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How do you feel about Global Warming?
- Thread starter Zaptruder
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Elfforkusu
Member
Probably not the best plan.
1) hard to just jettison CO2 and not other, more useful stuff
2) earth might need that CO2 again some day.
Would be much better to "capture" it in the form of calcium carbonate or something similarly innocuous like nature does.
Elfforkusu
Member
Nah, when they banned CFC aerosols it healed up as predicted/hoped.
Extra Sauce
Member
I'm sorry too generations from now people. Please send someone through your time machine to get me.
If their world is fucked enough for them to be angry with us, I doubt you'd want to go there.
Economic battery storage in rapid development?
That's news to me. Mind directing us to detailed information?
Although we will need time to make sure that doesn't lead to it's own unintended consequences. capturing carbon is not outside of our abilities as scientists, but making sure it is not also harmful in some unforeseen way will take some doing.
until then seriously cutting carbon based energy sources will, at the very least, give us a longer window to get a more robust system for curbing the damages already inflicted in place. The longer we wait the smaller that window becomes, only we don't really know how big that window is in the first place.
http://www.technologyreview.com/new...mprove-the-economics-of-solar-and-wind-power/
http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy
http://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...ate-on-Ambris-Liquid-Metal-Grid-Scale-Battery
http://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...otal-Thiel-Khosla-Gates-for-Compressed-Air-En
Maybe not 5 years rapid, but a decade out for significant deployment I'd say. A very important part of the equation that will have massive financial rewards for those that solve it.
AstroNut325
Member
This is false. It's difficult. Not impossible. Too many people make too much money with the current economy. Undoing that will take several major catastrophes affecting millions of people. Only then some change will come about. It's not going to be easy, but it will be required.
A few responses to common criticisms:
1) The last decade has been relatively unchanged. This is a fault of too small a sample size. If you look at any process with any randomization at all in a small enough time frame, you may see a trend stop or even reverse in that short period. It's only when you look at larger periods -- in the case of global warming, that would be decades or centuries -- that data becomes meaningful. Separating noise from signal is difficult in chaotic systems, and particularly so when your time frame is small.
2) It's not the end of the world. That is, humanity is not likely to die out because of global warming. This is true, but surely we don't only care about problems which appear to be extinction-level events. I care about being a nice person to the people directly around me, let alone a problem which could displace tens or even hundreds of millions of people and effectively make many low lying cities unlivable. Problems lie on a spectrum from "not a big deal" all the way to "the end of all life as we know it," and many very, very big problems fall on to that spectrum but are not technically going to kill us all.
3) The experts could be wrong. Again, this is true, but I'd ask what your alternative source is instead. If you are trusting your own, relatively-uneducated-in-the-field opinion over the opinions of many highly educated people who have argued collectively to reach consensus, I'd suggest you don't have a strong grasp of how effective science works.
1) The last decade has been relatively unchanged. This is a fault of too small a sample size. If you look at any process with any randomization at all in a small enough time frame, you may see a trend stop or even reverse in that short period. It's only when you look at larger periods -- in the case of global warming, that would be decades or centuries -- that data becomes meaningful. Separating noise from signal is difficult in chaotic systems, and particularly so when your time frame is small.
2) It's not the end of the world. That is, humanity is not likely to die out because of global warming. This is true, but surely we don't only care about problems which appear to be extinction-level events. I care about being a nice person to the people directly around me, let alone a problem which could displace tens or even hundreds of millions of people and effectively make many low lying cities unlivable. Problems lie on a spectrum from "not a big deal" all the way to "the end of all life as we know it," and many very, very big problems fall on to that spectrum but are not technically going to kill us all.
3) The experts could be wrong. Again, this is true, but I'd ask what your alternative source is instead. If you are trusting your own, relatively-uneducated-in-the-field opinion over the opinions of many highly educated people who have argued collectively to reach consensus, I'd suggest you don't have a strong grasp of how effective science works.
Were there hole deniers?
I guess the aerosol can lobby isn't nearly as powerful as the oil lobby.
Brian Fellows
Pete Carroll Owns Me
I'm not worried about it.
20kwh.
To pass a single average night, the USA would need 9.6GW for 10 hours, or 96GWh, or 96 million KWh, or five million of these batteries.
Count in storms, etc, worst-case storage would go to five to ten times that.
Prototype not really feasible. Nice to see research, as ever, but that's no breakthrough.
Antimony batteries aren't large-scale solutions, it's a rare metal.
The thing is, no one ever even thought of storing enough electrical energy to matter for a grid. (And there's a reason for that).
in 5 years we'll have somewhat better batteries, if those things go through. It'll be nice for iPhones, on-site backups, and cars.
But they're not even talking grid-scale batteries, sadly.
I'll remain firmly in the camp of "Go Nuclear Dumbasses", for now.
