SoylentNews

Extreme Cold Weather Grips U.S.; Dispelling Doubts about Climate Change; Heavy Snow Blankets Alps

posted by martyb on Monday January 28 2019, @07:07AM   
from the Meanwhile-Carnarvon-Airport-(Australia)-Reached-113.7°F-(45.4°C) dept.

Extreme Cold Weather Grips U.S., Dispelling Doubts About Climate Change

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A poll released Tuesday showed that more people are starting to believe climate change is credible, partly due to the frigid weather which has gripped the United States.

The poll released by Associated Press showed that 48 percent of respondents found the science of human-induced climate change more convincing when the poll was taken in November 2018 than they did five years ago, compared to 14 percent who thought it less convincing.

Eighty-three percent of those polled who believe in climate change want the federal government to take actions to mitigate it, and 80 percent want their state governments to act, the survey found.

More people than expected supported a carbon tax to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the survey.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/23/c_137768179.htm

Prolonged, Life-Threatening Cold to Grip Midwestern US This Week as Polar Vortex Plunges South

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for frostbite to occur in minutes and hypothermia during the final days of January.

The deep freeze continued across the Upper Midwest on Sunday with temperatures plummeting well below zero in the morning. The low of 45 below zero F [-43°C] in International Falls, Minnesota, shattered the day's record of 36 below zero F [-38°C] from 1966.

As harsh as Sunday morning was, the worst is yet to come as the polar vortex gets displaced from the Arctic Circle and dives into the Midwest in the wake of the disruptive snowstorm starting this week.

https://news.yahoo.com/prolonged-life-threatening-cold-grip-165320957.html

Climate Change Cooks up Ideal Conditions for Snow

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Look at all that snow in the Alps; has global warming taken a break? Alas, no, it turns out that the recent record-breaking dumps of snow across much of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria are more likely a consequence of global warming. Why? Balmy temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are cooking up the ideal conditions to create snow.
[...]
Global warming enhances the current snowfall … Anomalously high sea surface temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic are loading winds from the north with moisture,” tweeted Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam last week.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/21/weatherwatch-climate-change-cooks-up-ideal-conditions-snow

---

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3

• Re:Despite the Doubts (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:37AM

  by khallow (3766) on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:37AM (#793410) Journal

  Since this change doesn't benefit humankind, doesn't it make sense to attempt to remedy the situation?

  The problem is that it does greatly benefit humankind. The climate change doesn't maybe (it is remarkable how tenuuos the justification for the hate on climate change), but the processes generating the greenhouse gases do. Moving on to other repliers.
  
  inertnet wrote:

  Even aside from the climate change debate it would be wise for humanity to focus on the far future. Instead of behaving like greedy locusts and consume every resource we can get our hands on until its no longer available, it makes much more sense to prepare for any future mishaps that could threaten our existence. Our ancestors have survived because they happened to adapt or be adapted. It's time we stopped leaving survival to chance and do some real planning. As far as climate change is concerned, we should focus not only on reducing greenhouse gasses, but more on dealing with the consequences of the inevitable changes to come. In my own country all future wealth for the next couple of generations is already being claimed just for reducing CO2, which will have a negligible on the climate.

  And? While it's a bit unusual to see any advocacy for adaptation, I think it's too late to focus on reducing greenhouse gases. We have too many people to put the fossil fuel genie back in the bottle.
  
  An AC speaks of space mining.

  Getting the majority of our resources from space. With all the raw materials available up there, if we were to deorbit some of them into designated areas with minimal heat shielding and some manuvering rockets, we could ensure they landed where we wanted. Save a ton of time, money, and ecological damage compared to terrestrial mining, and end up freeing up millions of workers from the hazarding terrestrial mining operations, leaving our focus only on the mines that by necessity can't be replaced with space mining, like uranium and certain other rare minerals, metals, and gasses.

  None of which would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Nor is it that significant environmentally. Terrestrial mining can be quite destructive locally, but it's not a big factor in air quality, public sanitation, or the many polluting industries that receive those raw materials. A second AC wrote:

  This is something many more people could agree with. I am not sure why they have chosen to push this CO2 idea instead of more rational ones that could lead to the same behaviors. It makes one think perhaps they don't actually want people to plan ahead and reduce wasteful consumption of resources.

  What's so valuable about consuming less resources? We could do that. Or we could put the effort of planning ahead into more valuable endeavors. A common example of how reducing wasteful consumption backfires is recycling. It's common to see people brag about the quality of recycling programs, noting that it only takes a few minutes to sort one's recycling. This ignores of course that the waste of human beings' time is more wasteful than the waste of virtually every resource that is being recycled! Your time is very scarce. Your paper, plastics, and cardboard are not so scarce.
  
  I too often like to think of the far future, sometimes even the conceit to plan for it, but I don't think one plans for the future by wasteful actions that don't actually improve the future. Too often in environmentalism and climate change alarmism there is this great ignorance of what is valuable with the result of making the world a worse place in the name of the opposite.

  Parent