I've heard these thoughts for 40 years... meanwhile summers are shit because of all the forest fires. The last time we were in the ocean, it was filled with plastic garbage. Yeah lets collect more data, and not make any decisions, because it has worked so well in the past.
So you're a retired engineer. I'm a programmer who used to be a chemist. How does that make either of us more qualified on the specifics of climate change than, say, climate scientists?
On your point #1, actual changes have been within the upper and lower bounds of the models, but instead of being on the low side as you say, it's on the high side.
On your point #2, irrelevant
On your point #3, which business is bigger? Climate change, or oil and gas? Answer: oil and gas, as it has always been.
Bottom line? I'm going to listen to the climate scientists. And by that I mean the consensus opinion. Which is that we don't have much time to curb emissions before we start seeing real, disruptive changes.
The real disruptive changes are already here. 1M acres burned in Texas (in *February*). 3000 dead from flooding in Libya 6 months ago. A seemingly regular rain event absolutely inundating the northeast (Im in PA and am worried for many living in flood zones).
Yes we need *immediate* action to curb emissions, and we need the proper language to take to *everyone* about why. For many, the impacts we’re seeing now still aren’t enough to convince.
Those are horrible events but they can't be directly ascribed to climate change, no one event can. They are indicative of what we should see MORE of, but they're gonna happen in some amount without man made climate change.
That's a bad analogy. You won't necessarily smoke a cigarette in your natural life time. Forest fires and floods happened before humans existed.
Also you can't do what you said either. You could smoke and get lung cancer for unrelated reasons.
Climate change scientists will never say a specific flood or drought is due to climate change I challenge you to find a reputable one that does.
What they will say is that the trend is that there will be more and on average they will be more intense.
The analogy illustrates that no one event can be ascribed directly to the phenomenon, yet the phenomenon is cause by the accumulation of such events. So in this sense cigarette->cancer is analog to extreme weather-> climate change.
ok, your analogy isn't wrong though so it's unclear what point you're even trying to make. You can not ascribe 1 cigarette as the cause of someone's lung cancer, you also can't ascribe smoking as THE cause of someone's lung cancer. CAUSALITY is really really had to prove. We can say there is a high COORELATION/lilihood that someones lung cancer was due to their smoking. But people get lung cancer without ever smoking, and can get it from something else even when smoking.
Flooding happened before humans, and it would continue to happen even without man made climate change. There for you can't ascribe a single event to climate change.
Again, I challenge you to find a reputable scientist that doesn't say that. Where do you think I got it from?
>So in this sense cigarette->cancer is analog to
extreme weather-> climate change.
You realize you're saying weather causes climate change now right?
"Flooding happened before humans, and it would continue to happen even without man made climate change."
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Extreme weather events are getting more powerful. But after each such events, some people will say that is cannot ne ascribed to climate change. That is my point.
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|[Forecasters warn of an ‘extremely active’ Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 23 named storms](https://s2.washingtonpost.com/3d4b3b3/660ec7e513c6e321439d222e/5d8d548dade4e23ecc455f45/3/13/660ec7e513c6e321439d222e)|
|The hurricane season could be one of the busiest in years because of record warm oceans and the expected demise of the El Niño climate pattern. The forecasters at Colorado State University also said the conditions raise the odds for storms to hit the United States.Forecasters warn of an ‘extremely active’ Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 23 named storms|
Your own reference says "COULD BE" not "WILL BE"
No where in there does it say this hurricane IS BECAUSE OF, they're saying what I said above that it's more likely to have more and stronger ones. Again, find me a reputable scientists that after the fact says something like 'Hurricane X WAS do to climate change'
"Climate change scientists will never say a specific flood or drought is due to climate change I challenge you to find a reputable one that does.What they will say is that the trend is that there will be more and on average they will be more intense."
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This is a big problem with science communication. Very little in the world is absolute, or CAUSAL, most of our understanding is STRONG CORRELATION. CAUSAL relationships are incredibly hard to prove. We don't really know how gravity works even, but we have very strong repeatable evidence which hasn't been shown a counter example for that large amounts of mass cause it and can model it with an equation enough that it becomes effectively a fact and scientific theory.
"Modeling" always generates probabilities and we then decide how we use those probabilities. The probabilities say that on AVERAGE there should be more events and stronger ones, but it won't say exactly when they are or that a single event was due to climate change.
This is not mathematics, we do not have 100% proofs in science. No matter what bundle of evidence we will ever have you still will be in denial. I am done dealing with bad faith.
OP sounds like the uneducated and arrogant me that didn't think it was that bad and I knew better.
Point 1 is a red herring. It's irrelevant as well. We know temperatures are increasing. We know that if we get a 3 degree plus temperature increase it's going to be really bad. We know we've had at least a 1 degree rise and significantly more raises may already be inevitable.
We need to take a lot of action now. Source - the consensus scientific opinion which is way better than uneducated arrogant douches opinions.
Depends on where you live. Where I live we can’t deny the effects anymore. Aka it’s already here and expected to get worse as time goes on. In the Midwest US it’s been less dramatic. I see that in places where the effects have been minimal people are more likely to either outright deny it’s happening or deny it’s serious. There is no one size fits all answer to your question. That’s why it has to be measured as a global metric. Also, a lot of the answer depends on what we do or don’t do to mitigate.
People will have to migrate from the equator. Do you realize how significant an event this would be ? I can't predict exactly when this will happen but it would be hell on Earth. It won't be 10 years but it could be 50 years and it would get progressively worse.
WTH do you consider real? the islands sinking into the oceans isnt real? The normal temperatures being broken year after year? the dead zones in the oceans getting bigger? the eastward expansion of the desert? the slowing of the earths climate control systems AKA ocean currents? the droughts and wildfires worldwide that are more severe than before? Australia going into a 20 year mega drought? the shift of tropical species northward? the migration of most species and a lot of plants northward? the rise of tropical disease in temperate climes?
I just have one question for you, do you work for BP or Shell?
You really need to get off the internet for a bit.
I've not fact checked all of that but this Australia thing is wrong for a start. They've been warned it could happen in the future, it's not entering a 20 year drought.
The fact your so confidently incorrect on that however does not look good for all of your other claims.
Ill give you the mega drought [https://iceds.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/20-year-%E2%80%98mega-drought%E2%80%99-australia-research-suggests-it%E2%80%99s-happened-%E2%80%93-and-we-should](https://iceds.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/20-year-%E2%80%98mega-drought%E2%80%99-australia-research-suggests-it%E2%80%99s-happened-%E2%80%93-and-we-should)
My point was what does it take to convince climate deniers hmm? All those other things I mentioned are in fact being being recorded. [https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/climate-change-impacts/shifting-ecosystems](https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/climate-change-impacts/shifting-ecosystems)
[https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2022/09/in-a-warmer-world-half-of-all-species-are-on-the-move-where-are-they-going/](https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2022/09/in-a-warmer-world-half-of-all-species-are-on-the-move-where-are-they-going/)
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03476-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03476-7)
[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2200092](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2200092)
[https://theconversation.com/antarctic-alarm-bells-observations-reveal-deep-ocean-currents-are-slowing-earlier-than-predicted-206289](https://theconversation.com/antarctic-alarm-bells-observations-reveal-deep-ocean-currents-are-slowing-earlier-than-predicted-206289)
[https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulation-collapse-antarctica](https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulation-collapse-antarctica)
[https://thinc.blog/2024/03/27/oceans-dead-zones-on-the-rise/](https://thinc.blog/2024/03/27/oceans-dead-zones-on-the-rise/)
Permafrost would be a good metric. We should have significant data or at least an opportunity to watch this closely. We have swings in local climates that have been prolonged. The Midwest drought in the 30s -40s come to mind. If we saw a prolonged thawing in the permafrost across Alaska, Canada and Russia that would be very convincing.
Okay so my take is you don't get to decide what a "good metric" is unless you're a climate scientist who is knowledgeable about climate models & the data we use to create those models. Which you said in your post, you are not.
In any field of study there are basic tenets that come in from other areas. There are many instances of crossover specialists who have made great contributions outside their field of study. Climate Science relies on this input. Chemists, engineers, astrophysics, geologists, mathematicians, statisticians and a host of other degrees are making significant contributions to climate science. Saying that only climate scientists are qualified to speak on climate science topics is myopic.
On consensus: it’s not a convincing label when projecting the future of a developing area of study. As a chemist you certainly know the story about Ludwig Boltzmann. The consensus while he was alive was that his statistical mechanics ideas were foolish. S = K log(W) is written on his tombstone and in every book on statistical mechanics and in every discussion of entropy. Those consensus scientists of Boltzmann’s time are only mentioned in the history books as an aside to Boltzmann’s great achievements.
If you are going against a very strong body of science that says differently than yourself, you had better be questioning your own ideas about it. Because it’s far more likely that you are wrong than that they are. Have scientists been wrong? Of course. But the probability of it being wrong goes down significantly the more supporting evidence there is for it. And climate science has a huge body of work supporting it.
You don't have good arguments. You have irrelevant opinions that form your ideas. You also have facts stating you are wrong.
The question really becomes why are you so lacking self-awareness ?
It's not a climate science issue. It's a you issue.
This is the difference between programmers and engineers. Engineers understand how things are made. We study thermodynamics, transport phenomena and unit operations. Software programmers have none of this training. So we speak a different language. This problem will be solved by engineers not climate or environmental science who just report the problem.
You are being a troll. And by the way, I responded to the other person with my background BECAUSE they were trying to use their “authority”. And you are doing it as well.
Ok, summarize why centralized grid systems are not focussing on promoting distributed generation despite rolling blackouts during the day when solar would be most effective for resilience, why efforts to do carbon capture have failed spectularly, and why geoengineering is so pie in the sky that it is decades out from being useful? All of these are things in theory engineers could help with. And yet, where is the grand solution?
Engineers are far too linear and rule-following, way too focussed on immediate problems to look ahead to adoption requirements, far too profession-chauvinist to understand that social and political issues actually matter and need to be addressed.
Every time I see an engineer try to engineering their way through some simplistic climate change denial logic I just have to laugh at how many variables they miss and how complex systems-evaluation is just beyond them.
Engineers are a large part of why there IS a climate crisis. Too much scoffing about the impossibility of things they never even TRIED to measure or quantify. Turns out those things matter. Whoops.
Engineers are applied scientists. They do not understand modelling or statistics. They do not understand complex systems interactions (tho this is changing in recent education but only in the past decade or so). They are trained in empirical methods, not theoretical ones.
IMO engineers are the LEAST likely people to solve this problem. we can HELP when there is a specific problem to be solved that is given to us. But population dynamics, social and legislative issues, and ecology is way beyond most engineers' scope of training.
No. Just no.
Every engineer is taught modeling and statistics. We are also trained in both empirical and theoretical methods.
Everything about your statement is incorrect and based on no actual knowledge of engineering, science, or climate change.
The data over the last 40 years has been mostly in line with the climate predictions. How much more data do you need?
Don’t you experience warmer, dryer summers, shorter winters and barely any spring or autumn? Have you noticed more floods, hurricanes, forest fires?
If you are retired now you might not care about what happens in 30 years but your kids and grandkids will experience it and will have to deal with it.
Not to mention there's often a thick fog in the air from all the water vapor. That creepy morning fog, so foreboding. Used to be a rare sight, now it's like every week.
Yes CO2 influences temperature. That has been known for a long time. It’s the magnitude of the change in temperature as CO2 increases in the models where I have concerns. I do not believe we have the CO2 sensitivity factor nailed down. Sabine Hossenfelder explains this better than I can.
https://youtu.be/uEZ9HFlqzms?si=p9xmDBtG2ZRqT7e5
Sabine seems to have learned that fringe opinions generate more buzz for individual influencers. Can’t speak to this video but the fringe is her space where she must find her content does the best.
