The Global Warming thread.

[Vrede too]

So why do we have water and the rest of Southern California doesn't?
https://www.carlsbaddesal.com/

Spoiler:

Desalination plant - 50 million gallons per day

It's long been an obvious solution just waiting on economic viability. I wonder what the carbon footprint is, though.


Gutless Congress, as usual:

Spending bill leaves out most of the climate change funding Biden sought
After the Senate passed the $1.7 billion omnibus spending bill Thursday, climate change activists bemoaned a key promise of President Biden’s that won’t be met: $11.4 billion in climate aid per year to developing countries.

... In a September 2021 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Biden pledged to increase U.S. assistance to low-income nations for combating climate change through building their clean energy economies and adapting to the dangerous effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, to $11.4 billion....

“Congress just bankrolled an $857 billion defense bill but failed to provide a single penny to meet our commitments to the Green Climate Fund — a step that would truly help us defend our country and our planet from chaos and instability,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said on Twitter.

As Bloomberg News observed, “with Republicans taking control of the House in January, the fiscal 2023 budget was seen as the last best chance for Biden to fulfill his commitment.”

“This will damage the ability of the U.S. to spur greater climate action outside its borders and continue to put the most vulnerable on the front lines of climate damage,” Jake Schmidt, NRDC’s senior strategic director for international climate policy, told Bloomberg....

The U.S. is one of the lowest contributors to climate finance relative to the size of its economy and its historic greenhouse gas emissions, both of which are the largest in the world. The Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think tank, calculated that, based on “gross national income, cumulative carbon dioxide emissions and population,” the United States’ fair share of financing for the developing world would be $43.4 billion annually. But the U.S. contributes less than Spain, which has an economy 16 times smaller than that of the U.S.

... Although no one in Congress issued any statements explaining or defending the decision to limit climate finance specifically, one might assume that they fear larger expenditures would be unpopular, as past polling has shown that a strong plurality of Americans think economic aid to other nations should be cut.

But polling on climate finance itself suggests that it may be more popular than one might assume. Between Dec. 1 and Dec. 5, Yahoo News and YouGov conducted a poll of 1,635 U.S. adults in which it asked a series of questions about whether the U.S. should fund climate change mitigation, adaptation and recovery in developing countries.

When asked whether “the U.S. should help poor countries develop clean energy and also adapt to and recover from effects of climate change like stronger hurricanes, sea level rise, drought and famine,” 49% said yes, 33% said no, and 18% said they were unsure. Support was strongest among Democrats, at 68%, with 47% of independents and 29% of Republicans agreeing....

Shame that Congress does not represent the nation.

[O Really]

So why do we have water and the rest of Southern California doesn't?
https://www.carlsbaddesal.com/

Spoiler:

Desalination plant - 50 million gallons per day

It's long been an obvious solution just waiting on economic viability. I wonder what the carbon footprint is, though.

Dunno, but probably smaller than that left by thousands of square miles of fallow waterless former agriculture fields or dry reservoirs.

[Vrede too]

So why do we have water and the rest of Southern California doesn't?
https://www.carlsbaddesal.com/

Spoiler:

Desalination plant - 50 million gallons per day

It's long been an obvious solution just waiting on economic viability. I wonder what the carbon footprint is, though.

Dunno, but probably smaller than that left by thousands of square miles of fallow waterless former agriculture fields or dry reservoirs.

I'm sure those speak to economic viability, but non-agriculture and reduced human activity due to dry reservoirs would have to shrink the carbon footprint, right?

I mostly meant that desalination is energy intensive, I think, thus the relatively high cost, I think. The video says 1/2 cent/per gallon, but Idk what the cost of natural fresh water is. I'd guess that utilizing solar or wind for the power needed would keep the carbon footprint lowish.

[Vrede too]

Only partially an AGW topic, but fits better here than elsewhere:

U.N.: Depletion of ozone layer will be fixed in 40 years

Incredible what we can accomplish when we listen to and heed the scientists. I'll never forget this exchange with rstrong:
viewtopic.php?p=78366#p78366

Too bad, rstrong, he is just more qualified than you.

Well, sure. I'd probably spend more time cataloging the ways Earth could be destroyed then solving those problems.

