Climate Change Catchment Thread

[Gigabyte]

"Kotahatuhaha suggests that underwater hotels could help fund the project"

Well who could argue with that?

[brilligtove]

The video says this process will combat sea level rise. That doesn't make sense. Osmotic filters are not cheap IIRC, and desalination takes a lot of power. Where is that power coming from?

[The Latinist]

Freezing water to float on top of the ocean will not combat sea level rise any more than melting ice that is floating on water causes it.  Sea level rise occurs only due to the melting of ice that sequesters water over land.  That this designer doesn’t understand this basic principle of physics does not, in my opinion, bode well for the likelihood of his success at, well, anything.

[bachfiend]

Freezing water to float on top of the ocean will not combat sea level rise any more than melting ice that is floating on water causes it.  Sea level rise occurs only due to the melting of ice that sequesters water over land.  That this designer doesn’t understand this basic principle of physics does not, in my opinion, bode well for the likelihood of his success at, well, anything.

Well, sea level rise is also due to thermal expansion of the water as a result of global warming, not just melting of land based ice and snow.  And theoretically, if you could freeze the surface of the oceans it would result in some global cooling, as a result of increased albedo (open water absorbs around 90% of incoming solar radiation, whereas ice and snow reflect around 90% of incoming solar radiation), which would decrease sea level rise.

Whether it’s possible or practicable is another matter.  It would work in the same way as the suggestion of mounting an array of mirrors in orbit as a form of geoengineering.

[John Albert]

Last month The Intercept published an in-depth people's history of exploitation in the Amazon basin. It's a must-read for anybody interested in the subject of global climate change.

Rainforest on Fire
On the Front Lines of Bolsonaro’s War on the Amazon, Brazil’s Forest Communities Fight Against Climate Catastrophe


A view of Indigenous Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau land in the Brazilian state of Rondônia being burned on Sept. 24, 2016. Photo: Gabriel Uchida

By Alexander Zaitchik | July 6 2019, 7:00 a.m.

THE RIVER BASIN at the center of Latin America called the Amazon is roughly the size of Australia. Created at the beginning of the world by a smashing of tectonic plates, it was the cradle of inland seas and continental lakes. For the last several million years, it has been blanketed by a teeming tropical biome of 400 billion trees and vegetation so dense and heavy with water, it exhales a fifth of Earth’s oxygen, stores centuries of carbon, and deflects and consumes an unknown but significant amount of solar heat. Twenty percent of the world’s fresh water cycles through its rivers, plants, soils, and air. This moisture fuels and regulates multiple planet-scale systems, including the production of “rivers in the air” by evapotranspiration, a ceaseless churning flux in which the forest breathes its water into great hemispheric conveyer belts that carry it as far as the breadbaskets of Argentina and the American Midwest, where it is released as rain.

In the last half-century, about one-fifth of this forest, or some 300,000 square miles, has been cut and burned in Brazil, whose borders contain almost two-thirds of the Amazon basin. This is an area larger than Texas, the U.S. state that Brazil’s denuded lands most resemble, with their post-forest landscapes of silent sunbaked pasture, bean fields, and evangelical churches. This epochal deforestation — matched by harder to quantify but similar levels of forest degradation and fragmentation — has caused measurable disruptions to regional climates and rainfall. It has set loose so much stored carbon that it has negated the forest’s benefit as a carbon sink, the world’s largest after the oceans. Scientists warn that losing another fifth of Brazil’s rainforest will trigger the feedback loop known as dieback, in which the forest begins to dry out and burn in a cascading system collapse, beyond the reach of any subsequent human intervention or regret. This would release a doomsday bomb of stored carbon, disappear the cloud vapor that consumes the sun’s radiation before it can be absorbed as heat, and shrivel the rivers in the basin and in the sky.

The catastrophic loss of another fifth of Brazil’s rainforest could happen within one generation. It’s happened before. It’s happening now.


Views of deforestation’s aftereffects in the Amazon on Sept. 24, 2016. The rate of deforestation in Brazil peaked in 2004 and entered a decade of decline, but it began to creep up again in 2012, driven by the global commodity boom and an expanding agribusiness sector. Photos: Gabriel Uchida

You must read the entire article: https://theintercept.com/2019/07/06/brazil-amazon-rainforest-indigenous-conservation-agribusiness-ranching/

[Quetzalcoatl]

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1166021307441569792

[Quetzalcoatl]

https://twitter.com/dwallacewells/status/1166011901773524994

Very much worth reading the article he links to.

[Rai]

My main issue with the 20 million was that the problem is not solved by giving money to the Bozo regime. The problem is solved by removing his illegitimate junta and somehow bankrupting the ruralistas (the large agricultural oligarchy that has been destroying Brazil for decades now) that he is serving.

That 20 million could have been better used by the Landless Workers' Movement, for example.

