Don’t Breathe..

[dirtbag]

Who caused the ice age?

[Jerry Adams]

I remember 1960s snowfall that drifted and blocked the doors of my house – much worse than anything recent.

Still, there are no changes like in Alaska where all the trees in my yard are falling over because the permafrost is melting.  There are places like Miami that are now flooding, but that has more to do with subsidence of land because they’ve reduced ground water than sea level rise.  There are more forest fires but that has a lot to do with forest management.  The Tillamook Burn was just before my time, bigger than anything we’ve seen currently.

I’m not arguing we shouldn’t address global warming, just that the affects currently are not obvious in mid latitudes.  And the effects are on the same order as natural variation of weather.  Maybe it’s like a frog in a pot of water that’s slowly boiling.

It’s difficult to convince a lot of people to take drastic actions.

[AK Granola]

The glaciers I first saw in Alaska in 1989 are mostly gone. Exit Glacier near Seward has retreated way back up into the mountain. Portage Glacier is almost gone. Facilities were constructed way back when for visitors to view these glaciers from close by, and now the ice is so far from the facilities they’re kind of a joke. Still worth a visit, but not the tourist destination they once were.

My kids are trying to figure out the best place to “ride out” the cataclysmic effects of climate change. Not sure there is one! apparently the uber wealthy are building bunkers out west somewhere. May they eat each other.

[Steve S]

Jerry,

The size of the Tillamook Burn partly reflects the change in forest fighting methods, so is irrelevant.

You reinforced the decrease in snow amounts over the years. At the other end of the scale was 114 degrees in Portland in 2021 — not a normal variation in weather for a place that was slow to see the installation of home air conditioners.

1875-1890 — no 100 degree days
1891-1900 — 1 year
1901-1910 — 3 years; high 102
1911-1920 — 2 years; high 100
1921-1930 — 3 years; high 104
20 year intervals
1931-1950 — 9 years; high 107
1951-1970 — 7 years; high 106
1971-1990 — 14 years; high 107
1991-2010 — 12 years; high 105
12 years to last
2011-2022 — 6 years above 100; high 114
And the hot periods became longer

Frog boiling? Good simile — no time to evolve or adjust. Faster than in the evolutionary record? Maybe. In line with normal weather variations — certainly not.

 

[Jerry Adams]

Same idea, I like this plot

from https://projects.oregonlive.com/weather/temps/

It’s obviously getting hotter, and the increased CO2 is most likely the cause.  I think in the next few years it will get hotter and more obvious that CO2 is the cause.

I think someone that isn’t an expert would conclude that if you live in Portland, you didn’t need to have an AC, but now you do.  But not catastrophe.  Not yet.

 

 

[jscott]

“But not catastrophe.  Not yet”

Jerry, are you suggesting that we wait for the catastrophe to act? Won’t that be too late? Wait for the house to burn down before going to the expense of calling the fire department? And then when the whole city burns down as the fire grows unabated?…rebuilding is far more expensive than having called the fire department in the first place.

I’ve watched Lyell glacier shrink to a snow pack in my life time. It’s no longer considered a glacier. It WAS the largest glacier in the Sierra. What I witnessed in a short period of time was shocking. Of course, this event is being repeated over and over world wide.

Jerry writes that he’s not seeing anything similar to what’s occurring in Alaska at his home in Oregon. Where I live, not that far south in Berkeley, Ca, I most certainly have. Smoke from fires is choking the entire state year after year at unprecedented levels. My brother in Spokane has had the same experience.  Unfortunately, my guess is that another few years will bring Jerry around on this issue. Oregon fires will likely explode. He’ll see the effects of global warming up close. It tend to change the sense of urgency. Hard to live for months at a time in smoke choked air.

[AK Granola]

At least sea level rise will swamp Mar-a-lago soon. We can all celebrate that.

[Steve S]

From a New York Times comment on a similar subject:
“What is it that so strongly attracts certain people to denial, deflection and distortion of reality ?”

[Jerry Adams]

I’m not denying global warming, just saying that we’re just beginning to see the effects.

I’ve read attribution studies that estimate that that 116 F temperature in Portland was 3.6 F warmer because of global warming.

Pew says that 54% of voters think global warming is a major problem.  If that was above 60% it would be easier for congress to pass laws.  I don’t think that over stating the effects of global warming is the best way to convince those people in the middle.