An interesting related article just recently:

In Homo sapiens 200,000-year history, we know about several close shaves with extinction. One came 70,000 years back when the numbers of fertile Homo sapiens dropped to just 10,000. The cause may have been linked to the Toba supervolcanic eruption around this time (74,000 years) — the biggest eruption in 2.5 million years — which would have led to a volcanic winter enveloping the planet, possibly for centuries. Indeed, eruptions continued 15-20,000 years after the first blast according to recent research. However, the supereruption theory for H. sapiens population crash is disputed.

The second close shave is a little more recent and linked to our love of cold beer. In 1928, scientists created "safe" new chemicals for refrigerators and air conditioners — CFCs. But the first C in CFCs is an angry little element, chlorine. Apparently unbeknownst to the scientists and their corporate overlords, these chemicals had a vociferous appetite for ozone in the upper atmosphere. The ozone layer has protected life on Earth for billions of years. Without it, the sun's radiation would sterilise the surface. Even weakening this shield would lead to crop damage making our survival questionable even if we shovelled on the sun cream. When the ozone hole was discovered in the 1980s nations agreed to outlaw CFCs and disaster was averted.

If we had not noticed the growing hole, or decided to sit on the problem, humans would have run into a catastrophe more serious than warm beer by the end of this century. Worse, if chlorine had been swapped out for its angrier, less stable sister, bromine — an entirely logical choice that would have kept beer just as cool — then H sapiens demise may have been sooner than expected. Bromine's ozone killing properties make it almost one hundred times more dangerous than chlorine. By the 1970s there could have been a catastrophic ozone hole everywhere all year round according to Paul Crutzen who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on ozone.

So we were lucky we didn't go with bromine. And even then we were lucky we noticed AND acted, lucky the British and US Antarctic research stations existed and that the US Congress didn't turn anti-science a few decades earlier.

I know that CFCs are very bad, never thought of them as possibly extinction level bad. Thanks . . . I think....

[Vrede too]

...

I've mostly envisioned FL and East Coast impacts, even though I lived in SF and Oakland. How high are you above sea level?

San Francisco holds its breath to find out how much it will cost to protect its waterfront from sea level rise

On a brisk February morning, a portable orange traffic sign set up near the intersection of Mission Street and Embarcadero shuddered in the wind, blinking a warning to passing drivers: “Caution: King tides.”

Waves from San Francisco Bay now regularly breach the pier and spill into the streets at this spot during tidal surges and helped convince city officials that sea level rise caused by climate change is no longer a problem that can be ignored.

... San Francisco could see as much as 7 feet of sea level rise by 2100.



...


A king tide washes up along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 2022.

... the U.S. Geological Survey has released its own estimate of what an ice-free world would mean, concluding that “global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet.”

... Though today’s 8 to 9 inches of sea level rise may not seem headline-worthy, almost half of the amount (3.8 inches) has occurred since 1990, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The pace of that rise, scientists predict, is poised to increase dramatically in the coming decades.

To better understand what multiple feet of additional sea level rise will mean for the nation’s coastlines, NOAA created its Sea Level Rise Viewer tool. When one toggles up to 7 feet of rise in San Francisco, Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, Oracle Park and the $1.4 billion Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors play basketball, are all shaded light blue, meaning they will be submerged in water. Forbes’s office on Pier 1, the Ferry Building next door and a good chunk of the financial district would also be permanently flooded, with access to multiple underground BART and Muni stations needing to be sealed off.


A screengrab from NOAA's Sea Level Rise Viewer tool showing the San Francisco

... All the coastal challenges facing San Francisco could become much more difficult depending on the precarious fate of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. In 2021, a study was published that concluded that the Florida-size glacier was at risk of collapse in the following five years. Already, Thwaites accounts for roughly 4% of global sea level rise annually, and its collapse would, in the short term, translate into 2 more feet of rise. Because Thwaites helps hold other glaciers in place, however, its destruction would result in a cascading catastrophe resulting in an additional 10 feet of sea level rise....

“You’re going to have to build sea walls around the Oakland airport, the San Francisco airport, and sea walls around San Jose,” Gleick said. “When we did our study there were 29 wastewater treatment plants that were vulnerable to a meter of sea level rise.”

Lots of discussion of the predictions, opportunities and challenges, including the House GQP assholes.

... San Francisco has plenty of options when it comes to combating rising seas, many poorer and less well-situated places aren’t as lucky.

“I guess the whole point is, this is just a little hint of the huge costs that are going to be associated with climate change in general and sea level rise in particular if we don’t slow these [temperature] changes,” he added.