We're being torn by political impossibilities (nuclear) and technical impossibilities (renewables), at the moment. And more carbon burned for no goddamn reason.
Yes, a word of caution for those who latch on to a specific battery technology that seems promising: there are a huge number of qualifications a battery simultaneously must meet before it's appropriate. A battery technology must be:
1) Reasonably cheap. It can't be made of einsteinium.
2) Reasonably light weight. If it weighs 400 tons per ounce, it isn't helpful.
3) Have reasonable capacity. If it can only hold 1/100th as much charge as a traditional lithium-ion battery, it doesn't help.
4) Have some reasonable recharge time.
5) Scalable. It may work at nano-scale levels but not once scaled up for real world applications.
6) Cannot be dangerously toxic.
You might, for example, find a battery which holds a large charge, isn't toxic, and scales well, but takes 10 days to reach full charge even in the best circumstances. That technology would be unusable. You might, as another example, have a battery which charges quickly, is lightweight, and isn't very expensive, but which is highly radioactive and cannot be reasonably placed anywhere near a human being. As a last example, we might find a battery which meets all the above criteria except it's made of Californium and would therefore cost 10 billion dollars to make a single workable battery, let alone a whole suite of them.
This is the problem so many promising battery technologies run in to; they may do 1, 2, or even 3 of these things really, really well. They may charge way faster than lithium-ion batteries, or weight 1/10th as much. But it has to actually be competitive in all the areas simultaneously, and so far that has proved to be a non-trivial problem for effectively every new battery tech.
1) Reasonably cheap. It can't be made of einsteinium.
2) Reasonably light weight. If it weighs 400 tons per ounce, it isn't helpful.
3) Have reasonable capacity. If it can only hold 1/100th as much charge as a traditional lithium-ion battery, it doesn't help.
4) Have some reasonable recharge time.
5) Scalable. It may work at nano-scale levels but not once scaled up for real world applications.
6) Cannot be dangerously toxic.
You might, for example, find a battery which holds a large charge, isn't toxic, and scales well, but takes 10 days to reach full charge even in the best circumstances. That technology would be unusable. You might, as another example, have a battery which charges quickly, is lightweight, and isn't very expensive, but which is highly radioactive and cannot be reasonably placed anywhere near a human being. As a last example, we might find a battery which meets all the above criteria except it's made of Californium and would therefore cost 10 billion dollars to make a single workable battery, let alone a whole suite of them.
This is the problem so many promising battery technologies run in to; they may do 1, 2, or even 3 of these things really, really well. They may charge way faster than lithium-ion batteries, or weight 1/10th as much. But it has to actually be competitive in all the areas simultaneously, and so far that has proved to be a non-trivial problem for effectively every new battery tech.
theepicoftyler
Member
Yes.
The most efficient ways to solve this situation all happen to be very anti-industry, which will make things very difficult, unfortunately.
20kwh.
To pass a single average night, the USA would need 9.6GW for 10 hours, or 96GWh, or 96 million KWh, or five million of these batteries.
Count in storms, etc, worst-case storage would go to five to ten times that.
Prototype not really feasible. Nice to see research, as ever, but that's no breakthrough.
Antimony batteries aren't large-scale solutions, it's a rare metal.
The thing is, no one ever even thought of storing enough electrical energy to matter for a grid. (And there's a reason for that).
in 5 years we'll have somewhat better batteries, if those things go through. It'll be nice for iPhones, on-site backups, and cars.
But they're not even talking grid-scale batteries, sadly.
I'll remain firmly in the camp of "Go Nuclear Dumbasses", for now.
We're being torn by political impossibilities (nuclear) and technical impossibilities (renewables), at the moment. And more carbon burned for no goddamn reason.
Well, I definetly advocate a good strong mix of nuclear and renewables.
But the worst thing about nuclear is the massive construction lead time. 5-10 years... by that time, you've got solar+batteries that's progressed 5-10 years.
Also, I'm under no illusion that the battery tech will replace all power in 5-10 years - but it does essentially solve the long term future for sustainables - actually making them viable without intermittency issues.
In 5-10 years, the technology is likely to be household affordable - meaning that if you wanted to upgrade to full solar, it may well be feasible in the right parts of the country.
And with increased efficiency (gain and manufacturing) panels... the energy payback for making the tech will be only a fraction of total life output of the panels.
The biggest breakthrough has perhaps simply been in the thinking for these new battery techs; economic grid scale battery tech, as opposed to a single solution wunderkind battery (which may still be possible if the promises of graphene pull through).
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
Oh boy. To get this prediction straight, you are saying that the global population will reduce by 2 thousand million people or will you count 80 year old people dying from cancer in this statistic?
