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Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

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IFocus said:
Is Global Warming Unstoppable?

Pretty much and pretty much no hope of changing that either given the back and forth in these threads
Click to expand...
As with any problem, to fix it there has to be a willingness to accept the implementation of workable solutions.

It's as simple as that.

Problems aren't fixed by marching down the street with placards and banners whilst someone chants into a megaphone. At best that raises awareness that there's a problem needing to be fixed.

The actual fix requires physical action, doing things, and in this case that's a combination of energy efficiency, population restraint, materials changes, materials recycling, waste avoidance, wind energy, solar, hydro, geothermal, nuclear, tidal and the supporting infrastructure.

At the moment we've a situation akin to someone who insists they must lose weight and get fitter but who rejects any solution which involves changing their diet, eating less, exercising more or reducing their use of recreational drugs and who then blames their doctor for the lack of improvement.

If society wants to fix the problem then we need to be willing to do the things necessary to fix it. Simple as that.
 
Hurricane Beryl, from the BBC...

At one stage, Beryl became the earliest category five hurricane ever recorded.
In the Caribbean it hit St Vincent and the Grenadines, Mayreau and Union, and Grenada especially hard.
The storm was also one of the most powerful to ever pummel Jamaica.
Beryl brought heavy rain to the tourist hotspots of Cancún and Tulum in southern Mexico.

While it is difficult to attribute specific storms to climate change as the causes are complex, exceptionally high sea surface temperatures are seen as a key reason why Hurricane Beryl has been so powerful.

It is the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season but the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned that the North Atlantic could get as many as seven major hurricanes this year - up from an average of three in a season.

Storm Beryl kills eight and cuts power for millions

Forecasters are warning of flash flooding and tornadoes as the weakening storm moves inland.
www.bbc.com
 
Smurf1976 said:
As with any problem, to fix it there has to be a willingness to accept the implementation of workable solutions.
Click to expand...

I think most simply struggle with change

I have often wondered if people with electrical backgrounds accept change more readily simply because we have had technology change continuously our whole lives or is it that we had to fix things?.
 
I posted on other threads about the effects of the record heat wave in the US.

Same story different country.


Number of heatstroke patients in Japan jumps fourfold amid sweltering temperatures​





A man takes a break under a cooling mist as the government issued a heatstroke alert in Tokyo and other prefectures in Tokyo on Tuesday. | REUTERS


By Francis Tang and Tomoko Otake
Staff writers

SHARE

Jul 9, 2024

The number of patients rushed to hospitals for heatstroke over the week through Sunday quadrupled from the week before as the mercury hit 40 degrees Celsius in some cities amid a sweltering heat wave, preliminary data from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency showed Tuesday.

Over that period, 9,105 people sought emergency hospital care for suspected heatstroke across the nation, more than twice the number during the same period last year.

Those age 65 and above accounted for 5,378, making up 59.1% of the total.

Number of heatstroke patients in Japan jumps fourfold amid sweltering temperatures

By prefecture, Tokyo had the most heatstroke-related transports at 907. Aichi came in second with 763 cases.
www.japantimes.co.jp
 
Greece is also facing - and coping with - record temperatures.

It’s about survival’: Athens mayor focuses on getting capital through extreme heat​

Haris Doukas aims to make Athens more resilient to record temperatures by planting more trees and opening air-conditioned public spaces

Helena Smith in Athens
Wed 10 Jul 2024 11.46 BSTLast modified on Wed 10 Jul 2024 17.41 BST


Trees, cooling centres, water stations. All three are on Haris Doukas’s mind as he sits in his office-turned-control centre on the top floor of city hall.
Barely six months into the job, the mayor of Athens’s top priority is simple: ensuring that the people of Greece’s capital – mainland Europe’s hottest metropolis – survive the summer. After a June that was the hottest on record, the greater Attica region has already witnessed record-breaking temperatures and wildfires.

