Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

How are you preparing
Frnc
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Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:54 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by Frnc »

grenfell wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:35 pm
Frnc wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:24 am
2. The climate. Global warming. I know WOTW is sceptical, but I did post a lot of stuff to explain the science. We can see the extreme weather of the last few years around the world. This is just the start. The very beginning. But big change could be quite rapid. If feedbacks kick in. Eg, if the tundra thaws, more greenhouse gases will be released. If arctic ice melts, more sunlight reaches the ocean. If the ocean warms, it can't store as much CO2.
I watched a youtube video some time ago which put it all in really simple terms. It's probably still there but I can't remember the title and equally can't be bothered to trawl through youtube to find it again.
Put simply there are two possibilities . The earth is warming or it isn't and we have two options . To do something or to do nothing. That gives four scenerios.
1It's real and we do something to combat it.
2 It's real and we do nothing
3 It's not real and we try to combat it
and
4 It's not real and we do nothing.
1 gives us a chance
2 we're boned
3 we're ok but spend a lot of money
4 best case scenerio where we are ok and still have a nice lifestyle.
25% of going extinct , bit of a no brainer as I see it.
This is a good summary. However:
"3 we're ok but spend a lot of money"
Solar and wind are now the cheapest ways to generate electricity in the UK. Nuclear and coal are dearer. Gas is slightly dearer, and does overlap wind and solar. But the figures I saw were almost certainly before gas prices skyrocketed. So now the picture should be clear. Also, I saw predictions from BP, and wind and solar were predicted to decrease further in price, and stay cheaper.
I would like to see the government retrofit our homes. Proper insulation. This would cost a lot, but it would create jobs and save us all money in the long term. It's too expensive and too technical for most poeple to do themselves. Weirdly, home energy certs still recommend new gas boilers. I'd like to see them switch to heat pump, and the govt to invest in that industry, to improve efficiency and reduce price.
Another area is transport. Improving public transport, making it cheaper, reduces individual transport which is usually fossil fuel powered. Many countries have much cheaper public transport. Someone posted on twitter yesterday that they just paid about £125 for a year's ticket that enables them to use trams, trains and buses! It cost me nearly that to get to Brixton and back, once.
Getting back to your list...
The chances of it not being real are pretty slim. The consequences are as you say, potential extinction. How much is being done? Some, but not enough. A likely scenario is that we are at a fork in the road. To the left is a stable trajectory to long term, very high warming, 8°C eventually, as feedbacks kick in. To the right is 2° and a return to less than two in decades. To turn right would be almost impossible, the amount of change we would have to make in a short time. The image below, from a scientific paper, compares the two with a glaciation cycle of the ice age.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
Image
Frnc
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Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:54 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by Frnc »

grenfell wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:41 pm
jennyjj01 wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:42 pm
WomanOfTheWoods wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 6:57 pm With so many crisis world events occurring; many of them unprecedented and interrelated, does anyone else sense we are heading for the Perfect Storm?
Absolutely. Each world changing crisis is hitting us before any of the previous ones gets resolved.
Start at any point in the last 5 years and look at the headlines
Taliban. Not gone away. Better armed than ever.
The re-enactment group I'm with did a charity event at the weekend. On the way there my friend and I discussed the Taliban and how we wouldn't give to such a regime but had to bite our tongues when the organisers said that at least some of the money raised would be going to the Afganistan appeal. Colour us cynical but we really can't see thecharity money actually going to those in need
A lot of aid money does go to propping up dictatorships etc. But that's party the fault of western governments, who specify how the money can be used. Hopefully charities have workers there who ensure food etc goes to those who need it.
Frnc
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Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:54 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by Frnc »

Kiwififer wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:27 pm
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... ?_amp=true

Saw an article in the Guardian today that was saying that states in America were draining lakes to keep their populations with water. It’s not a massive jump to see what will happen when reservoirs and lakes dry up.
grenfell wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:35 pm Sometime ago I watched a documentary on just that subject and it also said something like a quarter of at least western and central USA is supplied from underground aquifers which are also being depleted faster than they fill.. Water seems to be an overlooked resource.
Yeah, water is a big problem. The world is becomong hotter and drier. Droughts are more likely. Ironically, floods are also more likely. The heat evaporates the water, and eventually it gets dumped somewhere, all in one go. Dought and flood go hand in hand.
grenfell
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Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:55 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by grenfell »

