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Global Warming & Climate Change: Humans' Reactions & Responses

Nobody cares
Quite. The BBC are pushing tons of articles on this event but the public are voting with their clicks.

1635891360301.jpeg
 
At least somebody's doing some honest work at COP 26:

"The 25,000 delegates who have flooded into Glasgow have brought...untold sex workers from around the world who are advertising their services online.

According to one of the [various “adult work”] website operators [which filter by city], business has really hotted up, with the number of hookers advertising their services tripling from the normal three hundred or so in the city, to upwards of a thousand."

https://order-order.com/2021/11/02/...nference-delegates-bring-bonanza-for-hookers/

maximus otter
 
At least somebody's doing some honest work at COP 26:

"The 25,000 delegates who have flooded into Glasgow have brought...untold sex workers from around the world who are advertising their services online.

According to one of the [various “adult work”] website operators [which filter by city], business has really hotted up, with the number of hookers advertising their services tripling from the normal three hundred or so in the city, to upwards of a thousand."

https://order-order.com/2021/11/02/...nference-delegates-bring-bonanza-for-hookers/

maximus otter
Ha ha, I heard about this.

My friend is a sexual health worker in Glasgowand apparantly there's quite a few flats owned by the people who facilitate what could be described as high end or exotic sex workers. She has her ear to the ground on this due to work she does with prostitutes and escorts and apparantly there's been an influx of expensive Brazilian transexual escorts operating from these properties.
 
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I see Greta Thunberg arrived in Glasgow by train for COP26. I just hope she didn't take the Union Street or Argyle Street exits when she left Central Station, or she'll be questioning whether the end of the world has already happened.
 
An interesting interview/discussion.

Jared Diamond on the Global Climate Crisis and the Case for Hope
The Author of Upheaval in Conversation with Anders Dunker
By Anders Dunker
December 18, 2020

In The Third Chimpanzee: Human Evolution and Prominence (1991), Diamond examines our close kinship with higher-ranking monkeys and how small genetic variations can make a huge difference. Man’s dominion over Earth and our destructive inclinations are an important subtopic pointing to subsequent books. In Diamond’s best-known work, Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), he uses a global long-term perspective and examines the human relationship to the environment as one of the most important keys to understanding which peoples and cultures came to characterize and dominate the world, and who succeeded in competition with other cultures.

In Diamond’s models, random and particular geographical conditions work together with universal principles of cultural growth, communication, and proliferation. The interaction between the environment and culture is also the theme of his later book Collapse (2005). In The World Until Yesterday (2012), Diamond discusses what the modern world can learn from traditional societies, starting with hunter-gatherer communities. The crisis as a phenomenon and challenge is the theme of Diamond’s latest book, Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (2019). ...

https://lithub.com/jared-diamond-on-the-global-climate-crisis-and-the-case-for-hope/

Another book regarding the climate crisis and societal collapse.

... Some threatening scenarios are already happening, like climate change and pandemics, and others could still happen in the future.

For years, many of us have imagined a climate-change-related apocalypse. In 2020, our focus shifted to the pandemic. The virus created immediate, tangible problems, understandable to most everybody (illness, death), whereas the effects of climate change, although becoming more and more obvious, are more subtle.


To truly understand climate change, you have to analyze years’ worth of data. Since few are able to do that, we have to listen to and trust experts. Varied responses around the globe to the pandemic reveals the degree to which the opinion of experts may be rejected. In some places, ways of knowing the world may not align with what the experts do, as in the case of certain religious groups. Sometimes, particular histories or ulterior motives undermine the trust in experts. In the United States, for instance, an underlying anti-intellectualism has led to a politically charged distrust of experts. Of course, denying climate change has been a convenient political position for decades.

