Comments for Serendipity

Comment on How Big is the Climate Change Deficit? by Steve

Steve — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:41 +0000

mt: One has to look for optimism wherever one can find it! There's a nice piece in the intro of Jorgen Rander's book "2052", in which he explains that he's long since stopped hoping that the world would pay heed to the warnings and do the right thing. Then, once he'd come to terms with that, it allows him to celebrate each little sign of sense (e.g. another renewable energy project) as a great thing in its own right, without wallowing in the gloom. The argument about aerosols and shortlived greenhouse gases in the zero emissions scenario is explored in Matthews and Zickfield 2012. Basically, they zeroed out CO2 on its own, and then with each of zero shortlived GHGs, zeros aerosols, and then zero everything. In the zero-everything case, you do gave a short term bump in temperature, but it quickly settles down.

Comment on The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet? by Gavin's Pussycat

Gavin's Pussycat — Sat, 18 May 2013 08:23:45 +0000

There must be people at Google you want to talk with. With such a theme, there’s no way around Google

Comment on How Big is the Climate Change Deficit? by mt

mt — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:46:58 +0000

“aerosols are roughly balanced by the short lived greenhouse gases” makes sense, but now we are looking at a pretty complex scenario – essentially the “World Without Us” scenario in which humans (and consequently most of our cattle) disappear suddenly.

In that scenario I would expect a spike in temperature rising on the timescale of aerosol suspension and declining on the timescale of methane. But I haven’t seen the second paper to which you refer.

So here is my gloomy take on this from a couple of years back.

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/pink-line.html

Especially in part II, I decided to look at it in the gloomiest way.

This neatly separates the optimists from the pessimists; seems consistent with the present article. I am trying to change my spots on the optimism/pessimism axis. So I appreciate the spin. I think the upshot is that the answer depends closely on the way you ask the question.

And my final conclusion holds, even if you have caused me to question my spin. “What we are doing is relying on the fundamental coherence of nature. It generally all works out in the end.”

Comment on How Big is the Climate Change Deficit? by mt

mt — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:40:11 +0000

“It’s because the absoption rate is a function of the emissions rate.”

Not exactly. Absorption depends on concentration. But if net emissions stop and absorption continues, the concentration doesn’t instantly change, so the ocean keeps absorbing at the current rate and only gradually slows down.

Comment on Unsustainable by Duncan Noble

Duncan Noble — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 02:26:01 +0000

Thanks for that! A new take on unsustainability – the musical presentation if not the words. Hearts and minds. Hearts and minds.

Comment on How Big is the Climate Change Deficit? by Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable | Critical Angle

Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable | Critical Angle — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:35:41 +0000

[...] Figure 1 CO2 concentrations (A); CO2 emissions (B) ; and temperature change, for two scenarios: zero emissions after 2010 (red) and reduced emissions producing constant concentrations (blue). From a presentation by Damon Matthews, via Serendipity. [...]

Comment on Unsustainable by richard pauli

richard pauli — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:14:14 +0000

This post, your words, and your selection of music make a compelling presentation. (I don’t call it an argument, because there is none that can face this )

Thank you.

Comment on The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet? by richard pauli

richard pauli — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:07:44 +0000

Referring us to Anil Dash presenting on many of these issues… indeed very important.

http://www.readability.com/articles/k4qnqkb9
http://dashes.com/anil/2013/04/harvard.html

Interesting times.

Comment on The Internet: Saving Civilization or Trashing the Planet? by Eamon

Eamon — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:32:10 +0000

Sounds like an interesting course. Will you be including last year’s Amazon tax avoidance issue from the UK?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-british-operation-corporation-tax

Comment on Special issue of GMD: Community software to support the delivery of CMIP5 by Another Week in the Planetary Crisis, April 7, 2013 – A Few Things Ill Considered

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:58:40 +0000

[...] 2013/04/02: SEasterbrook: Special issue of GMD: Community software to support the delivery of CMIP5 [...]