Just 5 years left to stop climate change
 

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns | Environment | The Guardian
5 measly years.:shock: "We" have waited way way too long to get on the right track. I feel very sad and depressed if I read this. And it comes from the IEA - not Greenpeace, the green party, the Sierra club or even just the social democratic parties - from the International Energy Agency - a conservative and economics oriented global organization:

Pessimism keeps setting in with me. I doubt this will get much attention from the U.S. Congress right now.

We may be in trouble if something happens depending on our hypothetical actions.

Confidence.

'If' is bad enough, IMO. There shouldn't be an 'if' to begin with.

^Amen to that. "Should'a, would'a, could'a are the last words of a fool." I see that we're not completely destined for it yet, but somethig tells me with an attitude that we have 'just a little bit longer', the human race is going to become flippant and procrastinate on this issue, simply because it's easier not to do anything, and when it comes to that final year we'll be wishing we had done more before.

That said, climate change is a difficult issue. Geologically, we are still in the throws of an ice age. We know that this planet is not supposed to have ice caps, and occasions where they still existed, and the temperature was constant between ice ages is extremely rare. It would seem that the ice melting and the climate changing is simply a part of this planet's natural cycle and progression. However, I do not in any way claim that as a justification for what we do to our planet, and what we do sure as hell doesn't help with the nature of our planet. Just because it may be natural for the ice to melt, does not mean we should be driving round in colossal cars, burning all the oil or cutting down swathes of forest or dumping radioactive material and god knows how many tons of rubbish onto the lands and the seas.

This is somewhat sensationalist. Look at what the reasoning is:
But that's not correct; they can be shut down in a matter of days, if the need arises.

(Note to mention ignoring the possibility of reversing it.)

What does this mean exactly? I find this article to be vague. The only "lost forever" or "no return" I can think of hearing about, actually ever hearing about, is this .

The uncertainty, the ifs and whens there are not about if of when the problem will occur in case we do something stupid, it is about if we can summon up the effort to avert the problme which will occur with a certainty if nothing is done. And presently, nothing is done. And as the article says, the UK, Japan and others actually do not want to even talk about this before that deadline runs out. Thats seriously foolish.

The song linked - very fitting indeed.

People have been saying this for literally decades.

The problem is people who don't believe it. "It's all fake. So I can do whatever I want".

No, the problem is a government structured in a way that promotes selfish thinking. Even if you had a sizeable chunk of [insert country] supporting you, if the government doesn't site with you, you can't do much.

Don't worry everyone, I fixed the problem! Turns out I left the light on in my basement.

Exactly.

All the nimbyism regarding solutions to the problem is what is endangering the world. Without that, there would not be any new coal/oil power stations built and even the ability to shut extant ones down before the end of their operational life (something this prediction does not talk about).

Exactly. Oil was going to run out in the 80s 90s 2000s 2010s 2020s, right? The world was going to end in 1988 1992 1994 2000 2012. When people believe something will happen, they will always keep setting the date further forwards when it doesn't turn up.

It's called a political agenda.

If we don't shift the Earths orbit we might collide with an asteroid.

I'm talking about something that we've actually caused, Isard.

I really don't have the energy to push this. Needless to say, debating ifs and maybes is a useless venture at best.


I need to go be depressed now.

To me, the amount of years here seems totally arbitrary, especially since the outcome after these years is so very vague :S

I'll mail you an "A Perfect Circle" CD.

Still... Doesn't mean we don't need to start changing things for the better, to cleaner, more friendly power sources right now...

Even if the cake you have is massive, you can only take so many pieces from it. Oil is not an infinite source of power for us. Nor is it 'clean'.

Oh trust me I could probably eat the whole thing.

But the thing is, we may not know exactly when we are going to run out of oil, or what is going to happen, but generally we get closer and closer to what is correct.

What I'm saying is we used to think the earth was flat, then we thought it was a sphere, now we think it's an oblate spheroid. This tends to happen with science, so our predictions in the 80's or 90's aren't going to be as goo as they are today

Exactly. There is little reason to not invest into more clean energy. Oil and Coal have several problems regardless of climate change.

But which is wiser, to take steps forward in pitch black darkness, or stay put waiting for some sort of light source? Now the best case scenario is that the road is clear and there are no obstacles or pitfalls, but in the case of there being some, wouldn't it be safer to wait?

I just came back from there, not really a place worth your time. I hope things will get better for you too.

I'm just mopey over the ending of Inheritance. I felt the same way when I finished Mass Effect.

I nevr said anything other than that. However, what I did say was that people who either believe something will happen and/or want something to happen will always 'predict' it and keep shifting that 'prediction' further into the future when it turns out to be false.

Mind if I ask why?

I dunno, 10 years of my life I've been following that story. Long time, all gone now.

