The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

an excellent, critical review of Shellenberger's latest climate book,

Thanks for that.  I wasn't aware of Shellenberger before I posted that link - and your link to the criticism of his work is interesting.  I haven't read Shellenberger's book, so I don't know how the article and the book read in context with each other - but the article alone reads as a caution against some of the overreaching comments made by some journalists and politicians.  It's that part I was relating to. 

I certainly don't share a cornucopian view (per the book critique) "that environmental problems can be eliminated if we’d just pursue aggressive economic growth, simple technological advances, and increased tapping of abundant natural resources."  Also, if that whale section is in the book - yeah, that's a bit out there.  (Speaking of whales: Whales in Space | Science History Institute)

Still - I respect people who write in this space not from a denialist or activist standpoint, but from a rationalist one.   When you get stuck reading only the populist 'sky is falling' or 'there is no sky' stuff from the ends of the spectrum, things get weird.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

https://www-rbc-ru.translate.goog/business/18/11/2021/6194d68d9a79473d8700aae3?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

[DDE]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

https://www-rbc-ru.translate.goog/business/18/11/2021/6194d68d9a79473d8700aae3?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

Creative... forestry? 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Creative... forestry? 

Precision of the data, which the mentioned ecological models are based on.

Edited November 18, 2021 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Russia <waves hand> "These are not the carbon you are looking for" 

[kerbiloid]

19 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Russia <waves hand> "These are not the carbon you are looking for" 

So, the ecologolical models count only official data on "domesticated" forests?  And the charts are brilliantly smooth? Well, well...

[magnemoe]

On 11/16/2021 at 10:33 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/08/1027908/carbon-removal-hype-is-a-dangerous-distraction-climate-change/amp/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong/?sh=4340064412d6

These are both pretty good pieces. 

The gist is that some of the enthusiasm by some writers, investors and activists are hurting efforts of actual scientists and experts to communicate the changes that need to be made, as much as industry leaders who want to offset / capture as opposed to being required to reduce their emissions in the first place. 

 

CO2 capture can make sense if you have an natural gas plant in the drilling area and you can use the captured co2 together with the polluted water you get up as back pressure gas to extract more gas and oil. Now using technology to capture CO2 out of the air is fantasy. You use more energy than the coal plant produced creating that CO2. 
Now creating forests should work, probably also ocean fertilization, and no these will be done in deep sea areas with low plankton growth who is the opposite of fjords with algae blooms who tend to have to much fertilization and low circulation. 

And loved the second article. As in its an major problem, fix it down the line. 
Just to prevent people from sleeping: is this 1914 again, if you can eliminate other players its more for you. 
I think China is scared seeing the idiotic trends the west had the last century, two world wars and the cold war, well they have an new extreme one, better print ICBM's.

How else would anybody with an military view as I guess most of the Chinese officials have grasp the idiocy. 
 

 

On 11/17/2021 at 2:51 PM, Rakaydos said:

Ocean acidification

And back pressure, outboard engines pipe the exhaust underwater to reduce noise, ships does not. Ships has huge funnels who would not be practical on small boats and their engines is 20 meters away. 

[DDE]

18 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

And back pressure, outboard engines pipe the exhaust underwater to reduce noise, ships does not. Ships has huge funnels who would not be practical on small boats and their engines is 20 meters away. 

Some ships still dump their exhaust into the water (e.g. the Karakurt missile boats), and there is a type of counter-sonar system that involves coating the hull in a flow of air bubbles 

[kerbiloid]

https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/russia/803975?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/india/air-pollution-delhi-residents-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

Images like this helped LA /California residents demand change.  

But it took decades.  Smog so bad people thought it was an attack during WWII.  During the 50s and 60s the science developed, linking car exhaust to smog, along with the obvious brown exhaust from industry.  Despite activism, first Clean Air Act came in '70.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketplace.org/2014/07/14/la-smog-battle-against-air-pollution/amp

 

[wumpus]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/india/air-pollution-delhi-residents-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

Images like this helped LA /California residents demand change.  

