures as a result. These fractures allow magma to rise and feed eruptions at the surface."

(Dr Christopher Satow, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography at Oxford Brookes University)

I suppose (though don't pretend to know) that there may be limited coastal locations at which phreatic eruptions (those caused by the interaction of shallow magma and ground water) may be made more likely by sea level rise, but that's just me pondering.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 03:29 PM

Sigh. As every child knows, any resource you don't pay for directly is effectively infinite: Daddy will always refesh it. Sadly, too few grownups make it into positions of power these days.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 03:19 PM

That's all about aquifers being depleted and not allowed to sufficiently replenish. That has nothing to to do with your lazy and throwaway assertion that the crust is getting "lighter and drier," which is just arrant nonsense. As for my drinking anything out of politeness, perhaps you should unstuff those psilocybes from your puffy cheeks so that you too can do tongue-in-cheek.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 11:20 AM

info for everyone but Steve

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 11:06 AM

As for Mister " I'll drink anything, out of sheer politeness."

I am proud to point out society's misconceptions about substances, UAP evidence and other things that need to be examined more closely like additional quantum human sensory abilities, material science and cosmological questions.

I am not a drinker but I see evidence of the damage it has caused other folks. In no way do I believe it makes me superior.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 10:54 AM

Perhaps you should study the water cycle.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 10:35 AM

I suspect we are engaged in an experiment which we do not know the outcome.

As we pump the ground water out to extremes, the crust becomes lighter and drier.
Brown has been the author and whistle blower for 30 years regarding groundwater depletion.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 09:22 AM

Is that so, now, Mr Magic Mushroom? Well perhaps you could combine with Mr Red to provide us with the evidence that supports this assertion:


"Because the earth's crust is like toffee on global scales. It is softening as the planet warms....Magma can push though more easily."

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 08:22 AM

Steve you have a poor understanding of yourself.

closer than you think

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 08:16 AM

The post before this one demonstrates a very poor understanding of vulcanism, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Aug 22 - 07:52 AM

I am reading a 2013 article about the "Little Ice Age", a group of researchers (contentious at the time) reckoned it was caused by massive volcanic blow-outs. So went looking for it. Way bigger than Tambora 1815 which was followed by a year without summer. Karakatoa (West of Java BTW) was a mere muted rumble, albeit heard 6000 miles away. They reckon from the ash deposits centring on Segara Anak crater on Lombok, the 1257 explosion contributed to the long years of cooling.

Now my point here is we could see another such catastrophe (killing millions some way).
Because the earth's crust is like toffee on global scales. It is softening as the planet warms. And anyone who thinks 1.5?C (aka 2.5) ain't relevant, please declare a datum temperature to calculate the percentages. If you can!

Magma can push though more easily. And if it happens at a coastal location water gets in and becomes super-heated and expands suddenly. Boom!

And permanent winter follows. Crops fail. People starve. (did I mention acid ran?) And the Russian people for one ain't gonna support Putin after!

And it won't be the government's fault except at the ballot box!

It won't alter the basic problem of CO₂ build-up, but could buy us time. If anyone is listening!

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 22 - 11:06 AM

Dallas got 9 inches overnight. Sounds pornographic.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 03:11 PM

WINTER IS COMING   and with it a predicted 1,200 mile storm is destined for California that will dump 16 inches of rain for a month long mega storm. The snow at high altitude will be a record setting first of its kind. This event will make earthquakes look puny.

I am anxious to see how spot on this comptuter model prediction will be.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Aug 22 - 01:51 PM

This year the US has spent 9 Billion dollars on climate related disasters. River flood plains used to be easy to throw up home developments. Houses in the woods are cute except after a 30 year drought.

Looking for a home today has entirely different criterion to consider.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Aug 22 - 01:00 PM

The destination is obvious, leave the oil in the ground and bite the bullet of limited energy supply as renewables catch up with demand. But the trillion dollars a year that big oil makes is a behemouth that uses its money to control politics and finance. They can pay off every scientist in the world. We can buy time if we sacrifice as India and China catch up and move away from coal, then share the new energy solution that has not yet been invented.

What has been invented is putting enough reflective material in the stratosphere to reflect enough heat and hope to arrive at the proper global thermostat setting. But that diminishes solar collection and undoing the process may prove impossible.

For every tenth degree increase climate extreme events increases by 20%.
Self reliance is our job so
in the meanwhile compost - no fertillizer and no tilling. Keep mycellium alive. Use as little gas as possible. Whether we win or lose we will suffer so suffer as gladly as possible.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Aug 22 - 03:03 PM

I now have options with federal rebates on underground heat pumps, vertical wind mills and solar. Remember Iains, he had a water driven turbine for electricity.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Aug 22 - 11:36 AM

The Democrats in the Senate just passed the largest bill that includes $300B to support countering climate change.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Aug 22 - 08:12 AM

Talk about climate extremes, Death Valley floods! https://news.yahoo.com/floods-strand-1-000-californias-125314832.html
The US has its 1st climate change bill this week.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 22 - 08:04 AM

Whatever the cause we have problems, imo, it is doubtful politicians will solve it. why travel great diastances to discuss it when it can be discussed on or over the phone zoom
peat harvesting has been banned here in ireland, so what happens peat is imported from germany, so extra fuel usage and travel pollution occurs, better if they had allowed restricted peat harvesting in ireland

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 06:42 AM

> all Scientific Knowledge has an 80% chance of being proved wrong
> in twenty years time

Apologies, but I can't let this go unchallenged. All scientific theories are approximations to what people think is The Truth. Theories aren't usually proven "wrong" so much as "not sufficiently right" in the light of new evidence. The classic case is Newton's laws: they're still accurate enough for NASA to use it as-is to launch rockets, but not *quite* accurate enough for the clocks on Sat-Nav satellites (which require a General-Relativity correction to keep in step with groundside clocks).

