Climate Change

[pipbarber]

At this point, denying the fact of climate change is a gigantic Kierkegaardian leap of faith, completely removed from the reality of organic worldliness. I mean, if you happened to live in Melbourne right now, all you really have to do is walk outside. Still, probably not real if someone on youtube says it's not.

[stylofone]

At this point, denying the fact of climate change is a gigantic Kierkegaardian leap of faith, completely removed from the reality of organic worldliness. I mean, if you happened to live in Melbourne right now, all you really have to do is walk outside. Still, probably not real if someone on youtube says it's not.

Meanwhile, this example of a tipping point event is interesting. The Canadian wildfires were the equivalent of the fourth-worst country for emissions... except that burning forests and melting permafrost and their ilk are not like countries, they have no plans to stop, and it looks like more of these country-size emissions events will continue to materialise to increase overall warming. It's how exponential warming could be happening.

Also it seems the effects of these non-human emitters are not taken into account by the human perpetrators.

Worsening wildfires and the carbon they release are not accounted for in Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

Carbon is counted when emitted from human sources, such as industrial activities, not natural disturbances in forests such as insect outbreaks or wildfires, according to the country’s 2021 Nationally Determined Contribution Strategy.

“The atmosphere sees this carbon increasing, no matter how we set up our accounting system,” Byrne said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... -emissions

[Loki]

Just in case anyone were inclined to get complacent or figure the basic science was vaguely accepted by at least our elected representatives.

[two dogs]

Just in case anyone were inclined to get complacent or figure the basic science was vaguely accepted by at least our elected representatives.

I've squirrelled away the phrase "mind-numbing, face-palming, asininity" in my mind for future use.

[stylofone]

I can't get excited about the US Inflation Reduction At because it's not the emissions reduction act. It involves the manufacture of billions of tonnes of concrete and steel to build roads and bridges as well as energy transition things.

And now even this deeply flawed response can't even be mentioned because fracking is a vote winner in the US. It's one of the things that makes me a doomist: the only thing that will motivate people to stop the disaster is the disaster itself. So until then it's frack baby frack. If you are optimistic and think it's not already too late, this sort of thing shows that soon you will be forced to change your mind.


https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-amer ... 5k6yt.html

[stylofone]

I'm putting this here instead of the electric vehicles thread, because my response to it is that we already had an inadequate plan to reduce emissions. That plan is already behind schedule, it includes unrealistic expectations of carbon capture and other as yet non-existent technologies, and now even the feeble plan is being watered down.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireSto ... -113382202

There was also this reality check from yesterday. The climate crisis is worse than society/media/governments assume, and the current plans to address it are hopeless and getting worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... renewables

[stylofone]

The ABC's NSW weather presenter Tom Saunders mentioned a while ago that climate change is disrupting the effects of the old climate drivers like el nino, la nina etc.. Here's another article on that subject. There's still lot of publicity about the Pacific and Indian Ocean patterns, but they might not have the same effects they would previously have had.


https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... e-bom-says

[nibble]

Some good news for a change. Still a way to go.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-21/ ... tent=other

[stylofone]

I find myself furiously agreeing with every word of this article by Tim Winton. I'm not a fan of his fiction, but this is great.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... unal-dread

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... on-markets

We now face, on all fronts, a war not just against the living planet and the common good, but against material reality. Power in the United States will soon be shared between people who believe they will ascend to sit at the right hand of God, perhaps after a cleansing apocalypse; and people who believe their consciousness will be uploaded on to machines in a great Singularity.

Gotta love George Monbiot. This article is mostly about the invention, and delusions, of soil commodity markets. No they wont help the living planet, yes they're a new and exciting tradable commodity.

On a broader note, personally i think these COP conferences should be ended. They actually do more harm than good at this point. It's not just the battalion of politicians, bureaucrats, media and celebrities that jet around the world to attend them, it's that it seems to be morphing into an annual conference on how to create new markets out of trading one form of greenhouse gas emissions for another, without actually reducing emissions. What is the fucking point?