But it took decades.  Smog so bad people thought it was an attack during WWII.  During the 50s and 60s the science developed, linking car exhaust to smog, along with the obvious brown exhaust from industry.  Despite activism, first Clean Air Act came in '70.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketplace.org/2014/07/14/la-smog-battle-against-air-pollution/amp

 

The Great Smog of London was the shock that made the English try to clean up London air.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London (no idea of the accuracy of this)

I'm not sure if there was any specific effort to clean up Pittsburgh during the days of "Hell with the lid off" until the great dying of the US steel sector in the 1970s (there was some effort during the end of it, thanks to the Clean Air Act.  The coincidence between real competition and the Clean Air Act and the disporia of people from the Pittsburgh (and surrounding "steel towns") likely seeded the country with plenty of people against any attempt to curtail air pollution.  There's a good chance many of them wound up in southern California (a place that seems to be high in places Americans think of when considering just picking up and moving *somewhere else*).

I was in California in the mid 1990s.  I took off from San Francisco when the thick fog (not at the airport, but right at the end of the runway) lifted.  Landed in LA in another batch of fog.  Later that week, I realized that the fog was gone and that this was merely typical pollution levels for November.  I'll never forget the orange air from the "red at night" effect.  You could look through the air and it was orange.  Was also there around 1984, but don't remember anything specific about how bad the smog was (it was probably peaking then).

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

1984

LA in 1984 was replete with 'Smog Days'.  Was so bad back then Battlestar Galactica joked that the 'alien' humans wondered if it was a force field or protection dome.   <wink>

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/24/us/arctic-ocean-early-warming-climate/index.html

Atlantification of the Arctic started decades earlier than thought... Putting climate models at risk. 

"it's not clear how much of a role, if any, human-caused climate change played in the early Arctic warming, and more research is needed" 

"The study notes that changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — a system of currents that moderates temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere — could have played a role in the Arctic warming. Notably, the AMOC weakened after a period of cooling ended in the mid-1800s in the North Atlantic region, which researchers suggest could have led to rapid Atlantification along the east Fram Strait"

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

From the paper cited by the above article:

'a survey of the recent literature shows that our knowledge primarily hinges on subpolar Atlantic records, while, due to the paucity of Arctic records, polar dynamics still remain elusive'

'Controversy still remains on the relative impact of natural versus anthropogenic forcing on the North Atlantic system' 

'Our results combined with existing reconstructions demonstrate a rapid and early Atlantification of the eastern Fram Strait at the onset of the 20th century' 

'These findings highlight a potentially important model-data discrepancy that begs for improved historical and preindustrial simulations with better constraints on the freshwater budget of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. Resolving these modeling issues will be crucial to improve the accuracy of projected Atlantification in response to future Arctic warming.'

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj2946

 

[kerbiloid]

https://www-rbc-ru.translate.goog/business/28/11/2021/61a0c1549a794707de181487?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

Hydrogen direct.

Spoiler

Maybe based on

https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Гипотеза_изначально_гидридной_Земли?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

and

https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Гипотеза_расширяющейся_Земли?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

Edited November 28, 2021 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

https://www-rbc-ru.translate.goog/business/28/11/2021/61a0c1549a794707de181487?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

Hydrogen direct.

  Hide contents

Maybe based on

https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Гипотеза_изначально_гидридной_Земли?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

and

https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Гипотеза_расширяющейся_Земли?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=nui

The article only touches the tip of the excrements iceberg that these guy's views are. We're talking about a fan of Fomenko's New Chronology, and the Kremlin disowned him and quietly shuffled him into an elephants' graveyard in 2019 after he claimed Vladimir Zelensky wants to turn the Donbass into Lebensraum for his co-ethnics. Let him whither away; having to teach on MSU's Faculty of State Governance is punishment enough.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Well... speaking of Russia: How Norilsk, in the Russian Arctic, became one of the most polluted places on Earth (nbcnews.com)

 

... 'Used to be a nice place to fish"

 

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Interesting to read that Russia follows a similar path as the US - Gov't agency suing the business.

 

Does that usually have an effect?  I figured RU was Regulation heavy, not 'lawsuit' like US.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Side note: one of the things I really find fascinating is the similarity between the 'native' peoples of Eastern Russia and the First Peoples of the Americas - at least in terms of costumes and general look

 

[DDE]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Interesting to read that Russia follows a similar path as the US - Gov't agency suing the business.