[O Really]

...

I've mostly envisioned FL and East Coast impacts, even though I lived in SF and Oakland. How high are you above sea level?

I dunno - what do you think? This is the view from street level.

[Vrede too]

... How high are you above sea level?

I dunno - what do you think? This is the view from street level.

https://www.californiabeaches.com/wp-co ... 50x491.jpg

< 7 feet? Ut-oh, pontoons.

... The same year San Francisco voters passed Prop A with 82.7% of the vote in order to “protect $100 billion of assets and economic activity,” a poll ... found that 84% of area residents said they believed global temperatures were rising and would continue to do so, the highest number of any community in the U.S. ...

It's a crying shame that so much of the nation and GQP are stupider than that.

[billy.pilgrim]

... How high are you above sea level?

I dunno - what do you think? This is the view from street level.

https://www.californiabeaches.com/wp-co ... 50x491.jpg

< 7 feet? Ut-oh, pontoons.

... The same year San Francisco voters passed Prop A with 82.7% of the vote in order to “protect $100 billion of assets and economic activity,” a poll ... found that 84% of area residents said they believed global temperatures were rising and would continue to do so, the highest number of any community in the U.S. ...

It's a crying shame that so much of the nation and GQP are stupider than that.

I can only guess about the crowd here, say maybe 30 or 40% believe in global warming. As the bible says, their god has already cleansed the world with water - Worldwide Fire is coming.

My street in Navarre was about 3 or 4 feet above sea level, but the house was closer to 6 or 8. New house in P'cola is about 120'.

[Vrede too]

... The same year San Francisco voters passed Prop A with 82.7% of the vote in order to “protect $100 billion of assets and economic activity,” a poll ... found that 84% of area residents said they believed global temperatures were rising and would continue to do so, the highest number of any community in the U.S. ...

It's a crying shame that so much of the nation and GQP are stupider than that.

I can only guess about the crowd here, say maybe 30 or 40% believe in global warming. As the bible says, their god has already cleansed the world with water - Worldwide Fire is coming.

My street in Navarre was about 3 or 4 feet above sea level, but the house was closer to 6 or 8. New house in P'cola is about 120'.

72% in Escambia County "think global warming is happening (nat'l avg. 72%), 2021" (FL avg. 73%)
https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/v ... a/ycom-us/

BUT, only 54% think "Global warming is caused mostly by human activities" (nat'l avg. 57%, FL avg. 56%)
In San Francisco County it's 74%.

My Henderson County is 66% and 52% (NC avg. 71% and 57%), both WORSE than Escambia , but slightly BETTER than Whack9's Greenville County, South Carolina at 66% and 48%.

[O Really]

The remaining 30ish percent don't believe there is global warming/climate change? And I suppose think what we have is "normal"?
And these people vote, carry around guns and breed?
Dayum.

[Vrede too]

The remaining 30ish percent don't believe there is global warming/climate change? And I suppose think what we have is "normal"?
And these people vote, carry around guns and breed?
Dayum.

, or don' know.

Fwiw, 76% in San Diego County "think global warming is happening" (CA avg. 77%), and 59% think "Global warming is caused mostly by human activities" (CA avg. 63%). So, even you, 4 of every 10 people you see are idiots. They drive, too.

[O Really]

Well, looking at the huge extremes of the way long ago like ice age, etc. when there weren't many "human activities" to speak of, one might argue that it's all part of a million-year natural phenomenon. Except - it's so damned easy to demonstrate the effect of human activity. Stand on the grass in a park. Then stand on the pavement in the parking lot. Is there a difference in temperature? If there's more and more pavement and less forest, do ya' think the atmosphere might get warmer? And that's not even to address all the emission issues, etc.

And yes, they do drive.

[billy.pilgrim]

... The same year San Francisco voters passed Prop A with 82.7% of the vote in order to “protect $100 billion of assets and economic activity,” a poll ... found that 84% of area residents said they believed global temperatures were rising and would continue to do so, the highest number of any community in the U.S. ...

It's a crying shame that so much of the nation and GQP are stupider than that.

I can only guess about the crowd here, say maybe 30 or 40% believe in global warming. As the bible says, their god has already cleansed the world with water - Worldwide Fire is coming.

My street in Navarre was about 3 or 4 feet above sea level, but the house was closer to 6 or 8. New house in P'cola is about 120'.

