Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change

This is kvetching about terminology as far as I can tell.

First, the speed of change that we are seeing IS significant for climate.

Beyond that, melting sea ice, melting tundra, melting glaciers, etc., etc. do include feedback loops such that the increased heating that causes these phenomena also cause more warming.

Since we can not slow the tundra from melting, there is LESS chance of slowing it as warming increases - becoming even MORE intractable into the future.

We say that sea ice can return. But, we lost that sea ice and the result is that our seas (etc.) are undergoing more warming. If we couldn't slow the melt before, we have an even more intractable problem now - worsening into the future.

In each of these cases, the warming is an accelerant, while we have failed to address the acceleration.

I really don't see a problem with labeling it as a tipping point, as our failure is growing in intensity.

Having Mass whine about the label we have while having no alternative label and not having a climate warming speed definition (the very source of his whining) is pathetic, wouldn't you agree?

 

Actually, he's quite specific. And he's exposing a propaganda tool.

". . . And a climate tipping point can be defined as

a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system.

Specifically, the idea is that increasing greenhouse gases (like CO2) will result in warming that will produce large, irreversible changes in the climate system.
Like driving off a cliff. And that reducing greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations later will not help. The changes would be irreversible. We could not go back.



Sounds scary, doesn't it?
Fortunately, the best science suggests that such tipping points do not threaten the global climate system of our planet.
Yes, global warming from increasing greenhouse gases is expected. But the resulting changes in the climate during the next century should be slow and reversible. None of the many climate simulations driven by large increases in CO2 indicate a tipping point. . . . "

 

He's claiming that the current changes we see can NOT be considered large and CAN be reversed.

I don't see evidence of EITHER of those.

If he knows how to reverse our warming, he should SPEAK UP!!

 

Your characterization of his argument is false. Here's his conclusion.

Climate Deception
Those pushing climate tipping points are doing the devil's work. They know that the effects of human-caused climate change are currently relatively modest. But folks aren't sufficiently motivated to take the actions the activists want. So they have decided to scare the population, with an impending, terrifying precipice of climate change.
Not ethical, not based on science. And they are causing folks psychological harm and pushing governments to make poor decisions.

 

The problems of climate change even just in America are not "modest". Where is his information on THAT gem?

Then, his argument descends into ad hom.

You should find a different horse.

 

He's citing the IPCC.

". . . What about the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the most well-known and respected body on global warming and climate change?

They are emphatic that there is no evidence of imminent (over the next century) tipping points for the Earth's climate. Let me provide some examples.
The loss of Arctic sea ice? This is what the IPCC (Special Report on implications of 1.5C or more warming, Chapter 3) says:
"there is little evidence for a tipping point in the transition from perennial to seasonal ice cover. No evidence has been found for irreversibility or tipping points, suggesting that year-round sea ice will return given a suitable climate"
Melting of the arctic permafrost releasing warming methane gas? No tipping point
"the carbon released to the atmosphere from thawing permafrost is projected to be restricted to 0.09–0.19 Gt C yr–1 at 2°C of global warming and to 0.08–0.16 Gt C yr–1 at 1.5°C, which does not indicate a tipping point"

Heatwaves and heatwave deaths? This is what the IPCC says

Increases in ambient temperature are linearly related to hospitalizations and deaths once specific thresholds are exceeded (so there is not a tipping point per se).

Global warming is a serious issue but there are no impending cliffs for the global climate. No imminent tipping points for the global climate. . . . "

 

I'm glad to here Mass agrees with the IPCC.

But, his complaint about "tipping point" still hits me as seriously weak.

All he really has is that even under current circumstances, climate change change in an instant. But, climate IS changing rapidly.

And, his argument that we can change it back appears totally unsupportable, give our inability to slow Tundra and Ice from melting.

He really needs to come up with a way to back off that one.

Or, he needs to show how we can change Earth's temperature back.

 

Sorry you don't like the science.

 

LOL!

Tell me how this individual would bring back the climate of past years.

 

If you believe, as the IPCC does, that CO2 drives temperature, then you believe that reducing CO2 will reduce temperature. That was pretty clearly his meaning.

 

I don't agree with that statement.

I haven't really searched out what scientists believe would happen were we to put our CO2 concentration back the way it was at the beginning of the industrial age.

But, I would note that:

- We have changed the way that Earth gathers heat. The melting tundra, the melting sea ice, etc., cause Earth to be less reflective. That's not going to go away simply because of CO2 concentration lowering. Earth would actually have to get colder.

- The thawing tundra rots, and thus contributes methane, which is worse the CO2 by a lot. Less sea ice coverage means the ocean collects more heat. These are among the climate feedback loops.

- Earth's population is growing and emerging as major energy consumers. And, today we are not working toward a solution for that. The result is that we are headed for significantly increasing the rate at which we mine carbon and put it in the atmosphere.

- I don't see ANY commitment toward moving emissions back to the beginning of the industrial age.

- Next, science IS saying that atmospheric CO2 takes a long time to go away.


If your guy actually thinks we can fix the climate (like it seems your cite is claiming), he really needs to say what the heck he's thinking...

... because I don't see projections of us doing more than slowing the rise.

 

Please respond to what was said rather than your inaccurate version of what was said. He does not claim any "fix." He merely says changes are reversible -- a statement not contradicted by any evidence. I have the impression you do not like Mass because he is insufficiently alarmed.

 

And we know there is no way to "eliminate" is. Tell me, how do you eliminate a virus that lives in jungles?

Oh, and I also know that Ebola also exists in the Philippines. Hence, my mentioning there as well.

