The global climate crisis is accelerating faster than they thought, says climate scientist

[Muse]

This is alarming, a good read, and the comments are powerful. This link should get you beyond the paywall for 2 weeks, i.e. until October 27, 2023:

Opinion | I Study Climate Change. The Data Is Telling Us Something New. (Published 2023)

There is increasing evidence that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years rather than continued at a gradual, steady pace.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Muse]

~9 minute video of Australian climate change experts' views on the crisis, personal and professional.

 

[itsmydamnation]

~9 minute video of Australian climate change experts' views on the crisis, personal and professional.

thax i fell great after watching that

 

[Muse]

thax i fell great after watching that

You're welcome.

 

[Ken g6]

thax i fell great after watching that

From the OP's link, emphasis mine:

...the positive steps we’ve made over the past decade should reinforce to us that progress is possible and despair is counterproductive.

If something's burning down, don't stop fighting the fire!

 

[IronWing]

Yeah, well that's just like expert opinion backed with facts and sound reason.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

6 of the 7 hottest summers ever recorded in San Antonio were in the last 15 years, with the other one (tied for 6th/7th hottest) in 1998. 2022 was the hottest summer ever recorded in San Antonio, even broke a record for hottest month ever recorded here with July 2022 at 101.7. I say was because that record only lasted for a year, with 2023 demolishing 2022 for hottest summer ever recorded here. The entire meteorological summer (June - August) averaged 102, higher than our previous hottest month ever, and August 2023 averaged like 103.1. 2022 we set the record for most days of 105+ at the airport (about the coolest thermometer in town) at four days. 2023 we had 17. This last 15 years of accelerating global warming is pushing San Antonio from "hot" to "wonder if this place is even going to be habitable in 20 years".

 

[Dr. Detroit]

And the toxic heavy metal pollution that blows across the Pacific and settles on top of the Sierra Nevada's and melts into our drinking water...

• Industrial pollution, bacteria, heavy metals, dust and other aerosols flow freely from Asia to California. Research suggests that as much as one-third of the airborne lead in the San Francisco Bay Area wafted over from Asia.

Assessment of residents’ total environmental exposure to heavy metals in China - Scientific Reports

Heavy metal pollution in the air, water, and soil has attracted substantial interest recently; however, assessment of the total human environmental exposure remains limited. Therefore, determining the total human environmental exposure is imperative for the management and control of heavy metal...

www.nature.com

An Upside to China’s Air Pollution: More Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada (Published 2012)

Researchers say that dust storms in Asia could help douse the Sierras with snow, bolstering California’s economy and rejuvenating its environment.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Meanwhile, I have a brush pile to burn.

 

[Ken g6]

Meanwhile, I have a brush pile to burn.

Well, that's just carbon neutral.

But do try to set aside any wood you or a friend or neighbor can use for heating.

 

[sandorski]

All some will hear - They were wrong again!

 

[Muse]

Meanwhile, I have a brush pile to burn.

You can't compost it or recycle it?

 

[Muse]

All some will hear - They were wrong again!

IOW, that's inconvenient, can I rationalize my way around it?

 

[Muse]

Well, that's just carbon neutral.

But do try to set aside any wood you or a friend or neighbor can use for heating.

I have quite a lot of wood I've cut from my two un-miniature old plum trees, already cut to burning proportions, in boxes. I have a fire place, no central heating presently (have ambitions to install some sort of heat pump system), 1900 sq. ft. two story house.

It freezes here very rarely, almost never, but it does get quite chilly at times in winter months.

I have in the past made many fires in the living room fire place, it warms me up (while camped out in front of it), it doesn't really warm the house. It fills that portion of the downstairs with smoke I can smell for a day or two, not smoky enough to see, but I can smell it. I was told that smoke isn't good for my health, so recently if I make a fire I wear one of my N95's.

 

[lxskllr]

You can't compost it or recycle it?

Not without acreage, and with acreage comes more brush. Some parts of the country, that's a fire hazard. Not here really, but I have limited places to put woody debris. I spent Friday afternoon stuffing a burn barrel with brush too small/plentiful to be used as kindling in my woodstove. IMO, that's the best thing that can be done with it on a small scale.

What I'd be interested in seeing is biomass peaker powerplants. I don't think it's usually a good idea to run biomass as a primary energy source, but there's a *a lot* of wood waste that doesn't get used for anything productive. Storing it under cover til it's needed for power is interesting. I'd like to hear from an engineer why that would be a good or bad idea.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You can't compost it or recycle it?

Compositing is just sparkling carbon neutrality. Unless you specifically need compost it doesn't make much of a difference to nature.

It fills that portion of the downstairs with smoke I can smell for a day or two

You should really clean or repair your flue, that should never happen.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Not without acreage, and with acreage comes more brush. Some parts of the country, that's a fire hazard. Not here really, but I have limited places to put woody debris. I spent Friday afternoon stuffing a burn barrel with brush too small/plentiful to be used as kindling in my woodstove. IMO, that's the best thing that can be done with it on a small scale.

