Ree81
42517
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The TL;DR of understanding this graph is the 2 thin angled orange lines. Basically, even though CO2 concentrations have been going up fairly steadily, we broke something the past ~1.5 year or so, and the climate systems.... just kind of freaked out and showed us warming beyond ANYTHING humanity has ever experienced in its ~300.000 year existence. And it's going to get worse... much worse.
It's hot everywhere. The weather extremes are already off the charts across the planet. Vote for the right thing, which is honestly: Any system without infinite growth. Any system with UBI, that doesn't leave people in economic despair because all the jobs got taken by AI or whatever recession is happening *this* time. Capitalism is destroying us.
notagoodspelller
Holy shit. This part hit me like a hammer:
Poppypoppoppop
It took a global pandemic, everyone staying indoors to show us a clear sky for a brief moment, but slow nothing of climate change effect down significantly. So we are indeed doomed.
Malcondrion
This is one of the many reasons the Trump needs to be defeated this fall. The Dems are bumbling but at least they’re bumbling in the right direction rather than making the problem infinitely worse.
nation543
> showed us warming beyond ANYTHING humanity has ever experienced in its ~300.000 year existence.
Gonna call this out because we don't know that for sure. We only started recording temperatures in the last 140 years. We really only began to understand temperature/energy in the last ~1000 years. There are a lot of problems causing the issues in the graph and the only way to reverse it is for people to stop doing what they're doing; unless we're witnessing a natural event, in which case 🤷♂️
QuartzPoker
The good news is the amount of energy Earth is shedding into space is also increasing, so if we can get the greenhouse gasses under control, the system will return to normal eventually. Silver linings.
RPCharImages
If I'm understanding this graph correctly, the black line indicated how much energy is coming into the system, the red line shows how much is leaving the system, and the orange shows the difference between the two across the same axis.
...
Well fuck.
Ree81
Ya, the orange area is basically 'how thick the blanket surrounding earth is'. And it's shooting up, much faster than CO2 itself is.
TheWarHymn
1 watt of heat is about what a tea candle puts out.
bot1010011010
now multiply that by the surface area of the earth in square meters: 510 trillion
so the earth is gaining roughly 510 trillion joules of heat every second
TheWarHymn
Yep, shit is going to get hot.
jrntn
Kill every billionaire. Tell whoever inherits their fortunes that they have six months to reverse climate change or they're next.
pudaheh
Took a class with a climate scientist. He explained that there are gradual changes in things like gas concentrations, but other things flip like switches.
Example: as long as there's snow on a landmass, it doesn't matter how thick it is, it is a powerful reflector. The snow may be melting for hundreds of years, with no significant impact on reflectance, but when that last little crust is gone, the reflectance is gone nearly instantaneously.
This is happening right now. We are *fucked*.
whyforetho
Got more examples of flip switching?
pudaheh
I can think of a couple where the underlying phenomenon is gradual, but the effect is rapid. Like if the Jetstream or North Pacific weather patterns shift north or south (causing rapid local changes), or the winter winds that contain Arctic winter weather break down, letting cold, dry air penetrate into North America.
I'm not a climate scientist though, so I'm not a good source of this information.
PhailRaptor
Meltwaters off of Greenland glaciers disrupting the flow of the North Atlantic Current will make most of Europe look more like Siberia. There was a whole movie about it.
ILikeToCookAndPlayBoardGames
The day after tomorrow right?
PhailRaptor
Yup. The "upside down hurricanes over land" bit was bullshit, but everything leading up to that is 100% plausible.
ILikeToCookAndPlayBoardGames
Whoa I was fully expecting to be wrong and then learn about a new movie I haven’t watched
Traedran
Terrifying, for sure, but what on Earth is the phrasing in this? "Bright yellow is the black line here." Thanks, Yoda. "Glowing red is the negative of this red line." I can only see one red line, period.