I think a better strategy is to tell people that we’re not going to take your car away, but that EVs will actually be better and cheaper.  Until then, we will make sure there’s gasoline available and affordable.

If those attribution studies are correct that say the 116F in Portland would have been 112F without global warming, that is not catastrophic.  That’s just the data. If it was worse, it would be more convincing.  But this is what we have to work with.

I think it’s amazing that in this hyper political government they actually passed several large spending bills to transition from fossil fuels.  There is a lot of progress we should take credit for.  That would be a better way to convince people.

This strategy will actually produce results faster than making ever more dire doom stories.

Just my opinion.

 

 

[Dan Quixote]

I really enjoyed Skurka’s post about wildfires in 2020, Why is the West on fire? He put a link to the following TED Talk about Why wildfires have gotten worse — and what we can do about it, and discussed how seeing global climate change as directly causal of our modern spate of intense wildfires in North America is a simplification.

Interesting to think how much our fire-suppression policies of the last century have built a giant firebomb that is now going off every summer. There’s kind of a bitter irony there. One could wonder about how having so darn many trees affects the rest of the ecology–hydrology and drought, winds and weather (especially from big fires), and all the rest of it in those feedback loops that are present in complex systems.

[jscott]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/28/us/canada-wildfires-air-quality-smoke

Jerry will doubtless post another chart that shows what’s happening in Canada and the U.S. is within standard parameters and nothing to worry about.

Tell it to the folks in Spokane and the rest of Washington state who are old enough to know ‘the new normal’ isn’t a good thing. Oregon has dodged the worst of it so far, so Jerry can afford to be blithe.

[Jerry Adams]

A couple years ago Portland had the worst air quality globally.  For about a week.  It was terrible.  Last Summer the Three Sisters was bad all summer because there was a forest fire west of it.

Now, it seems every other day another city on the east side gets hit – Chicago, D.C., New York,…

Regardless of how much is forest (mis)management or climate change it’s terrible.

[AK Granola]

“who are old enough to know ‘the new normal’ isn’t a good thing” – Honestly, I wish my kids and my nieces and nephews didn’t know about climate change. I won’t tell them it’s not normal, and it’s not good, because it’s going to be their future. They need to find whatever happiness they can because humanity is not going to change its ways.

I know so many people that think if they individually just drove less, or didn’t buy plastic, that the world will be saved. You can live like a pauper if you like, but it won’t change a thing. The big action we need is at a level that will never happen. Our political systems are designed for power and greed, not for the good of us all. It’s a cynical day! Ask me tomorrow…

[Dan]

Even if there is a location that hasn’t yet seen major effects of climate change, so what? Obviously the impacts are not evenly distributed. Take a broader view.

[HkNewman]

British news has a couple interesting information maps in the opening of this video.  It shows the perimeters of fires in the 1960s and 1970s .. vs the first 2 decades of this century (spoiler alert!  More acreage consumed by fire recently).  Along with more wildfires comes more smoke, naturally, but also winds are picking up carrying smoke, fire, [and embers, I’ll add] further and faster.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-66114848

Thinking about it, even regular travel can be affected let alone hiking that often requires breathing harder.

 

[SIMULACRA]

More like the obscure novel, Doom of the Great City. Or better known as, Hartmann the Anarchist, by Douglas Fawcett. Circa 1893. Good luck finding an original printing.

[Josh B]

That’s not stirring the pot dirtbag. Thats common knowldege among any science literate person. We’re witnessing the 6th mass extinction in earths biological history. The biodiversity crisis is real and its happening now. Climate change, habitat loss due to development, and massive invasive species issues are fanning the flames (pardon the pun). Let’s enjoy our backpacking trips into the little islands of wilderness we love so much while we still can.

[jscott]

“A couple years ago Portland had the worst air quality globally.  For about a week.  It was terrible. ”

A week? Pshaw! When you have it for two months or more, over several years, you’ll become more concerned. And it doesn’t have to be “the worst in the world” to be unbreathable and unbearable.

I’ve become somewhat strident in my opposition to merry home fires in temperate highly populated climates like my own. The smoke they put out is incredible; every single one. We’ll go through months choked with smoke from fires rampaging all around and then when the rains finally put them out, folks will start up fires in their houses and I’ll have to breathe that smoke when I’m out walking. Madness.