72% in Escambia County "think global warming is happening (nat'l avg. 72%), 2021" (FL avg. 73%)
https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/v ... a/ycom-us/

BUT, only 54% think "Global warming is caused mostly by human activities" (nat'l avg. 57%, FL avg. 56%)
In San Francisco County it's 74%.

My Henderson County is 66% and 52% (NC avg. 71% and 57%), both WORSE than Escambia , but slightly BETTER than Whack9's Greenville County, South Carolina at 66% and 48%.

I'm surprised. My former county, Santa Rosa, come in at 69 and 51.

[billy.pilgrim]

Tuscaloosa, home to Alabama's largest university, comes in at 66 and 49.
Lee County, home to largest ag and technical school is a little better at 70 and 53

[Vrede too]

UN: The globe is headed to ‘unlivable’

Climate report calls for rapid mitigation steps

Doyle Rice and Dinah Voyles Pulver

USA TODAY

The time for talk has passed and the time to act is now, according to a new United Nations report on how to curb the worst consequences of climate change.

Rapid mitigation measures – reductions in fossil fuels and better building practices – are needed to avoid unsustainable global warming, according to the report.

In fact, the report says, without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is “beyond reach.”

Chances of "immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors..." - absolutely and totally nil, zilch, nada. So either the report is wrong or the earth will fry. A lot of people will choose to believe the report to be wrong, leftist propaganda, political yammer, or even just well-intentioned overkill and do nothing. As Vrede pointed out earlier, " effective climate action is more US govt dependent than dependent on state and individual action" but even so, is the US Congress going to get together in the next millenia and pass effective laws? As if.

For anyone who thinks there is still some chance, no matter how small of "drastic action," or "rapid mitigation measures," try to envision what that would look like IRL. Who would have to do what to get that accomplished? In the US, are the Republicans going to support anything a Dem president wants, even if it's in their own best interest? Nope, not in this century. Is a Republican president going to take the lead in cutting carbon emissions? Even less likely. Is the US going to follow the leadership of some other country? Like that has happened never.

The earth is going to fry. Good time to be old.

One year later:

Earth is on the verge of reaching catastrophic warming, UN climate report finds

Great minds:

Al Franken, this week's Daily Show host: Shout out to my fellow baby boomers, it feels like we caught the last helicopter out of Saigon . . . and baby boomers will get that reference.

[billy.pilgrim]

UN: The globe is headed to ‘unlivable’

Climate report calls for rapid mitigation steps

Doyle Rice and Dinah Voyles Pulver

USA TODAY

The time for talk has passed and the time to act is now, according to a new United Nations report on how to curb the worst consequences of climate change.

Rapid mitigation measures – reductions in fossil fuels and better building practices – are needed to avoid unsustainable global warming, according to the report.

In fact, the report says, without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is “beyond reach.”

Chances of "immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors..." - absolutely and totally nil, zilch, nada. So either the report is wrong or the earth will fry. A lot of people will choose to believe the report to be wrong, leftist propaganda, political yammer, or even just well-intentioned overkill and do nothing. As Vrede pointed out earlier, " effective climate action is more US govt dependent than dependent on state and individual action" but even so, is the US Congress going to get together in the next millenia and pass effective laws? As if.

For anyone who thinks there is still some chance, no matter how small of "drastic action," or "rapid mitigation measures," try to envision what that would look like IRL. Who would have to do what to get that accomplished? In the US, are the Republicans going to support anything a Dem president wants, even if it's in their own best interest? Nope, not in this century. Is a Republican president going to take the lead in cutting carbon emissions? Even less likely. Is the US going to follow the leadership of some other country? Like that has happened never.

The earth is going to fry. Good time to be old.

One year later:

Earth is on the verge of reaching catastrophic warming, UN climate report finds

Great minds:

Al Franken, this week's Daily Show host: Shout out to my fellow baby boomers, it feels like we caught the last helicopter out of Saigon . . . and baby boomers will get that reference.

The pox on all the dems who took him down. What a President he would have made.

[Vrede too]

I might wish that I was a bit older.

Rising Antarctic ice melt will dramatically slow global ocean flows - study

[Vrede too]

8 months ago:

Maybe you should upgrade to an amphibious RV, O Really.

Experts warn California of a disaster 'larger than any in world history.' It's not an earthquake.