Frnc wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 6:34 am
grenfell wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:35 pm
Frnc wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:24 am
2. The climate. Global warming. I know WOTW is sceptical, but I did post a lot of stuff to explain the science. We can see the extreme weather of the last few years around the world. This is just the start. The very beginning. But big change could be quite rapid. If feedbacks kick in. Eg, if the tundra thaws, more greenhouse gases will be released. If arctic ice melts, more sunlight reaches the ocean. If the ocean warms, it can't store as much CO2.
I watched a youtube video some time ago which put it all in really simple terms. It's probably still there but I can't remember the title and equally can't be bothered to trawl through youtube to find it again.
Put simply there are two possibilities . The earth is warming or it isn't and we have two options . To do something or to do nothing. That gives four scenerios.
1It's real and we do something to combat it.
2 It's real and we do nothing
3 It's not real and we try to combat it
and
4 It's not real and we do nothing.
1 gives us a chance
2 we're boned
3 we're ok but spend a lot of money
4 best case scenerio where we are ok and still have a nice lifestyle.
25% of going extinct , bit of a no brainer as I see it.
This is a good summary. However:
"3 we're ok but spend a lot of money"
Solar and wind are now the cheapest ways to generate electricity in the UK. Nuclear and coal are dearer. Gas is slightly dearer, and does overlap wind and solar. But the figures I saw were almost certainly before gas prices skyrocketed. So now the picture should be clear. Also, I saw predictions from BP, and wind and solar were predicted to decrease further in price, and stay cheaper.
I would like to see the government retrofit our homes. Proper insulation , this would cost a lot...
To be fair the author of the video was trying to make a complicated subject as simple as possible. I don't disagree with what you have wrote at all , the author lumped everything together from home insulation to flood defences , anything that might be classed as a mitigation expense. If you have a coal powered station and there is no effect on the climate switching to wind or solar would be simply an additional expense although if I recall correctly the author did make the point that resource depletion means that something other than that coal powered station will have to be built at some point. The wind and sun are going to last long after the mines and wells have run out.
Going off slightly I was reading this recently ,
https://www.designboom.com/technology/j ... 6-13-2022/
Pity it will take another decade to be up and running but a good idea nonetheless.
grenfell
Posts: 3952
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:55 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by grenfell »

Frnc wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 6:43 am
grenfell wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:41 pm The re-enactment group I'm with did a charity event at the weekend. On the way there my friend and I discussed the Taliban and how we wouldn't give to such a regime but had to bite our tongues when the organisers said that at least some of the money raised would be going to the Afganistan appeal. Colour us cynical but we really can't see thecharity money actually going to those in need
A lot of aid money does go to propping up dictatorships etc. But that's party the fault of western governments, who specify how the money can be used. Hopefully charities have workers there who ensure food etc goes to those who need it.
Money being siphoned off by dictators ,corrupt civil servants and charity bosses earning as much as the prime minister have all served to make me somewhat ( probably shamefully) cynical about charities.
Kiwififer
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Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2018 1:02 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by Kiwififer »

That’s why we donate to small local charities. We see exactly what the money is being used for as well and it’s not used to buy another warlord a new Mercedes.

The last big charity I donated to (and it wasn’t that big) was raising funds to help feed dogs in the Ukraine.
jennyjj01
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Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:09 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by jennyjj01 »

