Very High Confidence
August 8, 2017 7:36 AM Subscribe
The New York Times has published a report on climate change that has been signed off on by the National Academy of Sciences, but is awaiting approval from multiple agencies before release. The report projects increases of 5.0 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 4.8 degrees Celsius) by late this century, depending on the level of future emissions.
In a scene straight out of The Newsroom, the report was released due to concerns that the Trump administration would suppress it, but the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, says she sees no reason the administration wouldn't embrace the results of the study. The White House is currently reviewing the study.
In a scene straight out of The Newsroom, the report was released due to concerns that the Trump administration would suppress it, but the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, says she sees no reason the administration wouldn't embrace the results of the study. The White House is currently reviewing the study.
“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” the draft says. “Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; disappearing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea level; and an increase in atmospheric water vapor.”
The draft adds: “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate changes.”
As much as people seem to want it to be, this isn't a morality play. Climate change isn't just desserts that will punish the wicked. The rich and powerful like Thiel will be just fine because they can afford to be. It's the rest of us who will suffer.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:49 AM on August 8, 2017 [30 favorites]
posted by Sangermaine at 7:49 AM on August 8, 2017 [30 favorites]
Anthropogenic climate change has been recognized as a problem for at least 25 years (cite) and little has been done about it. Frankly I'm very pessimistic about the situation and it is a big part of the reason I'd long ago decided not to have children.
posted by exogenous at 8:20 AM on August 8, 2017 [21 favorites]
posted by exogenous at 8:20 AM on August 8, 2017 [21 favorites]
Need to fund research into personal water reclamation suits as envisioned by the novel Dune. Fans imagined the planet Arrakis was far away in another galaxy, no, just a few years in the future.
posted by sammyo at 8:25 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 8:25 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is desolating, in both senses of the verb.
posted by Glomar response at 8:50 AM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Glomar response at 8:50 AM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Depends where you live. London might be looking at semi-aridity with occasional giant paddling pool.
posted by biffa at 8:51 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by biffa at 8:51 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
Frankly I'm very pessimistic about the situation and it is a big part of the reason I'd long ago decided not to have children.
This is actually the reason my wife and I had children. Somebody has to raise and train the generation that'll have to clean up the mess.
Alan Perlis said (of computer science), "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." That's as true for anything as it is for technology: how can we hold out hope for the future if we're not willing to create it, ourselves? So I reforest whatever land I can. I rain children of my own to be knowledgeable and responsible and understand what they're up against. I sacrifice from my own lifestyle in order that we have a few milliseconds longer before the planet's uninhabitable.
I urge others to do the same.
posted by ragtag at 9:24 AM on August 8, 2017 [15 favorites]
This is actually the reason my wife and I had children. Somebody has to raise and train the generation that'll have to clean up the mess.
Alan Perlis said (of computer science), "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." That's as true for anything as it is for technology: how can we hold out hope for the future if we're not willing to create it, ourselves? So I reforest whatever land I can. I rain children of my own to be knowledgeable and responsible and understand what they're up against. I sacrifice from my own lifestyle in order that we have a few milliseconds longer before the planet's uninhabitable.
I urge others to do the same.
posted by ragtag at 9:24 AM on August 8, 2017 [15 favorites]
Coal consumption has been known to cause global warming much further back. Consider this excerpt from an Australian mining journal:
In the United States our major sources of emissions are electricity, transportation, industry, commercial/residential, and agricultural. Our changes in consumption here in the US must change or it will be changed for us. We must press our local governments to build and utilize renewable or carbon neutral energy. Limit our usage of combustion engines by taking public transportation or buying electric cars. Buy less stuff. Eat less meat. And learn to adapt to more heat, less water. We're aiming for that 2.8 degrees Celsius future with what we can do now, with the hope that maybe we develop a CO2 sequestration technology that might give us 2.5 degrees Celsius or less.
