What do you think is cold weather?

[Egbert]

This global warming thing is scary. I very much doubt that humanity can meet the challenge. Nobody wants to give up their cars and heaters and plastics.

[Bereta_Eder]

Maybe self consciousness inevitably leads to an unbalanced living relation with nature and thus to its ultimate destruction. (of the human, not the nature)
Would prove why there are no aliens too

[Bereta_Eder]

OTOH there are primitive tribes that live completely at balance with nature, so maybe it's a science thing and greeks are to blame.

[Jon Miller]

This global warming thing is scary. I very much doubt that humanity can meet the challenge. Nobody wants to give up their cars and heaters and plastics.

I think it is more that a few people don't want to give up their profit, and others don't want to have their land change, and still others want their cheap goods and varied foods and ease... and many of this latter group, the largest group, arguably need it because they don't make enough otherwise (because the few people won't give up their profit).

JM

[Dinner]

Here is what seems like a very doable solution which would get us well into big GHG reductions but for some reason no one is seriously pushing it. If we replaced just the worst polluting 5% of power plant to world wide and replaced them with modern cleaner ones then this would result in a 30% reduction in global GHG output.

That seems doable.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/most-of-the-power-sectors-emissions-come-from-a-small-minority-of-plants/

[Jon Miller]

Makes sense to start with the easy problems, which are generally the province of big business/etc and not the hard problems (how US cities are laid out, how the global economy is set up).

For example, there was a huge push for people to recycle/etc... and to some extant people did... but generally it goes all the the landfill because the recycling businesses are unable to handle it (due to the scale of the problem). I learned about this a decade ago in Sweden ("why do you not recycle?" "we mostly burn our trash, recycling of things that aren't batteries/etc is generally to costly for the general populace, the burning gives us energy" "oh")

JM

[Egbert]

Here is what seems like a very doable solution which would get us well into big GHG reductions but for some reason no one is seriously pushing it. If we replaced just the worst polluting 5% of power plant to world wide and replaced them with modern cleaner ones then this would result in a 30% reduction in global GHG output.

That seems doable.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...ity-of-plants/

I read the article with interest Oerdin. I agree that it seems very doable to replace or improve a relatively small number of power stations. The problem of implementation revolves around responsibility. The resolution of a problem usually requires labour, knowledge and resources. We have the knowledge readily available if somebody is willing to do the job. We have the labour if somebody will pay the wages. We have the resources if somebody will pay the bills. It thus boils down to the question of who is willing and able to pay?


The problem is nobody wants to pay but somebody must pay if the job is to be done. We are not resolving the problems of who will pay for resolution of the wide range of problems confronting us.

We do have several billion people living at bare subsistence who simply can not pay. We have billions more who are not doing well financially. We have maybe a billion or two who are well off and a handful who are extremely rich and powerful. It is unclear if we can foot the bills even if we can everybody pay to the limits of their ability.

[Egbert]

Makes sense to start with the easy problems, which are generally the province of big business/etc and not the hard problems (how US cities are laid out, how the global economy is set up).

For example, there was a huge push for people to recycle/etc... and to some extant people did... but generally it goes all the the landfill because the recycling businesses are unable to handle it (due to the scale of the problem). I learned about this a decade ago in Sweden ("why do you not recycle?" "we mostly burn our trash, recycling of things that aren't batteries/etc is generally to costly for the general populace, the burning gives us energy" "oh")

JM

I see some big problems with recycling.

if I visit the supermarket I see almost everything is wrapped in plastic. A dozen long aisles crammed with countless goods, all wrapped in plastic. The plastic is very cheap and very effective at keeping the contents airtight and fresh. Every year there is more plastic used for so many things. That is a problem of sheer volume.

Next problem is that recycling is relatively difficult and expensive. Making plastic is cheap and easier, much cheaper and easier than recycling plastic. For example I can buy sliced cheese with every slice individually wrapped in plastic. How do you recycle each of those wrappings? Of to landfill to spend centuries degrading.

We do not manufacture with a view to recycling or disposal. Each manufacturer does whatever is most profitable. Plastic is cheap and easyWe also have problems with waste. Throwing things in the bin is cheap and easy. We have solved some of the problems arising from disposal which includes legislation banning companies from dumping industrial waste in rivers but more needs to be done. I am not at all sure exactly what needs to be done or how.

Every year we destroy more vegetation than is regenerated. Forests and habitats shrink.

/end rant

[Egbert]

OTOH there are primitive tribes that live completely at balance with nature, so maybe it's a science thing and greeks are to blame.

I am inclined to wonder if intelligence is a very high risk evolutionary strategy. Humans have no checks or balances on our consumption of resources and we are certainly not restraining our own consumption. We are destroying habitats, wrecking environments, consuming resources and poisoning the waters and atmosphere without restraints.

We are pursuing individual and national interests without due regard for the eventual consequences. It is like to problem of a shared commons. Each villager may keep cows on the common pasture. Every villager will seek to keep as many cows as possible and none will remove cows while there is anything left for the cows to eat. Eventually there will be so many cows that there is nothing whatsoever left for the cows to eat and most will starve to death.

If we are lucky our civilisation will collapse long enough before we completely destroy the environment to allow some survivors, perhaps by way of an evolutionary surge to adapt to a changed environment. Collapse of our civilisation would destroy our capacity to wreck the environment however warming and degradation would still continue until the ecosystem could establish a new equilibrium.

Yeah, you Greeks started this science thing otherwise we could still number in the millions and be spending our days sticking sharp sticks into one another.

[Egbert]

One more point.

We have so called "Greens" who drive around in large SUVs.

[Uncle Sparky]

On the other hand, we've hit several high temp records in the last three months... I hope the temp goes up another degree today (and it probably will) since we are .6 °C short of a new record.

[Jon Miller]

One more point.

We have so called "Greens" who drive around in large SUVs.

We just got a large SUV. We don't have a garage and so didn't go with an electric or PHEV, we got a Highlander Hybrid (so about 37 mpg).

I had wanted to have our corolla hybrid become my wife's car while I biked and took the train, but my wife's schedule is just too intense and we live in the suburbs, so I can only do elementary school, cafe and work with train/bike.

JM

[N35t0r]

I bought a used VW Golf variant, for the extra trunk space and none of the SUV shenanigans.

[Proteus_MST]

I bought a used VW Gold variant, for the extra trunk space and none of the SUV shenanigans.

All that glisters is not gold

[N35t0r]

All that glisters is not gold

Yeah, I'm still complaining with the dealer, he gave me a Golf instead