“In any place tackling such extreme weather phenomena would be difficult,” says Doukas. “In a city of seven hills and such dense urban development it’s especially complex.”

‘It’s about survival’: Athens mayor focuses on getting capital through extreme heat

Haris Doukas aimed to make Athens more resilient to record temperatures by planting more trees and opening air-conditioned public spaces
www.theguardian.com
 
This is what happens when global heating gets going.

Life at 115F: a sweltering summer pushes Las Vegas to the brink​

Record heat is killing hundreds in Clark county. But one of America’s fastest-growing metro areas just keeps getting bigger

... There was the woman whose leg was amputated after she got third-degree burns from passing out on the scalding hot sidewalk. She now uses a wheelchair. Just last week, he and other aid workers rushed to revive another woman, age 81, who passed out in an encampment. They found her surrounded by her pet dogs, who had all died in the heat. He was relieved they were able to save her. That’s not always how the story ends.

July is typically when local health officials report the highest number of heat-related deaths. Between 2022 and 2023 there was an 80% increase in fatalities, with the official number around 300, nearly double those counted in 2020.

Life at 115F: a sweltering summer pushes Las Vegas to the brink

Record heat is killing hundreds in Clark county. But one of America’s fastest-growing metro areas just keeps getting bigger
www.theguardian.com
 
Another example of the effects of accelerating global heating. Can't say we haven't been warmed.

Utah’s Great Salt Lake rings climate alarm bells over release of 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide​

Study has found that the lake, which has lost 73% of its water, released climate-warming emissions

Maanvi Singh
Fri 2 Aug 2024 11.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 2 Aug 2024 16.06 EDT


For years, scientists and environmental leaders have been raising alarm that the Great Salt Lake is headed toward a catastrophic decline.
Now, new research points to the lake’s desiccating shores also becoming an increasingly significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have calculated that dried out portions of the lakebed released about 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2020, based on samples collected over seven months that year.


‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse
Read more
Their study, published last month in the journal One Earth, suggests that the Great Salt Lake – which is the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere – and other shrinking saline lakes across the world could become major contributors of climate-warming emissions. The research also adds to a dire list of environmental consequences brought on by the lake’s precipitous decline.

Last year, environmental and community groups sued Utah officials over failures to save the famous lake from irreversible collapse. In recent decades, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns, a report last year estimated that the lake had lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area. Its decline was accelerated by global heating and a mega-drought in the US south-west.

The declining lake has exposed a dusty lakebed laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxic substances that threaten to increase rates of respiratory conditions, heart and lung disease and cancers. As its volume shrinks, the lake is also becoming saltier and uninhabitable to native flies and brine shrimp. Eventually, scientists have warned that it may be unable to support the 10 million migratory birds and wildlife that frequent it.

Utah’s Great Salt Lake rings climate alarm bells over release of 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide

Study has found that the lake, which has lost 73% of its water, released climate-warming emissions
www.theguardian.com

‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse

It’s lost 73% of its water and is unable to sustain some wildlife – and could soon negatively affect human health
www.theguardian.com
 
What happens when the rivers get too hot. All the fish just die.

Dead fish fill Greek waterways after extreme weather causes mass die-off​

2h ago2 hours ago

The dead fish filled a river up near the port city of Volos in central Greece. (AP: Vaggelis Kousioras)

In short:​

More than a hundred tonnes of dead fish have been scooped up around the port of Volos, Greece.
The mass death is linked to extreme weather fluctuations.

What's next?​

Fishing trawlers have been chartered to scoop the dead fish out. They will be loaded into trucks and taken to an incinerator.

Link copied

More than 100 tonnes of dead fish have collected in and around the port of Volos in central Greece after a mass die-off linked to extreme weather fluctuations.

