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Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
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- lollol_dimi 3y agoGuys World War 2 Is A Lie It Didn't Happen
- a1o 3y agoFor people on phones, https://m.xkcd.com/2889/ https://m.xkcd.com/2889/
- SushiHippie 3y agoTIL that there is a mobile version. But I don't see the advantages over the desktop version, as the images are not made to fit the width, so I need to zoom out of this mobile page to see the image.
- jraph 3y agoIt's basically for the alt text, which you can display by clicking on "alt text", instead of having to hover to display the title attribute. And actually, it's better on regular computer for this very reason IMHO. A link or button element could be used though for this button. Fitting to screen width would not be great on many devices, the image could be too small.
- speedgoose 3y agoYou can long press the image to get the alt text on the desktop website.
- jraph 3y agoIs it not cut when it's long? It was the case when I had a smartphone a few years ago, I don't know the state of it now though.
- chronogram 3y agoYou can tap the text: https://i.ibb.co/2SpWSTF/Screenshot-20240226-131157-Chrome-Dev.png https://i.ibb.co/2SpWSTF/Screenshot-20240226-131157-Chrome-D...
- ben_w 3y agoHalf the time on iOS, that now selects text within the image, which is cool, but not so helpful for the alt text.
- joshka 3y agoAnd for those on RSS readers that don't like having to hover for alt-text... https://xkcdwat.joshka.net/ https://xkcdwat.joshka.net/
- rcbdev 3y agoMere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.
- CRConrad 3y agoFor values of "~30" closer to 50.
- archerx 3y agoWhile also demonizing nuclear energy.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago> Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. That's not correct, unless you mean to say we discovered nuclear energy in the 1880s: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2382758-eunice-newton-foote-the-woman-who-discovered-the-greenhouse-effect/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2382758-eunice-newton-f...
- gliptic 3y agoAfter the discovery of the greenhouse effect in Earth's atmosphere of course, as per the xkcd.
- larschdk 3y agoScientific discoveries are not instant, but build upon earlier work. * 1824 - effect proposed (Joseph Fourier) * 1827/1838 - further evidence (Claude Pouillet) * 1856 - Speculation that a high vapor atmosphere would give a warm planet (Eunice Newton Foote) * 1859 - Demonstration that hydrocarbons had a significant effect (John Tyndall) * 1896 - Quantification of the effect and prediction of global warming (Svante Arrhenius) * 1901 - Greenhouse name used (Nils Gustaf Ekholm) The greenhouse effect in itself is critically important in maintaining a liveable temperature on Earth. It's a runaway greenhouse effect causing global warming that is the problem. Anything before 1896 was about understand the basic effect, while after we began understanding that we were affecting the system by emitting gases.
- Hucklederry 3y ago[flagged]
- rickdeckard 3y agoToday, living in a significantly changed climate while still producing vast amounts of greenhouse gasses: "Yeah, but that can't be us. I need a scientist to prove it's not because of us!" turning to workforce "It's not us, keep going!"
- nojs 3y agoSome other fun “x is closer to y than z”: * We are closer in time to the T rex than the T rex was to the Stegosaurus * We are closer to the time of Cleopatra than Cleopatra was to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza
- lkdfjlkdfjlg 3y agoYeah, but those are so well known that they show up in every reddit thread. Therefore, not that interesting. Whereas the one linked is new (and isn't merely trivia).
- RuggedPineapple 3y agoI know which one you mean, as I'm sure we all do, but it always amuses me that we refer to her as just 'Cleopatra' because... basically every queen of Egypt in that dynasty was named Cleopatra. They named the vast majority of the boys Ptolemy and the girls Cleopatra. Her mother's name is Cleopatra V Tryphaena. Her daughters name is Cleopatra Selene II. Her Fathers name is Ptolemy XII, she has brothers named Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, one of her sons is named Ptolemy. It should be the least useful mononym possible, but its totally not. Its perfectly understood.
- yreg 3y agoCleopatra Nguyen
- volemo 3y agoSure, there were many a Cleopatra, but only one was the Cleopatra. :D
- hnarn 3y agoMuch like there wasn't one "Caesar", since it's a title (still kicking in Proto-West Germanic derivatives branching off "kaisar"), but many "normal" people (not history nerds) would still use only the title to refer to Gaius Julius Caesar. Also fun fact -- if you're a history nerd -- "Julius Caesar" is almost equally nonsensical to just "Caesar" since "Julius" is not his name, but refers to his family ("gens"). The first Caesar from that family, that we know of at least, was Sextus Julius Caesar in around 200 BC, 300 years before Gaius Julius Caesar was born.
