Climate change is upon us....

[ProfessorDavey]

Prolixity is not an argument.

I am trying to spell it out simply and clearly - but you seem unable, or unwilling, to follow a pretty simple argument.

If all possible outcomes are possible under supernatural arguments, no putcome is useful in judging.

Sure - we can all cry 'magic' to explain cause/effect. But that is irrelevant if the staring point isn't proven - i.e. there is a cause and effect relationship. If there is a cause/effect relationship then we need to move on to look at mechanisms using methods available to us. If we find a mechanism that seems to fit the bill then that would seem to be the most plausible explanation. Of course people can still cry 'but it's still magic', but their pleading becomes increasingly easy to ignore the more evidence arises that a naturalistic mechanism explains the cause/effect relationship.

[Nearly Sane]

I am trying to spell it out simply and clearly - but you seem unable, or unwilling, to follow a pretty simple argument.
Sure - we can all cry 'magic' to explain cause/effect. But that is irrelevant if the staring point isn't proven - i.e. there is a cause and effect relationship. If there is a cause/effect relationship then we need to move on to look at mechanisms using methods available to us. If we find a mechanism that seems to fit the bill then that would seem to be the most plausible explanation. Of course people can still cry 'but it's still magic', but their pleading becomes increasingly easy to ignore the more evidence arises that a naturalistic mechanism explains the cause/effect relationship.

You're nearly there. Anyone who uses supernatural is using an approach where logic is worthless.

[Aruntraveller]

Interesting article contrasting Delhi & Oxford:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/15/delhi-climate-catastrophe-oxford-britain-crisis

[ProfessorDavey]

You're nearly there.

Blimey - you can be a patronising old b****r when you want to be NS.

Anyone who uses supernatural is using an approach where logic is worthless.

I am well aware that trying to argue for or against supernatural claims is a fools errand as we have no method to assess the validity of such claims so cannot prove them either true or false.

Which is precisely why I have been focussing on naturalistic claims which can be tested. So firstly whether naturalistic event x (e.g. someone praying) has a causal relationship with naturalistic event y (e.g. alteration in climate change or complications for surgery). If there is no cause/effect then we can put aside any further investigation. If there is we will investigate potential mechanisms that are also able to be assessed through naturalistic methods. For example looking for evidence of placebo/nocebo effects or changes in human behaviours that could be ascribed to prayer.

[Sriram]

It is all probably about the common consciousness. I know it is speculative but this is what the secular philosophical position is all about.

The effects of prayer, collective meditations and so on work through the common consciousness.  When people collectively pray or meditate they cause changes in the common consciousness which can probably produce changes in the external world.

The reason why testing of such effects through clinical trials don't show up positive results is because the process does not retain its spontaneous nature.   

In any case I think we can have a separate thread on the effects of prayer.

[ProfessorDavey]

The effects of prayer, collective meditations and so on ...

Now you are going down the same route as AM - presuming that prayer etc has an effect. That first needs to be demonstrated before moving on to trying to understand the mechanism by which it works. Certainly in terms of intercessional prayer there is no evidence that it has any effect as long as the studies are designed to eliminate the well established placebo/nocebo effects.

.. work through the common consciousness.  When people collectively pray or meditate they cause changes in the common consciousness which can probably produce changes in the external world.

Unevidenced non-sense and give the evidence that prayer doesn't actually have any effect beyond placebo/nocebo then you are ascribing mechanisms to effect that have not been demonstrated to exist.

The reason why testing of such effects through clinical trials don't show up positive results is because the process does not retain its spontaneous nature.

Well you'd better take that up with AB as his examples include situations where people have been asked to pray for a particular outcome (i.e. non spontaneous) and certainly in christianity there is a well established element of directed prayer - indeed it exists in every christian service.

But you are also engaging in special pleading - the cardiac complications study is pretty well equivalent to the examples AB gave (which he claimed, without evidence had an effect) - in other words people being asked to pray for someone else to achieve an outcome. And once the placebo (or in this case nocebo) effect was designed out of the study guess what effect prayer had on the outcome being prayed for - zip, nada, nothing.