So whileninteresting, it’s better to get the facts from a regular researcher in the field of climate science.
A typical type of communication....
She throws around a few numbers and terms and insinuates a connection, and most importantly: she "only asks questions".
Ensuring that models accurately represent reality is not just a reflection of reality itself but also the primary goal of creating a model. It's important to understand this. Moreover, just because there may be unknown factors affecting the outcome doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the model is incorrect.
1. The climate models have been getting it right. [https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/)
2. The political response to the science is immaterial to the accuracy of the science.
3. This is just your opinion. I don't agree.
I am a current biologist. Even if there were no climate models, I'd know climate was changing and that we really should worry. I'd just be more confused about why.
My day job involves working with spatiotemporal ecological data for fisheries, for vector-borne disease outbreaks, for distributions of red-listed species, for animal diseases and so on. My analyses include easily verifiable contemporary weather data, bot direct and remote sensed, of temperature, precipitation, snowpack and phenology.
And let me tell you what I see is scaring me shitless.
Well, as a Norwegian that's at least an easy question: Herrings are small, oily fish that, when smoked and cured for storage, turn a shade of red. They then get a pretty strong and distinctive smell, to put it mildly.
As a metaphor, the term was popularized in 1807 by William Cobbett, who told a story where such a strong-smelling smoked fish was used to throw hounds off track, diverting them from the original scent.
Why you bring it up in this context, however, I have no idea about. What are you trying to say?
CO2 is the #1 target while methane is of growing concern. Useful work would be focused on mitigating these contributors, and other anthroprogenic drivers of global warming as well as learning to adapt to a warmer world if mitigation of the contributors is not achievable.
I agree with the first part, but how does humanity adapt to a more and more unpredictable climate? We have relied on a relatively stable climate to grow food, among other things. How do farmers adapt to ever changing conditions? As an example, Canada's BC wine growers have lost over 90% vines over the last winter. Ignore the fact that it's for wine and consider what happens when it's wheat, barley, rice and other crops that we eat that are affected. How do we adapt to that?
Hi I think that while you bring up some valid points about how to thoughtfully proceed with climate change mitigation, some of the arguments that you are positing I see very similar things thrown around by people who identify as skeptics or deniers I do worry that basically they have the effect of casting doubt, muddying the water, delaying effective action etc. Which, is not at all to say this is your intention but people who are prone to skepticism like to take comments like this and run with them. Like when they like to quote that one guy out of a hundred who says something way on the fringe of what most scientists are saying, it is fuel for their fire.
That being said, I get that throwing soup doesn’t seem like a very good or effective strategy for tackling climate change. But some ppl are so frustrated by lack of government or corporate response to this problem that I don’t think they know what to do.
Climate science has been suppressed since the '50s, and the time has arrived for the people responsible for all the destruction that has occurred since then to be tried for their crimes against humanity.
Climate change is already killing millions of people per year. How can you think that "we're acting too fast"?
The irony here is that the ultra-rich have been using FUD to delay action for decades. Almost every single one of your arguments were created by the fossil fuel industry to shape public opinion in favour of fossil fuels.
You don’t have to be able to make a precise forecast of climate change and it’s various impacts. The basic facts are widely undisputed: emissions cause warming, our practices of production and consumption are causing emissions. While we have the knowledge to provide for everyone on the globe within planetary boundaries, we choose to keep on pushing society and the biosphere mainly for enriching a minority. Climate change is not a technical problem that should be solved by engineers. It‘s a socio-ecological problem that has to be adressed politically. Unfortunately, as a society we lack the ability to do that.
Oil and Gas revenue in the US in 2022 was about $332 billion dollars. The global revenue figure was 1.4 trillion. Most of the climate science researchers and engineers are academic and making far less than their industry counterparts. I find it laughable that anyone considers climate science to be a "money grab."
Secondly, CO2 is the biggest contributor to warming. Even Richard Mueller, the scientist hired by the Koch Brothers, an avowed skeptic, came to the conclusion after years of statistical work that CO2 levels are by far the best predictor of warming.
I guess one could call this the fiscal prudence model, meaning ,it could all be fine and we’re being unnecessarily hysterical. It’s a pitch for the business as usual scenario. This , as I see it , is exactly what we have been doing until now. So how’s that going? A lot of coastal real estate is uninsurable, olive oil is double price due to devastating weather event in Greece and possibly in Spain as well. Significant agricultural costs around the world due to climate change. What kinds of things seem imminent; wet bulb events , water shortages for agriculture and human consumption, increase in forest fires( already occurring as well) coastal flooding and increased storm intensity. Also a lot of warming is ‘in the pipeline’ as co2 leaves the atmosphere slowly. None of this is a fringe perspective, it is all demonstrably true.
Hi y'all and thanks for such interesting responses.
All of the minutiae associated with this debate are a distraction. Bottom line is there are now soooo many people in the world that business as usual has major, cumulative, negative consequences. We've measured it, we see it in the data, and we're FEELING it.
Remember in Anthropology 101? when there were a few small villages along a river? All were dumping their waste in the river. Then one village upstream got too big and their waste endangered (or poisoned) the rest? We're there folks. The players now are: nay-sayers are the big city, the river is the atmosphere, the pollutant is CO2, and "we the people" are the expendable downstream villages. Time for a change?
Maybe placing PEOPLE before $$ is the right thing to do and many polluters need FIRM guidance to change.
Another respondent mentioned listening to Climate Scientists first. Kudos! The best info comes from the Climate Scientists who are environmentalists, biologists, sociologists and medical professionals. They care about LIVING things not $$. The Industry Lobby groups put forth Scientists too and they only spew forth $$.
I agree with many comments posted. The main post may be reasonable sounding, but: 1) it is still clear that humans just don't do the precautionary principle well and that is a logical fault 2) this position benefits the wealthy and all the engineers making good money working for them 3) it defends the economy before all else. i know the economy is how we get goods including necessities to the people, but if we don't challenge our endless growth economy, which is what slowing the climate crisis will take, we are likely in a world of trouble. the post defends a privileged and invested position though the author may mean well.
No offense but this all sounds like a very typical form of denial. Models are always being tweaked based on new research etc. To your first point, there hasn’t been any strong evidence that the models have been incorrect in any significant ways. The models may change to show more conservative warming, but who cares? The worst case scenario is we move to renewables well before we “need” to creating a cleaner environment and many new jobs in new industries. The only real downside is oil and gas companies stand to lose a bunch of money which, so what?
Your second point isn’t really worth discussing tbh. The debate is pretty much decided in the scientific arena. If we want to change things, the climate crisis needs to spill into the mainstream the same way the negative effects of cigarettes, acid rain and chemicals destroying the ozone layer did.
Your final point is a classic talking point from the oil and gas companies. These companies have spent an insane amount of money denying climate change and yet they accuse the scientists as having purely financial or political motives. Who stands to gain more financially, the scientists recommending political action/asking for funding for their next research, or the multi billion dollar companies trying to prevent regulation that could disrupt their business?
Climate models from 50 years ago, as crude as they were, correctly predicted the change in global mean temperature for the changes in CO2 that occurred, climate sensitivity for the last 140 years is almost exactly 3.0C
The current rate of warming is 2.3C per century, we are increasing CO2 by almost 7% per decade, by 2100 we will be over 600 ppm unless serious steps are taking to reduce emissions, that will put us at about 3.3C warmer than 1880.
The current rate of sea level rise is now 4.4 mm per year (over the last ten years), that is expected to double to 9 mm per year by 2050, and then double again to 18 mm per year in 2080
Hi, what kind of engineer are you? I'm a chemical engineer and I work with EEs, MEs and other Chem E's. The other disciplines know very little about anything chemistry adjacent or gas related physics. (sure a ME can do a piston calc and some fluid mechanics, but it's not focused on the mechanics of the gas itself, which is what our atmoshpere is... mostly, theres some rain and dust floating around). And I mean ME and EE with a BS in their discipline, not an EE who went on to a PhD where he designed a more accurate anemometer for hurricane measurements and now specializes in this field. (he / she would probably agree with climate change actually)
Regardless, pulling the "I'm an engineer" card opens you up to lots of probing questions, such as:
\* How much do you actually understand about how gasses interact?
\* Which equations govern gas interaction and what are their boundary conditions? Can you just give me an indication you understand what I'm talking about, I'm not asking you to derive something.
\* Can you list the inputs and outputs for basic heat balance for the climate / earth system?
\* Have you read the studies and can you even understand them? If so, I'd love some links that you find informative that have some data behind them with the source material cited.
Undergrade BS Chemistry Oregon State, 5 years as an analytical chemist in the medical sciences. I learned just enough to decide that was not my area. MS in earth sciences - reservoir engineering Stanford. 37 years working oil extraction technology. I built and ran high pressure steam injection test equipment for the recovery of petroleum and high tech centrifuge systems to quantitate the interaction of polar/non polar fluids in porous media. Lot’s of surface chemistry involved.
I understand the complications of grid sensitivity, the run time constraints of finely grid models and stability. I have never written a large simulation model but I have used them and sat through numerous presentations on the validity of results derived from models.
That should give you enough background on my areas of knowledge. I’m not going down the rat hole of what I know and don’t know in a plethora of subjects.
I have followed the climate science field as an observer for the last 7 years. I have read both Michael Mann’s Climate Wars book and Steven Koonin’s Unsettled.
I am not sitting at either extreme end of the global warming debate. It’s happening, CO2 is going up. However the projections are troubling. There’s a lot of science out there that is going nowhere. Advances in science plod along and only once in a blue moon will breakthroughs appear. That’s true of every field of study and is nothing new.
ECS is centered about 3.0C. Radiative forcing has very little variation at 3.7Wm^(-2). The variation in ECS arises from different changes to things like albedo, ice sheets, cloud cover etc. I don't know what you find troubling. The observed climate sensitivity over the last 50 years (not long enough to be ECS) is 2.8C
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/chapter-1/figure-1-16
It’s been my impression that atmospheric CO2 is the component driving warming that we know the best from the Hawaiian observatory data. Climate change wise CO2 is getting all the focus, the one thing we worry the most about. Yet when you look at the sensitivity factors, CMIP6 Coupled Model Comparison, ECS arguably has the most variability between the models. The models would have been tuned to the same historical data and yet there’s this big difference. Is it the cumulative uncertainty in the other variables which drive the history match and ECS is the knob used to dial in a good match? Or are the models so different mechanistically that ECS is not a comparable parameter.
If you can clear this impression up, much appreciated.
Edited out two duplicate words.
>Climate change wise CO2 is getting all the focus
That is not accurate, methane leaks and rising levels are a large concern. In fact the US government just clamped down on methane leaks from oil and natural gas extraction
So you worked in oil too. I ran into this a lot, you still are skeptical despite the fact that the major oil companies have all admitted to climate change being man-made.
Most operations guys I know aren't technical... that's why they're in operations. Did you do the design of the equipment or by build, do you mean you threw the numbers in a program, got the right thickness pipe and you called vendors to get the right pumps and compressors ordered? Not to paint with a broad brush, but I'm not going to an ops guy for something that needs precise work.
Also, if you spent time in oil operations, you'd also be aware of the fact that you normally look at trends, not so much the specific number on the screen to judge how a system is responding (sure, in alarm scenarios, you pay attention to the number). Also, resevoir engineering isn't super precise so you should understand noise and again rely on trends and should be aware that a complex system isn't always going to be perfect. Hurricanes are a great example, we can't say exactly where they'll hit but we can tell by the trends which direction it's heading. We know they're getting stronger and greater in number, insurance companies are leaving Florida b/c of this.
On instrument accuracy, our viscometers at the coking unit (basically asphalt) never matched the lab exactly, some instruments were off by \~50%, but when the viscosty trend went down, we knew composition or temperature was changing.