- richrichie 3y ago[flagged]
- breakyerself 3y agoThe planet is warming more than 20X the rate of warming seen through natural processes. There is a unplanned, uncontrolled, planetary scale experiment underway with the chemical and thermal properties of the atmosphere and oceans of the only planet available to us for our survival. The burden of proof is on anyone who wants to continue that experiment to demonstrate that it's safe.
- charlieyu1 3y agoDinasours were flourishing in an era where atmospheric CO2 was 3x or more compared to current levels
- breakyerself 3y agoYes, but the rest of the context of that statement is that earth was a hothouse with no ice, more deserts, and sea levels 550 feet higher than they are now. Also global warming at natural rates would be less of a concern. This human caused global warming is happening more than 20X faster than natural rates of climate change. Not good if you like your ecosystems intact. Good if your favorite thing about dinosaurs was the mass extinction event.
- elihu 3y agoMeanwhile, half of CO2 emissions from human causes since the industrial revolution have happened in about the last 40 years or so. Every time we mash the snooze bar for another decade the problem just gets that much harder to solve.
- pcblues 3y agoPSA: Your personal experience of climate change resulting in "We are all going to live horribly in the future" is quite dependent on the definition of "we"
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- ben_w 3y ago"""In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" to describe the phenomenon of experts reading articles within their fields of expertise and finding them to be error-ridden and full of misunderstanding, but seemingly forgetting those experiences when reading articles in the same publications written on topics outside of their fields of expertise, which they believe to be credible.""" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes... Newspapers may have said that, scientists did not, and would not have done. I mean the maximum is about 70m rise if everything melted, and while that would mess all the coastal cities, the adjective "costal" is important. Also the worst case heating isn't expected for a while yet, and the "ice age" discussion that sometimes gets mentioned was on the scale of millennia, not decades.
- graemep 3y ago> Newspapers may have said that, scientists did not, and would not have done True, but most people's information to access about the issue is from the media. Most people do not have subscriptions to journals, or any decent subsitute. Media reports also quote scientists, so while the GP's claim is incorrect and exaggerated, there have been plenty of badly wrong predictions in the media that do quote scientists - e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20100212233059/http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100212233059/http://www.indepe...
- sam_goody 3y ago~32 years ago I was in grade school and our class went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. There was an exhibit there depicting Manhattan under water due to global warming. It gave some year - I don't remember exactly which, but remember calculating that it would be before I would be "old". It was very impressive, and left an impression on me which I still carry. And yet, it doesn't match reality or anything close to it. And yes, you can argure that it was not setup by scientists - after all it was in the "Natural History" museum, which is probably not the ideal venue. But you get quickly into "No true Scotsman" territory when you discount every source that is found afterwards to be false.
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- ivanb 3y agoYes, but during the last ice age we were under a kilometer of ice: https://xkcd.com/1225/ https://xkcd.com/1225/ On the other hand, we've been "staving off the next ice age" too zealously: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- dougmwne 3y agoI worked in climate policy for awhile. I got out of it because I lost hope. I believe our governments have lost hope also. Covid taught us that if they inflict the necessary pain to control carbon, our governments will be consumed by populist anger. Only the Chinese system appears to have any hope of controlling people’s behavior that much without riots. And what a terrifying system! Even their control began to slip after a few years of zero Covid. We will just have to deal with the consequences while we try to innovative our way out of this mess. It’s made me a AI accelerationist. Of the two civilizational dooms, I’ll take my chances with the computers.
- maxrecursion 3y agoOur governments are so dysfunctional and corrupt our only hope is that AI will actually be benevolent and can help guide us and solve problems. Because, as the comic, and thousands of other examples show, our governments aren't actually capable of leading and solving problems, even when the problems are blatant. Same when the solution is easy, but it will cause the wealthy to lose money, see US health care and taxation systems.
- Aeolun 3y ago> hope is that AI will actually be benevolent and can help guide us I think that a lack of biochemistry will probably quickly lead to the conclusion that it’s not worth it.
- lm28469 3y agoWe should stop acting like AGI is just a matter of time and that it'll save all our problems, this is borderline a cult at this point.
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- drexlspivey 3y agoYou can’t just shut down the fossil fuel industry before you have alternative green energy infrastructure in place, this is a multi decade project. Otherwise the price of oil shoots up and you get inflation which affects most people’s ability to get by. “Populist anger” might be justified if people have a hard time paying their bills.