[Aruntraveller]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/29/no-such-thing-freak-weather-2023-storm-elliott

Sobering reading. Yet again.

[Spud]

Blimey - you can be a patronising old b****r when you want to be NS.
I am well aware that trying to argue for or against supernatural claims is a fools errand as we have no method to assess the validity of such claims so cannot prove them either true or false.

Which is precisely why I have been focussing on naturalistic claims which can be tested. So firstly whether naturalistic event x (e.g. someone praying) has a causal relationship with naturalistic event y (e.g. alteration in climate change or complications for surgery). If there is no cause/effect then we can put aside any further investigation. If there is we will investigate potential mechanisms that are also able to be assessed through naturalistic methods. For example looking for evidence of placebo/nocebo effects or changes in human behaviours that could be ascribed to prayer.

Have you seen the film Hacksaw Ridge? It's about 7th day Adventist Desmond Doss who during WW2 rescued 75 wounded men trapped at the top of an escarpment by lowering them with a special knot he knew. He said afterwards that after rescuing each one, he prayed, "help me get one more".

[Sriram]

Time lapse video of blizzard...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5cFeUmYu98

[Sriram]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/21/world/antarctic-sea-ice-record-low-climate-intl/index.html

**********
Climate models projected declines in Antarctic sea ice that were similar to the Arctic, but until recently the region was behaving completely differently than those models predicted.

It hit a record high for winter sea ice extent in 2014 when it reached 7.76 million square miles, which seemed to support the idea that the Antarctic may be relatively insulated from global warming.

But in 2016, something changed. Scientists began observing a steep downward trend.

At first, some put it down to the usual variability of this vastly complex continent, with its diverse, intertwined climate systems. But after two low sea ice records in a row, scientists are becoming concerned.

“The question is, has climate change reached Antarctica? Is this the beginning of the end? Will the sea ice disappear for good in the coming years in the summer?” Christian Haas, head of the Sea Ice Physics Research Section at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, told CNN.

**********

[Sriram]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65339934

******************

A recent, rapid heating of the world's oceans has alarmed scientists concerned that it will add to global warming.

This month, the global sea surface hit a new record high temperature. It has never warmed this much, this quickly.

Scientists don't fully understand why this has happened.

But they worry that, combined with other weather events, the world's temperature could reach a concerning new level by the end of next year.

A coastal El Niño has already developed off the shores of Peru and Ecuador and experts believe a fully formed event will follow with implications for global temperatures.

"If a new El Niño new comes on top of it, we will probably have additional global warming of 0.2-0.25C," said Dr Josef Ludescher, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.

"The impact on the temperature is relaxed a few months after the peak of any El Niño so this is why 2024 will be probably the warmest on record."

"And we may, we will be close to 1.5C days and perhaps we will temporarily go over."

El Niño will likely disrupt weather patterns around the world, weaken the monsoon and threaten more wildfires in Australia.

But there are more fundamental worries that as more heat goes into the ocean, the waters may be less able to store excess energy.

And there are concerns that the heat contained in the oceans won't stay there.

Several scientists contacted for this story were reluctant to go on the record about the implications.

******************

[Sriram]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/17/world/global-warming-breach-wmo-climate-intl/index.html

**********
 
The world is now likely to breach a key climate threshold for the first time within the next five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization, due to a combination of heat-trapping pollution and a looming El Niño.

Global temperatures have soared in recent years as the world continues to burn planet-warming fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. And that trend shows no sign of slowing. In its annual climate update, the WMO said that between 2023 and 2027, there is now a 66% chance that the planet’s temperature will climb above 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.

As temperatures surge, there is also a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years – and the five-year period as a whole – will be the warmest on record for the planet, the WMO reported.

Breaching the 1.5-degree threshold may only be temporary, the WMO said, but it would be the clearest signal yet of how quickly climate change is accelerating – hastening sea level rise, more extreme weather and the demise of vital ecosystems.

**********

[Sriram]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/17/world/four-climate-charts-extreme-weather-heat-oceans/index.html

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Soaring temperatures. Unusually hot oceans. Record high levels of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and record low levels of Antarctic ice.

