Climate Change Catchment Thread

[John Albert]

Interview with leader of Extinction Rebellion:

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

A few minutes in, he sounds like an assertive activist. 15 minutes in, he turns into a real asshole and refuses to answer questions about some of his more outrageous tactics.

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

Well, the questions were mostly loaded.  The interviewer is just some decorum golem there to flex Normalcy Bias and Status Quo Bias.  But the guest did a good job, I thought, of parrying most of it.

[Rai]

ISTANBUL — Explosions and towering fireballs struck the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil empire on Saturday in an apparent wave of drone attacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The blows knocked out more than half the kingdom’s oil output for days or more and threatened to drive up already high tensions between Iran and its foes in the Persian Gulf.

Link

When a bunch of North Yemeni rebels do more for climate than all the governments of the planet combined, ever.

[Quetzalcoatl]

This article from Vice News, while absolutely not being denialist, argues against climate despair. An interesting read, and I think quite a different perspective from the dominant one here.

'Climate Despair' Is Making People Give Up on Life

"Climate despair" has been a phrase used at least as far back as Eric Pooley's 2010 book, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth, but it's been in wide circulation for perhaps as little as two years. In more progressive Sweden, the term klimatångest has been popular since at least 2011 (the year a Wikipedia article with that name was created). In The Uninhabitable Earth, Wallace-Wells notes that the philosopher Wendy Lynne Lee calls this phenomenon "eco-nihilism," the Canadian politician and activist Stuart Parker prefers "climate nihilism," and others have tried out terms like "human futilitarianism."

Experts say now is precisely the wrong time to greet doom with open arms. According to Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, certainty about human extinction is not accurate, nor is it "a particularly helpful point of view." Dessler explained to me in an email that "we are still (mostly) in control of our fate."

"This is painful," Lertzman said. "It's super painful to be a human being right now at this point in history." Nonetheless, she added, "We need to translate our concern—our despair, our anger our feelings—into action."

Here's what the science has to say: Models that use the status quo—a.k.a. "not changing anything" as a baseline—show that we're headed off a cliff in terms of planetary habitability. But these models are probably overstating humanity's inaction. Entire (small) countries have no-bullshit plans to decarbonize quickly, and larger ones are making no-bullshit progress, just not nearly fast enough. Following these trends, it's possible to imagine humanity will achieve relative climate stability, even as the already-baked-in effects of our greenhouse gas emissions—some of them horrible—keep rolling out, perhaps for thousands of years. That would be better than never decarbonizing, and never achieving any semblance of stability ever again.

Dessler puts it this way: "I think it's clear that emissions will come down to zero and stabilize the climate sometime this century. But taking 50 years to do that will yield a different world than if we do it in 20 years. It's up to us to decide which of these worlds we want to live in."

Humanity clearly needs to treat climate as an urgent problem, and as Wallace-Wells notes in Uninhabitable Earth, it's important to discuss extremely pessimistic possibilities as long as they are in fact possible, because "when we dismiss the worst-case possibilities, it distorts our sense of likelier outcomes, which we then regard as extreme scenarios we needn't plan so conscientiously for." But the intellectual thrust of climate despair takes this further, insisting that only the worst-case scenarios are worth serious consideration.

If I'm not mistaken, the paper Deep Adaptation has been promoted in this very thread. But it seems not to be very academically rigorous:

But nothing compares to the intense viral bleakness of Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, by Cumbria University professor Jem Bendell, a 2018 paper that Bendell self-published after an academic journal declined to publish it. The paper argues that total societal collapse is on its way, and describes life in the midst of that collapse with vivid sentences like, "You will fear being violently killed before starving to death." The paper was so powerful that people have credited it for sending them to therapy or quitting their jobs to live closer to nature.