- gcanyon 3y agoFor anyone who's curious, here's an explanation of how the greenhouse effect works -- it's not just that some infrared radiation escapes from earth to space, while some other infrared radiation gets trapped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqu5DjzOBF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqu5DjzOBF8
- weberer 3y ago1975: The first cancellation of a planned nuclear power plant occurred in Wyhl, Germany due to protests from "environmentalists".
- brettermeier 3y agoThat's good news, take it further!
- Zealotux 3y agoYes! As a French, I love breathing polluted air from German coal mines[1]; I will take that over any battle-tested reasonable alternative any day! [1] https://www.euractiv.com/section/air-pollution/news/german-coal-plant-exposed-as-europes-single-worst-air-polluter/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/air-pollution/news/german-c...
- brettermeier 3y agoWith climate change your reactors will maybe be worth nothing: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa... That's why france imported much energy from other european countries in that phase, good job.
- lawn 3y agoPerfect is the enemy of good. As a result we're now relying on more coal and gas than the much cleaner nuclear energy. What lovely progress!
- tmalsburg2 3y agoAnd yet CO2 per capita is much lower in Germany than in the US. So Germany must also be doing something right.
- lm28469 3y agoNot for electricity production. Europeeans tend to have less disposable income and be less consumerist, smaller and better heated/insulated houses, less cars per household, &c.
- chrsw 3y agoWho is going to pay for polluting the atmosphere? I don't think it will be the people who had the most to gain from polluting in the first place.
- bigfont 3y agoThat doesn't sound fair to me either. The subset of people who have benefitted from polluting won't have to foot the clean-up bill. So those who want lush, temperate, and healthy surroundings may have to take charge, even though it isn't fair. I certainly feel grumpy about those who benefit from polluting, when others have to deal with the effect. It would be nice if they were more responsible, so we didn't have to figure this all out. I gave up on that happening, and instead have started to change my own part in this. It's a shift from the justice model to the effectiveness model.
- CapitalTntcls 3y agoWhile we have a socio-economic that values market and profit over social benefits we will keep this going just because it's cheaper. (and also because there is some big people gaining lots of money with it)
- unglaublich 3y agoAnd people keep wondering why climate protesters are not asking things "nicely" anymore, and resort to blocking traffic and defacing paintings. They tried the nice way... they tried for many decades.
- ejb999 3y agoyea, because destroying famous works of art and blocking traffic, really helps bring people over to your side....
- bibelo 3y agosuggest other options
- breakyerself 3y agoI'd prefer to see them damage fossil fuel infrastructure, but they aren't actually damaging these paintings. They're specifically targeting works with glass over them. It's more of a symbolic defacing.
- layer8 3y agoPeople aren’t wondering, they just don’t consider this an acceptable or effective way to protest.
- mlrtime 3y agoAnd all they do is push people further away from their causes. They are the least equipped people to be dealing with this situation. They should be spending their time getting PHDs in Engineering or Physics to try and help solve these issues.
- jmyeet 3y agoWhen we have people who cannot house and feed themselves, why do we expect them to care abotu what will happen to the planet in another century? We have a hopelessnes crisis. The propaganda of capitalism has also been widly successful. Many people believe in the myth of meritocracy or that somehow markets will solve all problems or that Jeff Bezos having $200 billion instead of $100 billion while Amazon warehouse employees work in dire conditions are all good things. At the same time, very few of those people can define capitalism but will defend it anyway. There is no fixing the climate crisis without fixing wealth inequality and giving people dignity and hope for the future. And no, I don't mean some communist utopia where everyone has the same (b3cause that's the usual straw man argument people jump to). I simply mean it has to be way less extreme than it is today. Capitalism created this problem. Capitalism perpetuates this problem. And it won't be solved until you deal with capitalism.
- ejb999 3y agoI don't personally care about wealth inequality (or more specifically, I don't care that Jeff Bezos has more money than me - if he suddenly became poor, my standard of living wouldn't change). For me the bigger issue is not that the elite have so much money, its that they have egregious carbon footprints, while telling the little people they need to sacrifice their standard of living to save the planet. Read the other day, Jeff Bezos yacht, even if it is sitting idle for the entire year, has a bigger carbon footprint than 80,000 people using a gas mower to mow their lawn for a season. And of course, it doesn't sit idle all year, so the carbon generated could be multiple times more than that. Until the elites and politicians actually start sacrificing, they have no right to lecture me on what I need to give up. I already have a carbon footprint 100's of times smaller than Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Bill Gates Jeff Bezos - they can all go pound sand if they want to tell me I need to dump my propane stove or gas lawnmower to save the planet.
