Confronting the Reality of a Rapidly Warming World

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-21/confronting-the-reality-of-a-rapidly-warming-world-steer.html


A home destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in Union Beach, New Jersey, on Nov. 3. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg


The reality of a world with more extreme weather events, rising seas, and longer droughts is becoming clearer by the day. Even more troubling is that we are on course for still greater changes to our planet in the years ahead.

That’s the key takeaway from a major new report from the World Bank, which examines the impact of a 4 degree Celsius (7.2 degree Fahrenheit) warmer world. At the same time, a new analysis by World Resources Institute (WRI) finds there are nearly 1,200 proposed coal plants worldwide. If these plants come online, our chances of staying within 2 degrees of warming—the level recommended to prevent the worst consequences of climate change—would be nil.

The World Bank is not prone to hyperbole. Its warning that we could be heading to 4 degrees of rising global temperatures should be taken extremely seriously by leaders around the world. The World Bank’s assessment reaffirms what many of us already understand: scientific evidence of human-caused global warming is unequivocal. Given that it took little more than 4 degrees of cooling to create the last Ice Age, it would be hard to overstate how 4 degrees of warming could reshape our world by the end of this century.

The impacts of climate change are profoundly unfair. Poor people and poor countries would suffer the most. In a warming world, vulnerable communities would face even more food disruption and water scarcity, along with more diseases and pests. And yet, the global economy remains wedded to the fossil fuel economy that is driving climate change. Currently, governments spend roughly six times more on subsidies for fossil fuels than renewable energy—and that’s despite many fossil fuel companies being among the largest and most profitable in the world.

[Kaleva]

1. Should we accept what's coming & try to prepare for it as best we can?

[xchrom]

2. recently i've come to the conclusion that it's going to get warmer - no matter what.

i think we have to hope any positive action we take will have a good effect somewhere out there -- but i think we'll see 4 degrees this century.

[Kaleva]

3. It's very hard for govts. to take action without large public support

Before 9/11, people complained about any delay at airports but now, post 9/11, accept even longer times at the airport and much tighter security. It took a major calamity for the public to readily accept this.

Our reliance on coal fueled power plants could be greatly reduced if people would alter their lifestyles so that electrical consumption dropped. Time flies but it doesn't seem like long ago when a 60 amp service panel in the home was more then enough. Now a 100 amp is borderline. When I was young, there were no electrical outlets in the bedrooms and just one light in each ceiling with a pull chain.

Since being on SSDI, I've made many changes but that's to streatch the dollar and not because I'm concerned about my impact on the environment. Below are a few things I do now that I didn't do in the past when I was working and making good money:

Not being able to afford a car, I walk to where I need to go or now with the weather getting colder, take public transportation.

I save the water from taking a shower to be used to flush the toilet.

The rinse water from washing clothes I use a wash water the next time I do laundry.

I stopped using the electric dryer and dry my clothes by hanging them on the clothes line I put up in the basement.

I keep the thermostat at 55 for the night and much of the day. In the evening when I'm less active, I'll turn it up until I go to bed when I turn it back down to 55 again. To help keep warm, I wear a jacket most of the day even when I'm in the house. I'm wearing a jacket now as I type this.

I have a natural gas furnace, gas water heater and gas stove and last month, my gas bill was $19 and some change. In October, I used 500 gallons of water which is far below the national average and my electric bill was $38.

If I was working, I wouldn't bother with scooping out the water out of the bathtub after taking a shower and putting it in a plastic storage container to be used to flush the toilet.

[xchrom]

4. not everything government does should wait for public support.

good governance should not take into account opiniion.

reason, rationality and evidence ought to be the building blocks of governance.

[Kaleva]

5. But it we as voters that get pissed if the govt. doesn't take in account our opinions.

[GliderGuider]

6. Who in the world these days has "good governance"?

A government that went against the peoples' wishes to this extent would be seen as (and would in fact be) completely autocratic.

I don't think there's anything even an autocratic government could do to forestall what's coming.

[AverageJoe90]

8. That's true. Look at what happened with Civil Rights for example.

Now, granted, most ordinary Americans, overall, weren't against it, even if not exactly overtly for it, but had we solely relied on public support, it might have taken a lot longer for the laws to pass than they did in reality. The same thing may have to happen with climate change, too.

[AverageJoe90]

7. That could happen.

The good news is, though, is that there's been increasing amounts of clamoring to challenge the fossil fuel companies' dominance over the worldwide energy industry. The road ahead may be bumpy, I don't doubt that, but I am, however, reminded of what happened with the fighting between buggies vs. automobiles; once proponents of the more efficient tech gathered enough steam, there was no stopping the progress. Let's just hope it happens sooner rather than later.

[NoOneMan]

9. What makes you think that buggies were less efficient than automobiles?

I haven't actually seen any math supporting either case. But pros for buggies (in terms of energy/carbon required to make, maintain and fuel them):

1) All buggies were fueled with biofuel. Some of this biofuel came from natural flora that did not impart an indirect land use change impact.
2) The engines in buggies required far less resources to be extracted from the earth to create (almost none).
3) The buggy engines are mobile and have other uses besides powering buggies (leading to less necessary variety in engines for things like farm vehicles, moving cargo, moving people, etc, and hence, less economic production overall).
4) The engines in buggies can be recycled in to other buggy models (or replaced with different types of buggy engines). Buggies did not demand the specialized production of specific engine types for each buggy. This leads to far less buggy engine production
5) Buggy engines have the ability to create new buggy engines, without human interaction or burning of fossil fuels

Some cons:
1) Buggy engines emit methane naturally
2) Buggy engines use a large portion of calories to self-heat (therefore, not all inputed fuel is turned into useful work)

I would love to actually see, on a energy level, someone other than lazy me do the math and compute the carbon intensity of creating and driving a buggy for some interval vs creating and driving a hybrid car even for some interval. The results might be surprising.

But alas, I think you may disagree with me because you are probably using civilization's definition of "efficiency" rather than science's. Science defines efficiency by how much useful work can be done with some amount of energy. Civilization defines efficiency as that which produces the most work with the least amount of immediate human intervention, irregardless of energy expended. For example, civilization would say a few hicks digging a swimming pool with shovels over a week's span is less efficient than a bulldozer doing it in 3 hours, though science would compute all energy required to perform either task and find that the hicks would beat the bulldozer hands down.

[pscot]

10. Spoken like a man who has never

dug a basement by hand. Re buggies: the engines were also edible in a pinch