[Steve S]

Once upon a time there were dead bugs littering my windshield. Inconvenient all summer; less in the city, but pass any farm field was to not pass up an opportunity to clean the windshield. Almost no bug splatters on my car yet in 2023. (Portland, Oregon.) I fear for the food chain.

[Jerry Adams]

Dan, I agree, we should take a broader view.  For example, if my CO2 causes large areas of Bangladesh to become uninhabitable because they have such large areas of low elevation land, I should take responsibility.

But, in our form of government, if 60% or better 70% of voters consider this important, we will be more likely to take more action.  People get frustrated because their favorite issue is being ignored – but in a democracy, you need a majority to get things done.

We need a bunch of voters in the middle to consider this important.  If we say we’re going to have plenty of gasoline for your car until an electric version comes along that you’ll like better, then we can sway more of those voters.  And if we emphasize that we are making major progress.  If you say we’re doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it, that will turn people off.

The worst thing we can do is exaggerate.  Each time there’s a hot spell we blame it on climate change.  Which will make those people in the middle skeptical.  Climate scientists are quite conservative which is good, like when it was 116F in Portland, they attributed 3.6F of that to global warming.  That doesn’t seem as convincing as if they blamed it totally on global warming, but if you’re caught exaggerating, it ruins your credibility.  Conservative is actually more convincing long term.

Just my opinion :)

[Steve S]

Jerry, your criterion has been met — most politicians are kicking the matter down the road rather than sticking their necks out by taking a firm stand. Makes sense for the Republicans according to Pew Research, but not for the Democrats. See graph below.

Time to shout or roar, not whisper. Time to aim for 2035 as an end to net emissions of greenhouse gases, not 2050. The climate effects of CO2 have been known since 1896.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/16/u-s-concern-about-climate-change-is-rising-but-mainly-among-democrats/ft_2020-04-16_climatechangeupdate_01/

 

[jscott]

“I’m not denying global warming, just saying that we’re just beginning to see the effects.”

Actually, there are large parts of the world that ARE seeing the effects, and have been. And again, the trend is undeniable: it keeps getting worse. And then of course we don’t “see” the effects in the ocean, but they are already quite real.

If one lives in a condominium tower and there’s a fire in apartment 2A at 3 in the morning, and the manager were to say, ‘no reason to wake everyone up, the fire isn’t noticeable where most live–and no need to call the fire department, maybe it will go out on its own…’ and then the whole structure burns down…

you see my point. Waiting for the inevitable catastrophe that can’t be reversed is a bad strategy.

 

Jerry’s point about over-hyping the problem and so losing credibility is a good one. Jerry is  suggesting that building credibility is better in the l0ng run than screaming “fire!” when no one can see the blaze.

It’s just, conditions are changing so rapidly that lots of people ARE experiencing the results of global warming. Oregon is in a kind of sweet spot. By contrast, over the last several years, the Tahoe basin has become uninhabitable  in the summer for months on end. Again, this is becoming a yearly event. There aren’t any records of anything like this happening before. that’s one small example. It’s the same thing with smoke choking all of California to an extreme degree for months on end. Of course there have always been fires. It’s apparent to those who live here that this is different–and extreme. And will only trend worse.

So many people are already convinced and ready to act. Most? I’m not sure.

 

[Steve S]

Portland’s not the sweet spot where less is happening — merely starting from a cooler position. Records are available on snowfall by date to the 1870s. Each decade has had less snowfall than the previous one.

“What is it that so strongly attracts certain people to denial, deflection and distortion of reality?” Convenience, limiting current expenses, and kicking the can to others — preferably mostly the next generation.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I live in a mild climate. This summer has been blessedly cool. I’ve lived here all my life. I remember in the 90s there were at most 2 weeks of the year I could ride my Vespa without wearing a warm jacket. These days I can often ride my Vespa in shorts and short sleeves in February. Many people have not lived in one place long enough or are not observant enough to feel the change that’s happened. Also hard to observe is that the amount of non-human living things on earth are now 70% of what it was in the 1950s. This is a loss that saddens me.

[Jerry Adams]

I can grow cantelopes now.  If you wait for the stem to fall off it’s very ripe.  By far the best cantelopes I’ve ever eaten.  Yayyy global warming. :)

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