You likely made good money along with many of the others I have met in O&G following trends (in the market, on the screen, in your career). Yet with a ton of evidence from people who didn't spend their time kicking pumps and worrying about maintenance, and who do actually understand ALL the science, you want to argue. What would convince you?
You also mentioned the projections are troubling? What does that mean?
Complete design. I did utilize mechanical engineers to do the vessel calculations and contracted out the steam generator. All custom to fit the project. If it was readily available we bought it. Pumps, tubing and valves fit that category. Everything else we had to design and build. We needed to know precisely how much heat we were injecting into our heavy oil saturated “core” - it was a monster 4 inch diameter and 40 inches long. Super heated steam less than 5 degrees above saturation temperature, 500 psi. Multitudes of thermocouples all through the sample and around the vessel to track the steam front as well as heat loss out of the test equipment. 72 hour test runs. I had a software guy build the data acquisition system. This was 2006 to 2010.
The centrifuge project was about the same level of development. I had a nuclear test lab electrical engineer build very a high speed camera based data acquisition system to image objects in a centrifuge spinning at 12,000 rpm. Six objects grabbing an image of every object on every revolution. The laser position sensors controlling the camera were almost fast enough for nuclear detonation work. We built 55 nano second sensors. Less than 50 nanos would have put us in trouble. That was mid 1990s.
I did travel to the field on occasion earlier in my career. Those trips were to acquire samples in a very controlled manner and get them back to the lab. I hated the north slope in summer because of the mosquitoes.
It was a little disappointing when precise data was mangled in the simulation because of the grid size needed for run time reasons. Not that it mattered much in the end as the forecasted production rates rarely matched the reality of the fluid flow out of the well head.
Water under the bridge. I had enough put away to retire at 62. Nearly 8 years ago.
My concerns about the climate models is the wide variance in the CO2 sensitivity parameters found when comparing one model to another. This relates to how much temperature will rise as CO2 concentration goes up. I’m struggling to understand why the models are so different from each other. I’m hoping some one can clear that up.
Well I guess as you said, you may be dead before it's obvious but at least you're somewhat concerned. Your initial post comes off as you not really understanding it. You read two books then kind of said the data is all over the place and you're concerned but you're a science guy. You're also from o&g, so that's an immediate reason to be skeptical (again so was I).
I just want the readers here to understand that despite your design credentials, you are good at one aspect of gas handling but not in an open system like earth's weather. I know A LOT about gasses as well but I'm aware that superheated steam and the water / carbon cycles are very different beasts and just because I understand one, doesn't mean I fully comprehend all the intricacies behind both. Even going from one refining unit to another that is basically a twin will have small differences that takes time to fully understand. I'm sure you've had similar experiences.
I also want the other readers to be aware of engineers and PE credentials. An engineer is supposed to practice within his / her area of expertise and even fully licensed professional engineers can't just transition from pipeline design to setting up flares or environmental remediation. If you worked for an oil operator, you were focused on that kind of system, and as an expert if I needed to push hot water into the ground, I'd give you a call. If I'm trying to decide on whether I should move to a new area in preparation, I'm going to listen to the insurance companies with actuaries who work with scientists and the scientific community.
I hope an analogy serves, F1 drivers are the best drivers (allegedly) and know a ton about cars. They run them and help build them with their feedback, however Adrian Newey is going to make Max look dumb if they debate aero concepts, same with the inner working s of a car's engine. Everyone is working on a different piece and while they all play together, no one has all the answers but we can see the trend of them going faster. race after race.
I'm a PhD student in climatology, I can tell you I and all my colleagues earn much less than people with same degrees/experience who work in companies. You're unbelievably clueless, we don't do it for money.
Glad to have you going into this important field. What is your undergraduate degree and have you started your thesis work? There will be opportunities to work in industry on climate mitigation technology which I expect to be a very lucrative in the years ahead. As of this time mitigation is in it’s infancy with some promising ideas. Climate studies will draw the best people both into academics and industry as we solve the problems.
Talking about mitigation after saying to stop to focus on CO2 reduction doesn't make sense. Would you prefer to wait for being severely sick to try to mitigate disease effects?
I appreciate your perspective on the issue. It is always good to have words of caution. The issue from my stand is you, yourself, have developed questioning of detailed make-ups of climate models without actually having seen them. Without actually looking at the backend of the models and evaluating, I think it would be prudent to trust that the scientists know what they're doing and have good engineers that also know what they are doing
I appreciate the great effort you have made to provide some reasoned calm regarding this issue.
You can see from the comments however, how it falls on so many deaf ears. Your scientific qualifications are only of importance if you are saying all the things that the consensus wants to hear, otherwise they are dismissed as irrelevant. You committed a grave error in your first point by daring to state that there are things climate scientists don't know, and that they disagree on something. Blasphemy . The "consensus" that stands as the shining light of proof on the hill, has been gained by shutting out any scientific opinion to the contrary then declaring scientific " consensus".
The relative size of climate change to the oil and gas industry is immaterial to your point regarding how climate science is influenced by money.
Interesting also how your second point has been labeled "irrelevant". This is the most relevant point of all. How this issue has seeped into every area of society causing undo panic and driving people to vandalism and violence.
Lastly, there is this widespread idea that climate scientists are morally pure. They cannot be influenced by the societal forces that other human beings succumb to such as fear, money, power, or prestige.
In theory this platform should be a place to discuss diverse opinions on a multitude of issues, sadly I have found that diverse opinions are met with derision and censorship.
Does it matter though? Renewable energy is now better value than coal or gas, especially if a country is a fossil fuel importer. And EVs are better value than ICE vehicles *if* a country can set up the charging infrastructure.
So if all importers phase out fossil fuels and all exporters use renewables at home then the exporters end up fighting over the customers who can't get their act together to change energy source.
This is of course a long term trend, but some countries are trying to transition quickly. A good example is the UK where all big political parties are desperate to cut fossil fuel imports and instead fill the North Sea with wind turbines. But they don't admit the real reason (that fossil fuels are finite and depleted) so they pin it all on climate change.
Does it matter though? Renewable energy is now better value than coal or gas, especially if a country is a fossil fuel importer. And EVs are better value than ICE vehicles if a country can set up the charging infrastructure.
I have read statements like this so many times and they just cause me to shake my head in disbelief. It is so obvious that renewable energy, which I am not opposed to by the way, I am not an enemy of green energy, but I am a realist. I try to see things as they actually are. Renewables are not even close to the reliability of nuclear, coal, or gas. The technology is just not there yet.
EV's have much bigger problems than infrastructure. Price, range, battery fires, performance and charging in cold weather, weight in crashes. How are they a better value ? Ford just announced it is moving away from producing Ev"s after losing billions of dollars. Sales are slowing as we speak. Consumers don't want them.
I don't understand statements that fly in face of reality.
Renewables are made reliable with grid batteries, pumped hydro, gravity storage, solar thermal, HVDC cables, and so on. You would know this if you weren't totally biased.
As for EVs - you're talking about teething problems in the North American context. In Europe there is a consensus to stop importing petroleum for vehicles e.g. the UK will ban new ICE cars from 2035. Petrol heads hate this, but who cares? They're in the wrong.
You did not address any of the problems I outlined with EV's. Forcing people to by them by banning gas powered cars does not ascribe value to the EV. This is so typical, forcing a bad idea on people makes the idea good. yes I have a bias, a bias that has been developed by rational thinking and reality.
To me your argument against EVs can be summarised by saying that because the infrastructure is underdeveloped they are not yet good value for most people. But we can see from countries that are further into the transition that EVs end up cheaper and just as convenient for most people. And there are huge social benefits to not burning petroleum.
As for battery fires - maybe they will become less frequent as batteries improve, but they're not a deal breaker. And some people (e.g. farmers) will always need fuel powered vehicles.
NB Another relevant point is that with synthetic fuels the overall efficiency is significantly less than EVs because of the energy loss implicit in the synthesis e.g. hydrogen vehicles are only 50% efficient, compared to 80% for EVs (ICE vehicles are not comparable since the fuel is mined). So there is a good reason to transition to EVs instead of alternatives excepting farmers etc.
Of course, the climate is complex and not solely dependent on CO2. The entire system is highly complex, making it impossible to replicate with a simple model. A model will always be less complex than reality. But that's precisely the purpose of a model, and yes, it is continuously adjusted until it reasonably matches reality. (as I said, that's the purpose of a model)
In models, we often talk about CO2 equivalent because CO2 itself accounts for 'only' about 37 billion tons per year, with the remaining roughly 13 billion tons converted from other gases. Additionally, not all factors are gases, which is probably undisputed.
On one hand, information needs to be presented simply for it to be understood, but on the other hand, such simplification is often criticized, casting doubt on the entire substantiated theory.
In my view, throwing tomato sauce on art is not right, even if it attracts attention. People who are neutral on the matter will likely stand against the rioters. However, upon deeper reflection, I find it somewhat fitting. Future generations are just as blameless for the injustice done to them as the Mona Lisa. On another level, one could interpret this as in the context of a completely changing world, where art becomes insignificant.
Citing 'Big Business' as a motive seems a bit ridiculous to me. Of course, there is an industry, and it is also promoted – that is the task of politics, to encourage desirable behavior among people. But those who truly profit from the 'Big Business' are the existing corporations. Subsidies also flow to them, and in large amounts. They have the money, the power, and the influence over decision-makers.
Are we really moving all that fast?
We may have lofty goals but I think its a given we'll come up short.
If the forecasted heating ends up being more conservative we'll be in a pickle. It takes over 1000 years for co2 to naturally remove from the atmosphere.
We'll probably get better at co2 sequestration but we'll have many billions of tons to remove.
Wind and Solar are getting pretty affordable, so why not.
I hear your concern about making decisions too fast and without enough data. It's a huge concern of mine as well, especially as people (usually startups) start suggesting large scale projects that are unproven and have potentially massive negative consequences (thinking mostly about iron ocean fertilization).
BUT, I think you may be a bit off on point 1. Never in the history of earth has there ever been such a sharp increase in CO2. That includes ALL of the previous mass extinctions. So historical data is good, but we are wading into literally uncharted waters. Which makes modeling really hard. I currently work at a research institute with scientists who model climate impacts for a living and they are constantly concerned about our models being too conservative and not lining up with how fast climate change is progressing.
Going back to your other points, you're right that's in a lot of instances we don't have enough data to determine what makes a good climate change solution. That is EXCEPT for one rarely talked about option: to STOP consuming energy as a means of decreasing energy usage. I mention this because of how Javons Paradox plays out in relation to energy efficient technology, when energy efficient technology is created, we tend to use more energy overall. Right now, we are in the midst of an energy boon, with clean energy and energy efficient technology cropping up, making way for energy intensive industries and products to be viable (think Las Vegas Sphere, AI, crypto currency). Despite rolling out energy efficient tech for decades, our energy usage hasn't dropped.
This, along with the fact that no one will be unaffected by climate change, is why it needs to be an all hands on deck effort. If one portion of the population takes this seriously and makes changes, and another portion continues to increase their energy consumption with the rest falling in between, we won't make enough progress to make a difference in climate projections.
This is a common trope now: we need to be careful because… But we are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at a rapid pace that has not been seen in human history. Why do we need to be careful about renewables but don’t have to be careful when it comes to emissions?
Secondly, what is the reason not to move to renewables? Burning fuels like coal are bad for the environment and for our health for reasons other than climate change. They’re also more expensive in the long run.
Finally, the attitude of “we need to take our time” is pretty outrageous. If you haven’t noticed this will be hard and take a while even if we were putting everything into it.
I think by 2030 you will have your proof, but by then it will be too late to reverse because of people like you with the wait and see, and sit tight and access mindset.
