Thoughts about NY magazine doom article?

[Jebus]

It seems a lot of people are talking about the Wallace-Wells article. Here it is if you haven't already read it. It certainly paints a bleak picture.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm reading the annotated version now:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html

Mostly true, but this is not:

And you can’t easily move croplands north a few hundred miles, because yields in places like remote Canada and Russia are limited by the quality of soil there; it takes many centuries for the planet to produce optimally fertile dirt.

That implies you have to wait hundreds of years.
You don't need to wait for fallow land to create dirt; you can haul in wood chips from tropical regions, humanure, and pulverized stone if you need to.

The more important thing to note is that these regions have shorter growing seasons due to limited sunlight in the fall, winter, and spring. All but the peak of summer sees the sun at a relatively low angle and limits photosynthesis.

Drought might be an even bigger problem than heat

It's true that we'll have some serious droughts, but that doesn't mean no water in a modern world: we can desalinate using nuclear power (solar wouldn't likely cut it for the huge amounts of energy required).
However, that is a very serious problem for the poor. Combined with the issues of having to farm farther from the equator desalinization will make food significantly more expensive.

IV. Climate Plagues

I'm sympathetic to the desire to cover everything, but it doesn't take very long to develop vaccines and released pathogens are something we can sample and prepare for better than new mutations. And more importantly, these ancient strains are not antibiotic resistant.
I'm much more concerned with spontaneous zoonotic plagues and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

In terms of mosquito borne sickness; I strongly suspect that we will eradicate mosquitoes (and even fleas) as soon as they pose a significant threat to people in developed countries.

1,000 ppm by 2100. At that concentration, compared to the air we breathe now, human cognitive ability declines by 21 percent.

I have my doubt that the 21% value is accurate.

Increased forest fires are a very serious concern, though.

Increase in violent conflict is also very likely.

VII. Permanent Economic Collapse

Nuclear capitalism is fine as a replacement for the fossil fuels that have run industry.
Increase in food prices and other essentials will hurt the economy substantially, but I'm very skeptical of this whole section which I don't think is based on that but rather blind extrapolation.

VIII. Poisoned Oceans

It seems plausible from what I know, but I don't really know enough about this to comment on it more thoroughly.

[Jebus]

Your reply is very similar to some of my initial thoughts. My main concern is that even if one or two of the eight comes true, it's still pretty bad. If half of them come true we are all fucked.

[Jamie in Chile]

We are already doomed to some bad effects of global warming, but I'd be concerned that fatalism causes us to take our eye off the ball. The more we cut our carbon footprint, the relatively less bad the effects will be.

I think we should all when we see an article like this take a moment to reflect.

What was your carbon footprint last year and what will it be this year, in tonnes of CO2e. If you have not even measured it, why not? (I can tell you how if anyone doesn't know.)

Have you severely cut your carbon footprint by going mostly or entirely vegetarian or vegan, greatly reducing long haul flights if you take any, deliberately reducing the miles you drive for global warming reason, purchasing less products, and so on. If not, why not?

Have you figured out yet that spending less money is essential to reducing your carbon footprint, that we cannot avert disaster without doing this? Have you started doing this? (Happy to debate on this point.)

My suspicion is that even people who would be concerned about these issues haven't taken deep enough cuts to their own emissions in many cases.

[Jebus]

greatly reducing long haul flights if you take any

Does it matter much if the flight is long or short? Isn't most of the fuel burned during take off/climb? Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage people to avoid short haul flights, since with these there is usually a greener option available?

[Jamie in Chile]

greatly reducing long haul flights if you take any

Does it matter much if the flight is long or short? Isn't most of the fuel burned during take off/climb? Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage people to avoid short haul flights, since with these there is usually a greener option available?

It matters a lot. The amount of fuel burned during takeoff and climb is definately NOT a majority of the fuel on a long haul flight. Apart from the first part maybe 1000km or so it is very, very roughly a linear effect with the distance after that. In fact, long haul flights also have to carry a lot of fuel, which means they have to burn more fuel more km in order to carry their own greater weight.

The reasons flights are so bad for the environment is mainly because flights allow you to travel further.

According to Mike Berners Lee's book How Bad Are Bananas, the carbon footprint of Glasgow and back is 500kg CO2e by plane, and 120kg CO2e by train, so you save 380kg CO2e going by train which would be a very worthwhile saving of about 3-4% of an average (UK) person's annual carbon footprint.

