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

[sphinxsix]

Also from yesterday Guardian: "Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points. A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse

 

 

[sphinxsix]

A couple of articles from today Guardian on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report which comes ahead of Cop26. IMO it's hard not to agree with their basic theses.

 

Major climate changes inevitable and irreversible – IPCC’s starkest warning yet

 

Worst polluting countries must make drastic carbon cuts, says Cop26 chief

 

The IPCC report is clear: nothing short of transforming society will avert catastrophe

 

 

[sphinxsix]

Issued today.

 

 

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/307/307265/atlas-of-the-invisible/9781846149719.html

 

Atlas of the Invisible: using data to map the climate crisis

 

 

[Iving]

10 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Atlas of the Invisible: using data to map the climate crisis

 

Nice

 

"Greenland has about 5,000 gigatons less ice than it had 20 years ago." It's difficult to conceptualise such numbers. Is @christopher3393 really in Greenland? What do you notice and is climate change "talk of the town". I don't know much about Greenland except that it's big, might have large mineral deposits - and that Donald T tried to buy it off the Danes.

 

I don't understand why we are fooling with tipping points in nature. Can't we do without a few things. I don't have any valve / pure Class A amps. Haven't flown in years. Don't intend to. Walk everywhere I go, just about. Probably I don't appreciate the extent to which I participate in the rot.

[Iving]

Visualizing the Quantities of Climate Change - Ice Sheet Loss in Greenland and Antarctica: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2933/visualizing-the-quantities-of-climate-change/

 

How much is 5,000 gigatonnes of ice? During the 15-year lifetime of the original GRACE mission (2002-2017), 5,641 gigatonnes of ice of were lost in Greenland and Antarctica. This is enough to cover Texas in a sheet of ice 26 feet high.

 

How much is 49,000 gigatonnes of ice? This is our best estimate of how much Greenland and Antarctic ice has melted into the ocean since the start of the 20th century.

 

Carry on regardless then ...

 

[sphinxsix]

1 hour ago, Iving said:

Is @christopher3393 really in Greenland?

 

  I would have met him if he was... 

 

[PYP]

8 hours ago, Iving said:

I don't understand why we are fooling with tipping points in nature. Can't we do without a few things. I don't have any valve / pure Class A amps. 

 Efficiency is one thing I like about Class D amps.  The other, if done right, is sound.  I feel like I'm having my cake and eating it too.   Just had more solar cells installed.  While it is still blasting hot here -- the solar is less efficient at these temperatures and the AC is cranking away -- our electric bill is nearly $0.   So, I don't think about the system being on all day.  Everyone is wired differently.  For me, this arrangement provides pleasure above and beyond the music.  

[Iving]

Burning - The Sweet (1973)

 

 

[Iving]

Fire - Justin Hinds & The Dominoes (1976)

 

 

[Iving]

Always The Sun - The Stranglers (1986) [a few versions - this YT has a nice vid]

 

 

[Confused]

8 minutes ago, Iving said:

Burning - The Sweet (1973)

 

 

Apologies for the off-topic, but this recording is very dear to my heart. It happens to be the B side of the first record I bought. It cost 45 pence, which was a lit of money back then, I would have been 7 years old with about twelve and a half pence a week pocket money. I can recall the lady in the shop saying that it was 45 pence and thinking it can't be that much money, she's got the price mixed up with the record speed. (£0.45p equates to about £3.29 in todays money)

 

My much older brother who was then 17 used to like playing this to his mates and asking them to guess who the band was., Nobody knew the track as it was a B side. Much fun we had when people said, umm, don't know, is it Zeppelin? Deep Purple maybe?

 

A long time ago, but happy memories.

 

Back on topic, how times change. I can remember back then that we had science programmes on TV warning about the growing evidence for how were were progressing into the next ice age. It was also predicted that global oil supplies would run out in about ten years. I can remember worrying that by the time I would be old enough to drive, there would be no petrol left.....

[Iving]

6 minutes ago, Confused said:

Apologies for the off-topic, but this recording is very dear to my heart. It happens to be the B side of the first record I bought. It cost 45 pence, which was a lit of money back then, I would have been 7 years old with about twelve and a half pence a week pocket money. I can recall the lady in the shop saying that it was 45 pence and thinking it can't be that much money, she's got the price mixed up with the record speed. (£0.45p equates to about £3.29 in todays money)

 

My much older brother who was then 17 used to like playing this to his mates and asking them to guess who the band was., Nobody knew the track as it was a B side. Much fun we had when people said, umm, don't know, is it Zeppelin? Deep Purple maybe?