I understand what the graph is showing, but my goodness, what a confusing way to explain it with words.
fireclanninja1337
We've been saying it's too late for like 10 years. When is it going to sink in? We can still make it worse though.
drunkenm
Because it's too late, it's actually better if it doesn't sink in. It truly sinking in will just cause panic, riots, maybe wars as people try to predict where will be most liveable the longest and everyone left will want to be in those places. will want to kill other people to harvest all the resources left, to stockpile food, to try to reduce use of water sources then can potentially lock down and potentially contain, etc.
fireclanninja1337
That's all coming anyway. The equator being abandoned is probably less than 10 years away. It's not gonna all just happen one day. We're in it now. There's just gonna be a new worse thing every year.
Ree81
500k people moving from South America across the land-bridge into ... uhhh.. I think it connects with Cuba? Anyway, "into North America", let's say. Mexico and all those countries down there.
Ttoften
Nobody seems to remember how australia, Canada and vast areas of Siberia tundra was on fire the past few years. Releasing methane from the perma frost, and methane being 10x more potent than CO2 just accelerate things.
gesel
TieflingDelivery
It's coming out of the melting permafrost and the ocean floor
darkripjaww
God, were we ever on fire.
aswimmingseaman
Unfortunate correction, methane isn’t 10x more potent than CO2. It’s 28x more potent…
JoshuaFalken
Came here to say this. It's one of the reasons that eating beef contributes to climate change (I say this as a hypocritical lover of burgers and steaks).
According to the article below, livestock contributes to about 5.5% of greenhouse gasses from human activity
https://apnews.com/article/9791f1f85808409e93a1abc8b98531d5
Unicyclic
Oh. Th-thank you...
Ttoften
I bet you're fun at parties :-D thanks for the correction
AxelBeingCivil
There's actually some mild good news here: This sudden, intense warming is a product of changes to laws around the fuel types used by oceanic transport ships. They used to release sulfur into the atmosphere, producing clouds that radiated sunlight. We can do that more and better by shooting seawater into the atmosphere, without all the toxic by-products, cooling our oceans and buying us a bit more time to turn things around.
Ree81
It's only a good thing if you're naive enough to believe capitalism - basically the entire planet's rich people - won't simply use this method to cool the earth to simply..... continue capitalism. I mean, look at the trend. Yearly CO2 emissions are at record highs.
I strive to be the least fun at parties. <3
AxelBeingCivil
I mean... Yeah? That wasn't going to change immediately. The shift towards renewables that is accelerating rapidly isn't because the world suddenly grew a conscience; it's because renewable electricity is cheaper than all fossil fuels and will only get more so with time as battery tech for grid-level storage matures (a thing that has basically already happened). Capitalism's resilient. It'll adapt. If we want to defeat it, we need to do more than hope its contradictions lead to collapse.
ExecutiveProducerWolfDyck
https://youtu.be/6CXRaTnKDXA?si=YxHYFjMAviPuYEjw
Ree81
I thought about that clip the other day. It's really like we're just cramming down cake and "planning on getting thin using special techniques, like taking 10 steps more each day on your daily 5 minute walk".
The problem won't end until we stop using fossil fuels, and it seems extremely hard to achieve that ........... without using force (hint hint nudge nudge USA).
ExecutiveProducerWolfDyck
"The problem won't end" yeah
Wor3q
Welp, we've finally got our exponential growth. Thanks, capitalism!
HeShallKnowYourWaysAsIfBornToThem
...also an exponential growth in the energy renewables are providing...I suspect we'll soon be in a place where we can power CCUS systems practically free...markets can also help fix messes we've gotten ourselves in...
Ree81
lordnequam
It's true! Capitalism loves solving problems by *checks notes* making them worse. Hmm.
HeShallKnowYourWaysAsIfBornToThem
...this site sure hates basic exponential math, economics in general, and new Keynesianism specifically.
Wor3q
Dude, exponential math from our perspective is simple as as fuck.
If the exponent of the bad thing is even slightly higher than the exponent on the thing cancelling it, we're screwed, and fast.
gesel
They are the only way out, it is the only mechanism that has ever driven global change as quickly as it needs to be, but investment is way behind the curve and falling further. We need $2T in early stage green investment at sovereign WACC hurdle 10 years ago, otherwise the $125T just is not happening An investment of that scale could lower 24/7 0 CO₂ to below 0.5¢/kWh and undercut fossil lifting cost, otherwise internalized benefits and externalized costs will always win.