We’re only halfway through 2023 and so many climate records are being broken, some scientists are sounding the alarm, fearing it could be a sign of a planet warming much more rapidly than expected.

In a widely shared tweet, Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, called rising ocean and air temperatures “totally bonkers.”

He added, “people who look at this stuff routinely can’t believe their eyes. Something very weird is happening.”

Other scientists have said while the records are alarming, they are not unexpected due to both the continued rise of planet-heating pollution and the arrival of the natural climate phenomenon El Niño, which has a global heating effect.

Whether the broken records are a sign of climate change progressing beyond what climate the models predict, or are the outcome of the climate crisis unfolding as expected, they remain a very concerning signal of what’s to come, scientists said.

“These changes are deeply disturbing because of what they mean for people this coming summer, and every summer after, until we cut our carbon emissions at a much faster pace than we’re currently doing,” Jennifer Marlon, research scientist at Yale School of the Environment, told CNN.

The world is already 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in preindustrial times, and the next five years are predicted to be the hottest on record.

“We’ve been saying this for a long time – as polar scientists and as climate scientists – we’ve been saying you can count on the next few decades to consistently get warmer,”

**********

[Sriram]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/07/world/global-temps-warmest-on-record-climate/index.html

***********

The planet’s temperature soared again on Thursday to levels not seen in the modern record-keeping era, marking the fourth straight day of record temperatures. These alarming new records are likely the highest temperatures in “at least 100,000 years,” one scientist told CNN.

The global average daily temperature climbed to 17.23 degrees Celsius (63.01 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which uses data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

It’s been a week of record-breaking temperatures. On Monday, the average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest in the NCEP’s data, which goes back to 1979. On Tuesday it climbed to 17.18 degrees Celsius, where it remained on Wednesday.

************

[Nearly Sane]

Scary graphs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66229065

[ekim]

... and Earth Overshoot Day 2nd of August this year....... https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/past-earth-overshoot-days/

[Aruntraveller]

I think I may need help. I find myself largely in agreement with Seldom Glummer:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/labour-urged-to-work-with-tories-to-counter-ignorant-climate-policy-attacks

[Nearly Sane]

I think I may need help. I find myself largely in agreement with Seldom Glummer:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/labour-urged-to-work-with-tories-to-counter-ignorant-climate-policy-attacks

The reactions to the Uxbridge by election result does not bode well for any such cooperation

[Sriram]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/25/world/gulf-stream-atlantic-current-collapse-climate-scn-intl/index.html

*************
 
A vital system of ocean currents could collapse within a few decades if the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, scientists are warning – an event that would be catastrophic for global weather and “affect every person on the planet.”

A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature, found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current – of which the Gulf Stream is a part – could collapse around the middle of the century, or even as early as 2025.

Scientists uninvolved with this study told CNN the exact tipping point for the critical system is uncertain, and that measurements of the currents have so far showed little trend or change. But they agreed these results are alarming and provide new evidence that the tipping point could occur sooner than previously thought.

*************

[Sriram]

The need for vacations....

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/27/opinions/climate-crisis-fires-heat-summer-vacations-mcguire/index.html

*************

As wildfires, driven by record-breaking heat, tinder-box conditions and strong winds, raged across the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia, thousands of visitors, along with residents, had to flee the flames — many with just the clothes they were wearing.

It would be a big mistake to regard these as freak events and to continue holidaying as usual in the years ahead. On the contrary, the extreme weather conditions across southern Europe this summer are a wake-up call — a reminder that not even our vacations are insulated from the growing consequences of global heating.

This view is reinforced by a new study published earlier this week which showed that both the European and North American heatwaves would have been all but impossible without climate change.

The events of the last week in the Greek Islands should, then, give us pause for thought, not only about whether we should any longer be flying on holiday to places that may threaten us and our loved ones — but about the whole point of having a holiday.

For many of us, jetting off every year on a foreign break has almost become instinctive — just something we do without really thinking about it.

If southern Europe is out of bounds due to increasing heat, then the tendency for many will be to find somewhere else that looks — on the face of it at least — less risky. But this isn’t the answer.

Climate breakdown is set to become all-pervasive and affect every aspect of our lives and livelihoods, and already extreme weather can happen pretty much anywhere. So, what to do?