"Megadrought" may be the main weather concern across the West right now amid the constant threat of wildfires and earthquakes. But a new study warns another crisis is looming in California: "Megafloods."

Climate change is increasing the risk of future floods that could submerge multiple cities and displace millions of people across California, according to a new study released Friday.

It says that an extreme month-long storm could bring feet of rain – in some places, more than 100 inches – to hundreds of miles of California. Similarly unrelenting storms have happened in the past, before the region became home to tens-of-millions of people.

Now, each degree of global warming is dramatically upping the odds and size of the next megaflood, the study says....

In fact, the study found that climate change makes such catastrophic flooding twice as likely to occur.

Swain said that such massive statewide floods have occurred every century or two in California over the past millennia, and the current risk of such events has been substantially underestimated.

Long before climate change, California’s Great Flood of 1862 stretched up to 300 miles long and 60 miles across. According to the study, a similar flood now would displace 5-10 million people, cut off the state’s major freeways for perhaps weeks or months with massive economic effects, and submerge major Central Valley cities as well as parts of Los Angeles....

"Parts of cities such as Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno and Los Angeles would be under water even with today’s extensive collection of reservoirs, levees and bypasses. It is estimated that it would be a $1 trillion disaster, larger than any in world history," according to the statement....

Yeah, that's a scary scenario, among the many others that have been painted. Even if you aren't where the flood is, you couldn't leave afterwards. For a huge state, California has remarkably few north/south transportation routes. You've got the 5, the 101 and the 395 and that's pretty much it. The 395 is on the east side of the mountains, and the 101 goes through a lot of urban. From where we are, we'd take the 8 east into AZ, and we'd leave as soon as the first serious predictions or weather warnings came on. Wherever we stay, fuel and fresh water tanks are always full, generators fuel and solar checked/charged. With reasonable preservation of resources, we're good for at least or over a week off grid.

I was wondering how close we were getting to the scenario above. Parts of it are coming true. Damn "Experts".

A long-dormant lake has reappeared in California, bringing havoc along with it

... Experts say a monthslong, slow-burning crisis will play out next: A historic snowpack looms in the mountains above the basin — as it melts, it is likely to put downstream communities through months of torment....

“This is a slowly unfolding natural disaster,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of California. “There’s no way to handle it with the existing infrastructure.”

The re-forming Tulare Lake — which was drained for farming a century ago — could remain on the landscape for years, disrupting growers in a region that produces a significant proportion of the nation’s supply of almonds, pistachios, milk and fruit....

In the farming communities that dot the historic lake bed, accusations of sabotaged levees, frantic efforts to patch breached banks and feuds — common occurrences during flood fights in the area — have started already, said Matt Hurley, a former water manager for several water districts in the Tulare Basin.


Construction equipment for California High Speed Rail project surrounded by flooding in Tulare County near Allensworth, Calif.

... “All we’ve heard so far is with this unprecedented snowfall, what we’ve seen so far is a baby flood.”

For now, the best everyone can hope for is a cool summer — with a steady, manageable melt — and as much cooperation as they can muster.

[Vrede too]

Greenland Ice Sheet melting faster than previously thought, scientists say

Crap. What should a climate activist do when the day comes - might already be here - when it's all too little too late?

[Vrede too]

8 months ago:

Maybe you should upgrade to an amphibious RV, O Really.

Experts warn California of a disaster 'larger than any in world history.' It's not an earthquake.

"Megadrought" may be the main weather concern across the West right now amid the constant threat of wildfires and earthquakes. But a new study warns another crisis is looming in California: "Megafloods." ...

Yeah, that's a scary scenario, among the many others that have been painted. Even if you aren't where the flood is, you couldn't leave afterwards. For a huge state, California has remarkably few north/south transportation routes. You've got the 5, the 101 and the 395 and that's pretty much it. The 395 is on the east side of the mountains, and the 101 goes through a lot of urban. From where we are, we'd take the 8 east into AZ, and we'd leave as soon as the first serious predictions or weather warnings came on. Wherever we stay, fuel and fresh water tanks are always full, generators fuel and solar checked/charged. With reasonable preservation of resources, we're good for at least or over a week off grid.

I was wondering how close we were getting to the scenario above. Parts of it are coming true. Damn "Experts".

A long-dormant lake has reappeared in California, bringing havoc along with it

California flooding expands historic ‘Ghost Lake’ to almost same size as Lake Tahoe (many pics)

Wow.