HeShallKnowYourWaysAsIfBornToThem
I believe it is on track to the 4.5T the IEC is saying we would want to hit. Photovoltaics alone are 30-40% YoY...that's the entire planet's energy supply by 2032.
gesel
We're already $20T behind, and falling further. I use 5.5T target in my presentations but even 4.5T is creating a growing cumulative deficit compared to 1.8T 2023 actual. DCF applies, but conversely emission loading is also cumulative. So... don't support high emission products and services and accept that substantially higher costs and a much lower standard of living is at least a transitional cost of human survival. If people listened, we'd be driving early stage investment to get leverage.
HeShallKnowYourWaysAsIfBornToThem
Are you factoring in scaling CCUS as the carbon tax economy kicks in?
Ree81
Aren't DAC (direct air capture) systems just... extremely ineffective, even at scale? Even if we build 10.000 of them they're barely a blip on the radar compared to planetary systems that are freaking out right now (is my understanding). I honestly think forest/nature management to have it thrive and act as a maximum effective carbon sink is a much better use of our resources.
gesel
Yes, DAC is problematic for now. However, the current investment model favors building massive grid scale solar (lowest market LCoE, at least until there's real consumption competition for fossil); creating negative price troughs and since storage (other than PSH conversion) isn't competitive, DAC is better than bitcoin and some forms are legit long term capture (though many should be considered carbon parking (like forests) more than carbon sequestration, but that's a whole 'nother kettle).
ameranthe
No, you guys have no idea how fucked we are. The last time greenhouse gasses built up enough to cause global warming was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The oceans heated and there were mass extinctions of marine and terrestrial life. The sub-arctic was as warm as the tropics are today. But don't worry, it only lasted 100,000 years or so before the earth was able to heal itself. As a species, we will probably be long gone by then.
tallyhoho
I don't really feel that bad for humans but the poor animals that did nothing to contribute to this downfall - they don't deserve extinction
Ree81
ameranthe
Yeah, I forgot to add that part. We're just absolutely fucked. Planet will probably be ok though, long term.
lordnequam
You're right...we need to devote our last few decades on Earth to figuring out how to make sure we can take the planet with us when we go! I vote for building a continent-sized rocket engine so we can fly the planet into the sun, but I'm open to other suggestions.
Ree81
Yeah. Bacteria living miles and miles under the crust after all. And the earth has a good 800m years left before the sun starts sterilizing the surface and boiling the seas. 65m years ago T-rex wandered this planet.
mizzamir
Life has lived on Earth for 3700Ma and it was only 600Ma ago when any species from Animalia existed, and thus capable of even the most basic cognition that we might recognize as consciousness or sentience. Meaning we may not just kill the only sapient species that - as far as we know or are likely to ever know - has ever existed in the universe, but all sentient life. 800Ma is probably not enough time for such life to evolve again.
Ree81
!remindme in 800.000.000 years
RoyalOss
This is probally a factor in the above graph but there is also the weird fact that cleaner air will speed up global warming. All that air pollution we had from bad cars and factories and leadgas and whatever was reflecting a bit of the sun away.
Navrodel
The effect of clearing the worst of the smog is too old for this graph, but that last big spike probably is from cleaning polution. Specifically, there was an international standard enforced to reduce sulfur emission from cargo ships, but that was inadvertently causing cloud seeding over the oceans. That's why there was a slight panic last year when the temperature rose more than predicted - we removed some artificial cooling, and now it looks worse.
Navrodel
Theoretically, the shock from the change is mellowing out, so the line will mostly return to the curve, but it's unlikely that we're going to see the trend of constantly breaking temperature records stop any time soon.
The band's on stage, and they're starting to warm up.