 

A long time ago, but happy memories.

 

Back on topic, how times change. I can remember back then that we had science programmes on TV warning about the growing evidence for how were were progressing into the next ice age. It was also predicted that global oil supplies would run out in about ten years. I can remember worrying that by the time I would be old enough to drive, there would be no petrol left.....

 

Beautiful

 

My first record is an embarrassing story. My father was posted in Malta. The only shop was the NAAFI. Folks joked it stood for "Never Aff Any Fing In". I wanted ELO's "Roll Over Beethoven" or Status Quo "Paper Plane". All they had was Neil Diamond "Song Sung Blue". And I bought it anyway.

 

P.S. If you don't know it already, try The Sweet's "Turn It Down". Same vibe. Even better!

[Confused]

9 minutes ago, Iving said:

 

Beautiful

 

My first record is an embarrassing story. My father was posted in Malta. The only shop was the NAAFI. Folks joked it stood for "Never Aff Any Fing In". I wanted ELO's "Roll Over Beethoven" or Status Quo "Paper Plane". All they had was Neil Diamond "Song Sung Blue". And I bought it anyway.

 

P.S. If you don't know it already, try The Sweet's "Turn It Down". Same vibe. Even better!

Coincidentally, I was listening to some very old Status Quo material recently, and some from when they were the Spectres. Some good stuff there, and what was interesting is that some of it sounds absolutely nothing like Status Quo.

[Iving]

9 minutes ago, Confused said:

Coincidentally, I was listening to some very old Status Quo material recently, and some from when they were the Spectres. Some good stuff there, and what was interesting is that some of it sounds absolutely nothing like Status Quo.

 

Very true this! As a young teenager I had their PYE Golden Hour LP. You wouldn't recognise the Status Quo of "Paper Plane" and after. Not a "heavy" or "hard" rock at all. I still loved some of the songs. "Are You Growing Tired Of My Love" and "Elizabeth Dreams". Also - the transitional 1970 LP 'Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon'. Some seriously good blues rock - "Lazy Poker Blues", "Good Thinking".

[Confused]

3 hours ago, Confused said:

Apologies for the off-topic, but this recording is very dear to my heart. It happens to be the B side of the first record I bought. It cost 45 pence, which was a lit of money back then, I would have been 7 years old with about twelve and a half pence a week pocket money. I can recall the lady in the shop saying that it was 45 pence and thinking it can't be that much money, she's got the price mixed up with the record speed. (£0.45p equates to about £3.29 in todays money)

 

My much older brother who was then 17 used to like playing this to his mates and asking them to guess who the band was., Nobody knew the track as it was a B side. Much fun we had when people said, umm, don't know, is it Zeppelin? Deep Purple maybe?

 

A long time ago, but happy memories.

 

Back on topic, how times change. I can remember back then that we had science programmes on TV warning about the growing evidence for how were were progressing into the next ice age. It was also predicted that global oil supplies would run out in about ten years. I can remember worrying that by the time I would be old enough to drive, there would be no petrol left.....

EDIT: I have just realised that I made a mistake in the above post. 45p in 1973 would actually be £5.56 today. (for a 45rpm single record) Gosh ....  Makes the 99p downloads from iTunes look very cheap

[botrytis]

More information on the ecological impact of mercury.......

 

Mercury Study Report to Congress | US EPA

 

The report is from 1997 - that is how much knowledge was hidden.

[sphinxsix]

 

With one in every four species facing extinction, which animals are the best equipped to survive the climate crisis?

 

(Spoiler alert: it’s probably not humans).

 

The animals that will survive climate change

 

Cockroaches have survived every mass extinction event in history thus far.

 

Heat-adapted organisms and microbes living in extreme environments are likely to be less affected by climate change.

 

 

 

 

 

[semente]

There's a human subspecies from India called Sadhu. They eat very little, have no material possessions (no DACs, nor even an mp3 player) and can tolerate quite a bit of heat. They're said to have indestructible minds.

 

edit: sorry, it's a bad joke

[sphinxsix]

5 hours ago, semente said:

edit: sorry, it's a bad joke

It's not so bad, most of the ones I know is worse..

How about some environ-mental poetry.? 

 

 

"I never understood wind.

You know, I know

windmills very much.

I have studied it

better than anybody

else. It’s very expensive.