But a flights from London to Hong Kong is estimated at 4.6 tonnes CO2e in the book. So, let's say you are planning a holiday to Hong Kong and change your mind and decide to go to somewhere like Paris instead or Holland because it's better for the environment. You will save around 4 tonnes of CO2e however you chose to get there and that's about 30-40% of an average (UK) person's annual carbon footprint in 1 day.

Of course, we can't take trains all the way to Hong Kong or sail there, it's just not practical. So what I'm suggesting is that we don't go there at all, or at least not very often.

Thinking OK I'm going to such and such a location, how do I get there in a green way is not the right way to think of it. First of all it's more important to reduce the total distance you travel in the first place.

[brimstoneSalad]

It matters a lot. The amount of fuel burned during takeoff and climb is definately NOT a majority of the fuel on a long haul flight.

This energy expenditure is probably also largely recovered during landing, where potential energy is converted into horizontal motion through the mechanics of descent.
Unlike with rockets, airplanes don't suffer from additional gravitational drag during these periods that disappears once in orbit (since they don't enter orbit).

We could see some savings by changing flight control rules to allow planes to ascend gradually over the whole journey rather than in brief pushes to higher planes of travel. It would of course require more sophisticated technology for tracking traffic automatically.

The reasons flights are so bad for the environment is mainly because flights allow you to travel further.

We need to develop more efficient high speed transport. It's a shame that things like the "hyperloop" are nonsense.
I'd love to see larger networks of high speed conventional maglev trains.

Of course, we can't take trains all the way to Hong Kong or sail there, it's just not practical. So what I'm suggesting is that we don't go there at all, or at least not very often.

Being passengers on cargo ships (and maybe cruise ships?) is a potential option. Many people have relaxing and enjoyable journeys by sea, although it can shorten time at the destination substantially.

We just need to move to electrically powered high speed ground transportation, and provide that electricity with nuclear. Unfortunately options are limited until (if we even manage) that becomes a reality.

[Jebus]

According to Mike Berners Lee's book How Bad Are Bananas, the carbon footprint of Glasgow and back is 500kg CO2e by plane, and 120kg CO2e by train, so you save 380kg CO2e going by train which would be a very worthwhile saving of about 3-4% of an average (UK) person's annual carbon footprint.

But a flights from London to Hong Kong is estimated at 4.6 tonnes CO2e in the book. So, let's say you are planning a holiday to Hong Kong and change your mind and decide to go to somewhere like Paris instead or Holland because it's better for the environment. You will save around 4 tonnes of CO2e

Is this calculation done with the same aircraft? Longer flights usually use bigger planes that carry more passengers.

I live on a small island in a middle of an ocean so not flying long haul would greatly reduce my life quality (and that of my aging parents). However, I agree that it doesn't make much sense for someone living in the U.S. who has barely been outside his own state to travel to another country. Anyone who wants to see the world should try to do it as one long round the world flight so as to avoid the return flight for each destination.

As a related question, should one try to book direct flights as much as possible even though it is sometimes cheaper to book a connecting flight? I'm guessing airlines make these connecting flights cheaper when they are trying to fill up empty planes.

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't know about the other question (larger planes probably are quite a bit more efficient, although I don't know how much more [if they're full, anyway]), but:

As a related question, should one try to book direct flights as much as possible even though it is sometimes cheaper to book a connecting flight? I'm guessing airlines make these connecting flights cheaper when they are trying to fill up empty planes.

I'd go with what's cheaper; a full plane is better than empty seats, as you said if it's cheaper the airline probably knows what they're doing. Fuel is a major cost for them so they're always trying to save there.

[Jamie in Chile]

brimstoneSalad,

There are ways to make flights more efficient, but these are 10%-30% savings. Unless we reduce the number of flights, we cannot stop runaway global warming.

George Monbiot looked at long-distance super fast trains UK to China and figured that the carbon emissions would be quite high. The very high speed means more energy is used in fighting drag forces.

Going on ships that use wind power is an option, otherwise I would calculate and see what the saving is. I think this is a good option for adventurous people with no families and not tied to short 2-3 week holidays from their job all year, but for most people it's not realistic. If you are adventurous and have a lot of time to travel, you could also hitch hike or cycle to Hong Kong, which is a fairly low carbon option.

I really think just reducing long-distance travel is the main solution, however.