Dead fish fill Greek waterways after extreme weather causes mass die-off

More than 100 tonnes of dead fish have collected in and around the port of Volos in central Greece after a mass die-off linked to extreme weather fluctuations.
www.abc.net.au
 
Something I saw the other day

Australia fossil fuel subsidies are $14.5 billion per year (The Australia Institute)
Renewal energy subsidies are forecast to hit $2.8 billion by 2030 (Australian financial review )

In the US renewal energy subsidies are 15.6 bilion. (Reuters). Fossil fuel subsidies are 15.6 billion (Forbes.com)
 
I wonder how they work the subsidies out?
Are they saying fossil fuel is a net loss to the Government?
 
IFocus said:
The report is here


As Smurf alludes to you can argue a fews sides to the explanation.
Click to expand...
By no reasonable measure is failing to put a special tax on something a subsidy.

If it were, then pretty much everything could be argued to be subsidised since apart from alcohol, tobacco and luxury cars, most things are either not taxed at all, are subject only to GST, or any specific tax is justified as a crude means of cost recovery in a situation where government does something directly relating to it (eg fuel excise on road vehicles as a crude means of recovering government spending on roads is a relevant example).

To argue that not charging farmers, miners, power stations, ships or aircraft a tax that's justified on the basis of funding roads constitutes a subsidy is really stretching it. If that's a subsidy then wind and solar are also subsidised, since they're not paying excise either.

Similar could be said for things like land tax concessions to coal mines. On one hand that could be considered a subsidy, but on the other hand there's a royalty paid on every tonne of coal mined. The net result would answer the question more accurately.

Or for a more pointy one, what rate of land tax is levied on National Parks? That one's a little more arguable as an actual subsidy, since there's direct government spending on those NP's and in some cases their existence precludes something (eg mining) that really would pay royalties. But then some states do charge visitors to them so that also needs to go into the calculation.

Overall the Australia Institute will insist they're independent just as the Institute of Public Affairs will do likewise. In both cases they're entirely predictable however in terms of what slant they'll have on any particular issue. Same as the media, they'll insist they're neutral but there's a definite pattern to what they emphasise and what they don't.
 
Smurf1976 said:
By no reasonable measure is failing to put a special tax on something a subsidy.
Click to expand...

Depends which side of the argument you are on , if taxing one section of the population but leaving out special interests then it surely it is a subsidy not that I am arguing for or against any of the reports points.

The real issue IMHO is democracy and keeping open opportunity for all citizens costs a lot and requires lots of governance adding more cost the revenue has to come from somewhere at the moment there isn't enough.
 
IFocus said:
Depends which side of the argument you are on , if taxing one section of the population but leaving out special interests then it surely it is a subsidy not that I am arguing for or against any of the reports points.
Click to expand...
Trouble is the economic damage it does.

Last thing Australia needs is more taxes on what little productive industry we've got left and more upwards pressure on the price of goods and services for consumers.

As I see it, this sort of approach has outright gutted Australia's productive sector and turned us into China's coal mine and not much more.

Plus the practical reality that whacking a tax on diesel used for power generation undermines the idea of using mostly wind and solar + gas turbines, burning both gas and diesel, for firming. There are workarounds eg hydro but it's a spanner in the works of the present approach certainly.

My disagreement's with the Australia Institute not you to be clear.
 
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Hurricane Helene , Cat 4, hit Florida.
Most powerful storm ever to hit Florida Big Bend. At least 20 dead so far, 4.5m rise in sea levels. Tornados predicted. One has already killed 2 people.
Billions of dollars in damage.
Yada, yada.

Hurricane Helene: 63 dead amid power outages, widespread flooding

Helene marked one of the largest storms to hit the US, causing widespread devastation across the southeast
www.bbc.com
 
I am surprised that a Cat 4 Huricane would be the worst ever, most places experience cat 5 every now and then

I took off from Darwin airport on a commercial flight during in a cat 4 storm so not sure how a cat 4 is such a problem.

I asked are we flying in this and they said Yes, we only stop when it is a Cat 5
 
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