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posted by chromas on Wednesday July 03 2019, @01:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the The-Heat-is-On!-?? dept.

We've Already Built too Many Power Plants and Cars to Prevent 1.5 °C of Warming:

In a [...] paper published in Nature today[*], researchers found we're now likely to sail well past 1.5 ˚C of warming, the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate accords, even if we don't build a single additional power plant, factory, vehicle, or home appliance. Moreover, if these components of the existing energy system operate for as long as they have historically, and we build all the new power facilities already planned, they'll emit about two thirds of the carbon dioxide necessary to crank up global temperatures by 2 ˚C.

If fractions of a degree don't sound that dramatic, consider that 1.5 ˚C of warming could already be enough to expose 14% of the global population to bouts of severe heat, melt nearly 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) of Arctic permafrost, and destroy more than 70% of the world's coral reefs. The hop from there to 2 ˚C may subject nearly three times as many people to heat waves, thaw nearly 40% more permafrost, and all but wipe out coral reefs, among other devastating effects, research finds.

The basic conclusion here is, in some ways, striking. We've already built a system that will propel the planet into the dangerous terrain that scientists have warned for decades we must avoid. This means that building lots of renewables and adding lots of green jobs, the focus of much of the policy debate over climate, isn't going to get the job done.

We now have to ask a much harder societal question: How do we begin forcing major and expensive portions of existing energy infrastructure to shut down years, if not decades, before the end of its useful economic life?

Power plants can cost billions of dollars and operate for half a century. Yet the study notes that the average age of coal plants in China and India—two of the major drivers of the increase in "committed emissions" since the earlier paper—­­­­­­­is about 11 and 12 years, respectively.

[*] Monday.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:26PM (18 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:26PM (#862749)

    accept climate change and deal with the effects

    This sounds fine to me... What is the problem?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:53PM (17 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:53PM (#862761)

    The problem is that the effects may well cause options 2 and 3 combined.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @04:04PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @04:04PM (#862766)

      So can lots of other things (solar flare, asteroid, nuclear war, poleshift, etc).

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:23PM (9 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:23PM (#862804) Journal

        So can lots of other things (solar flare, asteroid, nuclear war, poleshift, etc).

        That's like saying "I could die from being run over by a rhinoceros, from being smothered by a warmth-seeking raccoon that snuck into my home, from sheer exhaustion of humping every starlet now living, from being buried under so much money I simply could not draw enough air to breathe... so it doesn't matter if I walk out in front of a speeding truck."

        You has the dumbs. Seek help.

        --
        Reality is that thing which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:42PM (8 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:42PM (#862812)

          Uh no. You should simply prepare for scenarios that are common to many possible threats. It is going to be the people sitting on the coasts waiting for someone else to do something that get screwed over the worst. The people prepping for a grand solar minimum, etc will also be better prepared for warming anyway.

          • (Score: 3, Troll) by fyngyrz on Wednesday July 03 2019, @06:11PM (7 children)

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @06:11PM (#862825) Journal

            Uh no.

            Climate change is the truck. It's coming. All you have to do is look at the data.

            And no, it won't just be people on the coasts.

            It's going to affect agriculture and livestock, and therefore what you can eat, and what that costs you.

            It's going to affect weather, and therefore the costs of insurance, housing materials and any compensating that needs to be done.

            It's going to affect land/home availability, prices and rents everywhere as the coasts become less livable.

            It's going to acidify the oceans, and therefore affect the price and availability of sea-based foodstuffs. Even if the temperature changes are able to be accommodated by sea life moving around, the change in water chemistry will only be survivable by organisms that (a) evolve very quickly and (b) can find adequate forage in the reduced food circumstances they find themselves existing in. This is a big one; people seem to really overlook the impact that significant changes to ocean chemistry will almost certainly bring. The oceans feed a lot of people. If that stops, there's going to be some pretty notable unrest, even if nothing else happens.

            It's going to create (more) desperate people pretty much no matter what.

            All of this is only as inevitable as we let it be. We don't have to walk in front of that truck. Although I have to say, at least here in the US, we're walking and not looking nearly hard enough, because... dumb.

            Whereas the asteroid and similar? Yeah, if one arrives, there won't be shite you can do about it.

            As I said: you has the dumbs.

            --
            Rap is to music what stale convenience store sandwiches are to fine cuisine.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @06:17PM (5 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @06:17PM (#862829)

              There are people who have years of food saved up with their residence(s) in strategic locations who are spending this time to learn survival skills. They are doing this because they looked at the data and it shows we are due for a mini-ice age. The CO2 warming may or may not eventually happen later but that hardly matters if the cold wipes you out first...

              Say they are wrong and warming happens. Do you think they will be better or worse off than people living in coastal cities waiting for the government to do something?

              • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:20PM (4 children)

                by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:20PM (#862859) Homepage Journal

                Say they are wrong and warming happens.

