This is a great video, claiming that Global Warming is plausibly much worse than previously thought, and the current pace of climate change could lead to a global catastrophe within as little as 20 years:
https://youtu.be/4S9sDyooxf4?si=xDWQJPkYmIERWpax
18 comments:
Remember this "tweet" from our very stable genius,
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
2:15 PM · Nov 6, 2012
Sabine is not a serious scientist. She presents her pieces as outrageously as possible to get hits. The video is heavily cherry picked like all of her youtube videos. She has horrible reputation in the physics community. I find her stuff simple minded and one sided but hey you do you. Her youtube videos are like what a lawyer would present not a what a scientists would present. Think about that. She also has a huge axe to grind science and academics as whole for personal reasons.
With that said she did point that NIF was a piece of total hype so she gets some things right.
7:27 -- maybe she is overhyped or whatever. Anyways she said we need more nuclear power, which I agree with except I somehow doubt it will happen.
Here's some videos from another Youtube influencer, who works at a nuclear plant in Sweden, she talks about some of the new reactor designs, and gives a tour of a historical reactor built at KTH Stockholm:
https://youtu.be/Vk5GnV73qQo?si=I77Y8EfJph8FFN9n
https://youtu.be/fw8qZ6dJVNQ?si=-gI8WX0BpbWW5mxI
7:27 -- Anyways, do you think it's possible that the claims in this video are right? After all there is a history of revising climate change predictions, so isn't is possible that instead of not being a problem, it is a much, much worse problem than anticipated? Wouldn't a worst-case analysis make sense if it is presented as such, regardless of how unlikely it might be, and how wrong it might be in retrospect some day?
"7:27 -- maybe she is overhyped or whatever. Anyways she said we need more nuclear power, which I agree with except I somehow doubt it will happen. "
She says whatever to cause a stir. Next month she will have video saying global warming is total scam and scientists are all corrupt, it will get millions of hits, nuclear power will kills us all....goal achieved.
I have no issue with nuclear power and the other video seems better in that the person is objective. Sabines goal is to get hits and generate controversy that is it. She is the Paul Logan of science news.
7:27 -- Anyways, do you think it's possible that the claims in this video are right? After all there is a history of revising climate change predictions, so isn't is possible that instead of not being a problem, it is a much, much worse problem than anticipated? Wouldn't a worst-case analysis make sense if it is presented as such, regardless of how unlikely it might be, and how wrong it might be in retrospect some day?
1/30/2024 12:56 PM
Sure it could be true that it all falls apart like the 2012 movie, or nothing happens... nobody knows. You do not and I do not.
One thing is for sure climate change as of 2024 has not affected anyone...no one...nothing. Look at the plots in her charts it is all into the future maybe it is true maybe not, who knows. The problem is I know too many climate change modelers, and let us just say they do not understand their own models but need funding for the next three years. Anyone with any brains gets the hell out out of that field as fast as they can.
To be clear human made climate change could be true, it also true that we may not be able to model it in a reliable way. The rise in Co2 seems legit but no one knows how that even controls the temperature in an open system. (The earth is not a simple greenhouse like in your backyard).
In any case I am all of nuclear energy but as someone pointed out this will never fly.
4:11 -- Wouldn't the record high temperatures across the northern hemisphere, and fires in places like Canada and Australia, Siberia, Greece, California, etc, be related in some way to climate change which you say has not affected "anyone". Or the floods in China, crop failures, the cold weather in Texas that led to power grid problems, etc, etc? What about the record numbers of migrants and the Euphrates river drying up, the Hawaii fires, the melting of arctic and antarctic ice, the California flooding, etc, etc? Is this "for sure" not due to climate change as you think, and has not affected "anyone"? What would be a convincing sign (that if in the future it came to pass) that would change your mind?
1/31/2024 7:47 AM
Everything you state has happened before in human history, there is no evidence whatsoever that these effects currently magnified, especially when you take into account changes in human populations.
In fact there is plenty of evidence that California had far larger fires 1 or 2 thousands years ago, the west had much large droughts 800 years ago. Mass crop failures have affected millions more people in the past far more than anything today.
I find the arguments you make just silly and not worthy of scientific mind. You cannot say, California or Hawaii had big fires in 2023 therefore global warming. You need to have accurate background event count over significant time to really confirm if there is really a share uptick. You just add a cause to any recent event but you need actually long term data to come to conclusions. As of right now we simply do not see big effects beyond the background. They converse is also true, just because it was record cold last week therefore global warming is wrong is the same type of silly argument.
To be fair most climate scientists do not make the claims you are making, even they say that it is not clear that the fires in California have anything to do with climate change, floods or crop failures and so on. This kind of stuff is more from the news media, politicians, or my hippie aunt who cannot string two sentences together. If you read what the climate scientist actually say they are much more cautious.