I've personally found activism to be difficult with small children, but wife and I are looking to reduce our carbon footprint by eating less meat and getting an electric car. My local Citizens' Climate Lobby group just became active again, and I'm hoping to attend my first meeting in the coming months. I will admit to spending the last six months kind of shocked about the direction our federal government has taken... but given we aren't dead of nuclear war yet, I've got enough energy to move past despair.
posted by Mister Cheese at 9:33 AM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECT-But fossil fuel companies have an interest in ignoring or even suppressing this knowledge. Who cares, we'll be dead by then and rich right now. Nowadays it's too late to die... global warming is here. You could suffer heat stroke this very summer, or get caught in a wildfire. Certainly, in the less developed nations starvation is already a factor due to failing crops and inconsistent water access.
ING CLIMATE.
The furnaces of the world are now
burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of
coal a year. When this is burned,
uniting with oxygen, it adds about
7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide
to the atmosphere yearly. This tends
to make the air a more effective blan-
ket for the earth and to raise its
temperature. The effect may be con-
siderable in a few centuries.
In the United States our major sources of emissions are electricity, transportation, industry, commercial/residential, and agricultural. Our changes in consumption here in the US must change or it will be changed for us. We must press our local governments to build and utilize renewable or carbon neutral energy. Limit our usage of combustion engines by taking public transportation or buying electric cars. Buy less stuff. Eat less meat. And learn to adapt to more heat, less water. We're aiming for that 2.8 degrees Celsius future with what we can do now, with the hope that maybe we develop a CO2 sequestration technology that might give us 2.5 degrees Celsius or less.
I've personally found activism to be difficult with small children, but wife and I are looking to reduce our carbon footprint by eating less meat and getting an electric car. My local Citizens' Climate Lobby group just became active again, and I'm hoping to attend my first meeting in the coming months. I will admit to spending the last six months kind of shocked about the direction our federal government has taken... but given we aren't dead of nuclear war yet, I've got enough energy to move past despair.
posted by Mister Cheese at 9:33 AM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Somebody has to raise and train the generation that'll have to clean up the mess.
How exactly would one clean up this mess? Seriously, other than retreating from rising sea levels and relocating farms to newly-appropriate regions, what will puny humans be able to do? Mega-deaths will enforce reduced emissions I suppose but what actions will the survivors, who'll probably be huddling in the dark most of the year, have available to reduce or reverse the impacts?
posted by billsaysthis at 9:41 AM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
How exactly would one clean up this mess? Seriously, other than retreating from rising sea levels and relocating farms to newly-appropriate regions, what will puny humans be able to do? Mega-deaths will enforce reduced emissions I suppose but what actions will the survivors, who'll probably be huddling in the dark most of the year, have available to reduce or reverse the impacts?
posted by billsaysthis at 9:41 AM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
We are switching from carbon to solar and wind. That's the most important work on the planet right now.
posted by No Robots at 9:49 AM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 9:49 AM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Rapid growth in solar, but still a small impact in the US
"In the twelve months through March 2017, utility scale solar power generated 38.3 terawatt-hours (TWh), 0.94% of total U.S. electricity. During the same time period total solar generation, including estimated distributed solar photovoltaic generation, was 59.8 TWh, 1.47 % of total U.S. electricity."
posted by Glomar response at 10:02 AM on August 8, 2017
"In the twelve months through March 2017, utility scale solar power generated 38.3 terawatt-hours (TWh), 0.94% of total U.S. electricity. During the same time period total solar generation, including estimated distributed solar photovoltaic generation, was 59.8 TWh, 1.47 % of total U.S. electricity."
posted by Glomar response at 10:02 AM on August 8, 2017
There's a lot of work to be done.
posted by No Robots at 10:04 AM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 10:04 AM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
We got to almost 20% renewable energy use here in the US during the first quarter. So yes, a lot of work to be done, but solar is not the only game here. Wind power was at around 7.10%!
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:06 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:06 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
>We got to almost 20% renewable energy use here in the US during the first quarter.
No we didn't.
According to that article, we almost generated 20% of the United States' electricity, which is less than half of the energy that the US consumes. And that's including 8.67% from conventional hydropower.
posted by MrVisible at 10:24 AM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
No we didn't.
