Global Warming: Do I ever mind your cross?

[tServo]

COP26, being held starting Oct 31, 2021, is a total sham.
There will be arguing, hand wringing, and then some watered down meaningless document will be signed at its end and then it will be utterly ignored. Its only purpose is to fool people that something is being done.

We are totally screwed, and it's just going to get worse, much worse than any pessimistic projection predicts.
The real capper that triggered my depression is in the article linked below. There are 200 coal fired electric power plants being constructed in Asia. 95 are in China. If there was any hope for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere, it's gone.

https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...it-2021-10-29/

[Dr Sardonicus]

Do actions speak louder than words? This Vice article from September 23 may be of interest.

Rupert Murdoch Has Known We've Been in a Climate Emergency Since 2006, Documents Show

[xilman]

Originally Posted by tServo

We are totally screwed, and it's just going to get worse, much worse than any pessimistic projection predicts.

Don't panic Mr Mainwaring, don't panic!

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by tServo

COP26, being held starting Oct 31, 2021, is a total sham.
There will be arguing, hand wringing, and then some watered down meaningless document will be signed at its end and then it will be utterly ignored. Its only purpose is to fool people that something is being done.
<snip>

Looks like this is about right. Even the conference itself had a huge carbon footprint, thanks to a bunch of participants flying in. Oh, but that will be neutralized - later.

I'm not sure about anybody being fooled, though.

Originally Posted by J. Wellington Wimpy, Popeye character

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

[rant] The clear consensus is that it is simply too soon to get serious about addressing the human activities that are changing the climate. And this will remain so until the consensus changes. And the new consensus will be, that there is no point in doing anything because it is too late. [/rant]

[tServo]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Looks like this is about right. Even the conference itself had a huge carbon footprint, thanks to a bunch of participants flying in. Oh, but that will be neutralized - later.

I'm not sure about anybody being fooled, though.

[rant] The clear consensus is that it is simply too soon to get serious about addressing the human activities that are changing the climate. And this will remain so until the consensus changes. And the new consensus will be, that there is no point in doing anything because it is too late. [/rant]

China and Russia didn't even bother to attend.
The U.S.A. didn't sign the agreement to reduce coal use ( don't want to offend sen. Manchin ).
India, which signed a pledge to "phase down" coal use, has 68 coal fired electric generating plants under construction.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by tServo

The U.S.A. didn't sign the agreement to reduce coal use ( don't want to offend sen. Manchin ).

The USofA is going to be meeting many of the coal reduction targets anyway. States, Cities, and companies are going away from coal. States have set renewable requirements for electrical power that is far in advance of the national goals. Also, a number of cities (large, medium, and small) have set even more aggressive goals and timelines. And there are companies that have used their influence to go even further. My employer has some goals that many would have thought impossible a few years back. If they went even more "all in" there would be a major impact. As is at the moment, new solar installation jobs are out pacing the loss of coal jobs. The big problem is that the location of the jobs is not transferable to the coal states.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Russia vetoes UN resolution linking climate change, security

NEW YORK (AP) — Russia on Monday vetoed a first-of-its-kind U.N. Security Council resolution casting climate change as a threat to international peace and security, a vote that sank a years-long effort to make global warming a more central consideration for the U.N.'s most powerful body.
<snip>
Stronger storms, rising seas, more frequent floods and droughts and other effects of warming could inflame social tensions and conflict, potentially "posing a key risk to global peace, security and stability," the proposed resolution said. Some 113 of the U.N.'s 193 member countries supported it, including 12 of the council's 15 members.

But India and veto-wielding Russia voted no, while China abstained.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Russia vetoes UN resolution linking climate change, security

Right.

So they mean there is a risk that the world might actually achieve "global peace, security and stability"?

Yeah, that would be a big worry if it ever happened.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by retina

Right.

So they mean there is a risk that the world might actually achieve "global peace, security and stability"?

Yeah, that would be a big worry if it ever happened.

Assuming there was anybody left to worry about it...

[tServo]

I have been reading some articles about alarming studies detailing that Antarctica is melting much faster than previously thought:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...te-change.html


Apparently, the public doesn't notice or care about events like this because it is happening too gradually, similar to the adage about cooking a live frog by gradually raising the water in a pot from room temperature to boiling rather that just tossing the frog into the pot of boiling water.

An old episode of "The Outer Limits" came to mind wherein a group of scientists wanted to shock people out of their complacency about steadily rising tensions in the early 1960s between the East and West that would probably lead to nuclear war. The shock they devised was an alien invasion so they surgically altered a person to look like a hideous alien, gave him a ray gun and crashed his "spaceship" in the U.S.
However, Their plan didn't work.
The shock that has occurred to me that might get the world off its butt to take this seriously is if one of Antarctica's ice shelves cracked off and slid into the ocean.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Sounds like the work of a James Bond super villain. Where is Gert Frobe when we need him?

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by tServo

<snip>
The shock that has occurred to me that might get the world off its butt to take this seriously is if one of Antarctica's ice shelves cracked off and slid into the ocean.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Sounds like the work of a James Bond super villain. Where is Gert Frobe when we need him?

These don't seem to have done the trick:

Larsen B (2002) 1700+ km²

A-76 (2021) 4320 km²

Would you like to supersize that?