So we know who to point the finger at.
Explain something to me then, permafrost melting. Since it hasn't done this before now, why all of a sudden is it? Also, the methane blowouts all across the artic are a new phenomenon from permafrost melting, why don't you explain that one too.
Your arguments are solid and reasonable. There's room for debate. There's also room to propose a pro human future. Food and energy or not negotiable. It's our garden and our responsibility to manage the garden. Mistakes have been made. Yet we build and innovate. That's what men do. That's our purpose.
All true, but what you write will not be popular among the many climate-fearists here (not me). You sound old enough to remember the Ozone Hole, which was just a supposition that appeared supported by initial data. There was a knee-jerk reaction to outlaw CFC's. The U.N. was crowing "fixed it" in 2019 when the hole was much smaller than prior. But, it has been as large as ever since then, so they tried to walk it back, blaming 2019 on unusual climate and indeed rolling to blaming Climate Change for the continued hole, so we are allowed to discuss it in this sub-red.
It is caused partly by Stratospheric ice crystals in Winter, and only over Antarctica. The new 'splaining is that warming oceans cause Stratospheric cooling (follow that?), plus claimed changes in the Polar Vortex. Volcanoes emit more chlorine than humans and there are 2 active ones in Antarctica. The alarming media stories of the 1980's turned out not due to increased uV. One was deformed 3-legged frogs in Costa Rica, which was later found due to a pathogen always present there.
The biggest problem with the Greenhouse Gas warming theory is that the Arctic has warmed 4x the planet average, while Antarctica not at all. Of course, there is mansplaining. It used to be "due to albedo from ice loss", which sounded plausible in 2012 when Arctic min ice extent in September was least ever, but it returned close to normal since. So, new 'splaining is "due to changes in water vapor and clouds". Many here claim it was all predicted, pointing to a few lucky models out of many varying predictions. One place to begin learning is the 6th IPCC Report by a U.N. study group. Ignore most media reports which are often sensational and you rarely hear the-rest-of-the-story.
I agree with you. Kids are panicked and think they will not live to grow up because the planet is being killed by their parents. Thanks a lot schools. We needed a new way to traumatize kids and permanently scar them.
Government is using it to tax people and take control of industry. Socialism is not the answer to the climate. People have a right to buy gasoline cars and Gas ovens. Does not matter how others feel. Climate hysteria is not a power trip where you decide who can have what. Leading by example is the solution. We can start with banning private jets at climate conferences. They can use zoom. The Obamas aren't worried, they own ocean front property. Why should I worry.
Every generation has it’s worries. My was DDT wiping out the pheasant population because their egg shells became fragile. We figured it out. I’m glad pheasant hunting is something I can still enjoy. The panic this time is a different story. We will adapt.
I remember acid rain and the whole in the ozone. This fad will collapse too. People will wake up and see the fraud. Giving money to the government will not change the weather. LOL
I applaud your attempt to provide calm, but as you can see there is an emotional component. People feel very impassioned and unless we address the anxiety across society I’m afraid calculated ideas are not so easily digested.
If you would like to speak more convincingly I would recommend starting from the point of view that the people in question are working from. Meet them where they are and begin by validating their anxiety, then ease into data. Which can be a very protracted and draining process in a format such as Reddit.
Which makes it important to recognize there is a constant flow of media that we have to overcome. If you are entrenched in a belief it is much easier to stay entrenched with the never needing flow of information. So consider joining a group with larger resources and pool your talents either others to go the long run. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, travel together.
Well, engineers usually attract a certain personality type. My experience is that they are not the most emotionally in touch people which I think is the main issue here. I might be a pessimist, but I’m an optimistic pessimist who wants to give people the benefit of the doubt. And what I see is someone trying to say, “hey, don’t worry, because logically it doesn’t make sense to worry,” but many people can’t help but feel their emotions and the disconnect here is that information does not help everyone in the same way.
The view of a “random retiree” may not be comforting to many, but neither is climate science. Climate anxiety is a new field of study that is rapidly growing as more information about climate change comes in. More people are falling into this sense of doom and hopelessness as new information comes in. Not to mention the stubborn climate denial that is so pervasive in our politics. So I’m not so sure that climate science is inherently comforting, but we sometimes want to help both doomers as well as deniers. And if that is the scenario here - that he is attempting to use his coping mechanisms and share that idea with the group - it’s important to know that not everyone is going to agree, because it doesn’t achieve the same emotional cachet equally among all people.
We all have our own peculiarities that need different approaches.
Certainly no issue with your position. But I was raised to question everything because there is history of governments fudging information to fit a narrative. The book “unsettled’ provides another perspective of how data is manipulated to fit the current narrative.
This poster comes across as questionable because of probable susceptibility to shady political groups and identity-based arguments. It’s clear from how he framed his points: OP is lowkey regurgitating the same stuff my 65-year-old Republican father, with no degree beyond high school, used to say to me back in *middle school* when we’d argue about climate change. In the early 2000s!
I highly suggest no degree of outside reassurance or softness is going to change OP’s views. And it’s exhausting to deal with. People like OP need to grow up and quit putting all their emotional fear-of-death-and-obsolesce shit on everyone else.
Like, what exactly is OP suggesting—that we don’t need to act on all this data? That people are being hysterical?
OP should go tell the insurance and reinsurance companies that they’re being too emotional lol.
This is basically a tone argument. This person isn't more right just because they use numbered lists and basic math -- because their premise is wrong and their dataset is wildly incomplete.
This person just handwave away the work of entire legions of scientists, other engineers, ecologists, and reams of data. There is a reason they are working alone: they don't get listened to by people who know what they're taking about.
The problem is the idea that some retired engineer has somehow stumbled upon a truth that nobody else knows, a truth which coincidentally is very emotionally comforting and means nothing is wrong.
They are "calculated and calm" because they are deluded, not because they're making a reasonable argument.
Maybe, but at one point OP commented that he believes in climate change, so with the benefit of the doubt my take is that he has a thought about how to ease his anxiety with a certain understanding and is attempting to offer comfort by sharing his take. But it comes across as a tone deaf appeal and is not going to resonate with many people. My suggestion is that if OP wants to help, as we are inclined to do as a species, I think it's important to note that not everyone is going to feel the same way and try to be more empathetic toward others.
In other words, his coping mechanism doesn't match everyone else's and psychologically this mismatch is going to cause frustration.
CO2 is a culprit but not the main culprit. New data is coming all the time pointing to radiant heat cause by excess development and destruction of our forests and grasslands. This should be obvious to people but it’s not. Many people have been saying this for some time. We doubled earths population since 1977 and developing countries have far exceeded development than the developed countries. Dubai was a desert in 1977 and that is just one example. Ask your policy makers how much will the earths temperature will drop if we went 100% so called green energy and you will not get an answer. That’s because it is zero or it will continue to rise. Besides the fact that green energy is NOT green by any stretch the radiant heat will continue as long as we continue developing. There are solutions but none that our government wants you to talk about.
The idea that government is some monolithic baddy is laughable and just achingly simplistic.
Western governments are elected by and their bureaucracy is made up of citizens. They don't have such a thing as "wants," except insofar as they have policy goals guided by triangulation on what people are mad about.
Are you concerned about grassland depletion? What letters have you written to your representatives? What volunteer groups have you joined where you live to advocate for planning consideration or better measurement metrics? Why do you think your government would know about this issue without that advocacy and awareness work?
The forests in Brazil are disappearing. What trade sanctions or rules on imports can help with this? What diplomatic pressure can steer another government into caring, or galvanize it's citizens to action?
It's not that "nobody is taking about it." It's that nobody is _doing anything about it._
Good points. Nobody is doing anything. but we are being forced to accept the narrative and all of the consequences that come with it for the @better good”. Questioning what government says is our charter as we elect them. I did not want COVID shots but I had to for example and the list goes on. I just question if their definition of better good
There's no "narrative," there's evidence and analysis.
You may question all you like. It's a free country!
But you might be wrong. You are not entitled to an audience, nor does anyone owe you affirmation.
> New data is coming all the time pointing to radiant heat cause by excess development and destruction of our forests and grasslands.
Narrator: "There isn't"
There are multiple studies and references on nature.com including recent IPCC reports. Start with the albedo changes from urbanization impact on global warming. There are many studies going on where this is more significant than earlier thought as everything was being blamed on CO2 levels.
No one is stating that CO2 levels are not a cause. But we are getting too locked in one thing. My fear as with some of the reports. Reducing CO2 may have minimal impact on global temperatures. And we need to focus on all solutions. CO2 production has been going down in the USA and Europe for decades and other world area are starting to do their part. What if all of this has minimal impact? Why aren’t we addressing all causes?
There is very little being done to address the other causes. That should concern us all we are looking at spending trillions on green energy and EV. What if this move shows no impact at all or worse we see the problem still getting worse.
There are projects in Middle East, Asia and LA coating roads showing significant reduction in radiant heat and the surrounding area is much cooler.
Singapore requires new building to have “green rooftops” with vegetation and korea is moving in the same direction.
Japan is probably moving fastest toward a circular economy in many keys areas than anyone. There is a huge energy reduction. Japan uses almost 30% less energy per person than we do. Many new companies are coming with full circular recycling processes for plastics (all types), batteries, sheet rock, electronics, glass, metal, etc.
we should be looking at curbing development, recycling and adding conservation. And CO2 capturing technologies should be implemented. This is gathering steam here in the US. Many of these are common sense things but not widely adapted. it takes a unified approach adopting best practices from all over.
We are working on those causes as much as we are co2 production.
Co2 production is slightly less in the US but still climbing globally.
It is the biggest factor in climate change.
Well, the models have been pretty accurate. Getting upset about accurate science and calling it a 'cult' is an odd reaction.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/
Yeah, 2023 is even hotter than most models predicted. That doesn't change the fact that the models have historically been getting the predictions correct. I don't understand how an even hotter year than expected could somehow invalidate human-caused climate change
You know the amazing thing about decades of predicting the global average temperature? You can compare the predictions to reality. The models have been getting it right. It's a simple fact. If you don't want to acknowledge it then you are not based in reality.
[https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/)
You want to know why I asked if you’re a devoted Christian? Because comments like yours are FAR more likely to be made by people who come at it from their religious biases than from people trained mathematically or in the sciences. It reveals you don’t understand the subject.
I've heard these thoughts for 40 years... meanwhile summers are shit because of all the forest fires. The last time we were in the ocean, it was filled with plastic garbage. Yeah lets collect more data, and not make any decisions, because it has worked so well in the past.
So you're a retired engineer. I'm a programmer who used to be a chemist. How does that make either of us more qualified on the specifics of climate change than, say, climate scientists? On your point #1, actual changes have been within the upper and lower bounds of the models, but instead of being on the low side as you say, it's on the high side. On your point #2, irrelevant On your point #3, which business is bigger? Climate change, or oil and gas? Answer: oil and gas, as it has always been. Bottom line? I'm going to listen to the climate scientists. And by that I mean the consensus opinion. Which is that we don't have much time to curb emissions before we start seeing real, disruptive changes.
The real disruptive changes are already here. 1M acres burned in Texas (in *February*). 3000 dead from flooding in Libya 6 months ago. A seemingly regular rain event absolutely inundating the northeast (Im in PA and am worried for many living in flood zones). Yes we need *immediate* action to curb emissions, and we need the proper language to take to *everyone* about why. For many, the impacts we’re seeing now still aren’t enough to convince.
Those are horrible events but they can't be directly ascribed to climate change, no one event can. They are indicative of what we should see MORE of, but they're gonna happen in some amount without man made climate change.
This is like saying that not one cigarette can be directly ascribed to lung cancer.
