The Environmental thread + Conventional (HI-FI) wisdom is almost always invariably wrong

[semente]

Just now, mansr said:

Are we awarding prizes for wishful thinking now?

 

I am not awarding anything.

[mansr]

Just now, Ralf11 said:

That is good, but what does a declared climate emergency in the EU mandate ?

Nothing.

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I know things you don't in this area.

Yes, you’ve said so before - about many areas. These statements could well be true, but I have no way of knowing.

[Ralf11]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

Nothing.

 

Here is something to think about... there are nearly 30 major climate models, cloud effects seem to be causing warming effects much greater than 3 deg.  You heard it here first, but note "seem to be"...

 

3 deg is hellacious in itself

[elcorso]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

I haven't done anything either. Can I have my Nobel prize now?

 

You don't, nor J. Lo & Shakira, but the opposite ...

 

 

 

No Nobel Prize for them, but...

 

 

Roch

[esldude]

9 hours ago, Jud said:

Yes, definitely fair to say a 17 year old on the autism spectrum hasn’t managed to instantly halt climate change within the year by herself.

 

Also fair to ask what each of us has accomplished to make progress toward resolving this problem. Even as much as this teenager (publicity and perhaps some political awareness)?

I quit going to work a few years ago.  Isn't that rather like no longer going to school? At a minimum my carbon footprint traveling to and from work disappeared.  If everybody quit going to work (like me) carbon emissions would drop dramatically.  I simply was not so self centered and attention seeking as Greta seems to be.  I'm not as angry either.  I'm not even asking for the Nobel, but if they gift it to me, I'll do some good with the prize. 

[esldude]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

That is good, but what does a declared climate emergency in the EU mandate ?

I won't mandate anything in England now. 

[Ralf11]

if carbon emissions drop dramatically - even if they go to zero right this minute - there will still be hell on Earth

 

Greta is a few decades too late, but not to say the damage will be lessened

[semente]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

I quit going to work a few years ago.  Isn't that rather like no longer going to school? At a minimum my carbon footprint traveling to and from work disappeared.  If everybody quit going to work (like me) carbon emissions would drop dramatically.  I simply was not so self centered and attention seeking as Greta seems to be.  I'm not as angry either.  I'm not even asking for the Nobel, but if they gift it to me, I'll do some good with the prize. 

 

Have you done anything to raise awareness or lobbied for change?

[semente]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

if carbon emissions drop dramatically - even if they go to zero right this minute - there will still be hell on Earth

 

Greta is a few decades too late, but not to say the damage will be lessened

 

So she would be entitled to the Nobel had she been born in the 80's?

[semente]

2 hours ago, esldude said:

I won't mandate anything in England now. 

 

Yes, England is unfortunatelly going down the same hole as the US after electing an egotistical populist moron backed by ultra-liberal right wingers and the finance mafia.

[esldude]

38 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Have you done anything to raise awareness or lobbied for change?

Well I did take an airline flight last month.  I could have maybe picketed the airport for a few days until somebody offered to paddle me up the Mississippi river on a high tech carbon fiber canoe or something.  Then when they flew back home, I could have floated downstream on my own, but I didn't create a fuss about it.  Guess I messed up on that one.

 

I have talked to people, but they didn't listen.  Lobbied for change when I still went to work, and for 20+ years made a difference which reduced employee transportation emissions by 20%.  Involved a couple hundred employees.  Then a new regime took over and decided even though the difference cost nothing, it also made them no money and discontinued the practices.  That is when I left.

[Miska]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

I quit going to work a few years ago.  Isn't that rather like no longer going to school? At a minimum my carbon footprint traveling to and from work disappeared.  If everybody quit going to work (like me) carbon emissions would drop dramatically.  I simply was not so self centered and attention seeking as Greta seems to be.  I'm not as angry either.  I'm not even asking for the Nobel, but if they gift it to me, I'll do some good with the prize. 

 

I'm working from home too. I would say almost all office work could be as well done remotely from home these days. And I still don't understand why companies run old traditions of having massive office buildings. Just getting rid of all the office buildings and related commuting would have massive impact. And reduce company expenses too! It is not cheap to maintain all the office infra, the needed extra transportation infra to allow all office workers to commute, and the commuting itself. The time spent on commuting could be better spent somewhere else too. I think this would be one of the easiest ways to deal with some of the climate change problems, air quality/pollution problems and traffic related problems...

 

Traditionally most open source / Linux companies don't have much of office, maybe something small with a meeting room to meet some clients. But most employees work from home and they are usually geographically distributed around the globe. No need for people to relocate due to their jobs. I wish more companies would use such model.

 

I guess I will never understand why the current model keeps going.

[semente]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

Well I did take an airline flight last month.  I could have maybe picketed the airport for a few days until somebody offered to paddle me up the Mississippi river on a high tech carbon fiber canoe or something.  Then when they flew back home, I could have floated downstream on my own, but I didn't create a fuss about it.  Guess I messed up on that one.