Now to it could be that climate change is going to get really bad and kill many people, but so far it has not. Any legit climate science person will admit that they do not know how bad the effects are going to be. But fear sells and helps to get grants so there you go.
5:28 -- To take the opposite argument, there is no evidence that our current climate is not related to climate change, due to atmospheric gases such as CO2 and methane, and it is also known they have at least some effect on climate: the original video you didn't like, mentioned a sensitivity coefficient which represented how sensitive the global temperature was to CO2 variations, and there were different estimates of it.
Along with the overall sensitivity of temperature of course, there could be local changes in rainfall, wind patterns, and with a lagged effect of course, ice cover in polar regions, ocean salinity, ocean currents, and sea level. I would agree by the way, we haven't seen these lagged effects yet as much as they are projected to occur, which is one of the concerns, that even if we hold greenhouse gases at the current level these processes will continue over time.
These could have a much worse economic impact since many large cities are located in coastal areas worldwide, and shifts in ocean currents could of course, trigger even larger climate changes.
Are you claiming that sensitivity of all these effects is close to zero (which could perhaps be true, I admit) or what? If it is nonzero, wouldn't that mean that some of the current weather phenomena might not be occurring assuming we hypothetically had produced less greenhouse gases?
That is, global warming and climate change could be wrong, I agree, but most likely there are anthropogenic effects on climate, due to greenhouse gases, in which case we could consider all the (admittedly) circumstantial evidence related to recent climate events as strengthening that theory.
It's certainly true by the way the global climate has changed a lot in human history, for example the Sahara desert turns green in a cycle with the ice ages, and the oldest human cultures are the Australian aborigines and Bantu peoples, as the Northern Hemisphere climate in general was evidently less stable over time due to ice ages.
There have also been global crop failures due to volcanism, as this can create an acute episode lasting a few years of climate change, for example the near human extinction with the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia, more recently this happened due to Krakatoa and Tambora in the 19th century, and Pinatubo also had a documented effect on global climate more recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora
There was also a volcanic winter in 536 AD:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
In the US of course, there are supervolcanos at Yellowstone, also the Long Valley Caldera in California which may eventually destroy the Mammoth Mountain ski resort. And the Valles Caldera, is of course, near Los Alamos in the Jemez mountains -- etc,
https://www.nps.gov/vall/learn/nature/geology.htm
"Australian aborigines and Bantu peoples, as the Northern Hemisphere climate in general was evidently less stable over time due to ice ages."
These people go back 30k to 50k. The earths climate has been relatively stable for the past 10k years, so large temperature fluctuations is the norm. It may be possible we are simply leaving that stable 10k year period and humans have nothing to do with.
There are even arguments that the mild period was what lead to humans arriving to the western hemisphere with the Clovis people but now there is strong evidence of humans going back to 30k in North America. My theory is that there could have been some calm periods for 500 to 1000 years and people got to the North American 30k or 20k or even several other times to created isolated local spots but then got wiped out when the weather went bad and only the last 10k years was it stable enough to widespread human habitation.
I contend it is possible that man made climate change could well be happening and it could get way worse, my point is that we do not to what how big of an effect it could be. The current "heat have in India" does not cut, we need way better data. It certainly seems possible that humans could change the climate but we simply do not have accurate enough models to accurately predict it. Also other effects could be coming into play.
4:11, 5:28. Thank you for your well reasoned response. Today is not the time for genuine science to be pressured into outright hysteria by the media or political agendas. While fear sells, facts matter. The only scientists I know who “believe” in global warming as a result of man-made C02 are driven by fear, funding, or both. As you suggest, the evidence just isn’t all that compelling.
9:14 -- exactly, "we do not know how big of an effect it could be". That was the point of the original video that you didn't like -- they were saying that not all models agreed, and there were reasons to question the results, so the effects of greenhouse gases could be bigger than anticipated. It could also, by the same argument, perhaps be smaller than anticipated.
It might make sense to prepare for a worst-case scenario, I would think, rather than the best-case scenario. It might not even entail sacrifice, as the various green energy and nuclear programs can stimulate the economy, and ultimately provide a great deal more energy and better living standards, in a sustainable fashion. With the much greater industrial and technological capacity this might make possible, we would be better prepared for whatever disasters or changes in climate that do inevitably occur.
"The only scientists I know who “believe” in global warming as a result of man-made C02 are driven by fear, funding, or both. As you suggest, the evidence just isn’t all that compelling."