The other day I made a public bet on GAF to anyone that any catastrophe he chooses in any given time he chooses, caused by climate change will not happen, nobody accepted the bet (I expected that though), because their hearts and brain are not were their mouth is. That's how I feel about the whole subject.
I'm not worried about it, at all, and for the record, it's not global warming (or the old global cooling), now it's called "climate change", so you can say any change in the climate is caused by ozone, electrolytes, smoke, CO2, microwaves or whatever misunderstood substance you choose to be the cause.
No. Power Conversion is almost always more efficient at large scale.
Its one of the real reasons electric cars would still be more efficient even the when electricity is generated by hydrocarbon reactions. It applies to solar farms which currently do not use it photovoltaic conversion but conversion from mirrors to heat a liquid.
Coupled with conversion inefficiency redundancy creates more waste. While the energy is free the power conversion systems are expensive and use limited resources to build. Unnecessarily duplicating equipment to every home is wasteful.
The waste associated with distribution aka line losses becomes more negligible when the generation is free.
It's still global warming. The warming is what causes changes in climate.
Also, CO2 is not a misunderstood substance. Its ability to absorb radiation at the given wavelength is middle school level physics.
Lastly, science never projected global cooling.
You want to make a bet that by the end of the century that we'll see losses in human lives totalling over 1.5 billion, not including losses through natural causes?
Sure, I'll make that bet. You set the amount, and just remind me about this post when the time comes.
If you're still alive that is.
A more specific bet might be; In the next decade, we'll see a 15%+ rise in high impact weather phenomenons.
Or another one, in 2 decades, we'll be facing 20%+ losses to arable agricultural land.
Say, a grand on each bet.
can I get in on this? I will probably be dead by then so what's the harm.
Which side you betting on?
Well, whatever the case is, sure why not. I figure we'll either be dead or we'll be alive and in a post-scarcity state and money won't mean much of anything.
doesn't matter, um, the side with the longer odds.
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
Oh, so now it's 1.5 billion, before we were lucky if it only was 2 billion, I guess we will be VERY lucky then, you didn't say weather (pun) this was decreasing population (very easy to measure) or 1.5 billion death indirectly attributed to climate change, which is kind of annoying to measure, because it may account for anything depending on your stance, I personally find this vague; I think there might even be someone that attributes billions of deaths today to climate change...
I'll take the second bet, shortest time frame. Do you have the statistic of high impact weather phenomenoms today?
I don't know why you attribute your third bet to climate change, there are a lot of more important factors to that than climate change.
Why don't you take me up on all of them? Lack the conviction?
I said 1 to 2 billion, so split the difference. And yes, climate change will be one of the most significant factors in reducing arable land use (although as you point out, not the only one).
Careful, it's hard to tell when people are joking.
Yes, it's still a thing. It is getting better, but it might be another ~50yr before it is repaired.
Why wouldn't it be?
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
because politics cannot dictate scientific truths?
I'm fairly sure it is illegal in Europe.
Maybe he's one of those 'ooh, it's called climate change, global warming is sooo politically incorrect' types.
I'm very concerned about it. I think it could be the biggest disaster we face in the 21st century. It at least is the biggest disaster that we clearly see coming and can easily do something about. Yet we're not. And that's what concerns me the most. I do my part but we need a real governmental push.
It's becoming one of my primary deciding issues during elections.
It's becoming one of my primary deciding issues during elections.
KaiserBecks
Member
Legal? I was actually wondering first if this was real. Looks like something straight out of GTA.
I'm cautiously optimistic on the issue of Global Warming. Technology will be the necessary solution to these problems... but the outcome isn't only dependent on the tech itself.
But if we do survive (and I think we will), we'll have hopefully established the protocols to save much of the genetics of the life we find around us - and in time be able to replicate and restore much of the planet to a more stable and comfortable condition - that we were familiar with prior to all this...
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Elfforkusu
Member
Agreed.
I think the window is probably already shut, and anything we do from this point on is to limit the damage. But so what? The alternative is to give up and let human civilization flounder.
Possible, but unlikely. Humanity reacts to extreme conditions, but often it's not in what we could call a humane way...
What I mean by the window is do we begin our recovery process after a 10% loss to life's diversity or a 50% loss to life's diversity. We will see the effects, but how bad they are and how quickly they manifest could be the difference between a Global extinction event on the order of the K-T boundary vs an extinction event that barely registers.
For me it's very real. When you're not looking at individual reports (of which many unfortunately are flawed, no denying) but the total picture it's obvious that something really bad is happening.
My main problem with the denyers though, isn't that they are denyers. To be sceptical is a good thing and all science is better off when challenged. My main problem is that if you are a sceptic and are wrong - the world as we know it might come to an end. Therefore it just might be an idea to at least take some steps in the direction most scientists says is necessary direction instead of increasing the problem further.