Last year, UK residents made more than 46 million trips to go on holiday abroad. This can’t go on, nor should it, both for the peace of mind of holiday-makers increasingly worried about growing extreme weather, and for the good of the planet.


*************

[ProfessorDavey]

The need for vacations....

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/27/opinions/climate-crisis-fires-heat-summer-vacations-mcguire/index.html

*************

As wildfires, driven by record-breaking heat, tinder-box conditions and strong winds, raged across the islands of Rhodes, Corfu and Evia, thousands of visitors, along with residents, had to flee the flames — many with just the clothes they were wearing.

It would be a big mistake to regard these as freak events and to continue holidaying as usual in the years ahead. On the contrary, the extreme weather conditions across southern Europe this summer are a wake-up call — a reminder that not even our vacations are insulated from the growing consequences of global heating.

This view is reinforced by a new study published earlier this week which showed that both the European and North American heatwaves would have been all but impossible without climate change.

The events of the last week in the Greek Islands should, then, give us pause for thought, not only about whether we should any longer be flying on holiday to places that may threaten us and our loved ones — but about the whole point of having a holiday.

For many of us, jetting off every year on a foreign break has almost become instinctive — just something we do without really thinking about it.

If southern Europe is out of bounds due to increasing heat, then the tendency for many will be to find somewhere else that looks — on the face of it at least — less risky. But this isn’t the answer.

Climate breakdown is set to become all-pervasive and affect every aspect of our lives and livelihoods, and already extreme weather can happen pretty much anywhere. So, what to do?

Last year, UK residents made more than 46 million trips to go on holiday abroad. This can’t go on, nor should it, both for the peace of mind of holiday-makers increasingly worried about growing extreme weather, and for the good of the planet.


*************

I think there are a lot of issues here.

First - with climate change it is quite likely that the most 'attractive' time for people to visit the med will shift from July/August to other times when the weather will be more amenable. This happens with other parts of the world now with current climate patterns - people for example being less likely to visit the Caribbean during the hurricane season.

Then there is the point that tourism is a major (often the major) contributor to the economy of many of these places. So if tourism stops how will the economy of, for example, small Greek islands, manage.

But the fundamental point is the question 'should we be travelling long distances' - and this is the nub of the issue. It seems to me to be a perfectly legitimate desire to want to see the Grand Canyon if you live in London ... or witness the Northern lights is you are from India ... or visit Stonehenge if you are from Toronto etc etc. Now there are no realistic ways in which you could achieve any of those 'bucket list' items without flying. So are we prepared to say to people 'yup in the past you could do that, but now you aren't allowed'. That seems to be challenging.

But there are plenty of things that can be achieved just as easily without buying so much carbon. I may reasonably want my house to be warm - sure that can be achieved by turning up my boiler - but it can also be achieved by providing different (and greener) means of achieving the same ends, which would include simply better insulation. Likewise it is a legitimate and reasonable expectation that my lights turn on when I flick the switch - but those lights may be energy efficient and the electricity generated by low carbon renewable means, including installing solar panels.

So to me we should be focussing on the areas where we can legitimately expect to achieve the same outcome in a more sustainable way. And we may then be able to cope with some activities that can't be achieved in the greenest manner - such as seeing Machu Pichu (a bucket list of mine) when you live north of London. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't work really hard to make aviation greener, but I do feel we need to differentiate between activities that people may legitimately want to pursue that can easily be achieved in a much more sustainable way and those that cannot easily.

And if we are talking about travel and flying - the focus really should be on business travel. Travel for many (if not most) business meetings can easily be replaced by on-line meetings.

[Aruntraveller]

We could start with banning private jets:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/26/flying-shame-the-scandalous-rise-of-private-jets

What say you Rishi?

[Sriram]

Good points Prof D...!

[ekim]

Today marks International Plastic Overshoot Day    https://tinyurl.com/mufu52n8

[Sriram]

Today marks International Plastic Overshoot Day    https://tinyurl.com/mufu52n8

I believe plastic was created to replace wood and metals. A wonderful and versatile material in fact.... but how it has been misused.