Exactly. Doom has always been around the corner according to us. and i agree with you here, HNM. Every decade it has been said.

that said, something should be done.

interestingly enough, the readings of the atmosphere read, that the atmosphere is actually retracting, which is the sign of a cooldown and not a warm up.

physics teacher told me that

You mean the books by Christopher Paolini?

The only thing I hate about books is the fact that they always inevitably end once you start reading them. All content, even life itself, seems so fleeting at times. I really liked the first book, so I picked up the second somewhere along the way, but have yet to delve into it, due to the reason I stated.

Maybe I should just get it done and read them all now that the series has come to official conclusion.

It is not so much the government as it is the economy. After all the present economic system is largely based on the flawed logic that if just everyone acts in his own self interest, somehow a good, stable and just economy will emerge. Thats Ayn Rand and all that - its not in the government, its in the economy. The governments sadly have become slaves to the economy though, so you are right in the end I guess, but it is a larger picture

What does it have to do with NIMBY - If there is no NIMBY, people would maybe just accept a coal plant in their backyard. Provided it has good scrubbers to remove the particles and sulfur from the exhause. CO2 after all does not smell or bother the neighbors. And actually some regions were profiting from it. The west of Germany kept mining coal and burning it for a long time after it had become uneconomic - mainly to keep the jobs of the miners and steel workers and all that.

Hehe, yeah - nuclear fusion was always said to be "just around the corner in just 20 years" (that constant has not been broken as of yet).

But peak oil - I dont know. Looking at this chart - at least production seems to have reached a plateau snce about 2004, some slight increase is predicted by the IEA if all kinds of unconventional oil will be used. The environmental impact is rising sharply and the EROEI is dropping as sharply. I think these are clear signs that we are "scraping the bottom of the barrel". Of course there will be oil in the future. The statement that "oil will run out" is nonsense. The problem is not that one day there will not be oil when the day before it was there. It is that the production cannot be increased and eventually decreases while prices shoot up, only stopped by a severe economic crisis.
And more on topic with climate change - people were predicting climate change within 2-3 decades about 2-3 decades ago. And what happened? Nothing? We are still alive? That was not what they said back then. What they said was that climage is changing and global surface temperatures would rise. And they did. And now it is more than half a degree centigrade warmer than in the 1970ies. The alarmists of their time were right - just that we dont all sweat in winter by now does not mean that there is no problem. Climate change wont work that way. But still - even personal experience begins to show it. This year, trees around southern Germany started to go in bloom again in Oktober instead of around March/April next year. They started to get leafs and buds, just to be killed by frost. Of course its anecdotal (Probably happened before in history) but the hard science supports that the change is here.
These predictions about 5 years is also not that in 5 years the world will turn into a hothouse and deserts will be in the UK - but a certain threshold will be passed that has a meaning - that after that date, it will require massive efforts and uneconomic actions (like shutting down newly built coal plants - what company would do that voluntarily?) to save the greenland ice shield from melting.

No offense, but I think a physics teacher is hardly a source I would build my world view on :P
And even if the atmosphere as a whole cools - the part we have to be concerned about is surface temperature because this is where the ice and the biota are.

I always thought oil had at least 100 more years before running out :hmm:

That's what the word on the street is.

Word on the street is also that coal will take way the **** longer to run out, which concerns me greatly since coal has to be scraped up :(

Coincidentally, new emails of IPCC have just been released. (Read it yesterday in the BBC website, but BBC is unavailable at the moment of writing this).
Confidence is something that cannot be restored after it has been broken. Remember when a certain group of scientists alarmingly warned the world saying that the Himalayas were going dry in 30 years time? After a simple calculation, they were proven wrong and they finally admitted they did it on a political basis. The whole debate about what is really happening to the global climate could have been over a long time ago if the data and methods used by the IPCC were openly released for revision.

Of course, I was referring primarily to nuclear, but it equally applies to other energy sources. Nobody wants massive wind turbines ruining their view, making noise and killing all the local birds, nobody wants a large expanse of land cleared, flattened and covered in mirrors and PV cells, and of course, nobody wants to lose their home because they're building a dam downriver. Even smaller scale sustainable energy sources such as coppiced woodland with wood burning for energy generation and carbon capture are likely to raise objections as they vastly reduce the biodiversity of the affected area.

Only for the last decade or so, and we are significantly closer then - just see NIF or JET. In the 90s, lasers of the power level regularly used in fusion experiments today had not even been thought of.

This is conspiracy thinking. The IPCC is merely the institution that tries to bring scientific results to politics. It does that job not perfectly, but the underlying science is not depending on the IPCC for the overwhelming majority of projects. The studies about climate, climate change and human impact are incredibly numerous and funded by all kinds of agencies. There were even some funded by "climate change deniers" that came up with the same results as the others ones. Overall, the measured impacts and changes in climate do match or even exceed the estimates of scientific modelling done many years ago. One constant is that "it happens faster than we thought".
And re this article - it is from the freaking IEA - a bunch of guys who always used to tell us that there is no problem in the next few years.