According to that article, we almost generated 20% of the United States' electricity, which is less than half of the energy that the US consumes. And that's including 8.67% from conventional hydropower.
posted by MrVisible at 10:24 AM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
The oncoming nuclear winter will stop all that talk of global warming.
posted by mfoight at 10:26 AM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by mfoight at 10:26 AM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
No we didn't.
Ah, you're right. I meant electricity and typed energy too quickly.
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:31 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ah, you're right. I meant electricity and typed energy too quickly.
posted by Mister Cheese at 10:31 AM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
Anthropogenic climate change has been recognized as a problem for at least 25 years (cite) and little has been done about it. Frankly I'm very pessimistic about the situation and it is a big part of the reason I'd long ago decided not to have children.
Same. I have heard more than a few prospective and new parents admit their conflict between the basic, instinctual desire to create a child with someone they love and their deep guilt about bringing a child into a world with this one's future. And I can understand why you wouldn't want to be driven by the latter--that basically requires you to contemplate on a daily basis the unremitting horror that has been and still is our treatment of this planet and the inevitability of our impending doom.
posted by Anonymous at 11:31 AM on August 8, 2017
Same. I have heard more than a few prospective and new parents admit their conflict between the basic, instinctual desire to create a child with someone they love and their deep guilt about bringing a child into a world with this one's future. And I can understand why you wouldn't want to be driven by the latter--that basically requires you to contemplate on a daily basis the unremitting horror that has been and still is our treatment of this planet and the inevitability of our impending doom.
posted by Anonymous at 11:31 AM on August 8, 2017
I've lately taken to finding comfort in the fact that everyone now living will one day be dead, so this is pretty good news.
posted by silby at 11:42 AM on August 8, 2017
posted by silby at 11:42 AM on August 8, 2017
That is ... bad. A bad prediction. I think it's worth watching The Age of Consequence to better understand how this will likely go down. It's not climate change that'll get most of us, it's the water wars and the refugees looking for new places to live.
posted by fshgrl at 11:44 AM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 11:44 AM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
How exactly would one clean up this mess? Seriously, other than retreating from rising sea levels and relocating farms to newly-appropriate regions, what will puny humans be able to do?
"Carbon reclamation projects on a scale as yet unfathomed" is the probable answer. The technology for air and (especially) water carbon scrubbing exists, it just needs to be established on a terraforming level. We're capable of it if we want to do it.
posted by mightygodking at 12:37 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
"Carbon reclamation projects on a scale as yet unfathomed" is the probable answer. The technology for air and (especially) water carbon scrubbing exists, it just needs to be established on a terraforming level. We're capable of it if we want to do it.
posted by mightygodking at 12:37 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was, at first, impressed with the level of discourse in the NYT comments section. But the sustained diversion towards Trump highlights, by way of absence, a serious lack of understanding. The current presidential spectacle is the result of our incredibly perverse economic and political systems, functionsing as an outrage sink which draws efforts away from the core issues. When will the NYT write about the material economy behind climate change? When will they write about the imbalance of power that controls these materials? How long can (the necessarily exteme) ways of mitigating this problem go unspoken in public?
posted by nwwn at 12:41 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by nwwn at 12:41 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
Anthropogenic climate change has been recognized as a problem for at least 25 years (cite) and little has been done about it. Frankly I'm very pessimistic about the situation and it is a big part of the reason I'd long ago decided not to have children.
I just want knowledge of this to spread, so I'm going to run down the timeline for the discovery of CAGW:
Background:
1704: Newton blows a chance to discover infrared light.
1790: Hershel discovers infrared light.
1810s: Joseph Fraunhofer discovers absorption spectra (aka Fraunhofer lines)
The hypothesis:
1824: Fourier puts the above together, proposes that the atmosphere mediates the temperature by absorbing infrared, and its composition therefore affects the climate.
The experimental confirmation:
1864: John Tyndall measures the effect for several gases, including CO2.
Application to the climate:
1894: Svante Arrhenius publishes the first estimate for the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, as opposed to the lab.
1937: GS. Callendar publishes first estimate of the "Callendar effect" which goes like this: more CO2 -> more heat -> more water vapor in the air -> more greenhouse effect from the water vapor -> more heat -> more water vapor et cetera.
