Sea level rise, climate zone shifts.
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Thatâs the problem, isnât it, trying to explain temporal and spatial averages to people who donât even want to understand it even if they could.
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I think we went through that but the anodyne phrase âclimate changeâ doesnât really cover the issues. Big ass-storms of all kinds, fun for all with porpoise-speaking clowns. Ckchxkctch! Have fun with yer hyperspace bypass and hypercanes. But then the panic obscures the issues and the offshore communities begin being bombed on a much smaller scale than the existential kind.
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Except climate change deniers feed themselves. Seriously, I donât think it makes sense tying yourself up to avoid giving fuel to liars that are proven just as happy to burn whole cloth. Iâve seen more than one person regret such efforts here â scientists so cautious of being dismissed as alarmist, they ended up downplaying the urgency, only to be slandered anyway.
Far better to explain the truth. In fact, I think it might help to make it clear the temperature changes involved are relatively small, and the real issue is that small changes have big results. Because by now many people have heard that CO2 is a trace gas, just a tiny portion of a big atmosphere, and so suppose our emissions canât do that much. And in this sense, they wonât! It only absorbs a small portion of the infrared leaving our planet, and increasing it will only change temperature by a small percentage.
The thing is, for a planet at about 285 K, a one or two percentage change is the 3-6°C weâve been worrying about. You can see itâs in no way so big as to be out of reach. At the same time, if you think it sounds too small to be concerning, itâs really not that hard to put the consequences in context.
The 14°C (3 IAU) quoted in this article sounds genuinely soul-crushing to me, the first time Iâve seen a number that really suggests maybe nobody is going to make it. There is some solace in the fact that itâs a worst-case scenario, but suffice to say the way we have been doing things, that is different from it not being a case. I donât think I can genuinely consider it without tears.
But should anyone wonder if humanity is really capable of destroying its own home like that? Well, hey, itâs just a 5% increase. Thatâs the truth we need people to understand â our world is sensitive.
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One former Italian Posadist is adamant that the ufology was never of major importance to them, and that appealing for nuclear war was of much greater concern.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Posadism
⌠itâs not too late!
I wish it were too late for that.
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But putting climate change ahead of all other issues could be risky, Stanford University psychologist Jon Krosnick said. He has helped lead national surveys of public opinions on climate change since 1995 that have found that most voters donât make their ballot box decisions based on climate change alone. Krosnickâs surveys show that about 18 percent of voters are passionate about climate change, which means that âtaking a stand on this issue is electorally very wise, but making this a signature issue is probably unwise.â
But not doing shit about this threat for so long could be risky, too. In the ânot survivingâ sense instead of the ânot winning an upcoming electionâ sense.
Somehow I expect a data-driven site to talk about the data on the issues once in a while, instead of just the polls.
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There used to be museum in Washington, DC that had a map that filled an entire wall. They populated the data using colors to indicate heat, similar to what you see on weather maps. It plays the sequence of the 20 and 21st century data out - itâs really scary. I looked to see if it was there anymore - it was near the Spy Museum I thought - but I canât find it. I think they used to have the graphic online, too.
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cf. Day of the Triffids, Night of the Living Dead, The Andromeda Strain, etc.
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the national geographic museum is located in sort of the same area as the original spy museum.
(The spy museum is reopening south of the mall, but until recently it was located at 800 F St NW)
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I saw that, but I havenât read it yet, and I didnât recognize the name of the source organization (UN Environment). Itâs on my list for the weekend, and I hope itâs not as bad as it looks.
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This is scary:
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Scary, and not very puzzling. Even the two deaths which were ruled suicides should have pushed it out of statistical coincidence.
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Start your ark-building, MidwesternersâŚ
Edit to add: although, given the lack of reporting and the fact that itâs a flood, itâs more of a cataclysm than an apocalypse.
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why_not_both.gif
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If a flood alerts us to what weâre doing, it might be both.
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Thatâs why I included âlack of reportingâ as why itâs one, more than the other.
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Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at a news conference that monitors show the levels of contaminants in the air are safe and that the plume coming from the site in Deer Park, southeast of Houston, is reaching at least 4,000 feet and staying high enough that the air quality at ground level is safe.
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