If the people believing in global warming are wrong, it might lead to a somewhat changed lifestyle (not worse, but perhaps a little bit more organic) for nothing. If the people who thinks it's a hoax are wrong - we might be on the brink to our greatest catastrophy for humans since everything started for our spiecis.
My main problem with the denyers though, isn't that they are denyers. To be sceptical is a good thing and all science is better off when challenged. My main problem is that if you are a sceptic and are wrong - the world as we know it might come to an end. Therefore it just might be an idea to at least take some steps in the direction most scientists says is necessary direction instead of increasing the problem further.
If the people believing in global warming are wrong, it might lead to a somewhat changed lifestyle (not worse, but perhaps a little bit more organic) for nothing. If the people who thinks it's a hoax are wrong - we might be on the brink to our greatest catastrophy for humans since everything started for our spiecis.
jchap
Member
Indifferent. I don't deny the trends but question the end-of-the-world catastrophic predictions. I deal with computer models in my field of physics (plasma physics) and I from that experience I've gained a certain... skepticism about predictive models which stray too far from experimentally verifiable setups. In very specific applications where models can be closely matched to experimental research by repetitive tweaking of the control parameters they can have great utility and in general they accurately mimic the underlying physics of plasma devices (high power microwave devices, magnetic thrusters, etc.). Still, they are based on approximations because the true scale of the problem can not be directly solved numerically and tend to overestimate performance when predicting behavior in novel or complex systems. Plasma physics is far more well suited to modeling and simulation than climate and there is a far more robust history of efforts to develop experimentally verified methods for such simulations. The models are an inexpensive form of research and are often used to demonstrate novel ideas which could lead to advancements in the performance or efficiency of devices. These predictions are almost never wrong but also almost always overestimated. When the models generate enough interest to bring in the funding required to actually build and test the predictions, the results never seem to fully reach the scale of the predictions because the summed physics of the problem are just too complicated to fully capture. There is a certain pressure for the models of a novel device to predict wild success so that funding will be received. This is the problem, without experimental feedback, you can very slightly tweak control parameters and demonstrate wildly varying results. For climate multiply the system complexity by several orders of magnitude. I have taken the approach of wait and see (admittedly a dangerous approach but since I'm not directly involved it doesn't matter). I want to see experimental verification of their hypothesis and predictions. Recently (last 20 or so years) the predictions have been overstated and we have gotten a lot of papers recently attributing the error to unanticipated control variables (a very familiar trend to me personally). Models are being tweaked and rerun and still predict calamity. When you have to wait decades before adding experimental feedback into your model, progress towards accuracy is a slow burn. I will acknowledge that it is a dangerous game to play to rely on empirical verification in the event that the full scale of the predictions do come to pass.
Climate change can cause massive droughts, which will absolutely affect the amount of arable land. Canada had tons of lakes & rivers that were completely dried up the last time the climate was about +1-1,5*C of the current average. Warmer average weather means stronger evapotranspiration and in areas where it doesn't rain all that much (but it currently rains more than evaporates + transpires, so the "balance" is on the plus side and lakes stay waterfilled), it can cause the sum to go negative. Winds can also become a bit stronger on average, which also increases evapotranspiration.
We already have proof of a mass extinction going on and, for example, know what happens to sea life when the waters get too acidified and we are going to that direction as the amount of CO2 increases in the atmosphere and acidifies the oceans in the mean time. We also know what kind of effects ozone layer depletion has on living things and there are some scary implications what water warming up can have to micro-organisms (especially the phytoplankton kind which are, like, kind of important, if you know anything about ecology & the history of the Earth & its life).
The fact is, climate change itself alone would have huge consequences, catastrophic in a lot of places (if not quite everywhere). For example, it's a FACT that sealevels are rising and as ground glaciers keep melting at an increasing pace, they will keep rising at an increasing pace. Try telling people living on the shoreline that climate change isn't fucking catastrophic when tens of or even hundreds of millions of people would have to relocate when the ocean just keeps rising and swallows their homes & even whole cities. Sea level rising isn't catastrophic for someone living a little further away from the shore or on the Alps, but yeah, much good that does to people who do live on the shoreline. Add to that the rest of the shit we humans do to destroy this planet and we are at catastrophic levels. And the thing is, if we humans would put all our effort into solving climate change, pretty much all of the actions taken would also help on the "humans fucking up the environment in other ways than climate change" problems.
king picollo
Member
Seed the upper atmosphere with Sulphur, the extra particulates reflect the uv rays reducing the temperature on Earth.
It's similar to when there's a big Volcanic eruption, something like Krakatoa, which is widely reported to have reduced global temperatures for the next year or so.
It's similar to when there's a big Volcanic eruption, something like Krakatoa, which is widely reported to have reduced global temperatures for the next year or so.
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