But Deep Adaptation has been pilloried as an all-around shoddy piece of work by academic standards. I showed Deep Adaptation to the anthropologist Joseph Tainter, the foremost scholar I could find on the topic of societal collapse, and he told me this: "I find Bendell's paper to be simplistic and superficial. Since it is also alarmist, I will also call it irresponsible. After reviewing environmental trends related to climate change, he fails to demonstrate how these lead to 'starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war.' Climate change might lead to some or all of these things, but in such a paper one needs to demonstrate how." (In response to Tainter, Bendell told me his paper didn't explain the mechanism of collapse because it "was already long, given the summary of climate science and of processes of denial," and said the paper "was speaking to my professional field of sustainability management and not to other fields, such as those who study the history of societal collapses.")

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

Oh boy

Article: Earth warming more quickly than thought, new climate models show
From: Phys.org
Date: 2019 SEP 17

[...] according to new climate models set to replace those used in current UN projections, scientists said Tuesday.

By 2100, average temperatures could rise 7.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels if carbon emissions continue unabated, separate models from two leading research centres in France showed.

That is up to two degrees higher than the equivalent scenario in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's (IPCC) 2014 benchmark 5th Assessment Report.

...

A new generation of 30-odd climate models known collectively as CMIP6—including the two unveiled Tuesday—will underpin the IPCC's next major report in 2021.

...

"We have better models now," said Boucher. "They have better resolution, and they represent current climate trends more accurately."

'Tipping points'

A core finding of the new models is that increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will warm Earth's surface more—and more easily—than earlier calculations had suggested.

If confirmed, this higher "equilibrium climate sensitivity", or ECS, means humanity's carbon budget—our total emissions allowance—is likely to shrink.

...

[CarbShark]

Trump plans to revoke key California environmental power after getting spurned over auto deal - Los Angeles Times

Hanging in the balance is whether California will continue to serve as a laboratory for tough new car pollution rules and whether its regulations requiring automakers to sell more zero-emission vehicles and plug-in hybrids will survive. The state’s goal is to have more than 1 million of these cars on the road by 2025.

It's as if the captain of the Titanic sped up and turned toward the iceberg when it was spotted. It's as if Casey Jones knew the 102 was on the wrong track and stoked his fire. It's as if the people of New Orleans decided to wait out Katrina in their basements. It's as if the Captain of the Edmond Fitzgerald chose to sail into that storm. It's as if Puerto Ricans saw the Hurricane coming and decided to camp out on the beach.

I've run out of metaphors and none of those are as stupid as what this moron is doing.

[2397]

2025 seems like a good deadline for stopping the production of pure fossil fuel cars entirely. We don't need more zero-emission cars, we need fewer emission cars. This is an indirect measure that might help some, but they can and should go much further. It's obvious that the compromises are never enough for the corporates, so don't offer any.

[arthwollipot]

Greta has delivered a scolding.

Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’

The Swedish environmentalist was one of several who spoke at a Senate climate crisis task force

At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.

“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.

“If you want advice for what you should do, invite scientists, ask scientists for their expertise. We don’t want to be heard. We want the science to be heard.”

In remarks meant for Congress as a whole, she said: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.”

[arthwollipot]

Meanwhile, good news as a big proposed coalmine is blocked due to environmental concerns, including concerns over global warming:

Massive Bylong valley coalmine in NSW blocked on environmental grounds

Independent planning commission refuses South Korean company Kepco’s $290m proposal

The NSW Independent Planning Commission has rejected the development of a new coal mine near Mudgee because of significant concerns about environmental impacts, including on climate change, and the costs it would bring to future generations.

The commission said on Wednesday it had refused development approval for Kepco’s proposal for an open cut and underground coal mine in the Bylong Valley that would extract up to 120 million tonnes of coal over 25 years for export.

In a statement of reasons that referenced February’s historic ruling on the Rocky Hill coal mine, the commission said the developer had not done enough to minimise greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project.

It said the long-term environmental effects on groundwater, agriculture and heritage were also unacceptable.