                It's already happening. No matter how many people die from extremes of weather, there'll always be deniers refusing to call it climate change. No true Scotsman.

                --
                If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:26PM (2 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:26PM (#862861)

                  I think you misunderstood my post. I am talking about people who believe they have reason to be very worried about much bigger and threatening climate change than what you are referring to. The problems in TFS are simply negligible in comparison.

                  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:42PM (1 child)

                    by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:42PM (#862870) Homepage Journal

                    Yeah I get that you're talking about people preparing for widespread harm / possible social breakdown from bigger changes in climate. My point is that if someone is already killed as a result of current changes in the climate, it won't matter to them how negligible or threatening people say it is.

                    --
                    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:53PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @07:53PM (#862874)

                      Ok, well my point is if they (or their family/community/government/whatever) would have prepared more for bigger changes in climate (or whatever threat) then those people wouldn't have died. The people preparing in general are going to be far better off almost no matter what the threat is.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 05 2019, @10:15AM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 05 2019, @10:15AM (#863430) Journal

                  It's already happening. No matter how many people die from extremes of weather, there'll always be deniers refusing to call it climate change. No true Scotsman.

                  So what? What's the increase in deaths from slightly worse weather extremes? Meanwhile a fossil fuel based developed world economy can reduce deaths from extremes of weather, whether caused by global warming or not, by orders of magnitude.

                  Sorry, it's pretty stupid to angst over extremes of weather when basic emergency preparedness, which covers far more than just climate change-induced extreme weather, can vastly reduce the harm just by itself. Among other things, it shows you're not even serious about solving these problems.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 05 2019, @10:09AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 05 2019, @10:09AM (#863429) Journal

              Climate change is the truck. It's coming. All you have to do is look at the data.

              Data like 4mm of sea level rise per year? You do realize that's only 40 cm of sea level rise a century? That's one really slow moving truck.

              And no, it won't just be people on the coasts.

              It's going to affect agriculture and livestock, and therefore what you can eat, and what that costs you.

              Yes, the dire effects could, maybe include slightly higher food prices and desperate farmers profitably farming stuff presently growing slightly closer to the equator.

              It's going to affect weather, and therefore the costs of insurance, housing materials and any compensating that needs to be done.

              But not even within an order of magnitude of any reform of those industries.

              It's going to affect land/home availability, prices and rents everywhere as the coasts become less livable.

              To the contrary, the coasts remain quite livable, they just move slightly and maybe have slightly more storm damage. Some increase in storm damage does seem to be a likely effect of global warming.

              It's going to acidify the oceans, and therefore affect the price and availability of sea-based foodstuffs.

              Slightly acidify. Notice how often the terms "slight" and "slightly" appear in reference to descriptions of climate change.

              It's going to create (more) desperate people pretty much no matter what.

              But the economic activity that we thereby do may create orders of magnitude (more) less desperate people which swamp the problem above.

              All of this is only as inevitable as we let it be. We don't have to walk in front of that truck. Although I have to say, at least here in the US, we're walking and not looking nearly hard enough, because... dumb.

              Let us note here that you haven't even established that doing something about climate change is even slightly better than not doing something about climate change. Meanwhile basic emergency preparedness (as one of the common sense things advocated by the grandparent) works for a variety of threats, including a large portion of the global warming-induced ones. It shouldn't be a mystery why the developed world has seen orders of magnitude drop in deaths from extreme weather despite its alleged increase in frequency due to climate change.

              Whereas the asteroid and similar? Yeah, if one arrives, there won't be shite you can do about it.

              Not being at the point of impact is a huge thing you can do about asteroids. Another example of what one can do is food security, which conveniently addresses a variety of problems including climate change and large asteroid impacts.

              I find it interesting how you can reply to a common sense post like that with such stupid bullshit and then accuse them of "having the dumbs".

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:06PM (#862947)

        Probability says [wikipedia.org]: You're talking out of your ass.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:19PM (4 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:19PM (#863109) Journal

      The problem is that the effects may well cause options 2 and 3 combined.

      The obvious rebuttal is that the effects haven't caused options 2 and 3 combined yet. Instead, we've seen the greatest improvement in the human condition ever. The narrative isn't matching reality.

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 04 2019, @05:19PM (3 children)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday July 04 2019, @05:19PM (#863170) Journal

        You know the story about the man who fell from the top of a skyscraper?

        Every time he passed a further floor, he noted: “Well, up to now, nothing bad happened.”

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:26PM (2 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:26PM (#863262) Journal
          Or we could consider a student in school. Is graduation that worthy a goal to justify the pain the student experiences every day? Perhaps they should drop out and avoid the sudden stop at the end?
          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday July 05 2019, @07:39AM (1 child)

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday July 05 2019, @07:39AM (#863397) Journal

            Well, I don't know about you, but I don't consider graduation to be a catastrophic event.

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 05 2019, @09:11AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 05 2019, @09:11AM (#863418) Journal
              And I don't consider the forecast climate change to be a catastrophic event either.