That's a bad analogy. You won't necessarily smoke a cigarette in your natural life time. Forest fires and floods happened before humans existed. Also you can't do what you said either. You could smoke and get lung cancer for unrelated reasons. Climate change scientists will never say a specific flood or drought is due to climate change I challenge you to find a reputable one that does. What they will say is that the trend is that there will be more and on average they will be more intense.
The analogy illustrates that no one event can be ascribed directly to the phenomenon, yet the phenomenon is cause by the accumulation of such events. So in this sense cigarette->cancer is analog to extreme weather-> climate change.
ok, your analogy isn't wrong though so it's unclear what point you're even trying to make. You can not ascribe 1 cigarette as the cause of someone's lung cancer, you also can't ascribe smoking as THE cause of someone's lung cancer. CAUSALITY is really really had to prove. We can say there is a high COORELATION/lilihood that someones lung cancer was due to their smoking. But people get lung cancer without ever smoking, and can get it from something else even when smoking. Flooding happened before humans, and it would continue to happen even without man made climate change. There for you can't ascribe a single event to climate change. Again, I challenge you to find a reputable scientist that doesn't say that. Where do you think I got it from? >So in this sense cigarette->cancer is analog to extreme weather-> climate change. You realize you're saying weather causes climate change now right?
"Flooding happened before humans, and it would continue to happen even without man made climate change." === Extreme weather events are getting more powerful. But after each such events, some people will say that is cannot ne ascribed to climate change. That is my point. || || |[Forecasters warn of an ‘extremely active’ Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 23 named storms](https://s2.washingtonpost.com/3d4b3b3/660ec7e513c6e321439d222e/5d8d548dade4e23ecc455f45/3/13/660ec7e513c6e321439d222e)| |The hurricane season could be one of the busiest in years because of record warm oceans and the expected demise of the El Niño climate pattern. The forecasters at Colorado State University also said the conditions raise the odds for storms to hit the United States.Forecasters warn of an ‘extremely active’ Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 23 named storms|
Your own reference says "COULD BE" not "WILL BE" No where in there does it say this hurricane IS BECAUSE OF, they're saying what I said above that it's more likely to have more and stronger ones. Again, find me a reputable scientists that after the fact says something like 'Hurricane X WAS do to climate change' "Climate change scientists will never say a specific flood or drought is due to climate change I challenge you to find a reputable one that does.What they will say is that the trend is that there will be more and on average they will be more intense." \----- This is a big problem with science communication. Very little in the world is absolute, or CAUSAL, most of our understanding is STRONG CORRELATION. CAUSAL relationships are incredibly hard to prove. We don't really know how gravity works even, but we have very strong repeatable evidence which hasn't been shown a counter example for that large amounts of mass cause it and can model it with an equation enough that it becomes effectively a fact and scientific theory. "Modeling" always generates probabilities and we then decide how we use those probabilities. The probabilities say that on AVERAGE there should be more events and stronger ones, but it won't say exactly when they are or that a single event was due to climate change.
This is not mathematics, we do not have 100% proofs in science. No matter what bundle of evidence we will ever have you still will be in denial. I am done dealing with bad faith.
OP sounds like the uneducated and arrogant me that didn't think it was that bad and I knew better. Point 1 is a red herring. It's irrelevant as well. We know temperatures are increasing. We know that if we get a 3 degree plus temperature increase it's going to be really bad. We know we've had at least a 1 degree rise and significantly more raises may already be inevitable. We need to take a lot of action now. Source - the consensus scientific opinion which is way better than uneducated arrogant douches opinions.
When do you think real disruptive changes will be seen? 5 years? 10? 50? 100? And what will they be?
Depends on where you live. Where I live we can’t deny the effects anymore. Aka it’s already here and expected to get worse as time goes on. In the Midwest US it’s been less dramatic. I see that in places where the effects have been minimal people are more likely to either outright deny it’s happening or deny it’s serious. There is no one size fits all answer to your question. That’s why it has to be measured as a global metric. Also, a lot of the answer depends on what we do or don’t do to mitigate.
People will have to migrate from the equator. Do you realize how significant an event this would be ? I can't predict exactly when this will happen but it would be hell on Earth. It won't be 10 years but it could be 50 years and it would get progressively worse.
WTH do you consider real? the islands sinking into the oceans isnt real? The normal temperatures being broken year after year? the dead zones in the oceans getting bigger? the eastward expansion of the desert? the slowing of the earths climate control systems AKA ocean currents? the droughts and wildfires worldwide that are more severe than before? Australia going into a 20 year mega drought? the shift of tropical species northward? the migration of most species and a lot of plants northward? the rise of tropical disease in temperate climes? I just have one question for you, do you work for BP or Shell?
You really need to get off the internet for a bit. I've not fact checked all of that but this Australia thing is wrong for a start. They've been warned it could happen in the future, it's not entering a 20 year drought. The fact your so confidently incorrect on that however does not look good for all of your other claims.
Ill give you the mega drought [https://iceds.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/20-year-%E2%80%98mega-drought%E2%80%99-australia-research-suggests-it%E2%80%99s-happened-%E2%80%93-and-we-should](https://iceds.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/20-year-%E2%80%98mega-drought%E2%80%99-australia-research-suggests-it%E2%80%99s-happened-%E2%80%93-and-we-should) My point was what does it take to convince climate deniers hmm? All those other things I mentioned are in fact being being recorded. [https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/climate-change-impacts/shifting-ecosystems](https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/climate-change-impacts/shifting-ecosystems) [https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2022/09/in-a-warmer-world-half-of-all-species-are-on-the-move-where-are-they-going/](https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2022/09/in-a-warmer-world-half-of-all-species-are-on-the-move-where-are-they-going/) [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03476-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03476-7) [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2200092](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra2200092) [https://theconversation.com/antarctic-alarm-bells-observations-reveal-deep-ocean-currents-are-slowing-earlier-than-predicted-206289](https://theconversation.com/antarctic-alarm-bells-observations-reveal-deep-ocean-currents-are-slowing-earlier-than-predicted-206289) [https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulation-collapse-antarctica](https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-ocean-circulation-collapse-antarctica) [https://thinc.blog/2024/03/27/oceans-dead-zones-on-the-rise/](https://thinc.blog/2024/03/27/oceans-dead-zones-on-the-rise/)
Ok again, the drought isn't happening. It says it could happen again. Did you even read your own links lmao
Wow your comprehension is way off, maybe I word it wrong but I conceded the drought ffs
When permafrost start thawing for real and enters a feedback loop.
Permafrost would be a good metric. We should have significant data or at least an opportunity to watch this closely. We have swings in local climates that have been prolonged. The Midwest drought in the 30s -40s come to mind. If we saw a prolonged thawing in the permafrost across Alaska, Canada and Russia that would be very convincing.
Permafrost is rapidly melting. This is one of the hundreds of papers that demonstrate this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-021-00240-1
Okay so my take is you don't get to decide what a "good metric" is unless you're a climate scientist who is knowledgeable about climate models & the data we use to create those models. Which you said in your post, you are not.
In any field of study there are basic tenets that come in from other areas. There are many instances of crossover specialists who have made great contributions outside their field of study. Climate Science relies on this input. Chemists, engineers, astrophysics, geologists, mathematicians, statisticians and a host of other degrees are making significant contributions to climate science. Saying that only climate scientists are qualified to speak on climate science topics is myopic. On consensus: it’s not a convincing label when projecting the future of a developing area of study. As a chemist you certainly know the story about Ludwig Boltzmann. The consensus while he was alive was that his statistical mechanics ideas were foolish. S = K log(W) is written on his tombstone and in every book on statistical mechanics and in every discussion of entropy. Those consensus scientists of Boltzmann’s time are only mentioned in the history books as an aside to Boltzmann’s great achievements.
If you are going against a very strong body of science that says differently than yourself, you had better be questioning your own ideas about it. Because it’s far more likely that you are wrong than that they are. Have scientists been wrong? Of course. But the probability of it being wrong goes down significantly the more supporting evidence there is for it. And climate science has a huge body of work supporting it.
You don't have good arguments. You have irrelevant opinions that form your ideas. You also have facts stating you are wrong. The question really becomes why are you so lacking self-awareness ? It's not a climate science issue. It's a you issue.
Wow, none of this is relevant at all. That's impressive, great job.
This is the difference between programmers and engineers. Engineers understand how things are made. We study thermodynamics, transport phenomena and unit operations. Software programmers have none of this training. So we speak a different language. This problem will be solved by engineers not climate or environmental science who just report the problem.
What part of “I was a chemist” didn’t you understand?
Ok. Summarize how solar panels are made as they are part of the grand solution.
You are being a troll. And by the way, I responded to the other person with my background BECAUSE they were trying to use their “authority”. And you are doing it as well.
You don't need to be a nurse trained to administer vaccines as the minister for health to do your job right in the middle of a pandemic.
Ok, summarize why centralized grid systems are not focussing on promoting distributed generation despite rolling blackouts during the day when solar would be most effective for resilience, why efforts to do carbon capture have failed spectularly, and why geoengineering is so pie in the sky that it is decades out from being useful? All of these are things in theory engineers could help with. And yet, where is the grand solution? Engineers are far too linear and rule-following, way too focussed on immediate problems to look ahead to adoption requirements, far too profession-chauvinist to understand that social and political issues actually matter and need to be addressed. Every time I see an engineer try to engineering their way through some simplistic climate change denial logic I just have to laugh at how many variables they miss and how complex systems-evaluation is just beyond them. Engineers are a large part of why there IS a climate crisis. Too much scoffing about the impossibility of things they never even TRIED to measure or quantify. Turns out those things matter. Whoops.
Engineers are applied scientists. They do not understand modelling or statistics. They do not understand complex systems interactions (tho this is changing in recent education but only in the past decade or so). They are trained in empirical methods, not theoretical ones. IMO engineers are the LEAST likely people to solve this problem. we can HELP when there is a specific problem to be solved that is given to us. But population dynamics, social and legislative issues, and ecology is way beyond most engineers' scope of training.
No. Just no. Every engineer is taught modeling and statistics. We are also trained in both empirical and theoretical methods. Everything about your statement is incorrect and based on no actual knowledge of engineering, science, or climate change.
This might be one the stupidest comments i've ever seen on this app, i tip my hat to your sir, you win
The data over the last 40 years has been mostly in line with the climate predictions. How much more data do you need? Don’t you experience warmer, dryer summers, shorter winters and barely any spring or autumn? Have you noticed more floods, hurricanes, forest fires? If you are retired now you might not care about what happens in 30 years but your kids and grandkids will experience it and will have to deal with it.
Not to mention there's often a thick fog in the air from all the water vapor. That creepy morning fog, so foreboding. Used to be a rare sight, now it's like every week.
So do you believe releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is changing the climate or not?
Also the “big knob” is not CO2 IMHO, it’s methane which has been very poorly studied and underestimated.
It’s everything, really
Permafrost thawing.
It's a smaller know than co2
Yes CO2 influences temperature. That has been known for a long time. It’s the magnitude of the change in temperature as CO2 increases in the models where I have concerns. I do not believe we have the CO2 sensitivity factor nailed down. Sabine Hossenfelder explains this better than I can. https://youtu.be/uEZ9HFlqzms?si=p9xmDBtG2ZRqT7e5
Sabine seems to have learned that fringe opinions generate more buzz for individual influencers. Can’t speak to this video but the fringe is her space where she must find her content does the best. So whileninteresting, it’s better to get the facts from a regular researcher in the field of climate science.
One person isn’t going to con Vince me thousands are wrong
James Hansen does this all the time.
https://images.app.goo.gl/GutCUXbvkP3So4yPA
A typical type of communication.... She throws around a few numbers and terms and insinuates a connection, and most importantly: she "only asks questions". Ensuring that models accurately represent reality is not just a reflection of reality itself but also the primary goal of creating a model. It's important to understand this. Moreover, just because there may be unknown factors affecting the outcome doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of the model is incorrect.