Does that usually have an effect?  I figured RU was Regulation heavy, not 'lawsuit' like US.

Arbitrage got involved in the assessment of claims. The article is a bit disjointed in recounting  all of the liabilities involved, including a bunch of criminal prosecutions. From an International Law elective I once took I recall that, unlike French law, Russian law doesn't have direct criminak liability for corporates - whereas the French even have "capital punishment" for companies.

Also on the subject of the article, the Russian Criminal Code already has "ecocide" under Article 358. Turns out it's a big word that no-one quite knows how to use in applied law.

Also, here's some fun further reading: https://www.nornickel.com/sustainability/esg-highlights/assessment/

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/great-pacific-garbage-patch-scientists-find-surprise-coastal-life-rcna7292

 

The earth is resilient 

Life is tenacious 

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/great-pacific-garbage-patch-scientists-find-surprise-coastal-life-rcna7292

 

The earth is resilient 

Life is tenacious 

--- also - - - 

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/southern-ocean-human-carbon-dioxide-emissions-sink-climate

Southern Ocean still a CO2 sink... Acidification concern as @SunlitZelkova points out makes this a 'mixed news' rather than a 'Good News, Everyone!' thing. 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoidberg 

 

[SunlitZelkova]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The earth is resilient 

Life is tenacious

I have a couple of issues with the comments of this researcher, and to a certain extent, with the way this study concluded itself, at least with the information I have on it via this article.

The comment about evolution in these new communities feels a tad silly, although I may be mistaken about the context he is making it within. "Real" evolution ("actual" changes in the species, and not just things like the fact that humans are, on average, taller now than a few centuries before) takes millions of years. And the plastic these communities rely on will decompose (well, not really decompose, but be reduced to such a state in which these creatures can no longer live on them) within 500 years. For evolution to actually occur we would have to keep dumping plastic into the ocean in perpetuity, assuming humanity/or at least humans capable of producing plastic are still even around in 500 years (humans probably will be, not so sure personally about the latter).

Second, it does not appear that the researchers actually examined the health of the organisms- just whether they were there or not. Humans "live" in places like Cubatão, Brazil (I suggest looking it up if you have not heard of it already), but that doesn't mean it is a good or healthy (or sustainable) thing. Living entirely on plastic can not be good for plants, nor the animals. Even if these communities were to survive for the entire length of the existence of their "base" (the plastic), whether they would suffer reproductive or other issues that threaten the entire population of a species prior to the base's disintegration could be a potential threat to their existence.

On a separate note, while I think "life" as a whole can be said to be tenacious, I don't think this is an example of that, because species aren't that tenacious. If you look at history, over hundreds of millions of years, there are impressive examples of evolution and survival of species throughout the ages. That's probably what most people think of when they say things like "life is tenacious", and then they put it into the context of the current crisis on Earth. But it doesn't really work to cram that into the space of two or three centuries. So while even if a worst case outcome of ocean acidification and climate change were to occur, "life" (just life, even if that is limited to simple organisms) could indeed survive, the survival of extant species (including humans) is much more questionable and unlikely.

-------------

By the way, thanks for sharing these articles in general. It's cool that a thread about Moon wobble has spawned so many different interesting discussions, and turned into a running news thread of sorts.

[DDE]

20 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If you look at history, over hundreds of millions of years, there are impressive examples of evolution and survival of species throughout the ages. That's probably what most people think of when they say things like "life is tenacious", and then they put it into the context of the current crisis on Earth.

I believe there is a fancy term for a bias towards only remembering cases where a thing has happened, and doscounting those where it didn't.

History is written by "tenacious" species.

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

History is written by "tenacious" species.

A thing to note is that "tenacious-ness", like all things, is relative and unstable.

During the Great American Interchange, ground sloths were tenacious in the face of competition with North American herbivores and when coming into contact with North American predators like sabre toothed cats. Yet as the Pleistocene came to a close they could not survive the changing climate and human predation. So ground sloths are both tenacious and not tenacious.

Likewise, while current extant fauna and flora have survived a lot in the past, it doesn't mean they will now. The same goes for humans.