A lot of comments deriding this article as alarmist. Excuse me if I'm incorrect in saying so, but even the data seems to tell me that alarmism is where we are at:
This articles data.
Incredible floods in Pakistan.
Heat domes over the PNW.
Fires in Australia, Canada, California.
And now a warming event in the North Atlantic unlike any other.
All of that and this is likely to be one of the coolest summers for the remainder of our lives. Its only getting warmer from here (barring geoengineering).
What about this is not alarming? As disheartening as it is, this is what is needed for action at this point.
> There is another possible input to this heating worthy of note. Dust from the Sahara typically blows west this time of year, blocking incoming radiation while trapping existing heat. So far this year the dust has not come. The lack of dust is notable and could also be a direct cause of some of the North Atlantic heating.
This caught my eye as a potentially much worse catastrophe in the short term than the extreme temperatures. That Saharan dust feeds several ecosystems like the Mediterranean and the Amazon with crucial micronutrients like iron and phosphorus. If that transfer stops for very long, they could start to collapse
This guy's blog is subtitled "Eliot Jacobson's Collapse of Everything Blog".
Is this his schtick? Does he just say the world is ending all the time, or is what he's saying true?
As this post hints at in the discussion of sulfur emissions at sea, all it takes to significantly slow global warming is one country or sufficiently motivated non-state actor deciding to go all-in on geoengineering (like seeding the stratosphere with sulfur dioxides).
Compare this to the collective action problem of everyone, including rapidly industrializing poorer countries, spending trillions to decarbonize their economy and it's pretty clear which outcome is more likely. The only question is which country (or countries) will be first to attempt it, and what will trigger them to act.
In this article is the first time I've seen a graph with units "Hiroshimas per Seconds". https://climatecasino.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Ocean_H...
Warm water fish death happening now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/us/dead-fish-texas-climat...
There's this paradox where, on the one hand humanity is convinced it can overcome any problem nature throws at us, and can completely subjugate nature; and on the other hand, human beings are tragically grossly understimating the impact of their actions on their environment.
This is really what stands out to me when people on HN suggest that global warming is totally solvable with just enough technological innovation. The sad truth, and what this article is really driving home, is that while we're waiting for a deus ex machina, we continue to trash our planet, as if we can just move to Mars or something when earth is done.
I'm quite skeptical about the whole "collapse of industrial civilisation" schtick, but I am worried, most of all for my children and their generation.
> The first WTF is in the Antarctic, where sea-ice extent is setting record lows daily, now fully over 2 million kilometers below the 1991-2020 mean. This is not some one-off event. A decline like this has long been predicted. The impact is that there is a lot more open ocean than normal for this time of year. Open ocean means the ability to absorb incoming solar radiation, and that means further heating in a well-known feedback loop.
We already knew that it would get this bad, but then some other curveball came and made it worse.
In other words just another Monday in the 2020s.
I fear that this is the year "wet-bulb temperature" becomes a term regular households across the world become deeply familiar with. It may be as ubiquitous as the term "social distancing" became.
I've always naively thought that climate disaster was still 10-20 years out, but it seems like it's going to begin in earnest now and instead be completely catastrophic after these next 10 years.
What can I as an individual do? Move to Saskatchewan or Alaska? I already know from a friend in Alaska that the melting permafrost is causing many native villages to sink and collapse, and it's only gotten worse in the past few years. Check out this article on Newtok, AK by National Geographic from 2019: http://archive.today/1enHh
Interesting that removing sulphur emissions may have resulted in more solar radiation being absorbed by the oceans. Wonder if cargo ships could purposely emit some benign material that would reflect away sunlight. Although I suspect there could be unintended consequences.
"The end of global industrial civilization is where we are headed right now, not at some future dystopian moment. I wish I had a hopeful word to end with. But I don’t."