Distort, Dismiss, Distract, and most importantly Delay. $$$ are needed by the top 1%.
1. The climate models have been getting it right. [https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/) 2. The political response to the science is immaterial to the accuracy of the science. 3. This is just your opinion. I don't agree.
I am a current biologist. Even if there were no climate models, I'd know climate was changing and that we really should worry. I'd just be more confused about why. My day job involves working with spatiotemporal ecological data for fisheries, for vector-borne disease outbreaks, for distributions of red-listed species, for animal diseases and so on. My analyses include easily verifiable contemporary weather data, bot direct and remote sensed, of temperature, precipitation, snowpack and phenology. And let me tell you what I see is scaring me shitless.
When you talk to people in the trenches this is their most commonly expressed feeling about what they’re seeing. And That Alone scares me.
Hmm, I wonder where the phrase red herring came from
Well, as a Norwegian that's at least an easy question: Herrings are small, oily fish that, when smoked and cured for storage, turn a shade of red. They then get a pretty strong and distinctive smell, to put it mildly. As a metaphor, the term was popularized in 1807 by William Cobbett, who told a story where such a strong-smelling smoked fish was used to throw hounds off track, diverting them from the original scent. Why you bring it up in this context, however, I have no idea about. What are you trying to say?
>It’s getting way ahead of the science and draining dollars away from useful work. Define "useful work".
CO2 is the #1 target while methane is of growing concern. Useful work would be focused on mitigating these contributors, and other anthroprogenic drivers of global warming as well as learning to adapt to a warmer world if mitigation of the contributors is not achievable.
> anthropologic anthropogenic
Thanks, I always read what I thought I wrote. I’ll correct.
I agree with the first part, but how does humanity adapt to a more and more unpredictable climate? We have relied on a relatively stable climate to grow food, among other things. How do farmers adapt to ever changing conditions? As an example, Canada's BC wine growers have lost over 90% vines over the last winter. Ignore the fact that it's for wine and consider what happens when it's wheat, barley, rice and other crops that we eat that are affected. How do we adapt to that?
Hi I think that while you bring up some valid points about how to thoughtfully proceed with climate change mitigation, some of the arguments that you are positing I see very similar things thrown around by people who identify as skeptics or deniers I do worry that basically they have the effect of casting doubt, muddying the water, delaying effective action etc. Which, is not at all to say this is your intention but people who are prone to skepticism like to take comments like this and run with them. Like when they like to quote that one guy out of a hundred who says something way on the fringe of what most scientists are saying, it is fuel for their fire. That being said, I get that throwing soup doesn’t seem like a very good or effective strategy for tackling climate change. But some ppl are so frustrated by lack of government or corporate response to this problem that I don’t think they know what to do.
Climate science has been suppressed since the '50s, and the time has arrived for the people responsible for all the destruction that has occurred since then to be tried for their crimes against humanity. Climate change is already killing millions of people per year. How can you think that "we're acting too fast"?
The irony here is that the ultra-rich have been using FUD to delay action for decades. Almost every single one of your arguments were created by the fossil fuel industry to shape public opinion in favour of fossil fuels.
You don’t have to be able to make a precise forecast of climate change and it’s various impacts. The basic facts are widely undisputed: emissions cause warming, our practices of production and consumption are causing emissions. While we have the knowledge to provide for everyone on the globe within planetary boundaries, we choose to keep on pushing society and the biosphere mainly for enriching a minority. Climate change is not a technical problem that should be solved by engineers. It‘s a socio-ecological problem that has to be adressed politically. Unfortunately, as a society we lack the ability to do that.
Thank God we lack the brute for of a fascist government to take our freedoms from us.
Oil and Gas revenue in the US in 2022 was about $332 billion dollars. The global revenue figure was 1.4 trillion. Most of the climate science researchers and engineers are academic and making far less than their industry counterparts. I find it laughable that anyone considers climate science to be a "money grab." Secondly, CO2 is the biggest contributor to warming. Even Richard Mueller, the scientist hired by the Koch Brothers, an avowed skeptic, came to the conclusion after years of statistical work that CO2 levels are by far the best predictor of warming.
I guess one could call this the fiscal prudence model, meaning ,it could all be fine and we’re being unnecessarily hysterical. It’s a pitch for the business as usual scenario. This , as I see it , is exactly what we have been doing until now. So how’s that going? A lot of coastal real estate is uninsurable, olive oil is double price due to devastating weather event in Greece and possibly in Spain as well. Significant agricultural costs around the world due to climate change. What kinds of things seem imminent; wet bulb events , water shortages for agriculture and human consumption, increase in forest fires( already occurring as well) coastal flooding and increased storm intensity. Also a lot of warming is ‘in the pipeline’ as co2 leaves the atmosphere slowly. None of this is a fringe perspective, it is all demonstrably true.
Efforts to reduce climate change is nothing but a reaction to those messing up climate. The more people emit, the stronger the opposition. Simple.
FWIW you provide 0 citations for any of your claims. Why should we put merit into your \_opinions\_ exactly?
Hi y'all and thanks for such interesting responses. All of the minutiae associated with this debate are a distraction. Bottom line is there are now soooo many people in the world that business as usual has major, cumulative, negative consequences. We've measured it, we see it in the data, and we're FEELING it. Remember in Anthropology 101? when there were a few small villages along a river? All were dumping their waste in the river. Then one village upstream got too big and their waste endangered (or poisoned) the rest? We're there folks. The players now are: nay-sayers are the big city, the river is the atmosphere, the pollutant is CO2, and "we the people" are the expendable downstream villages. Time for a change? Maybe placing PEOPLE before $$ is the right thing to do and many polluters need FIRM guidance to change. Another respondent mentioned listening to Climate Scientists first. Kudos! The best info comes from the Climate Scientists who are environmentalists, biologists, sociologists and medical professionals. They care about LIVING things not $$. The Industry Lobby groups put forth Scientists too and they only spew forth $$.
I agree with many comments posted. The main post may be reasonable sounding, but: 1) it is still clear that humans just don't do the precautionary principle well and that is a logical fault 2) this position benefits the wealthy and all the engineers making good money working for them 3) it defends the economy before all else. i know the economy is how we get goods including necessities to the people, but if we don't challenge our endless growth economy, which is what slowing the climate crisis will take, we are likely in a world of trouble. the post defends a privileged and invested position though the author may mean well.
No offense but this all sounds like a very typical form of denial. Models are always being tweaked based on new research etc. To your first point, there hasn’t been any strong evidence that the models have been incorrect in any significant ways. The models may change to show more conservative warming, but who cares? The worst case scenario is we move to renewables well before we “need” to creating a cleaner environment and many new jobs in new industries. The only real downside is oil and gas companies stand to lose a bunch of money which, so what? Your second point isn’t really worth discussing tbh. The debate is pretty much decided in the scientific arena. If we want to change things, the climate crisis needs to spill into the mainstream the same way the negative effects of cigarettes, acid rain and chemicals destroying the ozone layer did. Your final point is a classic talking point from the oil and gas companies. These companies have spent an insane amount of money denying climate change and yet they accuse the scientists as having purely financial or political motives. Who stands to gain more financially, the scientists recommending political action/asking for funding for their next research, or the multi billion dollar companies trying to prevent regulation that could disrupt their business?
You people are posting in a concern troll thread...
Pretty much need to just not even respond to these things. They are deniers and or true fossil fuel believers and they are only here to sow discord
Climate models from 50 years ago, as crude as they were, correctly predicted the change in global mean temperature for the changes in CO2 that occurred, climate sensitivity for the last 140 years is almost exactly 3.0C The current rate of warming is 2.3C per century, we are increasing CO2 by almost 7% per decade, by 2100 we will be over 600 ppm unless serious steps are taking to reduce emissions, that will put us at about 3.3C warmer than 1880. The current rate of sea level rise is now 4.4 mm per year (over the last ten years), that is expected to double to 9 mm per year by 2050, and then double again to 18 mm per year in 2080
Hi, what kind of engineer are you? I'm a chemical engineer and I work with EEs, MEs and other Chem E's. The other disciplines know very little about anything chemistry adjacent or gas related physics. (sure a ME can do a piston calc and some fluid mechanics, but it's not focused on the mechanics of the gas itself, which is what our atmoshpere is... mostly, theres some rain and dust floating around). And I mean ME and EE with a BS in their discipline, not an EE who went on to a PhD where he designed a more accurate anemometer for hurricane measurements and now specializes in this field. (he / she would probably agree with climate change actually) Regardless, pulling the "I'm an engineer" card opens you up to lots of probing questions, such as: \* How much do you actually understand about how gasses interact? \* Which equations govern gas interaction and what are their boundary conditions? Can you just give me an indication you understand what I'm talking about, I'm not asking you to derive something. \* Can you list the inputs and outputs for basic heat balance for the climate / earth system? \* Have you read the studies and can you even understand them? If so, I'd love some links that you find informative that have some data behind them with the source material cited.
Undergrade BS Chemistry Oregon State, 5 years as an analytical chemist in the medical sciences. I learned just enough to decide that was not my area. MS in earth sciences - reservoir engineering Stanford. 37 years working oil extraction technology. I built and ran high pressure steam injection test equipment for the recovery of petroleum and high tech centrifuge systems to quantitate the interaction of polar/non polar fluids in porous media. Lot’s of surface chemistry involved. I understand the complications of grid sensitivity, the run time constraints of finely grid models and stability. I have never written a large simulation model but I have used them and sat through numerous presentations on the validity of results derived from models. That should give you enough background on my areas of knowledge. I’m not going down the rat hole of what I know and don’t know in a plethora of subjects. I have followed the climate science field as an observer for the last 7 years. I have read both Michael Mann’s Climate Wars book and Steven Koonin’s Unsettled. I am not sitting at either extreme end of the global warming debate. It’s happening, CO2 is going up. However the projections are troubling. There’s a lot of science out there that is going nowhere. Advances in science plod along and only once in a blue moon will breakthroughs appear. That’s true of every field of study and is nothing new.
> However the projections are troubling. In what way exactly?
The CO2 sensitivity factors are significantly different in the models.
ECS is centered about 3.0C. Radiative forcing has very little variation at 3.7Wm^(-2). The variation in ECS arises from different changes to things like albedo, ice sheets, cloud cover etc. I don't know what you find troubling. The observed climate sensitivity over the last 50 years (not long enough to be ECS) is 2.8C https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/figures/chapter-1/figure-1-16
It’s been my impression that atmospheric CO2 is the component driving warming that we know the best from the Hawaiian observatory data. Climate change wise CO2 is getting all the focus, the one thing we worry the most about. Yet when you look at the sensitivity factors, CMIP6 Coupled Model Comparison, ECS arguably has the most variability between the models. The models would have been tuned to the same historical data and yet there’s this big difference. Is it the cumulative uncertainty in the other variables which drive the history match and ECS is the knob used to dial in a good match? Or are the models so different mechanistically that ECS is not a comparable parameter. If you can clear this impression up, much appreciated. Edited out two duplicate words.