What I'd be interested in seeing is biomass peaker powerplants. I don't think it's usually a good idea to run biomass as a primary energy source, but there's a *a lot* of wood waste that doesn't get used for anything productive. Storing it under cover til it's needed for power is interesting. I'd like to hear from an engineer why that would be a good or bad idea.

Biomass is rather excellent for heating. It's cheap, efficient, and carbon neutral assuming you make it out of fresh growths (which I'm sure all biomass mfgs do). I'd rather everyone be on biomass than any underground carbon fuel.

 

[lxskllr]

Biomass is rather excellent for heating. It's cheap, efficient, and carbon neutral assuming you make it out of fresh growths (which I'm sure all biomass mfgs do). I'd rather everyone be on biomass than any underground carbon fuel.

Yea, I tend to agree, but what it ends up being is good wood burned that could be used for construction, when there's virtually limitless scrap wood available. It's also still burning, and I don't think that should be the end goal. Non combustible is the way to make real progress.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Yea, I tend to agree, but what it ends up being is good wood burned that could be used for construction, when there's virtually limitless scrap wood available. It's also still burning, and I don't think that should be the end goal. Non combustible is the way to make real progress.

We can grow trees for both, and I'm not sure there's a shortage of lumber out there. Also if I'm not mistaken we already turn scrap into biomass as it is, at least in industries where it's possible/reasonable.

I'd much rather there be less buildings and more people off the carbon teat, lol

 

[lxskllr]

A lot of waste goes to the dump. All the tree companies running around with full chip trucks, scrapping it all. I've been on small logged out sites, and I could heat my house for the rest of my life using the slash left on site after they took the good logs. I'm just a hobbyist, using fully manual moving methods, and I wouldn't be able to access my house if I brought all the debris I cut home.

Trees are best left to grow in wilderness, not plantations. Leave the wilderness, use plantations for building, and junk for burning.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Trees are best left to grow in wilderness, not plantations. Leave the wilderness, use plantations for building, and junk for burning.

Gotta be careful with your estimation of how much wood is needed. I use 4 tons/yr of biomass for heating, which is pretty standard. If only a tenth of the US needed that much per year, that's still 120 million tons of biomass per year. That's a lot of wastage to find and grind up. It's far, far less expensive and more practical to churn what you can through appropriate industries, and just grow pine for the rest.

 

[lxskllr]

Gotta be careful with your estimation of how much wood is needed. I use 4 tons/yr of biomass for heating, which is pretty standard. If only a tenth of the US needed that much per year, that's still 120 million tons of biomass per year. That's a lot of wastage to find and grind up. It's far, far less expensive and more practical to churn what you can through appropriate industries, and just grow pine for the rest.

I have at least four tree companies within an hour walk from me. The smallest has two chip trucks, and the biggest has six that go out every day. Those are the ones I can point to on a map. There's another half dozen+ that send flyers to my mailbox, and doesn't include the RoW crews that are constantly running day in, day out all over the state. And then there's me, who dropped many tons of wood this year, and squirreled it away, or sent it to the dump. Add in the industrial waste, and I have little doubt biomass would work for the whole country in peaker capacity.

I imagine a dump site by the railroad, where tree compaines can dump free(they usually have to pay), a crew there manipulating it, and it being shipped out to powerplants and kept under roof til it's needed.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

It's all brush clippings. Too small for firewood, too big to compost. A lot of it is types of Cedar that doesn't even rot over time. I leave some along the fence lines and other areas for birds and rabbits to nest in. Some of those piles have been there for 10 years with little change in size.

When I was heating with wood, I'd keep some of this smaller stuff for kindling, but I removed and sold the stove.

I've chipped some down enough that it eventually blends in with the soil.

I can't even try to sell it or give it away since the stuff is wild here and everybody has far more than they can use. There are various laws about shipping bio products across state lines, so I can't even sell it that way for craft materials.

The only way to really get rid of it is burning.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Mass BioMass use in heating systems often requires processed materials. It usually has to be compacted into something like pellets to be sold and used commercially. It also has to be treated for insects and disease before it can be sold.

People don't want to burn waste in power plants either.

After major storms, our highway department will set up transfer points where their trucks bring the stuff cleared off roads. They'll chip and shred what they can and offer it to the public for mulch. But they still end up with acre sized piles that has to be burned.

 

[Muse]

After major storms, our highway department will set up transfer points where their trucks bring the stuff cleared off roads. They'll chip and shred what they can and offer it to the public for mulch. But they still end up with acre sized piles that has to be burned.

I guess I should do some searching. I use mulch in my vegetable gardening. If appropriate, I suppose I could add it to my compost pile, which is a perpetual affair I have under my bigger plum tree, again, used to prep the ground before I plant vegetables. Mostly it gets kitchen scraps and whatever I prune on the property or hanging over the fences from my neighbors.