In a step welcomed by environment groups, the commission said the distribution of costs and benefits of the mine was “temporally inequitable” because younger generations would carry the environmental, agricultural and heritage costs, while the economic benefits would flow to current generations.

For this reason, the commission said the mine was “not in the public interest”.

“In a week when school children are preparing to strike from school for their future, we warmly welcome the Independent Planning Commission’s recognition that this coal mine would be contrary to the principle of intergenerational equity,” George Woods, from the Lock the Gate Alliance, said.

“It was the wrong place for a coal mine, and this is the wrong time for NSW to be opening up new areas for coal exploitation as the world shifts away from coal in a bid to halt global warming”.

[Rai]

https://twitter.com/matthias_huss/status/1174229651390107648

[werecow]

ISTANBUL — Explosions and towering fireballs struck the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil empire on Saturday in an apparent wave of drone attacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The blows knocked out more than half the kingdom’s oil output for days or more and threatened to drive up already high tensions between Iran and its foes in the Persian Gulf.

Link

When a bunch of North Yemeni rebels do more for climate than all the governments of the planet combined, ever.

I'm not sure setting the oil on fire at the source is doing the climate any favors.

[Rai]

ISTANBUL — Explosions and towering fireballs struck the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil empire on Saturday in an apparent wave of drone attacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The blows knocked out more than half the kingdom’s oil output for days or more and threatened to drive up already high tensions between Iran and its foes in the Persian Gulf.

Link

When a bunch of North Yemeni rebels do more for climate than all the governments of the planet combined, ever.

I'm not sure setting the oil on fire at the source is doing the climate any favors.

The fires were put out rather quickly.

However the facility was damaged so severely that the facility, to my knowledge, is still not fully operational. At the beginning of the outage, Saudi oil production was cut back by 5.7 million barrels per day, which is higher than the total disruption caused by the Iranian Revolution and it is the greatest reduction of oil production in history, cutting back global production by 5%.

The Houthis are currently the greatest climate heroes.

[moj]

In DC today there where a bunch of protest about climate that blocked off busy intersections all over town making traffic worse. I get that they are trying to raise awareness but this seems like the wrong way to go about it. I don't see how making an already bad traffic situation worse is going to grow the number of people actively doing something help the environment? By contrast I thought Jonathan Safran Foer has been really effective on the morning shows talking about his new book "we are the weather". He talks about little things people can do everyday that will collectively push us in the right direct. Like eating less meat, driving and flying less. Its empowering to give real examples of things people can do to help instead of just thinking its to big deal with individuality. Its such a large issue that many tactics will be needed. The shutting down traffic protest seem more like admitting that any attention is good and disagree with that philosophy. Do traffic protest help?

[Rai]

In DC today there where a bunch of protest about climate that blocked off busy intersections all over town making traffic worse. I get that they are trying to raise awareness but this seems like the wrong way to go about it. I don't see how making an already bad traffic situation worse is going to grow the number of people actively doing something help the environment? By contrast I thought Jonathan Safran Foer has been really effective on the morning shows talking about his new book "we are the weather". He talks about little things people can do everyday that will collectively push us in the right direct. Like eating less meat, driving and flying less. Its empowering to give real examples of things people can do to help instead of just thinking its to big deal with individuality. Its such a large issue that many tactics will be needed. The shutting down traffic protest seem more like admitting that any attention is good and disagree with that philosophy. Do traffic protest help?

Direct action is not about making friends. If you make life inconvenient enough for long enough, policies will begin to shift.

Small individual acts are important but in the grand scheme of things they are counterproductive, because they allow for corporations and governments to keep working towards the climate apocalypse while pushing the responsibility to the individuals who cannot even hope to budge the numbers. We should not fragment the blame and take on too much responsibility just so that the rich bastards that are murdering the planet for short-term personal gain can lay back and laugh at all the plebs thinking that skipping a salami pizza or a holiday could matter.