Oh, and QI is entertainment, lightly leavened with enlightenment. Go not to the comedians for scientific rigour, for they tell both truth and jest.

.... Again apologies: I'm short on minutes (we're going to Eat Out soon), and writing diplomatically is a slow artform.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 06:31 AM

I only said TRYING to get it right, Stanron. And I wouldn't lay much store by stats given out on a quiz show...

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stanron
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 06:12 AM

"Science has spent thousands of years trying to get it right. Do try to stick with it. "

Even though all Scientific Knowledge has an 80% chance of being proved wrong in twenty years time.

QI fact, of maybe five years ago. So perhaps in fifteen years you might be right.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 03:17 AM

Science has spent thousands of years trying to get it right. Do try to stick with it.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jul 22 - 08:13 PM

The 500 year floods are due to the fact the increased temperature so far will hold 4 times as much water so when it used to rain 2 inchs now it can release 8 or 9 inchs of rain.
This week it happened in Kentucky.

- how do we go from here? We will go by fire and flood.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jul 22 - 10:03 AM

Despite how much is taken to recycle bins, a lot of it still goes to the trash. People put the wrong stuff in, they contaminate the stream with food items, etc.

I've resolved to try to buy drinks in only glass or cans; this does mean the boxes they come in will be a lot heavier, but cans and glass are two items that are consistently recycled.

Last year I started buying the paper envelopes with sheets of laundry soap instead of the big heavy plastic containers of laundry detergent. I'm sure it costs more this way, but sometimes that is how it goes. Trouble is, people in low-income situations don't always have the choice, so until more environmentally sound options are available across the board, it isn't going to have a huge affect.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jul 22 - 08:33 AM

Yes they will do, but it means waiting for two weeks between collections and lugging all my stuff up to the local farm by car. Last time, my nice clean bags and bottle box got mixed up and I ended up with an insanitary bottle box. Also, we live in a very windy area, and unless you're obsessively careful the stuff blows around everywhere, including the emptied bags. By the time I've loaded it all in my car I might as well keep going to the dump, and I can take my non-recyclable there at the same time. Oh, the joys of rural life, eh? However, Morrisons is on the way home from the dump so I can kill two birds...

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Rain Dog
Date: 26 Jul 22 - 05:36 AM

Doesn't your local council collect the majority of your recycling from your home?

I agree that manufacturers could do more to cut down on packaging. They should also aim to produce packaging that can be easily recycled.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jul 22 - 04:06 PM

Well I agree with that. I spent half an an hour this afternoon at the local recycling, posting cardboard, paper, plastic, glass bottles, waxed cartons and a bit of scrap metal into the multifarious separate skips. I reflected on the people who produce all this packaging junk, who force me to have all manner of storage bins at home, after which I then have to expend extremely expensive petrol to get it to the local recycling, a good few miles away. I'm supposed to wash out all my cans, cartons, bottles and the like (with washing-up detergent and expensive hot water). Then I wonder whether the operatives at the local tip don't just send a lot of it to landfill or incinerators anyway. I get home then read about film stars routinely doing seventeen-minute journeys in private jets, each trip generating more carbon than the average person generates in a year. It all makes me feel like a bit of a mug, frankly. Yeah, we should all do our bit. Then you find out that you almost might as well not bother. As I said, we are failing. I feel incredibly sorry for the next couple of generations.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jul 22 - 03:41 PM

Do what you can on a personal level. Who knows - the butterfly effect? (as the hot wind blows all existing butterflies into an abyss that cracks open in the hot pavement)

Guidance would be welcome. There isn't much of it. As long as the banks and lobbyists can get what they want, no one else will really see progress. First thing to help the environment: get the big money out of politics.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jul 22 - 06:15 AM

Ach, the trade is far too lucrative and Oz depends on it greatly. Maybe if China invades Taiwan and two or three other countries besides, Oz'll be forced to cut the trade with China. Can't see it happening otherwise. Mind you, I hear that China has some issues with it these days, but the temptation to undercut all other steel industries in the world via cheap ore imports must be all but irresistible. And western countries can pretend that they're going all net-zero, whatever the latest con is called, whilst buying cheap steel, toys, clothing and plastic goods from China, all the while tut-tutting at China's burgeoning carbon emissions. Everything I'm standing up in this morning was made in China. My camera, iPhone, the iPad I'm typing this on and the new Swingball Pro I bought yesterday for my grandson, all made in China. We're all in big trouble, aren't we. In spite of all the promises, conferences and target-setting, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are still rising inexorably year on year. Check the stats.

I wonder whether you can post without making it personal. Just musing. I've seen lots of posts of yours in recent months that I could easily have taken issue with but I've refrained. You could try it it too.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jul 22 - 06:14 AM

Sometimes picturing an ideal and working backwards to to see how to get there works. This could ultimately mean that business would not be the driver of civilization, particularly nature killing business'. Its a big ask but strategies to get to an ideal will be radical and alien to our way of thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Jul 22 - 08:17 PM

Your predictions are not normally very accurate so let's wait and see.

Subject: RE: BS: climate crisis - how do we go from here?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jul 22 - 08:09 PM

Australia's lucrative iron ore deal with China was instrumental in making Oz just about the only western nation to avoid the economic meltdown after the 2008 crash. My prediction is that little will change, regardless of who's in power. Self-interest is a powerful motivator.