They are made in China

and Germany mostly.

—Very few made here, almost none,

but they are manufactured, tremendous

—if you are into this—

tremendous fumes. Gases are

spewing into the atmosphere. You know

we have a world

right?

So the world

is tiny

compared to the universe.

So tremendous, tremendous

amount of fumes and everything.

You talk about

the carbon footprint

— fumes are spewing into the air.

Right? Spewing.

Whether it’s in China,

Germany, it’s going into the air.

It’s our air

their air

everything — right?

A windmill will kill many bald eagles.

After a certain number

they make you turn the windmill off.

That is true.

—By the way

they make you turn it off.

And yet, if you killed one

they put you in jail.

That is OK.

You want to see a bird graveyard?

You just go.

Take a look.

A bird graveyard.

Go under a windmill someday,

you’ll see

more birds

than you’ve ever seen

in your life."

~ D. Trump

12/21/2019

 

Asheville Poetry Review

[sphinxsix]

I would say kudos to Boris Johnson for growing up  (although he sees it from a different perspective).

The question about words vs facts in regard to Cop 26 remains valid of course.

 

 

Boris Johnson tells UN that Cop26 must be ‘turning point for humanity’

 

 

[Priaptor]

I must give a counter point to all the banter on this thread.

 

While the vast majority of hyperbole on this thread regurgitates the typical mainstream talking points about climate change and the need to do something I find it ironic who most paint as evil while ignoring the elephant in the room.

 

Most of the absurd ideas involve penalizing with progressive and devastating taxes on those countries who are most cooperative. While all this EV stuff, just to use one issue as an example, may make us feel good, it is like pissing in the wind as it pertains to climate change. Just do the math or ignore the math at  your own peril. With a perfect grid, if the US converted all cars and light trucks to EV we would reduce CO2 by 1.3% at most worldwide. However, the real impact requires an EV to reach 30K miles before the projected benefits kick in so the real impact with a perfect grid is even less. 

 

Over the last 3 decades greenhouse emissions have increased 11.5% worldwide while China's has increased more than 3x, way more than their increase in manufacturing index indicating they are polluting more than just accounting for their manufacturing.

 

OH yeah right, the elephant in the room and the absurd logic. We now have a total dislocation of manufacturing. In order to save money on manufacturing, we now ship our manufacturing to the biggest polluters in the world, namely China, India, Indonesia and Viet Nam. Nothing has added to greenhouse gas emissions more than that. In fact air pollution in Hanoi, like large cities in the other countries I name is so bad, it has become as leading cause of death. Hey but why worry about reality when we can make believe we are doing something with by driving EVs, paying carbon taxes, penalizing the most compliant while the biggest polluters keep on polluting so we can pay less for iPhones and computers WHILE paying much more than we are saving we absurd taxes to protect the environment.

 

I am sure to hear huge uproars over my views, which of course will be taken as uber-conservative, but the reality is, I probably have more in common with ultra-leftists as it pertains to the environment than most of you. Patagonia, of course, who loves to claim they are friends of the environment as those of you who believe it wear their petroleum based polyester manufactured by the biggest polluter in the world, namely Viet Nam, where 90%+ of their energy plants are coal. 

 

If we are serious, it's time to recognize our real issues, face facts and either bring back manufacturing to those locations with cleaner manufacturing indices or demand change in those that are indeed doing the biggest polluting. If time is really of the essence, then giving these "developing countries" decades to meet some demands with no teeth is ABSURD. Same for ecologically destructive behavior here and abroad. Time to call out CA for their egregious water, land and forest management as THE BIGGEST cause of CO2 pollution this century rather than blaming climate change for their current forest fire debacle.   Owen's Lake, another great example of the CA narrative. Or the Colorado River delta, now that is great one. Then there is the ultra left against the self serving left regarding the O'Shaughnessy Dam and amazingly I side with the ultra left when all is evaluated. Or the new green narrative regarding the Salton Sea. The examples of hypocrisy are massive and I could go on but I think that's enough and my point made.

 

But of course, we won't do anything that will really make a difference because as usual, it is easy to manipulate the masses, spew a different narrative and inertia is very hard to break. People will feel good buying their solar panels and EV and everyone can feel good again. 

 

Sorry to those who may be insulted or incensed by the rant but I needed to vent. 

 

 

[PYP]

10 minutes ago, Priaptor said:

Sorry to those who may be insulted or incensed by the rant but I needed to vent. 

