I actually watched that episode last night, so that post was kinda jumping at me. What are the odds...
Sagan, a real teacher. Not only smart, there are quite a few smart people. But also able to make something complicated easily understood. To make something abstract sound straight. To make something minds can't grasp comprehensible. A beautiful ability!
One of those articles that make you feel disgusted about the world we live in.
Thank you to all those scientists trying to throw the rudder around, that get bullied, while trying to save fellow humans.
As far as I understood, it'll leak into the atmosphere, where it'll cause 80 or 100 times more warming than CO² for a decade or so, before breaking down into good, old CO², causing further warming for centuries / millennia.
Not sure, but I think I've also read that in the process of breaking down into CO², the ozone layer gets damaged.
But if CCS operations leak, they can pose significant risks to water resources. That’s because pressurized CO2 stored underground can escape or propel brine trapped in the saline reservoirs typically used for permanent storage. The leaks can lead to heavy metal contamination and potentially lower pH levels, all of which can make drinking water undrinkable.
Can someone explain this to me in a easy way?
As a layman I would be worried of large amounts of CO² suddenly leaking near where people live. But how does it make water undrinkable? I thought some people like their drinks with CO². And where do the heavy metals come from?
Regarding solar electricity: does that mean to mirror the sunlight to a solar panel? If so: ignoring, that one would constantly need to adapt the mirror's position, I think I also read somewhere that solar panels decrease efficiency with heat. So my question is: could one increase solar panel output by bundling light or would heat related inefficiency cancel that out?
I don't know where you live. But where I live, styrofoam costs next to nothing. In fact, you get it for free, if you don't mind looking through another man's trash. You can also probably get some for free if you ask a company, that gets stuff sent, that need cooling. Like a supermarket.
For environment: styrofoam is a kind of plastic, so there is that. On the plus side, it's quite little plastic inflated with air.
I assume it's way better than getting a replacement fridge, especially considering the electronics and maybe the coolant gas (I don't know if that's still an issue).
I wouldn't be surprised if the electricity saved alone offsets the environment damage (assuming not fully green power used to run the fridge).
I wish I had been old enough during the time we could've still made changes to make a difference.
Why? When you cared back then the frustration must have been at least the same it is now. The hope might have been bigger, but at the same time, you would have been part of a very small minority. And I think it would have been hard to endure that almost nobody you know thinks similarly. You might have been the only doomer they know. And how fast we manage to screw up our planet, you would have likely gotten old enough to come to the same conclusion you came to now: we won't make it.
As always I will keep reading about every year's COP. However, by now my expectation is, that there won't be much, if anything at all, that I need to know about the COP.
Aren't these changes, because there are just have bones to look at, so skin properties etc are a guessing game?
But how did that jaw bone double in length in 2001? Was the skull a missing part until then?
Uh, damn! I had the impression that a lot of governments around the world rely on the theory that talk is enough!
The second big change is that when you transition from one age to the next—there are three ages, Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern—you'll pick a new civilization to lead, one that was at the height of its power during the age in question. So you might go from controlling Rome in Antiquity to Mongolia during the Exploration age.
Well, I still play civ4 bts, never went beyond civ5 and unless I update my hardware probably won't try civ6 and civ7 anytime soon.
But what you mean, you'll change civilization midgame? I can't wrap my head around this concept. Or does your civilization simply change it's name?
As John Schellnhuber, one of the biggest European climate scientists that has been part of the majority of IPCCs, said last year about COP:
Translation by Google:
Interview, where he said it, and also said that 3 degrees above pre industrial would mean the end of ~~modern~~ human civilization (in German):
Youtube