Ree81
With a little bad luck, we'll have to throw most of our climate science out the window. Because of how long this experiment ran for, it absolutely *affected* all of climate science. And the "shock" scientists got was actually just the laws of physics revealing how bad we are at predicting the climate.
But yeah, it's basically "Welcome to the 2030 in terms of temperatures, as we knew it in 2022 lol".
Ree81
The scientist who talked to me in the screenshot, Leon Simons, is actually the leading scientist on that subject! ......He uh.... just has so much free time he's still able to reply to dumb weirdos like myself (being literally one of the most important people on earth and all...). =/
RoyalOss
Neat.
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
And there's no amount of dead people that will change it. The people in charge of the economy, safe in their mansions or bunkers, protected by brainless armed goons, will either carry on so long as enough people remain alive to keep the system running, or lament it falling apart when there's not.
Sethiusalpha
I also disagree, but it's because it matters WHICH dead people. Right now, we are (as a group, not necessarily individuals) voting to wipe out massive populations when we could be choosing much smaller, more directly harmful groups.
mksu
They're going to keep going until they run out of oil to extract or run out of people to extract it.
Smidge204
I disagree that there's no amount of dead people that will change it; Somewhere about 7 billion should do it I reckon.
ethannguyen357
*8
mutingisforcowardsandsycophants
I said there wasn't an amount of dead people that will *change* it. There's certainly an amount that will *stop* it.
SliderOfElay
Too late. If lost half the people on the planet it wouldn't be enough. We need to stop it with some radical environmental engineering.
lordnequam
The big problem with "environmental engineering" is that there's no way to test it on a meaningful scale. There will probably come a point when we've done so much damage that pulling that trigger is considered the best option, but we'll be doing so with no real understanding of the final consequences. Chances are, we make the problem worse in the end.
SliderOfElay
We are already experimenting with the environment. Just without a real design and plan. We aren't outside of the environment poking it with our inputs. We are part of our environment and everything we do affects everything.
Ree81
I agree, we need radical changes, and radical environmental engineering (re-releasing those aerosols the scientists talked about).
But releasing literal white stuff into the entire earth's atmosphere to cool it (think of wearing a white t-shirt, same effect), is just going to do so much. It's not a magic bullet that "allows us to keep using the gas powered car".
That's why I fear we'll have a collapse first. And billions wiped out...
daojones75
Dude above you was suggesting that if everyone's dead it'll stop. Or more importantly - it'll no longer be a problem for humanity.
SliderOfElay
It would be over for humanity but it wouldn't stop. Not right away, it would take decades to "go back" to how it was.
meowingintensifies
After humans die out, the earth will heal, "life" will return, etc. but it won't get past the Bronze age. We used up all the fossil fuel!
zFUBARz
I mean in 300 million years could be plenty of new fossil fuels.
RussianMathNinja
Not from the same sources. The vast majority of fossil fuel is from tree matter that didn't decay because there didn't exist any bacteria that could break it down at the time. *Maybe* plastics could become new fossil fuels (since there isn't really any bacteria in the wild that can break it down right now), but I'm not sure whether 300 million years would be enough or not. *Peat* will definitely still exist, but that will be much, much more localized and limited.
Ree81
According to some new science, we got the oil/gas part wrong. It's really just coal that was produced by fallen trees unable to decay because fungi hadn't really evolved to eat trees yet. Oil and gas appears to just "form naturally" somehow. I don't know a lick about how it draws down and concentrates that much carbon though.
dsnowball
it won't get to the bronze age; we've used all the readily accessible copper.
zFUBARz
I dunno, find a city or dump, melted to slay after some nuclear hellfire and a lot of copper will be left in the ashes, and hundreds of millions of years later maybe it gets dug up by the sentient bats or something. Just not the veins we know of but still there.
drunkenm
can't we, as the world collapses, gather up all our shit and leave it in large piles of singular shit and hope people find and use it in the future, like at a point we all know life is definitely over but we have a few years left we could decide hey, lets try and leave a chance for the next species.
zFUBARz
I mean if we could manage that we could probably save ourselves.
Ree81
Just draw a large crosshair on the moon dude. :D