Frnc wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 6:34 am
...I would like to see the government retrofit our homes. Proper insulation. This would cost a lot, but it would create jobs and save us all money in the long term. It's too expensive and too technical for most poeple to do themselves. Weirdly, home energy certs still recommend new gas boilers. I'd like to see them switch to heat pump, and the govt to invest in that industry, to improve efficiency and reduce price.
...
I don't disagree. We got discounted cavity wall insulation about a decade ago and the house was notably warmer in summer and cooler in winter and it costed in quickly. So I'm all for expenditure on retrofitting insulation, and even grants to improve heating efficiency and solar etc. But there's just so much graft and skimming in the industry that pops up. It's AN answer, but not THE answer.
At a national and global level, we need to make the big wins and stop doing the Big Stupid. We need structural changes in the way the globe operates, not just local initiatives that don't scratch the surface. But all the structural changes that we get seem to be heading in the wrong direction. Big ideas like shredding the Amazon to make biomass to ship to Drax to burn, Carbon Neutral. LOL Or some Coal powered generating plant being repurposed and kept open to drive Bitcoin Mining farms, or China and India growing their economies on the back of Coal. We have the UN, trying to work on world peace, and G7, G20 trying to work on world prosperity but we need some sort of GLOBAL regulator with a mandate at halting the BIG insane globe destroying projects. But the will isn't there. Countries demand autonomy and will do whatever global damage they want in the interest of their own short term government policy..
Frnc wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 6:34 am The consequences are as you say, potential extinction. How much is being done? Some, but not enough. A likely scenario is that we are at a fork in the road. . . To turn right would be almost impossible, the amount of change we would have to make in a short time.
The fork in the road is maybe more like a sequence of minor, concealed side roads to the right to sanity and sustainability. The fork to the left is a continuation straight ahead of an AutoBahn that leads to oblivion just over the horizon. A few straggling preppers and tree huggers take the minor off ramps, but the bulk of humanity hurtles onward, laughing.

We are where we are, and can barely agree on that. Past the point of no return? Maybe? Probably. There's trouble ahead and as a species we are doomed to learn the hardest of ways.

But Hey Oh. There's a difference between seeing the problem and fixing it. We do what we can, It will be multiple generations before Humanity will evolve through this, if we can.

Musical Interlude :)

https://youtu.be/gUUdQfnshJ4?t=316
Graceful Degradation! Prepping's objective summed up in two words. Turning Disaster into Mild Inconvenience by the power of fore-thought

Not Feeling Optimistic. Let me be wrong
Frnc
Posts: 3182
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:54 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by Frnc »

grenfell wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 7:10 am
To be fair the author of the video was trying to make a complicated subject as simple as possible. I don't disagree with what you have wrote at all , the author lumped everything together from home insulation to flood defences , anything that might be classed as a mitigation expense. If you have a coal powered station and there is no effect on the climate switching to wind or solar would be simply an additional expense although if I recall correctly the author did make the point that resource depletion means that something other than that coal powered station will have to be built at some point. The wind and sun are going to last long after the mines and wells have run out.
Going off slightly I was reading this recently ,
https://www.designboom.com/technology/j ... 6-13-2022/
Pity it will take another decade to be up and running but a good idea nonetheless.
I've heard of wave and tide turbines before, but not ocean currents. They are all good ideas. The UK should be using tidal in key estuaries like Bristol. The headline under the first image in that article is very misleading though. It says "JAPAN’S OCEAN TURBINE COULD PRODUCE 205 Gigawatts of electricity". Then in the article it says "one estimate states that if the energy present in the Kuroshio could be harnessed, it would amount to approximately 205 GW. 205 GW is the energy of the ocean current, not what one turbine can capture! Another article on this says "Starting in 2017, IHI partnered with New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) for a multi-year test of the prototype device. They found that with a rate flow speed of approximately three knots, they could steadily generate 100 kilowatts of power, or 50 kilowatts per turbine unit."
So, it would need a lot of these to be deployed. Interesting though.
Frnc
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Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:54 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by Frnc »

grenfell wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 7:24 am charity bosses earning as much as the prime minister
This is particularly annoying to me. I give money to the WFP, but I've no idea how much the bosses make.
jennyjj01
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Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:09 pm

Re: Do You Feel We Are Heading For The Perfect Storm?

Post by jennyjj01 »

Frnc wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:52 am
grenfell wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 7:10 am https://www.designboom.com/technology/j ... 6-13-2022/
Pity it will take another decade to be up and running but a good idea nonetheless.
So, it would need a lot of these to be deployed. Interesting though.
An interesting prototype. But how fragile those propellers look. And how many decades before this could become significant.
https://www.world-energy.org/article/18317.html wrote:"At present, approximately 522MW a year is generated globally by tidal energy.

Yet in the UK alone, a potential 10GW could be generated annually by tidal energy. This would be enough to power 15 million homes and offset 70 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Moreover, tidal energy could have a market potential of around 100GW.
Graceful Degradation! Prepping's objective summed up in two words. Turning Disaster into Mild Inconvenience by the power of fore-thought

Not Feeling Optimistic. Let me be wrong