This is the first time someone publishes something about the greenhouse effect that's open to debate, and the first time someone uses computer modeling. (The computer in question being his wife.)
So in 1937, we already have established that CO2 warming exists and is significant.
1957: Keeling publishes the first measurements of background CO2 concentrations, establishing that the rise in CO2 is manmade.
So by 1957, we have the A (anthropogenic) the G (global) the W (warming) and that it's significant.
All that's left is the C, and that took a while longer.
posted by ocschwar at 12:48 PM on August 8, 2017 [17 favorites]
I just want knowledge of this to spread, so I'm going to run down the timeline for the discovery of CAGW:
Background:
1704: Newton blows a chance to discover infrared light.
1790: Hershel discovers infrared light.
1810s: Joseph Fraunhofer discovers absorption spectra (aka Fraunhofer lines)
The hypothesis:
1824: Fourier puts the above together, proposes that the atmosphere mediates the temperature by absorbing infrared, and its composition therefore affects the climate.
The experimental confirmation:
1864: John Tyndall measures the effect for several gases, including CO2.
Application to the climate:
1894: Svante Arrhenius publishes the first estimate for the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, as opposed to the lab.
1937: GS. Callendar publishes first estimate of the "Callendar effect" which goes like this: more CO2 -> more heat -> more water vapor in the air -> more greenhouse effect from the water vapor -> more heat -> more water vapor et cetera.
This is the first time someone publishes something about the greenhouse effect that's open to debate, and the first time someone uses computer modeling. (The computer in question being his wife.)
So in 1937, we already have established that CO2 warming exists and is significant.
1957: Keeling publishes the first measurements of background CO2 concentrations, establishing that the rise in CO2 is manmade.
So by 1957, we have the A (anthropogenic) the G (global) the W (warming) and that it's significant.
All that's left is the C, and that took a while longer.
posted by ocschwar at 12:48 PM on August 8, 2017 [17 favorites]
And then there's the work of Gilbert Plass. From 1953:
Plass predicted that a doubling of CO2 would warm the planet by 3.6 °C, that CO2 levels in 2000 would be 30% higher than in 1900 and that the planet would be about 1 °C warmer in 2000 than in 1900. In 2007 the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report estimated a climate sensitivity of 2 to 4.5 °C for CO2 doubling, a CO2 rise of 37% since pre-industrial times and a 1900-2000 warm-up of around 0.7 °C.[2][4]posted by MrVisible at 2:51 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
How exactly would one clean up this mess? Seriously, other than retreating from rising sea levels and relocating farms to newly-appropriate regions, what will puny humans be able to do?
I think about this in the dark at least twice a week before falling asleep. We already have a lot of warming built in even if CO2 emissions were slashed to zero. Realistically, the best we can do is encourage natural carbon sequestration to occur. Restore forests, marshlands, and grasslands. But it'll still take hundreds of thousands of years.
On the long shot side... I've seen proposals for something like an artificial Azolla Event: massive seaweed farming + carbon sequestration. Here's an article that briefly discusses the idea. Carbon sequestration is the key and I'm not convinced it could be pulled off economically. At the very least decreasing local ocean acidification and providing a source of fresh-water free food seems useful for climate adaptation. I'm not arguing we should throw all our efforts into ocean farming, but I'm definitely following Bren Smith and donating to GreenWave.
But you can see the enormity of the problem, yeah? The idea of using 5-9% of the ocean for seaweed farming to sequester CO2 is... the scale is huge. But that's what we've done with our emissions by burning fossil fuels all day every day. Gigatons of CO2 have to be pulled from the air and sequestered to make a difference. We need to pour massive resources into bringing up zero emission or carbon neutral technologies for basically everything. And just as much to research negative emission technologies... and here the United States is fumbling about with an incompetent president and an actively hostile to the environment Department of the Interior and EPA. Our government (like ARPA-E) is supposed to be funding the long shots that the private sector won't take risks on.