As an archaeologist, I see evidence that a profound, perhaps apocalyptic, change is bound to happen sooner or later. There is a nascent field of study dealing with the likelihood and nature of societal disintegration, known as collapsology. In a recent book, two French collapsologists, Pablo Servigne, an agronomist and biologist, and Raphaël Stevens, an “eco-adviser” who focuses on the resilience of socio-ecological systems, conclude that collapse is likely, but they argue that simplistic statements like this do not capture the complex future. They stress the need for change, suggesting that a belief that we can continue as before is akin to a utopian viewpoint, while realists recognize that a transition is coming. Looking at the collapsologists who assess our current condition and estimate the potential for widespread, profound change, there seems to be widespread agreement that cataclysmic change is a real possibility, maybe an inevitability, and climate change ranks up there as a likely cause.

One of the larger-scale studies on ancient collapses comes from Luke Kemp, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. He writes about the chances and causes of collapses, past and future, defining collapse as “a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.” Kemp surveys several ancient civilizations and concludes that the average life span of a civilization is 336 years. ...

https://lithub.com/will-the-climate-crisis-cause-the-collapse-of-society/
 
A thousand years into the future, I wonder what they'll think of this:

Earth is getting a black box to record our climate change actions, and it's already started listening​

On a granite-strewn plain, surrounded by gnarled mountains, sits a giant steel box.

Incongruous in the landscape, much like Kubrick's black monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame, its alien presence suggests it was put there with intent.

And if those that discover it can decipher the messages it contains, they could get a glimpse of what caused the fall of the civilisation that was there before.

This is Earth's Black Box.

'First and foremost, it's a tool'​

When an aeroplane crashes, it's left to investigators to sift through the wreckage to recover the black box.

It's hoped the recorded contents can be used to help others avoid the same fate.

And so it is with Earth's Black Box: a 10-metre-by-4-metre-by-3-metre steel monolith that's about to be built on a remote outcrop on Tasmania's west coast.

Chosen for its geopolitical and geological stability, ahead of other candidates like Malta, Norway and Qatar, the idea is that the Tasmanian site can cradle the black box for the benefit of a future civilisation, should catastrophic climate change cause the downfall of ours.

If that sounds unhinged, it's worth remembering that we're currently on track for as much as 2.7C of warming this century.

Ask any climate scientist what happens when warming breaches 2C, and they'll almost invariably tell you it's not worth thinking about.

Plenty of past civilisations and empires have collapsed in the face of less.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-12-06/climate-change-earth-black-box-recorder/100621778

A new thread has been established for discussion of the Earth's Black Box project:

Scientists Are Building a "Black Box" to Record the End of Civilization
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...-box-to-record-the-end-of-civilization.69012/
 
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Whenever I encounter the word "already" in discussions of climate change, my reaction is, " 'Already?' 'Already' would have been 40 years ago. Right now we should be screaming (and going in, vis-a-vis green house gas emissions) 'Reverse! Reverse! "
 
Not a particularly helpful or productive reaction on my part, I might add. :(
 
Even The Guardian, which usually likes to play the prophet of doom regarding climate change, has to admit that there are signs of cautious optimism.

Renewable energy, particularly solar, is developing globally at higher than expected rates and China - the worst polluter in humankind's history, has recorded a 3% decrease in emissions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates spending on solar, batteries and EVs is now growing at a rate consistent with reaching global net zero emissions by 2050.

So, perhaps we're not doomed after all?

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-optimism-the-good-news-on-the-climate-crisis
 
Even The Guardian, which usually likes to play the prophet of doom regarding climate change, has to admit that there are signs of cautious optimism.

Renewable energy, particularly solar, is developing globally at higher than expected rates and China - the worst polluter in humankind's history, has recorded a 3% decrease in emissions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates spending on solar, batteries and EVs is now growing at a rate consistent with reaching global net zero emissions by 2050.

So, perhaps we're not doomed after all?

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-optimism-the-good-news-on-the-climate-crisis
Cynical view: the doomsters will then take credit for saving the planet when it was never in any real danger.
 