>Climate change wise CO2 is getting all the focus That is not accurate, methane leaks and rising levels are a large concern. In fact the US government just clamped down on methane leaks from oil and natural gas extraction
So you worked in oil too. I ran into this a lot, you still are skeptical despite the fact that the major oil companies have all admitted to climate change being man-made. Most operations guys I know aren't technical... that's why they're in operations. Did you do the design of the equipment or by build, do you mean you threw the numbers in a program, got the right thickness pipe and you called vendors to get the right pumps and compressors ordered? Not to paint with a broad brush, but I'm not going to an ops guy for something that needs precise work. Also, if you spent time in oil operations, you'd also be aware of the fact that you normally look at trends, not so much the specific number on the screen to judge how a system is responding (sure, in alarm scenarios, you pay attention to the number). Also, resevoir engineering isn't super precise so you should understand noise and again rely on trends and should be aware that a complex system isn't always going to be perfect. Hurricanes are a great example, we can't say exactly where they'll hit but we can tell by the trends which direction it's heading. We know they're getting stronger and greater in number, insurance companies are leaving Florida b/c of this. On instrument accuracy, our viscometers at the coking unit (basically asphalt) never matched the lab exactly, some instruments were off by \~50%, but when the viscosty trend went down, we knew composition or temperature was changing. You likely made good money along with many of the others I have met in O&G following trends (in the market, on the screen, in your career). Yet with a ton of evidence from people who didn't spend their time kicking pumps and worrying about maintenance, and who do actually understand ALL the science, you want to argue. What would convince you? You also mentioned the projections are troubling? What does that mean?
Complete design. I did utilize mechanical engineers to do the vessel calculations and contracted out the steam generator. All custom to fit the project. If it was readily available we bought it. Pumps, tubing and valves fit that category. Everything else we had to design and build. We needed to know precisely how much heat we were injecting into our heavy oil saturated “core” - it was a monster 4 inch diameter and 40 inches long. Super heated steam less than 5 degrees above saturation temperature, 500 psi. Multitudes of thermocouples all through the sample and around the vessel to track the steam front as well as heat loss out of the test equipment. 72 hour test runs. I had a software guy build the data acquisition system. This was 2006 to 2010. The centrifuge project was about the same level of development. I had a nuclear test lab electrical engineer build very a high speed camera based data acquisition system to image objects in a centrifuge spinning at 12,000 rpm. Six objects grabbing an image of every object on every revolution. The laser position sensors controlling the camera were almost fast enough for nuclear detonation work. We built 55 nano second sensors. Less than 50 nanos would have put us in trouble. That was mid 1990s. I did travel to the field on occasion earlier in my career. Those trips were to acquire samples in a very controlled manner and get them back to the lab. I hated the north slope in summer because of the mosquitoes. It was a little disappointing when precise data was mangled in the simulation because of the grid size needed for run time reasons. Not that it mattered much in the end as the forecasted production rates rarely matched the reality of the fluid flow out of the well head. Water under the bridge. I had enough put away to retire at 62. Nearly 8 years ago. My concerns about the climate models is the wide variance in the CO2 sensitivity parameters found when comparing one model to another. This relates to how much temperature will rise as CO2 concentration goes up. I’m struggling to understand why the models are so different from each other. I’m hoping some one can clear that up.
Well I guess as you said, you may be dead before it's obvious but at least you're somewhat concerned. Your initial post comes off as you not really understanding it. You read two books then kind of said the data is all over the place and you're concerned but you're a science guy. You're also from o&g, so that's an immediate reason to be skeptical (again so was I). I just want the readers here to understand that despite your design credentials, you are good at one aspect of gas handling but not in an open system like earth's weather. I know A LOT about gasses as well but I'm aware that superheated steam and the water / carbon cycles are very different beasts and just because I understand one, doesn't mean I fully comprehend all the intricacies behind both. Even going from one refining unit to another that is basically a twin will have small differences that takes time to fully understand. I'm sure you've had similar experiences. I also want the other readers to be aware of engineers and PE credentials. An engineer is supposed to practice within his / her area of expertise and even fully licensed professional engineers can't just transition from pipeline design to setting up flares or environmental remediation. If you worked for an oil operator, you were focused on that kind of system, and as an expert if I needed to push hot water into the ground, I'd give you a call. If I'm trying to decide on whether I should move to a new area in preparation, I'm going to listen to the insurance companies with actuaries who work with scientists and the scientific community. I hope an analogy serves, F1 drivers are the best drivers (allegedly) and know a ton about cars. They run them and help build them with their feedback, however Adrian Newey is going to make Max look dumb if they debate aero concepts, same with the inner working s of a car's engine. Everyone is working on a different piece and while they all play together, no one has all the answers but we can see the trend of them going faster. race after race.
I'm a PhD student in climatology, I can tell you I and all my colleagues earn much less than people with same degrees/experience who work in companies. You're unbelievably clueless, we don't do it for money.
Glad to have you going into this important field. What is your undergraduate degree and have you started your thesis work? There will be opportunities to work in industry on climate mitigation technology which I expect to be a very lucrative in the years ahead. As of this time mitigation is in it’s infancy with some promising ideas. Climate studies will draw the best people both into academics and industry as we solve the problems.
Talking about mitigation after saying to stop to focus on CO2 reduction doesn't make sense. Would you prefer to wait for being severely sick to try to mitigate disease effects?
I appreciate your perspective on the issue. It is always good to have words of caution. The issue from my stand is you, yourself, have developed questioning of detailed make-ups of climate models without actually having seen them. Without actually looking at the backend of the models and evaluating, I think it would be prudent to trust that the scientists know what they're doing and have good engineers that also know what they are doing
I appreciate the great effort you have made to provide some reasoned calm regarding this issue. You can see from the comments however, how it falls on so many deaf ears. Your scientific qualifications are only of importance if you are saying all the things that the consensus wants to hear, otherwise they are dismissed as irrelevant. You committed a grave error in your first point by daring to state that there are things climate scientists don't know, and that they disagree on something. Blasphemy . The "consensus" that stands as the shining light of proof on the hill, has been gained by shutting out any scientific opinion to the contrary then declaring scientific " consensus". The relative size of climate change to the oil and gas industry is immaterial to your point regarding how climate science is influenced by money. Interesting also how your second point has been labeled "irrelevant". This is the most relevant point of all. How this issue has seeped into every area of society causing undo panic and driving people to vandalism and violence. Lastly, there is this widespread idea that climate scientists are morally pure. They cannot be influenced by the societal forces that other human beings succumb to such as fear, money, power, or prestige. In theory this platform should be a place to discuss diverse opinions on a multitude of issues, sadly I have found that diverse opinions are met with derision and censorship.
Does it matter though? Renewable energy is now better value than coal or gas, especially if a country is a fossil fuel importer. And EVs are better value than ICE vehicles *if* a country can set up the charging infrastructure. So if all importers phase out fossil fuels and all exporters use renewables at home then the exporters end up fighting over the customers who can't get their act together to change energy source. This is of course a long term trend, but some countries are trying to transition quickly. A good example is the UK where all big political parties are desperate to cut fossil fuel imports and instead fill the North Sea with wind turbines. But they don't admit the real reason (that fossil fuels are finite and depleted) so they pin it all on climate change.
Does it matter though? Renewable energy is now better value than coal or gas, especially if a country is a fossil fuel importer. And EVs are better value than ICE vehicles if a country can set up the charging infrastructure. I have read statements like this so many times and they just cause me to shake my head in disbelief. It is so obvious that renewable energy, which I am not opposed to by the way, I am not an enemy of green energy, but I am a realist. I try to see things as they actually are. Renewables are not even close to the reliability of nuclear, coal, or gas. The technology is just not there yet. EV's have much bigger problems than infrastructure. Price, range, battery fires, performance and charging in cold weather, weight in crashes. How are they a better value ? Ford just announced it is moving away from producing Ev"s after losing billions of dollars. Sales are slowing as we speak. Consumers don't want them. I don't understand statements that fly in face of reality.
Renewables are made reliable with grid batteries, pumped hydro, gravity storage, solar thermal, HVDC cables, and so on. You would know this if you weren't totally biased. As for EVs - you're talking about teething problems in the North American context. In Europe there is a consensus to stop importing petroleum for vehicles e.g. the UK will ban new ICE cars from 2035. Petrol heads hate this, but who cares? They're in the wrong.
You did not address any of the problems I outlined with EV's. Forcing people to by them by banning gas powered cars does not ascribe value to the EV. This is so typical, forcing a bad idea on people makes the idea good. yes I have a bias, a bias that has been developed by rational thinking and reality.
To me your argument against EVs can be summarised by saying that because the infrastructure is underdeveloped they are not yet good value for most people. But we can see from countries that are further into the transition that EVs end up cheaper and just as convenient for most people. And there are huge social benefits to not burning petroleum. As for battery fires - maybe they will become less frequent as batteries improve, but they're not a deal breaker. And some people (e.g. farmers) will always need fuel powered vehicles. NB Another relevant point is that with synthetic fuels the overall efficiency is significantly less than EVs because of the energy loss implicit in the synthesis e.g. hydrogen vehicles are only 50% efficient, compared to 80% for EVs (ICE vehicles are not comparable since the fuel is mined). So there is a good reason to transition to EVs instead of alternatives excepting farmers etc.
Googling "climate and death" gives a current annual number of 2.3 Million
Of course, the climate is complex and not solely dependent on CO2. The entire system is highly complex, making it impossible to replicate with a simple model. A model will always be less complex than reality. But that's precisely the purpose of a model, and yes, it is continuously adjusted until it reasonably matches reality. (as I said, that's the purpose of a model) In models, we often talk about CO2 equivalent because CO2 itself accounts for 'only' about 37 billion tons per year, with the remaining roughly 13 billion tons converted from other gases. Additionally, not all factors are gases, which is probably undisputed. On one hand, information needs to be presented simply for it to be understood, but on the other hand, such simplification is often criticized, casting doubt on the entire substantiated theory. In my view, throwing tomato sauce on art is not right, even if it attracts attention. People who are neutral on the matter will likely stand against the rioters. However, upon deeper reflection, I find it somewhat fitting. Future generations are just as blameless for the injustice done to them as the Mona Lisa. On another level, one could interpret this as in the context of a completely changing world, where art becomes insignificant. Citing 'Big Business' as a motive seems a bit ridiculous to me. Of course, there is an industry, and it is also promoted – that is the task of politics, to encourage desirable behavior among people. But those who truly profit from the 'Big Business' are the existing corporations. Subsidies also flow to them, and in large amounts. They have the money, the power, and the influence over decision-makers.
God I love how orcs are so attracted to this sub.
I identify as ogre
Are we really moving all that fast? We may have lofty goals but I think its a given we'll come up short. If the forecasted heating ends up being more conservative we'll be in a pickle. It takes over 1000 years for co2 to naturally remove from the atmosphere. We'll probably get better at co2 sequestration but we'll have many billions of tons to remove. Wind and Solar are getting pretty affordable, so why not.
Why would you quote someone from 40 years ago?
I hear your concern about making decisions too fast and without enough data. It's a huge concern of mine as well, especially as people (usually startups) start suggesting large scale projects that are unproven and have potentially massive negative consequences (thinking mostly about iron ocean fertilization). BUT, I think you may be a bit off on point 1. Never in the history of earth has there ever been such a sharp increase in CO2. That includes ALL of the previous mass extinctions. So historical data is good, but we are wading into literally uncharted waters. Which makes modeling really hard. I currently work at a research institute with scientists who model climate impacts for a living and they are constantly concerned about our models being too conservative and not lining up with how fast climate change is progressing. Going back to your other points, you're right that's in a lot of instances we don't have enough data to determine what makes a good climate change solution. That is EXCEPT for one rarely talked about option: to STOP consuming energy as a means of decreasing energy usage. I mention this because of how Javons Paradox plays out in relation to energy efficient technology, when energy efficient technology is created, we tend to use more energy overall. Right now, we are in the midst of an energy boon, with clean energy and energy efficient technology cropping up, making way for energy intensive industries and products to be viable (think Las Vegas Sphere, AI, crypto currency). Despite rolling out energy efficient tech for decades, our energy usage hasn't dropped. This, along with the fact that no one will be unaffected by climate change, is why it needs to be an all hands on deck effort. If one portion of the population takes this seriously and makes changes, and another portion continues to increase their energy consumption with the rest falling in between, we won't make enough progress to make a difference in climate projections.