In an ideal world, we'd be working to cut emissions, helping communities and agriculture adapt to climate instability, and be willing to spend enough on long shot CO2 sequestration technologies.
posted by Mister Cheese at 3:50 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
I think about this in the dark at least twice a week before falling asleep. We already have a lot of warming built in even if CO2 emissions were slashed to zero. Realistically, the best we can do is encourage natural carbon sequestration to occur. Restore forests, marshlands, and grasslands. But it'll still take hundreds of thousands of years.
On the long shot side... I've seen proposals for something like an artificial Azolla Event: massive seaweed farming + carbon sequestration. Here's an article that briefly discusses the idea. Carbon sequestration is the key and I'm not convinced it could be pulled off economically. At the very least decreasing local ocean acidification and providing a source of fresh-water free food seems useful for climate adaptation. I'm not arguing we should throw all our efforts into ocean farming, but I'm definitely following Bren Smith and donating to GreenWave.
But you can see the enormity of the problem, yeah? The idea of using 5-9% of the ocean for seaweed farming to sequester CO2 is... the scale is huge. But that's what we've done with our emissions by burning fossil fuels all day every day. Gigatons of CO2 have to be pulled from the air and sequestered to make a difference. We need to pour massive resources into bringing up zero emission or carbon neutral technologies for basically everything. And just as much to research negative emission technologies... and here the United States is fumbling about with an incompetent president and an actively hostile to the environment Department of the Interior and EPA. Our government (like ARPA-E) is supposed to be funding the long shots that the private sector won't take risks on.
In an ideal world, we'd be working to cut emissions, helping communities and agriculture adapt to climate instability, and be willing to spend enough on long shot CO2 sequestration technologies.
posted by Mister Cheese at 3:50 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Of course the administration isn't going to suppress it. The president thinks there's no problem if everything is 5° warmer - who minds it being a bit warmer? Sure, the peak summer days will be more unpleasant, but just stay in the shade and you'll be fine.
If he notices it at all, he'll be telling his rallies that some wacko scientists are getting all screechy about moving the thermostat up one notch.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:49 PM on August 8, 2017
If he notices it at all, he'll be telling his rallies that some wacko scientists are getting all screechy about moving the thermostat up one notch.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:49 PM on August 8, 2017
Whoever leaked the report did so because the current administration will try to suppress it and deny it. Fossil fuels and gas automobiles are a huge profit source, and those businesses don't have the ability to see how to make money with alternatives, and they want to suppress the alternatives, which will put them out of business.
Very credible reports similar to this have been coming out thick and fast. I want to go back to the 'good old days' when Americans valued ingenuity, innovation and problem-solving, not keeping the fossil fuel industry's profits intact. It's possible humans will figure out some ways of managing this and surviving, but not if we resolutely decline to even try.
posted by theora55 at 6:09 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Very credible reports similar to this have been coming out thick and fast. I want to go back to the 'good old days' when Americans valued ingenuity, innovation and problem-solving, not keeping the fossil fuel industry's profits intact. It's possible humans will figure out some ways of managing this and surviving, but not if we resolutely decline to even try.
posted by theora55 at 6:09 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
The ridiculous thing is that it's perfectly obvious how any large company can make a fortune on climate change mitigation, especially energy companies and others with large concentration of engineers of various sorts.
Step One: Use PR to convince the public climate change is an immediate threat demanding a massive response.
Step Two: Use regulatory capture to funnel billions of dollars of general tax funds into large scale geoengineering projects to remove carbon from the atmosphere or otherwise mitigate warming that you just so happen to have plans for sitting around.
Now you get to sell the poison and get paid to clean it up!
posted by wierdo at 12:59 AM on August 9, 2017
Step One: Use PR to convince the public climate change is an immediate threat demanding a massive response.
Step Two: Use regulatory capture to funnel billions of dollars of general tax funds into large scale geoengineering projects to remove carbon from the atmosphere or otherwise mitigate warming that you just so happen to have plans for sitting around.
Now you get to sell the poison and get paid to clean it up!
posted by wierdo at 12:59 AM on August 9, 2017
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posted by entropicamericana at 7:38 AM on August 8, 2017 [8 favorites]