That's a pretty terrifying ending. Many of these trends (reducing sea ice causing increased ocean warming, burning of forests and permafrost) may be irreversible once things pass a certain point. At very least we may need to engage in some sort of large-scale solar radiation management project to stop them, and worryingly we may need to start that project very soon before it's too late.
How is this on the front page? It's as poorly rooted in science as anti-global warming articles.
This level of alarmism is dangerous because thoughts of others imprison us if we’re not thinking for ourselves... why would a young person care about the climate if it's already too late.
This article and discussions here in the comments motivated me to send off 3 emails to relevant ministers of my provincial government.
When I had my first kid, the environment and what our Earth would look like when she was my age really got to me. I realized that small, individual actions aren't going to cut it (ex turning off a light). It's not to say I don't do those things, but I had to do more, things that may actually move the needle.
I pay for Bullfrog power to my house (https://bullfrogpower.com/) and I now email my local representatives to make sure they know their constituents care about this. What will you do today?
So given this context and assuming it is accurate, where do you think would be the most viable areas to live? If I were to consider for the US, I'd say inland northern states like Wisconsin and Michigan thanks to the Great Lakes...
Can somebody explain this part?
> By cleaning up shipping fuels, massive regions of the world’s oceans that were protected from heating by shipping sulfate aerosols are now experiencing rapid warming. This includes the main shipping routes between Asia and the Western US as well as the major routes from the Easter US to Europe and the Middle East. And that’s where the warming is happening. This rapid heating is known as “termination shock,” and it appears to be what’s happening right now.
Haha! It’s relieving to finally see the optimistic technologists of HN finally getting a taste of their own medicine. This is what your much-praised technology did to the world, folks, and no, this was inevitable due to the very nature of it. If you fear what lies ahead, know that it’s not a fear in vain! Collapse is finally getting mainstream.
What's up with the straight line across the equatorial Pacific?
https://climatecasino.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/GLOBAL_...
> These next two years are a pre-amble to what it will mean for the world to pass the Paris 1.5°C barrier. The end of global industrial civilization is where we are headed right now, not at some future dystopian moment. I wish I had a hopeful word to end with. But I don’t.
This isn't going to age well.
I shared it with my dad. He's basically a socialist boomer.
His response? "I don't read articles starting with 'WTF'".
I wish people were in general more intentional in writing for a broad audience.
> while the world attempts to recover from a pandemic that is still ongoing but ignored by global media.
I wonder what parts of world are still going through the pandemic. Without citations, some of the facts in article come up as alarmists.
Is there anywhere on earth I can move to where it’ll take longer to get terrible?
Not doubting any of it, but what do we know about the effects of:
1) The war in Ukraine - changes in air travel routes will affect cloud cover.
2) Wild fires in Canada - this is really huge at the moment.
3) That giant blob growing in the Atlantic Ocean.
Post your companies that are withdrawing because of climate change here:
"The end of global industrial civilization is where we are headed right now, not at some future dystopian moment. I wish I had a hopeful word to end with. But I don’t."
Sunshade:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade
I'm not too concerned with climate change destroying us all within a 100 years.
I'm excited to see the innovations and discoveries to be made while we develop technology to mitigate disaster.
Edit:
Furthermore I am excited to see the ROI I will receive from investing in mitigation technology.
I read the whole article. I looked at all the graphs and charts. I still don't understand the near term significance, even with the detailed explanations.
Assuming I'm exactly average, that means 50% of the population won't understand it either. Of that 50%, how many will actually care? Nothing will happen until it is too late.
His final words weren't encouraging and I can't say I feel any better either.
if someone can explain how global temps are measured and weighted i’ll give you a cookie
whoever is using the ocean as a giant heat sink needs to stop (joke)
Let’s see the last 200-400 years of climate data. Curious the fluctuations 1991-2020 has decent variance, there’s also 30 year solar cycles. We only see one cycle in this data, we need more data tip make conclusions
Garbage, that the highbrow Reddit users here, adore
I was skeptical, but when the author introduced "Hiroshimas per second" as a scale to measure temperature I understood that this was a truly scientific article.