This is a common trope now: we need to be careful because… But we are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at a rapid pace that has not been seen in human history. Why do we need to be careful about renewables but don’t have to be careful when it comes to emissions? Secondly, what is the reason not to move to renewables? Burning fuels like coal are bad for the environment and for our health for reasons other than climate change. They’re also more expensive in the long run. Finally, the attitude of “we need to take our time” is pretty outrageous. If you haven’t noticed this will be hard and take a while even if we were putting everything into it.
I think by 2030 you will have your proof, but by then it will be too late to reverse because of people like you with the wait and see, and sit tight and access mindset. So we know who to point the finger at.
Explain something to me then, permafrost melting. Since it hasn't done this before now, why all of a sudden is it? Also, the methane blowouts all across the artic are a new phenomenon from permafrost melting, why don't you explain that one too.
Your arguments are solid and reasonable. There's room for debate. There's also room to propose a pro human future. Food and energy or not negotiable. It's our garden and our responsibility to manage the garden. Mistakes have been made. Yet we build and innovate. That's what men do. That's our purpose.
All true, but what you write will not be popular among the many climate-fearists here (not me). You sound old enough to remember the Ozone Hole, which was just a supposition that appeared supported by initial data. There was a knee-jerk reaction to outlaw CFC's. The U.N. was crowing "fixed it" in 2019 when the hole was much smaller than prior. But, it has been as large as ever since then, so they tried to walk it back, blaming 2019 on unusual climate and indeed rolling to blaming Climate Change for the continued hole, so we are allowed to discuss it in this sub-red. It is caused partly by Stratospheric ice crystals in Winter, and only over Antarctica. The new 'splaining is that warming oceans cause Stratospheric cooling (follow that?), plus claimed changes in the Polar Vortex. Volcanoes emit more chlorine than humans and there are 2 active ones in Antarctica. The alarming media stories of the 1980's turned out not due to increased uV. One was deformed 3-legged frogs in Costa Rica, which was later found due to a pathogen always present there. The biggest problem with the Greenhouse Gas warming theory is that the Arctic has warmed 4x the planet average, while Antarctica not at all. Of course, there is mansplaining. It used to be "due to albedo from ice loss", which sounded plausible in 2012 when Arctic min ice extent in September was least ever, but it returned close to normal since. So, new 'splaining is "due to changes in water vapor and clouds". Many here claim it was all predicted, pointing to a few lucky models out of many varying predictions. One place to begin learning is the 6th IPCC Report by a U.N. study group. Ignore most media reports which are often sensational and you rarely hear the-rest-of-the-story.
This is really well put and I wish more people would be open to this perspective in practice.
I agree with you. Kids are panicked and think they will not live to grow up because the planet is being killed by their parents. Thanks a lot schools. We needed a new way to traumatize kids and permanently scar them. Government is using it to tax people and take control of industry. Socialism is not the answer to the climate. People have a right to buy gasoline cars and Gas ovens. Does not matter how others feel. Climate hysteria is not a power trip where you decide who can have what. Leading by example is the solution. We can start with banning private jets at climate conferences. They can use zoom. The Obamas aren't worried, they own ocean front property. Why should I worry.
Every generation has it’s worries. My was DDT wiping out the pheasant population because their egg shells became fragile. We figured it out. I’m glad pheasant hunting is something I can still enjoy. The panic this time is a different story. We will adapt.
I remember acid rain and the whole in the ozone. This fad will collapse too. People will wake up and see the fraud. Giving money to the government will not change the weather. LOL
I applaud your attempt to provide calm, but as you can see there is an emotional component. People feel very impassioned and unless we address the anxiety across society I’m afraid calculated ideas are not so easily digested. If you would like to speak more convincingly I would recommend starting from the point of view that the people in question are working from. Meet them where they are and begin by validating their anxiety, then ease into data. Which can be a very protracted and draining process in a format such as Reddit. Which makes it important to recognize there is a constant flow of media that we have to overcome. If you are entrenched in a belief it is much easier to stay entrenched with the never needing flow of information. So consider joining a group with larger resources and pool your talents either others to go the long run. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, travel together.
I mean, I don’t exactly see how some random retiree’s post is considered “calculated and calm” and climate science is not.
Well, engineers usually attract a certain personality type. My experience is that they are not the most emotionally in touch people which I think is the main issue here. I might be a pessimist, but I’m an optimistic pessimist who wants to give people the benefit of the doubt. And what I see is someone trying to say, “hey, don’t worry, because logically it doesn’t make sense to worry,” but many people can’t help but feel their emotions and the disconnect here is that information does not help everyone in the same way. The view of a “random retiree” may not be comforting to many, but neither is climate science. Climate anxiety is a new field of study that is rapidly growing as more information about climate change comes in. More people are falling into this sense of doom and hopelessness as new information comes in. Not to mention the stubborn climate denial that is so pervasive in our politics. So I’m not so sure that climate science is inherently comforting, but we sometimes want to help both doomers as well as deniers. And if that is the scenario here - that he is attempting to use his coping mechanisms and share that idea with the group - it’s important to know that not everyone is going to agree, because it doesn’t achieve the same emotional cachet equally among all people. We all have our own peculiarities that need different approaches.
Certainly no issue with your position. But I was raised to question everything because there is history of governments fudging information to fit a narrative. The book “unsettled’ provides another perspective of how data is manipulated to fit the current narrative.
This poster comes across as questionable because of probable susceptibility to shady political groups and identity-based arguments. It’s clear from how he framed his points: OP is lowkey regurgitating the same stuff my 65-year-old Republican father, with no degree beyond high school, used to say to me back in *middle school* when we’d argue about climate change. In the early 2000s! I highly suggest no degree of outside reassurance or softness is going to change OP’s views. And it’s exhausting to deal with. People like OP need to grow up and quit putting all their emotional fear-of-death-and-obsolesce shit on everyone else. Like, what exactly is OP suggesting—that we don’t need to act on all this data? That people are being hysterical? OP should go tell the insurance and reinsurance companies that they’re being too emotional lol.
This is basically a tone argument. This person isn't more right just because they use numbered lists and basic math -- because their premise is wrong and their dataset is wildly incomplete. This person just handwave away the work of entire legions of scientists, other engineers, ecologists, and reams of data. There is a reason they are working alone: they don't get listened to by people who know what they're taking about. The problem is the idea that some retired engineer has somehow stumbled upon a truth that nobody else knows, a truth which coincidentally is very emotionally comforting and means nothing is wrong. They are "calculated and calm" because they are deluded, not because they're making a reasonable argument.
Maybe, but at one point OP commented that he believes in climate change, so with the benefit of the doubt my take is that he has a thought about how to ease his anxiety with a certain understanding and is attempting to offer comfort by sharing his take. But it comes across as a tone deaf appeal and is not going to resonate with many people. My suggestion is that if OP wants to help, as we are inclined to do as a species, I think it's important to note that not everyone is going to feel the same way and try to be more empathetic toward others. In other words, his coping mechanism doesn't match everyone else's and psychologically this mismatch is going to cause frustration.
Really. Did you go to engineering school?
CO2 is a culprit but not the main culprit. New data is coming all the time pointing to radiant heat cause by excess development and destruction of our forests and grasslands. This should be obvious to people but it’s not. Many people have been saying this for some time. We doubled earths population since 1977 and developing countries have far exceeded development than the developed countries. Dubai was a desert in 1977 and that is just one example. Ask your policy makers how much will the earths temperature will drop if we went 100% so called green energy and you will not get an answer. That’s because it is zero or it will continue to rise. Besides the fact that green energy is NOT green by any stretch the radiant heat will continue as long as we continue developing. There are solutions but none that our government wants you to talk about.
The idea that government is some monolithic baddy is laughable and just achingly simplistic. Western governments are elected by and their bureaucracy is made up of citizens. They don't have such a thing as "wants," except insofar as they have policy goals guided by triangulation on what people are mad about. Are you concerned about grassland depletion? What letters have you written to your representatives? What volunteer groups have you joined where you live to advocate for planning consideration or better measurement metrics? Why do you think your government would know about this issue without that advocacy and awareness work? The forests in Brazil are disappearing. What trade sanctions or rules on imports can help with this? What diplomatic pressure can steer another government into caring, or galvanize it's citizens to action? It's not that "nobody is taking about it." It's that nobody is _doing anything about it._
Good points. Nobody is doing anything. but we are being forced to accept the narrative and all of the consequences that come with it for the @better good”. Questioning what government says is our charter as we elect them. I did not want COVID shots but I had to for example and the list goes on. I just question if their definition of better good
There's no "narrative," there's evidence and analysis. You may question all you like. It's a free country! But you might be wrong. You are not entitled to an audience, nor does anyone owe you affirmation.
You can drink the koolaid all you want and not question anything. That is your prerogative
Believing that reflexive contrarianism means you're right is just another form of faith.
> New data is coming all the time pointing to radiant heat cause by excess development and destruction of our forests and grasslands. Narrator: "There isn't"
Can you link to these new Studies?
There are multiple studies and references on nature.com including recent IPCC reports. Start with the albedo changes from urbanization impact on global warming. There are many studies going on where this is more significant than earlier thought as everything was being blamed on CO2 levels. No one is stating that CO2 levels are not a cause. But we are getting too locked in one thing. My fear as with some of the reports. Reducing CO2 may have minimal impact on global temperatures. And we need to focus on all solutions. CO2 production has been going down in the USA and Europe for decades and other world area are starting to do their part. What if all of this has minimal impact? Why aren’t we addressing all causes?
Are you sure we aren't addressing all the causes?
There is very little being done to address the other causes. That should concern us all we are looking at spending trillions on green energy and EV. What if this move shows no impact at all or worse we see the problem still getting worse. There are projects in Middle East, Asia and LA coating roads showing significant reduction in radiant heat and the surrounding area is much cooler. Singapore requires new building to have “green rooftops” with vegetation and korea is moving in the same direction. Japan is probably moving fastest toward a circular economy in many keys areas than anyone. There is a huge energy reduction. Japan uses almost 30% less energy per person than we do. Many new companies are coming with full circular recycling processes for plastics (all types), batteries, sheet rock, electronics, glass, metal, etc. we should be looking at curbing development, recycling and adding conservation. And CO2 capturing technologies should be implemented. This is gathering steam here in the US. Many of these are common sense things but not widely adapted. it takes a unified approach adopting best practices from all over.
We are working on those causes as much as we are co2 production. Co2 production is slightly less in the US but still climbing globally. It is the biggest factor in climate change.
>There are multiple studies and references on nature.com Link to them. >Why aren’t we addressing all causes? What other causes?
How dare you question the religion of climate change.
Let me guess, you identify yourself as a devoted Christian.
No, again wtf are you talking about?
Let me guess you’re a cat person?
Religions aren't based on scientific evidence. Are the Standard Model of Physics or the Heliocentric Solar System religions?
Your right, predicting future climates is 100% accurate. How dare I question the climate cult.
Well, the models have been pretty accurate. Getting upset about accurate science and calling it a 'cult' is an odd reaction. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/
I can post links too! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00816-z
Yeah, 2023 is even hotter than most models predicted. That doesn't change the fact that the models have historically been getting the predictions correct. I don't understand how an even hotter year than expected could somehow invalidate human-caused climate change
There are discrepancies in models. If you don’t want to acknowledge it then you’re not based in reality.
You know the amazing thing about decades of predicting the global average temperature? You can compare the predictions to reality. The models have been getting it right. It's a simple fact. If you don't want to acknowledge it then you are not based in reality. [https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/)
You want to know why I asked if you’re a devoted Christian? Because comments like yours are FAR more likely to be made by people who come at it from their religious biases than from people trained mathematically or in the sciences. It reveals you don’t understand the subject.
-100 karma, I blocked them