This is well worth a read - it's a barnstorming fact filled dismantling of the renewable energy pipe-dream using good old fashioned numbers. So, for example, using the capacity of 'all the batteries we now have' to show how pitifully small storage capacity for intermittent power generation is right now and how far away the world is from meaningful storage of energy.

The author shows in clear qualitative terms how the more intermittent renewables are added to a grid, the more baseload is required to counter the former's deficiencies.

I'd argue that more could have been made of the grids inductive storage which can lead to horrible high voltage overshoots if a power generator is removed suddenly with no immediately back-up, but that's perhaps not necessary to understand the fundamental problems with intermittent generation of base-load power.

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/eu-physics-denial-has-come-home-to

if you seriously care about CO2, there is a simple way to lower output: go nuclear. nuclear is safe, cheap, reliable, and stable and the new designs are far more so. it produces zero CO2. contrary to popular misconception, the waste is actually pretty easy to handle and far less harmful than the slurries of radioactive mess polluting regions of china the size of many EU countries as a result of mining the dysprosium and neodymium that go into windmill turbine magnets.

sorry, but if you are anti CO2 and not pro nuclear, you’re anti-physics.

this one is truly, no fooling around obvious.

just the mass equations are staggering...
 
This is interesting;


It's a 'blowhole' style system that seems to be quite usable, possibly by optimising for longevity and reliability. Might be a bit tricky to sync. a lot of them to a local grid - unless they've sneakily got the turbines locked to a speed that makes that simple. This means coupling to the local grid can be done via transformer with any DC/AC conversion losses (like Solar PV suffers from.)

(Coal/steam turbines run like this, at a constant 3000rpm, so the resulting power output is at 50Hz - non-intuitively, this means that to get more electricity out you put more energy in, but the turbine rotational speed never changes.)

The UniWave creates a similar effect, letting air and water push freely up a channel and through an outlet valve. Then, the valve closes as the wave recedes, creating a powerful vacuum in the chamber, and air is sucked in through an inlet at the top of the device, where it runs through a turbine and generates electricity. Why not harvest the in-stroke as well? WSE says its design is simpler and cheaper than devices that try to harvest energy both ways. Its turbines should also last longer, given that they're not getting salt water splashed through them.

https://newatlas.com/energy/blowhol.../?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body

Worth a look.
 
Fighting the deniers.

Secretive internet vigilantes have made it their mission to fight climate change denial on Twitter. But, as a vicious information war rages online, do they risk becoming the very trolls they claim to be targeting?

I meet Maria and Arthur at the top of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, in a small coastal town in Spain. They ask me not to reveal their real names or their exact whereabouts. Over the years, they have made countless enemies on the internet, and they believe stepping out of the shadows could prove dangerous.

"For you to be able to do your work, and not be scared of the consequences, you really have to fly under the radar," Maria tells me.

In 2019, she helped set up Team Ninja Trollhunters, a group of 25 people from around the world who came together to fight climate change denial on Twitter.

"For me, it was a necessity to show that many things that are being tweeted are wrong," Maria says.

Like some of her fellow vigilantes, she has a background in science, which comes in handy when looking through complex research. But, with her blue Snoopy t-shirt, Maria does not immediately strike me as a "ninja" - and neither does her softly spoken partner, Arthur, whom she recruited into the group.

"We fought many battles together and we also had a lot of fun," he says.

When the group first came together in 2019, part of its time was spent fact-checking false or misleading claims they found on Twitter.

The "ninjas" spotted claims going viral and responded to them with links to factual information - academic papers or scientific reports.

"But after a couple of months, you realise you don't make an impact because, for most of these people, facts are irrelevant," Maria says. ...

You can listen to Twitter 'ninjas' against climate denial on BBC Sounds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5d8x

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-65114966
 
This may be the real reason why there is a move to stop us all eating meat.
Look at the populations where meat is not on the menu... average height is generally a lot shorter than in US or Europe.
Of course, there is a downside to doing this. Poor nutrition can lead to lower average intelligence too.
But maybe that's the plan. Welcome to the new era of serfdom.
 
Six inches I heard somewhere.