- mlrtime 3y agoNote: Not defending billionaires... However if a Billionaire did have the largest carbon footprint, would you still criticize if they bought credits to offset to be net 0? Or some other real practice to become net 0?
- GuB-42 3y agoI find it surprising that the 1896 answer of warming estimates closely match modern estimates. Back then: - They didn't have electronics, radio was barely being discovered - They didn't have airplanes, they just discovered the upper atmosphere, with the very first weather balloons - They knew about atoms, the periodic table was 30 years old, but nucleus wasn't discovered yet Climate science is a notoriously difficult topic, with countless feedbacks, positive and negative. Nowadays, we run simulations on supercomputers based on satellite data, decades of precise historical data, geological data, etc... They didn't have that at the time. Maybe he got the precise value by chance. Sometimes it happens. For example it is said that Eratosthenes (240 BC) calculated the Earth circumference with great accuracy (<1%) and no one managed to get a better estimate until modern times. In fact, many later estimates were off by more than 10%. The technology available at the time wasn't capable of such accuracy, but by chance, it turned out to be spot on (but they didn't know it was).
- Cheer2171 3y agoThe 1896 warming estimates that were accurate were not estimating future CO2 emissions. They were of the form: if we emit X tons of CO2 a year, the greenhouse effect will be Y. The greenhouse effect of CO2 can be studied in a literal greenhouse, and the effect can be extrapolated to the earth with methods we teach in high school today. They didn't predict at what year we would be at a tipping point, but at what the effects would be with a given level of CO2.
- GuB-42 3y agoThe greenhouse effect and how CO2 affects it is actually quite complicated and not what happens in an actual greenhouse, and most of what happens that is relevant to climate change actually happens in the upper atmosphere (which cools!). And there are other effects, like how CO2 get absorbed in the oceans, clouds, water vapor, etc... That CO2 has an effect on temperature is "easy" to realize, quantifying it is much, much harder. And I am just talking about short term effects, long term effects (including a potential tipping point) is yet another layer of complexity.
- tim333 3y ago
- cs702 3y agoAs this brilliant cartoon points out, we've had 128 years of warnings about human-induced climate change, and over all those years, humanity did not change course. That's because warnings and exhortations rarely accomplish anything. Things tend to change only after there's no other choice, i.e., when there's a crisis. There's an insightful quote from Milton Friedman on this: "Only a crisis -- actual or perceived -- produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."[a] I disagree with Friedman on many things, but on this, I think he was right. It is only now, when we find outselves in the early stages of crisis (unprecedented heat waves, perpetual giant fires, etc.), that the work of all those scientists and engineers who have been documenting, predicting, and warning about climate change for the past 128 years is finally being put to good practical use. Hopefully it's not too late. --- [a] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/110844-only-a-crisis---actual-or-perceived---produces-real https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/110844-only-a-crisis---actu...
- kibwen 3y ago> Warnings and exhortations never accomplish anything. Except that warnings and exhortations did accomplish the result of causing nations to begin banning CFCs back in 1987, well before the hole in the ozone layer became a global crisis.
- cs702 3y agoYes. I edited my comment to replace "never" with "rarely," which more closely reflects what I meant to write the first time around. Thank you!
- mlrtime 3y agoI agree, and if you could magically go back during the industrial revolution and show everyone what would happen to the world, I doubt there would be a difference. The increase in the then-current living conditions increased so much that not doing it wouldn't make sense to them. Same as if our future selves came from 128 years from the future and told us to all stop doing something, it would be near impossible.
- mikewarot 3y agoWe could switch to regenerative agriculture and yeet most of the carbon back out of the air[1] and back into the soil where it belongs, but that might hurt Monsanto's profit margin, so it's unlikely to happen. [1] https://forceofnature.com/blogs/regenerate/carbon-sequestration#:~:text=One%20study%20found%20that%20regenerative,of%20carbon%20per%20hectare%20annually.&text=Similarly%2C%20a%20report%20by%20the,carbon%20per%20acre%20per%20year https://forceofnature.com/blogs/regenerate/carbon-sequestrat....
- Winse 3y agoAs with most large scale changes...there are winners and losers. New species and extinctions. High CO2 is great for plants in my greenhouse...I suppose that's why it is called a greenhouse gas. Anyone longing for lower CO2 levels in our entire atmosphere is basically an anti-Canadian Agriculture bigot. Seriously though sometimes the cure is much worse than just handling the issues one at a time as we transition to a beautiful warm catastrophe/boon. Historically the planet has gone through all sorts of things before. Perhaps we should be looking more at how to successfully terraform our planet. Why are we still predicting weather when we should just be making it?