Most of the climate scientists I know do believe the warming is real, but behind closed doors they will tell you that they do not know hot it will get or how bad it will get. Most think the rise in CO2 is caused by humans but they also admit they really are not sure how CO2 leads to warming as the earth is not simple greenhouse and the past data shows that CO2 and heating on earth is not a straight forward relation. As for feedback loops and so on, again behind closed doors they admit that this is super uncertain and very speculative. Also not behind closed doors but usually in the public they will say that you simply cannot read much from the individual events like fires in Califonria. The whole "we had hot summer so panic" is from the news media not for climate scientists.
I do worry about how funding, media hysteria can influence climate science. There are plenty of cases where scientists have been effectively cancelled for not going along with the accepted narrative. LLNL had Ben Santer go after Steve Koonin when he gave a talk at LLNL. I find that kind of stuff a huge red flag about the field.
"It might make sense to prepare for a worst-case scenario, "
That is a legit argument but I disagree that it is just a minor inconvenience to change.
Any real chance to do something will have to include China, India, Africa, Middle East, South America and so on. How do you get these guys on board with a massive change to your economy that does improve the quality of life?
There are only two ways out of this (1) Some new energy source comes along that makes life in easier or better so everyone will want, I doubt your nuclear and green energy are going to cut it.
2) Some real evidence that climate change is going to make life so bad that we better do something about it. Although people bring up climate change all the time, you still see people like the Obamas paying millions for beach front property in Florida, which according to the climate people will all be under water soon. So you have have to ask how serious do these people take it. You need something strong enough that people in China and the US will work together. People laugh at this but even Paul Krugman has mentioned it, is that if aliens invaded earth China, the US, the Middle East and everyone would unite to fight it. Global warming has to get bad enough for people to realize this. The problem of course is that it is possible that once it gets to that stage it is too late, but than again maybe it will never get that bad, some new tech will come along, people will just adapt no problem and so on. Lots of unknowns but I doubt we are going to upend our way of life for unknowns.
7:23 -- this is an oversimplified treatment, I think you state "some new energy source comes along...that everyone will want".
Renewables already make economic sense in some cases, for example solar and wind are booming in Texas, which has a lot of sunlight and wind, and this is because of lower cost.
Hybrid and electric cars are also becoming quite popular, and China is rapidly switching their entire car market:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferdungs/2023/08/17/china-has-perfectly-tangled-the-battery-value-chain-with-electric-vehicles-leading-to-a-combo-the-us-and-europe-will-find-hard-to-beat/?sh=7112ecf266ab
There is no reason that nuclear energy could not also enjoy a renaissance, eventually, becoming cheaper and more environmentally friendly than fossil fuel, perhaps with mass produced small modular reactors, that could be deployed worldwide.
If there is not a single moment to lose, how can we afford to have John Kerry give up the climate czar position to be a political adviser to Biden's campaign?
2/05/2024 8:16 AM
We actually agree, elective cars work because the cars are better for them money than gas cars in some cases. Solar energy works in some cases because it saves money. These work and I expect more things like this will work. My point is that in absence of certain death no one will change unless it makes the lives better. EVs work better in many cases are better built and save some money so people like them.
I am not not going to give up my gas car unless you convince me the world will actually end if I do not or if you give me a better alliterative.
Musk is doing a better job than the climate alarmists.
6:40 -- this is always the point, later in the adoption curve new technologies are driven to mass adoption by economics. In the beginning, there need to be government subsidies or visionary investors, or niche markets based on some defining characteristic of the technology. Tesla for example, started with a vision plus some niche characteristics (very high acceleration and torque). As things become amenable to mass production, we are seeing wider adoption of battery vehicles, including hybrids. This "disrupts" the original market as they start to be attractive on cost as well as other defining characteristics to a broader range of consumers.
There have been of course, other adoptions of electric drive technology in the past, such as diesel-electric locomotives, which are now a dominant technology and have been for a long time.
Solar can also be disruptive on cost, as well as for the original off-grid applications, as can wind, in locations such as Texas, and will become more so as the cost of solar and wind installation drops -- one big driving factor could be higher efficiency solar cells, as well as better means of energy storage.
There are many viable technologies which by the way could exist if mass produced it is somewhat of a chicken and egg problem. A lot of times the initial market is also military related -- this might be the case for the sensors, cameras, radio electronics, screens, batteries on something like the iPhone, these were originally in many cases high cost items produced for specialized applications, and only later transitioned to consumer electronics and mass production.
Perhaps, some of the newer nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors would be viable if mass produced, right now they are in an early stage however, and are having trouble getting any traction. This is something where it might be viable and appropriate for the government to jump-start development through subsidies for initial orders. The mass production of standardized components might be an advantage over the more bespoke nature of conventional nuclear reactors, and also lower the regulatory and approval burden, leading also to greater safety due to a larger installed base.
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