You are pointing out some valid contradictions and the question is what does an individual does.  On the most personal level, I am indeed happy with solar on my house (+ solar water heater) which saves energy and results in a nearly $0 bill during a string of 100 degree days last month.  And I will ditch my hybrid and get an EV when the time comes.  My own view is that personal conservation comes first.   Not trying to be pious.  

 

Then we vote for the folks who do not ignore the problem and try to address it.   As we all know, the political fight in the U.S. will be intense and take a long time.  What can be done about China?  I don't know.  They recently announced the end of pushing coal plants in other nations and that is a start.  Our military is looking to move toward alternative fuels and that is good.

 

I believe we need an "all of the above" approach and leave no opportunity on the table.  Will there be enough time?  We really aren't taking climate change seriously enough.  That is certain.  

[Priaptor]

7 minutes ago, PYP said:

You are pointing out some valid contradictions and the question is what does an individual does.  On the most personal level, I am indeed happy with solar on my house (+ solar water heater) which saves energy and results in a nearly $0 bill during a string of 100 degree days last month.  And I will ditch my hybrid and get an EV when the time comes.  My own view is that personal conservation comes first.   Not trying to be pious.  

 

Then we vote for the folks who do not ignore the problem and try to address it.   As we all know, the political fight in the U.S. will be intense and take a long time.  What can be done about China?  I don't know.  They recently announced the end of pushing coal plants in other nations and that is a start.  Our military is looking to move toward alternative fuels and that is good.

 

I believe we need an "all of the above" approach and leave no opportunity on the table.  Will there be enough time?  We really aren't taking climate change seriously enough.  That is certain.  

No issue with anyone doing what they think is right when what they are doing indeed does have an effect. I by no means am against solar or EV. That was not my intent. In fact, I endorse both but am realistic about both. FPL is actually taking solar pretty seriously and more and more of their grid is now powered by solar, mitigating the need by the individual. However, in our desire to endorse, let us not be blinded to reality and there are some cold hard truths behind solar and lithium. All you have to do is look at some of the ecological disasters at the Chilean lithium pools or the egregious rare earth mining by China, but  I digress.

 

I think the MOST important aspect of controlling climate issues TODAY is for people to accept and endorse reality. What can we do about China and others? Be educated and demand NOW accountability by those doing our manufacturing or start moving that manufacturing to "cleaner manufacturing" countries, whether that be the EU, some South American countries or USA. There is nothing in the short term that will have a bigger effect than that change of political policy. This is not a right or left thing as the most valuable companies in the world, who clearly have "leftward" political perspectives prosper the most from our current polluting policies by shipping manufacturing abroad. I will again restate, does the logic of saving a 100 bucks on an iPhone make sense in the scheme of what is proposed to charge for climate change taxes? Add to that transportation costs both monetarily and by climate effects and it is a no brainer. Remember, transportation beyond light trucks make up a huge environmental footprint to add to the biggest polluters in the world. 

 

When the world's  second biggest economy is given two decades of a polluting break in worldwide climate talks, no more needs to be said regarding the absurdity of logic. Even more absurd than Kerry's rationale for flying a private jet followed by a huge limousine to a climate talk. 

[DuckToller]

@Priaptor

Happy to confirm your views form old leftist Europe ;-)
If you import products,. you have exported their production waste to other countries/continents.
If - as economist or politician -  you close they eyes on that, you may not have read Ricardo ...
Would you/we / Europe/USA achieve climate goals with 100% inbound production? I doubt it.
Matter of lifestyle (though a cultural/individual  problem ?), I'd say.
And, perhaps,  the strange idea about worldwide wealth distribution without losing wealth for the ones who are wealthy ... ?
Especially a problem, when extreme weather impacts demand extreme measures.
Though Boris can make funny Kermit lines about all that .. That's entertainment
Cheers, DT

[PYP]

36 minutes ago, Priaptor said:

I will again restate, does the logic of saving a 100 bucks on an iPhone make sense in the scheme of what is proposed to charge for climate change taxes? Add to that transportation costs both monetarily and by climate effects and it is a no brainer. Remember, transportation beyond light trucks make up a huge environmental footprint to add to the biggest polluters in the world. 

It makes sense for economists to fully price a product, which would include the carbon footprint.  At least then folks know what they are buying and the true cost to the planet.  Overall, I think we are moving in the right direction, but too slowly.   As the situation worsens, some solutions won't be viable any longer.