Which may be fine if you came from a tall family but probably means a lot if you are short.
 
Learning from history.

In dozens of archaeological discoveries around the world, from the once-successful reservoirs and canals of Angkor Wat in Cambodia to the deserted Viking colonies of Greenland, new evidence paints pictures of civilizations struggling with unforeseen climate changes and the reality that their farming practices had become unsustainable.

Among these discoveries are also success stories, where ancient farming practices helped civilizations survive the hard times.

Zuni farmers in the southwestern United States made it through long stretches of extremely low rainfall between A.D. 1200 and 1400 by embracing small-scale, decentralized irrigation systems. Farmers in Ghana coped with severe droughts from 1450 to 1650 by planting indigenous African grains, like drought-tolerant pearl millet.

Ancient practices like these are gaining new interest today. As countries face unprecedented heat waves, storms and melting glaciers, some farmers and international development organizations are reaching deep into the agricultural archives to revive these ancient solutions.

Drought-stricken farmers in Spain have reclaimed medieval Moorish irrigation technology. International companies hungry for carbon offsets have paid big money for biochar made using pre-Columbian Amazonian production techniques. Texas ranchers have turned to ancient cover cropping methods to buffer against unpredictable weather patterns.

But grasping for ancient technologies and techniques without paying attention to historical context misses one of the most important lessons ancient farmers can reveal: Agricultural sustainability is as much about power and sovereignty as it is about soil, water and crops. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-farmers-climate-political-power.html
 
Learning from history.

In dozens of archaeological discoveries around the world, from the once-successful reservoirs and canals of Angkor Wat in Cambodia to the deserted Viking colonies of Greenland, new evidence paints pictures of civilizations struggling with unforeseen climate changes and the reality that their farming practices had become unsustainable.

Among these discoveries are also success stories, where ancient farming practices helped civilizations survive the hard times.

Zuni farmers in the southwestern United States made it through long stretches of extremely low rainfall between A.D. 1200 and 1400 by embracing small-scale, decentralized irrigation systems. Farmers in Ghana coped with severe droughts from 1450 to 1650 by planting indigenous African grains, like drought-tolerant pearl millet.

Ancient practices like these are gaining new interest today. As countries face unprecedented heat waves, storms and melting glaciers, some farmers and international development organizations are reaching deep into the agricultural archives to revive these ancient solutions.

Drought-stricken farmers in Spain have reclaimed medieval Moorish irrigation technology. International companies hungry for carbon offsets have paid big money for biochar made using pre-Columbian Amazonian production techniques. Texas ranchers have turned to ancient cover cropping methods to buffer against unpredictable weather patterns.

But grasping for ancient technologies and techniques without paying attention to historical context misses one of the most important lessons ancient farmers can reveal: Agricultural sustainability is as much about power and sovereignty as it is about soil, water and crops. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-farmers-climate-political-power.html

Typical: Mentions several previous instances of natural climate change; then immediately refers to what’s allegedly happening today as “unprecedented.”

:headbang:

maximus otter
 
Typical: Mentions several previous instances of natural climate change; then immediately refers to what’s allegedly happening today as “unprecedented.”

:headbang:

maximus otter
The recent over-use of the word 'unprecedented' is itself unprecedented.
 
So, is this really a good idea?

Climate change: The 'insane' plan to save the Arctic's sea-ice​


Real Ice Seawater pump in action with Arctic sunset in the background
Real Ice
Saving the ice - a daring experiment or a dangerous distraction?

Perched on sea-ice off Canada's northern coast, parka-clad scientists watch saltwater pump out over the frozen ocean.

Their goal? To slow global warming. As sea-ice vanishes, the dark ocean surface can absorb more of the Sun's energy, which accelerates warming. So the researchers want to thicken it to stop it melting away.

Welcome to the wackier side of geoengineering - deliberately intervening in the Earth's climate system to try to counteract the damage we have done to it. Geoengineering includes more established efforts to lock up planet-warming gases, such as planting more trees and burying carbon underground.