Accelerating global warming through means meant to slow down environmental degradation would be peak human behavior.
The record fire season in 2020 is why I decided to hedge my bets on living a long life and smoke 1 cigarette per day.
Here goes the planet
> "pandemic that is still ongoing but mostly ignored by global media"
That is good right? Watch the PART 2: https://plandemicseries.com/ (Event 201)
Putin captured media headlines. Speaking of Putin, Russia is probably the only country that benefits from melting Arctic - opening Northwest Passage - figured it out after debating with a bunch of climate change deniers on Twitter.
(I enjoy debating, I had fun doing it, at some point they were quitting, if they were like me they would continue debating)
In all seriousness, I'm working on Metacrisis - a new term reaching mainstream consciousness:
— Runaway climate change + food system + global hunger
— Economic inequality + compound interest + exponential growth on finite planet
— Nuclear proliferation + pandemics + lost trust in media + lost trust in government
— Regulation of AI + polarisation and engagement metrics + mental health
Problem well defined is problem half solved
tipping point - some line crossed
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Reading the article I see some very short timeframes being used (e.g. 1991-2020, 1979-2000) as statistically relevant. Might be enough when preaching to the choir, but irrelevant to the skeptics.
He tries a little too hard to make gradual global changes more tangible (what does 930 Hiroshimas even mean?), but in general he does a good job of stating the obvious for us lunkheads. The developed world is nearly at civil war in large part about the tiny number of refugees we have today---we will be completely unable to deal with climate refugees in the tens or hundreds of millions, and it won't be wet bulb temps that finish our society off, it will be us doing it to each other.
I will start this post saying i'm not a techno-solutionist guy, nor a denier. My last post on the subect was basically:
* This is why Co2 do not have any effect until it reaches the high troposphere. That takes 20 years. The average climate we have right now is caused by emissions from 2003. *
However: we never had this meteorology scenario before. We cannot predict what will happen this summer. Yes, if you're a public servant or work with them or whatever, prepare for the worst please. But ultimately, we cannot know. we started an experiment that will bring us fast changes, lead us to discover retroaction loops and a lot of different things. Some will help, some wont, we can't know. If it wasn't this dangerous and violent, the uncertainty would be fascinating (it still is, somehow).
Yet another alarmist article. These predictions are so easy to make and nobody cares if you are wrong. From the past (you can google more yourself):
https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/18/world/scientists-say-eart... https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-t...
He forgot the 4th event - Social Contagion Resulting in Climate Sensationalism.
Can we please have a realistic discussion on climate change? I'm so sick of these "scientists" acting like we're in "Day After Tomorrow" and every normal weather event is suddenly a precursor to the Armageddon that'll take us all out in the next decade or less. You scientifically cannot look at individual weather events and determine they're climate change, that's pseudoscience.
People like this author only manage to turn rational individuals into deniers due to their over the top claims that never come true.
> The IPCC suggests that current sulfur aerosol levels are contributing in the neighborhood of 0.5° C to total global cooling, offsetting warming that would otherwise rapidly occur.
> By cleaning up shipping fuels, massive regions of the world’s oceans that were protected from heating by shipping sulfate aerosols are now experiencing rapid warming. This includes the main shipping routes between Asia and the Western US as well as the major routes from the Easter US to Europe and the Middle East. And that’s where the warming is happening. This rapid heating is known as “termination shock,” and it appears to be what’s happening right now.
It's frustrating that we've argued a lot about the hazards of intentional geoengineering responses without reaching a consensus that we should do it, and meanwhile the shipping industry was cavalierly doing it along-side their other emissions. Yes, we need to rapidly cut emissions. Yes, we need to in parallel invest in carbon capture. But if every fraction of a degree matters, shouldn't we also be at least continuing if not scaling up these these albedo-increasing changes?
(edited for grammar)