Or the G7 could have decided on a global ban on Brazilian beef and soy exports.

[2397]

The amount of money is quite irrelevant, if it isn't readily put to use to stop the fires and stop the arsonists, or spent on drafting laws and sanctions that ensure we eliminate all demand for everything that could possibly incentivize starting fires and expanding land use.

Aside of the specific issue of destroying a huge amount of the Earth's carbon storage, water cycle, oxygen supply and biodiversity, we should strive to reduce land use as a rule in all cases. It should be integral to politics in all countries. Dismissing overpopulation because it's "just about distribution" is no more helpful than demanding growth in all industries. If we could feed the world on insects, okay, but whatever we do it's not good enough if it doesn't result in a net reduction of consumption and emissions.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Vegan food becomes UK’s fastest growing takeaway

Orders of vegan meals grew 388% between 2016 and 2018, figures show

They are still a long way from toppling chicken chow mein as the nation’s favourite takeaway, but vegan meals are now the UK’s fastest growing choice, with orders rising almost fivefold over the last two years.

Burgers made from black beans, sweet potato and quinoa and vegan “fried chicken” are among the dishes challenging doner kebabs and tikka masala when households cannot be bothered to cook or do not have the time.

With 600,000 people believed to be vegan in the UK in 2018, and an increase in “flexitarians” choosing to reduce their consumption of animal products, orders of vegan takeaways grew 388% between 2016 and 2018 while vegetarian orders rose 137%, according to research by the British Takeaway Campaign.

[2397]

And then the question is; how much did the other orders shrink by?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Can We Survive Extreme Heat?

Humans have never lived on a planet this hot, and we’re totally unprepared for what’s to come

On a scorching day in downtown Phoenix, when the temperature soars to 115°F or higher, heat becomes a lethal force. Sunshine assaults you, forcing you to seek cover. The air feels solid, a hazy, ozone-soaked curtain of heat. You feel it radiating up from the parking lot through your shoes. Metal bus stops become convection ovens. Flights may be delayed at Sky Harbor International Airport because the planes can’t get enough lift in the thin, hot air. At City Hall, where the entrance to the building is emblazoned with a giant metallic emblem of the sun, workers eat lunch in the lobby rather than trek through the heat to nearby restaurants. On the outskirts of the city, power lines sag and buzz, overloaded with electrons as the demand for air conditioning soars and the entire grid is pushed to the limit. In an Arizona heat wave, electricity is not a convenience, it is a tool for survival.

As the mercury rises, people die. The homeless cook to death on hot sidewalks. Older folks, their bodies unable to cope with the metabolic stress of extreme heat, suffer heart attacks and strokes. Hikers collapse from dehydration. As the climate warms, heat waves are growing longer, hotter, and more frequent. Since the 1960s, the average number of annual heat waves in 50 major American cities has tripled. They are also becoming more deadly. Last year, there were 181 heat-related deaths in Arizona’s Maricopa County, nearly three times the number from four years earlier. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2004 and 2017, about a quarter of all weather-related deaths were caused by excessive heat, far more than other natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

Still, the multiplying risks of extreme heat are just beginning to be understood, even in places like Phoenix, one of the hottest big cities in America. To Mikhail Chester, the director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University, the risk of a heat-driven catastrophe increases every year. “What will the Hurricane Katrina of extreme heat look like?” he wonders aloud as we sit in a cafe near the ASU campus. Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, resulting in nearly 2,000 deaths and more than $100 billion in economic damage, demonstrated just how unprepared a city can be for extreme climate events.

An excellent article from Rolling Stone.

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

Interview with leader of Extinction Rebellion:



Only a few minutes in but he's quite dire.  I like it! 

[Quetzalcoatl]

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1167433945899835393

[Quetzalcoatl]

US generates more electricity from renewables than coal for first time ever

- In April, renewables provided 23% compared to coal’s 20%
- ‘The fate of coal has been sealed. The market has spoken’

The US generated more electricity from renewable sources than coal for the first time ever in April, new federal government data has shown.

This represents the first time coal has been surpassed by energy sources that do not release pollution such as planet-heating gases.

April was a favorable month for renewables, with low energy demand and an uptick in wind generation. This means that coal may once again pull ahead of renewables again during 2019, although the long-term trends appear to be set.

...

Trump has repeatedly promised to revive the fortunes of the coal industry, to the delight of voters in mining regions in states such as West Virginia, by repealing various clean air and climate regulations.

However, at least 50 coal-fired power plants have shut since Trump entered the White House in 2017. The falling cost of renewables and gas has caused coal to be dislodged as a favored energy source for utilities.

“Trump has made a promise that will be broken, which is a tragedy for coalminers who were told they don’t need to get other jobs or get new skills,” said Webber. “They have been sent the wrong signal and now there are lay-offs.”