But more experimental measures aim to go a step further, seeking to reduce the energy absorbed by the Earth. Many scientists are strongly opposed, warning that such attempts distract from the critical step of cutting carbon emissions and risk doing more harm than good. But a small number of advocates claim their approaches could give the planet a helping hand while humanity cleans up its act.

The ultimate goal of the Arctic experiment is to thicken enough sea-ice to slow or even reverse the melting already seen, says Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, whose team at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Climate Repair is behind the project.

Will it work or is it, as one scientist put it, "quite insane"?

"We don't actually know enough to determine whether this is a good idea or bad idea," admits Dr Fitzgerald.

"It's quite cold," the researchers say. Wind chill in Cambridge Bay can make it feel like -45C

The researchers have been braving bitter conditions in Cambridge Bay, a tiny Canadian village in the Arctic Circle.

"It's quite cold," Andrea Ceccolini of Real Ice, a British company leading the trip, tells me via a patchy Zoom connection from inside a flapping white tent. "It's about -30C with a strong wind, which brings the temperature to -45C with wind chill factor."

They are drilling a hole in the sea-ice that naturally forms in winter, and pumping around 1,000 litres of seawater per minute across the surface. Exposed to the cold winter air, this seawater quickly freezes, helping to thicken the ice on top. The water also compacts the snow. As fresh snow acts as a good insulating layer, now ice can also form more easily on the underside in contact with the ocean.

"The idea is that the thicker the ice [at the end of winter], the longer it will survive when we go into the melt season," Mr Ceccolini explains. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68206309
 
So, is this really a good idea?

Climate change: The 'insane' plan to save the Arctic's sea-ice​


Real Ice Seawater pump in action with Arctic sunset in the background
Real Ice
Saving the ice - a daring experiment or a dangerous distraction?

Perched on sea-ice off Canada's northern coast, parka-clad scientists watch saltwater pump out over the frozen ocean.

Their goal? To slow global warming. As sea-ice vanishes, the dark ocean surface can absorb more of the Sun's energy, which accelerates warming. So the researchers want to thicken it to stop it melting away.

Welcome to the wackier side of geoengineering - deliberately intervening in the Earth's climate system to try to counteract the damage we have done to it. Geoengineering includes more established efforts to lock up planet-warming gases, such as planting more trees and burying carbon underground.

But more experimental measures aim to go a step further, seeking to reduce the energy absorbed by the Earth. Many scientists are strongly opposed, warning that such attempts distract from the critical step of cutting carbon emissions and risk doing more harm than good. But a small number of advocates claim their approaches could give the planet a helping hand while humanity cleans up its act.

The ultimate goal of the Arctic experiment is to thicken enough sea-ice to slow or even reverse the melting already seen, says Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, whose team at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Climate Repair is behind the project.

Will it work or is it, as one scientist put it, "quite insane"?

"We don't actually know enough to determine whether this is a good idea or bad idea," admits Dr Fitzgerald.

"It's quite cold," the researchers say. Wind chill in Cambridge Bay can make it feel like -45C

The researchers have been braving bitter conditions in Cambridge Bay, a tiny Canadian village in the Arctic Circle.

"It's quite cold," Andrea Ceccolini of Real Ice, a British company leading the trip, tells me via a patchy Zoom connection from inside a flapping white tent. "It's about -30C with a strong wind, which brings the temperature to -45C with wind chill factor."

They are drilling a hole in the sea-ice that naturally forms in winter, and pumping around 1,000 litres of seawater per minute across the surface. Exposed to the cold winter air, this seawater quickly freezes, helping to thicken the ice on top. The water also compacts the snow. As fresh snow acts as a good insulating layer, now ice can also form more easily on the underside in contact with the ocean.

"The idea is that the thicker the ice [at the end of winter], the longer it will survive when we go into the melt season," Mr Ceccolini explains. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68206309
For this to work long-term, they will have to desalinate the water.
 
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