Oh yeah - it is much better to have stuff in the own backyard that destroys things elsewhere, by putting out CO2 or by producing nuclear waste that has to be buried elsewhere.
I dont think NIMBY is a problem so much. Actually people next to nuclear power plants do not always mind it - in some cases they are well paid. But the impact of it ranges farther. Honestly I think those who profit from something should also have to live with the impact. If someone wants nuclear power, they should not mind living next to a nuclear plant and nuclear waste storage. If someone wants solar or wind, they should not mind those contraptions built next to where they live. There is no clean and no-impact source of energy. And if one actually experiecnces the impact of it oneself, one may be much less inclined to waste energy or to create stuff that uses even more energy. This is only too easy if one can drop the trash on someone elses land or on everyone elses land.

Interestingly it seems that despite those power levels never thought of do not make that 20 years timeframe decline. Seriously - the mean value of predictions of when fusion power will be available is always 20 years over the past 25 years or so that I can remember (and possibly even before that). Some optimists who do not understand the problems in detail claim 10 years, others say it will never work, but the general number is always 20 years ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO]DEMO is said to start running in 22 years, and it is based on the assumption that ITER will produce positive results in about 15 years).
If they make it - good for them. I will accept new situations when they arise, but I would not bet the world on it. Basically there are 2 possibilities we face if we change the way we use and produce energy now - a) DEMO will work in 20 years and fusion poower will happen on a large scale in 40-50 years, then we have invested some money in energy sources that have become obsolete by then - after a lifetime of 40-50 years and have produced cleaner energy in that time - people have learned to value energy more and consume less. Not a big loss I'd say. Or fusion does not work in that timeframe but takes 60, 80, 100 years or never works as cleanly and safe as hoped for - then at least we already made some good steps. I think nothing can be lost by acting now under the assumption that fusion will not come in time.

None taken :P

You can't claim they're squeaky clean. There is still a lack of transparency and cases of data manipulation no matter the integrity of the actual data.

About right. The problem is that for less educated people, nobody wants ANY production near them of any kind.

Yes, it's subject to upward revision, but you're overstating it, ironic in the same breath as promoting the latest upward revision of your own belief :P
Reactions can today be contained, and work is on improving the necessary conditions and energy return. I agree that it would be extremely stupid to go 'well, things SHOULD be able to be replaced in 20-30 years so we shouldn't renew infrastructure now', as a lack of renewal would price consumers out of the market entirely unless governments are forced to regulate, and perhaps even directly set energy prices. Decommissioning some now-obsolete infrastructure before the end of its lifetime is a small cost in comparison.

On the other hand, remember that advancement is exponential. It took humans millennia to go from bashing rocks together to working simple metals, or hundreds of years to go from hot air balloons to aeroplanes, then only 44 years to break the sound barrier, then merely another 22 years to humans walking on the moon, while today, the number of transistors on a chip regularly doubles by the year. The vast majority of classic scifi underestimates progress when showing or referencing events that are now in the past, and indeed, the perception that something should be doable is an extreme drive towards its actual accomplishment.

No one is "squeaky clean". No one. Not the IPCC, not the politicians and not science in general. About 5% of all scientific studies have falsified or badly interpreted data or did not follow proper scientific methods. But that is just 5% - it still means that 95% are good and at the number of studies speaking in favour for human made climate change even if 5% of those would be bogous, it still is vastly convincing.

Oh bummer - well, that is something to think about then. Maybe people do not want that much production then? As I said - I think everyone should be able to have production and energy and whatnot, if one is willing to accept the impact directly. The current practice of wanting energy, cellphones, cars and all that stuff but of course not have mining, exhaust, oil drilling and greenhouse gases in the back yard is evil. Mostly because it translates into others paying the price. If no one wants production near them, well then maybe there will have to be less production or it has to be changed in a way that makes people not dislike it. This would be a good incentive to build safe, clean, beautiful factories instead of those monsters they have now and that can only be built because the opinion of the people living on site does not count.

Indeed - and I think the replacement should be made in a way that will also make sense if the fusion solution will not work out in the end.

It is not always. It is for computer calculations. But in other areas an exponential increase in advancement is not leading to exponential improvement in technology. Solar cell efficiency is not growing exponentially. The development of cures for certain diseases like cancer is not exponentially. I think Moorles law cannot simply be translates to all technology and science.

That I dont get. Looking at SciFi from the 20th century, the ideas what would happen by the year 2000 are crazy and in many aspects totally wrong. True, there was not so much thought about communications, videophones and such was however about right - but they thought of space hotels, colonizing mars, artificially intelligent robots and therelike. I'd not say that they underestimated this.
But mind one thing - the purpose of good SciFi is not only to inspire people about future possibilities but also to warn about possible future consequences, present day problems and their projection in the future...