The problem here, is that you seem to think science is some kind of panacea. You say "work with", as if that actually means something. In this case, all "work with" means is that we are aware that it breaks out on occasion almost randomly and affects the human population. But just like COVID, we are not even aware of what the vector for Ebola is yet. Nor do we know what the host is that is likely an asymptomatic carrier (although like many others it is now suspected to be a bat). But the only way to "eliminate" any virus like this is to eliminate the host and vector. Period. The same way that malaria has largely been eliminated from human population centers. By destroying the vector and host. Although that one was fairly easy, as it was a mosquito.

You see, once again this is your problem. You make statements that are not true, and just assume "science" is the solution, and following anybody blindly that claims they have "science" and a solution. Hence your almost total lack of references and even contradictory claims and statements and believing that popularity contests are "science".

FYI, I have been studying things like this for decades. And even warning people for decades that a global pandemic was "overdue" for over a decade. And it was not COVID, we are still due for a real killer. But COVID may well be the first "preshocks" of a major pandemic earthquake. Because the human population now exceeds the ability to sustain itself, and through most of history disease and plague have been one of the key things our planet has used to keep the population of any organism in check.

And for the last 70 years or so, "science" and people have ben screaming we have gotten that licked. That global pandemics are no longer possible and a thing of the past. Well, the last few years sure as hell showed them how wrong that is, and that "blindly following" science is a fallacy. Because the people who make those claims really do not "believe in science". They are like the idiots that have a gun in their hand and think it is a magic wand. I recognize that diseases are another biological organism, and will do what their programming demands regardless of what humans think.

Just as you can't wave a gun and yell "Expelliarmus" and have the bad guy vanish, waving a needle full of penicillin and yelling "Expelliarmus" will not make COVID vanish.

And waving around a solar cell and fan blade and yelling "Expelliarmus" will not make the planet return to the Little Ice Age. The planet is warming, has been warming for around 30,000 years, and will continue to warm no matter what the crackpots think.

You are not following science at all, you are following a cult of personality.

 

Define a "long time".

 

Yes, and I'm saying that we do not know how to do that "reversal". Ending human greenhouse gas emissions is not possible, for example. And, even if we found a way to do the impossible, it would take life times for Earth to gradually correct, as I pointed out that we have changed Earth.

Either he knows something MAJOR that he is not saying, or he is making a false argument.

 

This is rife with error.

Let me just point out that whether we can eliminate Ebola or SARS is NOT the point.

What we work toward is steps to reduce its movement into the human population through identifying and slowing pathways, possibly addressing where it lives in the natural world, early detection, isolation, education, etc.


In general, the fact that we can't totally solve a problem, ANY problem, does NOT mean that our direction is to do nothing.

Almost all of our solutions are partial solutions in some sense.

 

The half life of co2 in the atmosphere is 120 years.

Factoids like this are EASY to find.

Why do you want ME to be your answer man??

 

The very idea that warnings are unethical is about as disgusting as possible to imagine.

There really is no area of our lives where we fail to warn people - smoking, presence and handling of combustibles, etc., etc.

 

"Half-life"? It's a gas, not a radioactive element.

And trust me, that claim is complete junk.

http://euanmearns.com/the-half-life-of-co2-in-earths-atmosphere-part-1/

https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1605&context=earthsci_facpub

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/

As you can see, what you just gave is just a single theory out of hundreds of them. I just read a slew, ranging on everything from 5 years to 3,000 years.

But it must be realized, anything is a complete guess and is not what a "half-life" actually is. In fact, I find the very idea of using a term that is specifically used for describing the decay of radioactive materials to be highly questionable at best, outright fraud at worst. But the simple fact is, there are ten thousand things that can change that, either up or down.

But hell, 120 years also is nothing. That is such an amazingly short amount of time that nothing can even be reliably measured and quantified in that amount of time. Once again, anybody that tries to talk about "norms" on the planet over 120 years should not be taken seriously. Kind of like how all of the "norms" that are used repeatedly are picked right out of the Little Ice Age.

And notice, I still use something that you seem to have completely grasped. And those are "references". I do not simply pull a claim out of my arse and scream that all should accept it just because I say so. Because without any actual reference, the only thing I can assume is that you pulled it out of thin air.

 

Nope. There's no timeline on his "reversible" comment.

 

These are not real warnings. They are fraudulent propaganda talking points.

 

An opportunity to make easy money.

The Climate Change Grift Continues

Hugo Gurdon, Washington Examiner

 

We and some others are the ones who caused this problem.

The idea that we should help others deal with the problem we caused can not possibly be called a grift.

 

Good cites.

I don't see where your cites directly address the issue of how long it will take a reduction in greenhouse gas production to get back to a steady state concentration through natural processes.

Part of the problem is that it is not the end of the story when a CO2 molecule degrades in the atmosphere:

https://skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm

 

". . . Prompted by their own pink ideology and thrilled by the lash of Greta Thunberg, our “leaders” adopt a posture of penitent readiness to be punished. They foster the sense of their own culpability because it nurtures the idea that industrial development is wrong and the enterprise of free people that is indispensable to it is deeply suspect. It is a deliberate if implicit repudiation of our proud and brilliant past allied to the broad leftist effort to denigrate Western, wealth, prowess, and unparalleled success.

The spectacle of rich nations negotiating with poorer ones over how much the former will give to the latter is like watching Washington politicians discussing white-collar union demands for better pay and conditions for civil servants. All the people involved in the talks are on the same side, the one that wants higher public spending. Taxpayers who provide the money are not, in truth, represented at the table at all.

Leaders of backward countries like the idea of big bucks being transferred around the globe for the same reason that looters smash store windows — it means they get free stuff. The money irrigates corruption, which is endemic in many nations that are set to benefit from the latest international largesse. . . . "