Global warming ...

[oilerlord]

You're picking nits.

In terms of weather, anything can happen. Sometimes it rains more, sometimes it hardly rains at all, sometimes we get a "normal" amount Climate is based on long term, historical averages; not a few years of weather data. 2016 for example was the wettest year in California in 122 years of weather data. A few years before that, dry conditions prevailed. Those are changes in weather, not climate.



I'm not debating climate change, only saying that changes in weather patterns over 5-6 years is too small of a sample to determine an area's climate, or if it really is changing.

[WetEV]

You're picking nits.

In terms of weather, anything can happen. Sometimes it rains more, sometimes it hardly rains at all, sometimes we get a "normal" amount Climate is based on long term, historical averages; not a few years of weather data. 2016 for example was the wettest year in California in 122 years of weather data. A few years before that, dry conditions prevailed. Those are changes in weather, not climate.

I'm not debating climate change, only saying that changes in weather patterns over 5-6 years is too small of a sample to determine an area's climate, or if it really is changing.

You do have a point that 5-6 years is too short to determine if climate is really changing, even on a global basis.

Both rainfall and drought should increase as the climate warms.

Rainfall increases because evaporation increases at higher temperatures, and what goes up will come down. Drought should increase for several reasons: rainfall will move, generally away from mid-latitudes but in a complex pattern, rainfall will come more in less common but larger storms, and evaporation increases.

What the graph shows is that the wet years in California are getting wetter. That is not a counter example to human caused climate change. That is what has been predicted.

[DucRider]

Some long term looks:


Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and mean global temperature during the past 1000 years



instrumental record of global average temperatures


change in annually averaged sea level at 23 geologically stable tide gauge sites

This longer term view shows that global temperatures are rising, carbon dioxide levels are raising in step with temps, and ice is melting raising sea levels.

While this does not differentiate the amount of CO2 as either a cause, byproduct, or unrelated completely to the raising temps, there is little doubt the earth is warming.

[oilerlord]

What the graph shows is that the wet years in California are getting wetter. That is not a counter example to human caused climate change. That is what has been predicted.

What the graph shows, in no chronological order, are the top 10 wettest California seasons in 122 years. It also indicates that 1968 had about an inch more rain than in 1997. The graph lists precipitation records, not necessarily a trend.

[redpoint5]

I know it got OT, but I was clear in writing "environmental impact" in my original statement. If we focus purely on carbon emissions, we ignore things like nuclear waste and accidental or intentional releases of radioactive materials, destruction of ecosystems to make way for "cleaner" power, etc. The environment isn't just warming - it's degrading generally.

That just isn't true, and it depends on what you mean by environment.

I can tell you the environment of LA has improved since the 80s. That place was smog city despite having a fraction of the people living there today.

There are orders of magnitude more trees in forests in the USA than a hundred years ago.

Nuclear war is a legitimate fear. Nuclear power is a legitimate way to generate energy, and probably makes the most sense both economically and environmentally.

[SeanNelson]

I can tell you the environment of LA has improved since the 80s. That place was smog city despite having a fraction of the people living there today.

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

There are orders of magnitude more trees in forests in the USA than a hundred years ago.

Really? An "order of magnitude" is a factor of 10, so "orders of magnitude", which implies at least two, would mean a factor of 100 or more. Are there really 100 times more trees in forests over the past 100 years? Can you point to anything to substantiate that?

[oilerlord]

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

Not meaningless, Sean. It's still a win...an example of what is possible. LA is a huge city, and it's air is cleaner than it was back in the 80's. Positive change like that could also happen in other large cities like Delhi and Beijing.



Global warming gets all the press, but I think I think recognizing and taking steps against pollution is important too.

[SeanNelson]

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

Not meaningless, Sean. It's still a win...an example of what is possible. LA is a huge city, and it's air is cleaner than it was back in the 80's. Positive change like that could also happen in other large cities like Delhi and Beijing.

Meaningless in the sense of LA's improvement being indicative of the health of the global environment.

But yes, an excellent example of how actively combating a problem can reverse the damage. We need more visible wins like this to galvanize action. Unfortunately, that's difficult to do with climate change because it's such a pervasive, fluctuating and slow moving (in terms of human attention span) phenomenon.

Global warming gets all the press, but I think I think recognizing and taking steps against pollution is important too.

I've always said that whether you believe in climate change or not there are plenty of other great reasons for us to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, and pollution is one of the greatest of those reasons.

[SparkEVPilot]

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

Not meaningless, Sean. It's still a win...an example of what is possible. LA is a huge city, and it's air is cleaner than it was back in the 80's. Positive change like that could also happen in other large cities like Delhi and Beijing.



Global warming gets all the press, but I think I think recognizing and taking steps against pollution is important too.

I was born in Los Angeles in 1945 and lived in the LA basin until 1974. I know how bad the SMOG was at that time. I even remember driving to Ontario to looks at some new homes. I knew I was only a couple of miles from the mountains but, because of the smog, I could not see them. Today, the air quality in the LA basin is much, much better but there is still more to be done. The same can be said for the Central Valley of California where I currently live. Converting the vehicle fleet to EVs will be of great help. Just watch what happens in China.

[IMAdolt]

It's always more beneficial to re-use rather than replace.

However people like shiny new things and they're going to keep getting them, the carbon defect of a new EV is made up for pretty quickly, typically within a 3 year lease. EVERYTHING after that is beneficial over and ICE, an ICE gets less efficient and more polluting over time a BEV doesn't, in fact grid improvement instantly improve the auto environmental impact. It is in no way silly to believe you're doing some good by buying a new EV.

I don't believe anyone can rationally say a new car is better then a used one carbon impact wise but fleet and market share increase for the BEV is what's required and that means buying new and used EV's.

I must confess I read a lot of this thread and didn't read all the links provided, do the carbon footprint assessments of BEV's vs ICE's take into account recyclability of components? Hopefully this surplus in used car inventory happens to mean more ICE's being scrapped over time and a larger and larger share of the fleet for BEV's, that's what it all boils down to. You can't do much to improve the efficiency of an ICE fleet but a 1% power grid efficiency improvement has a massive impact on a BEV fleet, if that means buying new BEV's and incentivising the sales then so be it.

Here in BC there's a scrap incentive, $6000 toward a new BEV/plug in hybrid/FCV or $3000 toward a used one. that dictates a direct EV over ICE vehicle "replacement" no resale, scrap only. It seems like an effective way to replace a fleet and not just increase it.