 

I have talked to people, but they didn't listen.  Lobbied for change when I still went to work, and for 20+ years made a difference which reduced employee transportation emissions by 20%.  Involved a couple hundred employees.  Then a new regime took over and decided even though the difference cost nothing, it also made them no money and discontinued the practices.  That is when I left.

 

You definitely qualify for a Nobel nomination.

[semente]

24 minutes ago, Miska said:

I guess I will never understand why the current model keeps going.

 

Bosses need to boss?

[Jud]

3 hours ago, semente said:

 

Bosses need to boss?

 

The former head of my department disliked it when I worked from home instead of risking my life on a 60 mile commute when local authorities had asked that highway travel be limited due to hazardous conditions. Old head of department retires after 40 years, new head of department, and magically there is suddenly no problem with me moving 1500 miles away and working from home. (I offered to come into the nearest office, about 15 miles away, if desired. He said "Do you want to?", I said "No," and that was the end of it.)

[semente]

Nice interview this morning on Radio 4:

 

Myles Allen on understanding climate change

The Life Scientific

 

Professor Myles Allen has spent thirty years studying global climate change, trying to working out what we can and can't predict. He was one of the first scientists to quantify the extent to which human actions are responsible for global warming. As a lead author on the 3rd Assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change in 2001, he concluded that ‘most of the observed global warming was due to human influence’. More recently, (having established that calculating a safe concentration of greenhouse gases was very difficult indeed), he worked out instead how many tonnes of carbon would be acceptable, a shift in emphasis that paved the way for the current Net Zero carbon emissions policy. Myles tells Jim Al-Khalili how our ability to predict climate change has evolved from the early days when scientists had to rely on the combined computing power of hundreds of thousands of personal computers. He sheds light on how the IPCC works and explains why, he believes, fossil fuel industries must be forced to take back the carbon dioxide that they emit. If carbon capture and storage technologies makes their products more expensive, so be it.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fgcn

[semente]

The Environmental impact of Covid:

 

[elcorso]

11 hours ago, semente said:

The Environmental impact of Covid:

 

 

 

And this from China:

 

Roch

[elcorso]

Some other locations:

 

 

Roch

[sphinxsix]

16 hours ago, elcorso said:

 

 

And this from China:

 

Roch

 

I had been highly impressed when I saw this for the first time.

One more.

Quote

NASA satellite sees air pollution drop over northeastern US amid coronavirus outbreak

 

[sphinxsix]

I'm afraid that the things like leaving minimal individual carbon footprint may not and actually will not be enough if we don't put a pressure on those of our leaders who don't understand.

 

Dismantling environmental protections under cover of coronavirus.

 

 

[semente]

On 5/11/2020 at 6:38 PM, sphinxsix said:

I'm afraid that the things like leaving minimal individual carbon footprint may not and actually will not be enough if we don't put a pressure on those of our leaders who don't understand.

 

Dismantling environmental protections under cover of coronavirus.

 

 

 

The Economies have taken a massive blow.

 

Unless we change the paradigm of infinite growth and consumerist lifestyle and making the top 1% richer there's no way we'll ever make it.

[sphinxsix]

On 5/9/2020 at 10:40 AM, semente said:

The Environmental impact of Covid:

 

 

On 5/9/2020 at 9:53 PM, elcorso said:

 

 

And this from China:

 

Roch

 

On 5/9/2020 at 10:02 PM, elcorso said:

Some other locations:

 

 

Roch

 

On 5/10/2020 at 2:04 PM, sphinxsix said:

 

I had been highly impressed when I saw this for the first time.

One more.

 

 

However impressive these graphs may look, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change, CO2 emissions had fallen only by 17% on average by early April. According to experts it's just meaningless..

 

Fall in global carbon emissions

 

Fall in emissions during coronavirus is no cause for celebration

 

 

On 5/11/2020 at 7:38 PM, sphinxsix said:

I'm afraid that the things like leaving minimal individual carbon footprint may not and actually will not be enough if we don't put a pressure on those of our leaders who don't understand.

 

Dismantling environmental protections under cover of coronavirus.

 

 

 

OTOH some good news from the other side of the Atlantic - the European Commission has increased five-fold in comparison to its January proposal the proposed European Union fund to wean carbon-intensive regions off fossil fuels, with fresh cash from a new recovery fund to help Europe’s ailing economies rebound after the new coronavirus pandemic.

 

EU pledges 40 billion euros for 'just transition' from fossil fuels

 

BTW seems that currently the United States (responsible for ca 15% of global CO2 emissions) is the only country in the world  to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and thus the States will eventually join the company of countries like Iran (1.66%), Turkey (1.04%) and Iraq (0.48%) that have not yet ratified the agreement.  

I'd really love America to be first but in some different way.. 

 

[sphinxsix]

The Virtual Festival for Our Planet will be broadcast on Pathway to Paris and 350.org’s Facebook pages – as well as 350.org website. The event is free and open to all. Start time is

June 5, 7pm GMT/ 3pm EST.

 

 

 

virtual-festival-for-our-planet