- Cheer2171 3y ago> Seriously though sometimes the cure is much worse than just handling the issues one at a time as we transition to a beautiful warm catastrophe/boon. This is a disgusting attitude. I'm sure you'll be safe in Alberta while Bangladesh drowns. Your ancestors benefitted from the industrial revolution, and now you want to reap all the benefits of climate change?
- Winse 3y agoI don't live in Alberta you insensitive clod, and while I said those things somewhat tongue in cheek, you can choose to be disgusted or learn to stop worrying and love the change.
- justsid 3y agoAnd that’s it? Just sink or swim, don’t even try to mitigate anything? That’s such a wild attitude.
- Winse 3y agoThe world is a wild place in reality. Life isn't really fair. Sometimes seeds fall on rocks or clay and will never sprout. If you set your sights on what could go right, things might go better for you. Life isn't about what happens to you, but what you actually do about it. As an individual, I can show the world I care by being somewhat responsible in my consumption, but I can't really control the rest of the world and their choices. If I did live in Bangladesh and I knew the ocean is rising in the next 50 years, I would consider other options.
- rpozarickij 3y agoThe sad reality is that the humanity probably needs some type of big climate-related event that would act as a wake up call when it comes to the urgency of climate change. We need something that people can relate to with their senses or emotions. Data by itself can only get us so far.
- questinthrow 3y agoIn my opinion the only solution is a drastic drop in number of human beings. Thankfully we wont have to do much since nature will do it for us when the droughts begin and the crops start failing. Its fun to think of how we will science ourselves out of this as we go over 8 billion people who all desire an ever increasing standard of living. However the only science we will science ourselves with are going to be fully autonomous suicide drones patrolling our borders for any straggling climate refugees and also drones inside our ruined cities patrolling for dissent. That's my take on the thing at least
- wakawaka28 3y agoThe elites are hard at work trying to find ways to kill us off and stop us from reproducing.
- questinthrow 3y agoIts not even about the elites, its about human nature and incentives. And nobody is going to take my hamburger out of my hand just because some people in a third world country are starting to suffer from climate change. This mindset is genetically encoded
- wakawaka28 3y agoHuman nature does not make these WEF/Davos "elites" do the things they do. They are so rich that they can move anywhere and do anything. They want us to eat bugs and have zero kids, before euthanizing us at an early age. If they can't do that, they'll find a way to start a world war to kill us off.
- questinthrow 3y agoThis response is totally unrelated to my post however it does bring up a good point. There is this narrative where we are all victims of the elites and everything bad is because of the elites and so on and so forth. This is just a means to cope and protect our ego because we basically arent doing anything to help our current situation so we need a scapegoat. It's common human nature
- walleeee 3y agoIn response to all the nuclear power discussion in this thread, see thorium molten salt. We have had the technology since Oak Ridge in the 70s. We ignored it because the existing refinement infrastructure is conveniently "dual use" for nuclear weapons. It must be emphasized that solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are products of carbon-burning industry. They have their place but we don't have the metals to repair and replace them in the long term, and we don't yet know if a fully electric industrial society is even possible. E.g. how do you reach the necessary temps in a blast furnace without melting your heating element? Electrifying civilization as we know it is politically palatable, but the feasibility studies are few, and those that have been done are sobering. Any analysis which ends without a serious look in the mirror is likely serving some special interest. To expect that modernity can continue in the same mold, with hydrocarbons swapped out for something else, smacks of nostalgia or naivete. Alternative energy sources are needed, absolutely; but even more important is to transform the way we relate to each other, to other life forms, to natural resources, and to this generation ship we call a planet.
- tommiegannert 3y ago> E.g. how do you reach the necessary temps in a blast furnace without melting your heating element? Induction heating? As long as some ferromagnetic material has a higher melting temperature than what you want to melt, this seems solvable.
- walleeee 3y agoThanks, good point. It looks like induction furnaces are already in wide use, though they have some tradeoffs. By the way, I like your writing on your site.
- tommiegannert 3y ago> By the way, I like your writing on your site. Oh, thank you!
- walleeee 3y agoAnother correction here, we have had functioning MSR since the 50s and thorium MSR since the 60s.
- foxyv 3y agoAhh, but nowadays we know in much greater detail how it will screw up the planet.