https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-nat...
I think more people die from diabetes and covid than climate.
Climate change wont directly lead to death, we'll have to adapt, but there are models showing more food produced from climate change. Simply put, we don't know what potentially will happen. We highly suspect there are 150 thousand increase in death from disease due to climate change[2]
In contrast... there are 135 - 270 MILLION people on the verge of starvation now; due to the policies around covid (or >2% of the worlds population).
> “marching towards starvation” spiking from 135 million to 270 million as the pandemic unfolded. He stressed that 2021 will be catastrophic [2]
BTW these people are still getting covid too, lockdowns slowed the spread, didn't stop it. Most American's have already gotten the disease (estimates are that 10x the number of people have gotten it over the tests[3]). Given 25 million have tested positive, by the prior estimates, that means a likely 250 million Americans have already gotten covid [4].
[1] https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/
[2] https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/ga12294.doc.htm
[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coronavirus-cases-deaths-...
Keep in mind this is savings economy wide divided by personal income economy wide, so people with big numbers (high earners) disproportionately affect it.
The economies of scale seem to be much larger. For example, utility scale solar seems to be about half the unit cost compared to residential and commercial solar: https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/solar-installed-system-cost.ht...
The numbers should be going way, way down already, as there are a good number of people who aren't exposing themselves to the virus hardly at all (My wife and I are two of them, but it has to be in the millions of people that are limiting their exposure).
Plus the US has vaccinated >17.5 million people, so subtract that from the population and that 250 million estimate, and there would only be 60 million more people who could catch it (assuming no reinfections).
The newest data I can find on this is from the CDC and they've estimated that through December 2020 that 83 million Americans have been infected[1] (and I saw something dated November 27 where they estimated that 53 million[2] had it, so 30 million new infections in December). To get to that 250 million estimate we would have had to have 167 million new infections in less than a month, or more than tripled all the infections we had up until now. That seems very unlikely.
Also their estimate is that 1 in 4.6 of Covid infections are being reported, not 1 in 10 like that Business Insider article (which is dated July 2020, looks like they revised the ratio since).
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/covid-2020-11-27/card/vNksh...
In all likelihood, yes we are nearing heard immunity and we're done with the illness.
Further, there's an issue with the PCR testing. Though there have been reports since August - October 2020, published in November 2020:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346483715_External_...
Basically, they started over amplifying the DNA and weren't controlling the PCR tests very well. Here's the original WHO warning in December 2020
https://web.archive.org/web/20210102051357/https://www.who.i...
(Since... the page has been deleted, but followed later)
With the official statement January 19, 2020:
https://www.who.int/news/item/19-01-2021-who-information-not...
- To be carbon-neutral, the hydrogen must come from splitting water.[1] Currently hydrogen comes from steam reforming of methane (which releases lots of carbon).[2]
- Hydrogen is a very pernicious molecule. It will slowly leak through metal and weaken it.[3]
- Hydrogen vehicles must be refueled at special fueling stations. Electric vehicles can be charged anywhere there is electricity (such as at home).
- Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are more expensive than battery electric vehicles. Toyota sells the Mirai for $57,500 and loses money on each one.
- Storage and transportation of hydrogen is very difficult. It must either be stored in gaseous form at very high pressure, or in liquid form at 20 degrees above absolute zero. Current vehicles use high pressure tanks, which also require high pressure pumps. Many hydrogen stations can only provide 5,000psi pumps, which means you'll only get half a tank (and half of your expected range).[4]
- Hydrogen is more flammable than gasoline (it will ignite in a much wider range of mixtures with oxygen).[5] Unlike gasoline, the flame is invisible in daytime. Unlike gasoline, hydrogen is invisible and has no smell, making leaks undetectable without special equipment. If an odorant is added to the hydrogen, it will likely damage the fuel cell.
- Hydrogen is more expensive than gasoline and far more expensive than electricity. Even with subsidies, refilling a Toyota Mirai costs over $80.[4] That gives you just over 300 miles of range. My Tesla Model 3 has the same range and a full charge costs me $6 at home. Supercharging is also cheaper, at around $25.
- Batteries got cheap faster than anyone predicted (except Tesla). In 2015, a study looked at past estimates of battery prices versus observed prices. They found that analysts were consistently pessimistic about cost reductions. Correcting for this, they noted that cost per kWh, "...could reach $200 by 2020." Actual cost in 2020 was $123.[6]
Given all of these disadvantages, I don't see how hydrogen vehicles could be considered reasonable. The economics, physics, safety, and convenience simply don't work out.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement
4. https://www.cars.com/articles/fill-er-up-refueling-the-2016-...
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_safety
6. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/04/will-falling-battery-...
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/carb...
Hydrogen is flammable when mixed with air between 4% and 75%, and it takes a minimum energy of 0.016 millijoules to ignite. Ammonia is flammable between 15% and 28% and takes 680 millijoules to ignite. It takes much more energy to ignite ammonia and there's a much narrower range of mixtures with air where it can support combustion.
There are no flu related illnesses: the 2020-21 winter flu season has not happened.
Here are the results for the last 12 months of WHO's influenza monitoring (you may have to pick a country). They are conducting global testing at or above normal levels:
https://apps.who.int/flumart/Default?ReportNo=1
If you look closely enough at the x-axis, you might be able to see how much flu there is.
I suspect we'll look back at 2020 as the year we generated the most waste from all that packaging that went into shipping products to individual homes.
I'll remind that there are airlines booking flights to literally nowhere: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/travel/airlines-pandemic-...
https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/nel-to-slash-cost-of...
Like terrorism was in the 00’s, this is proving very useful for those who want to expand their power via the state.
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/letters-health-care-prov...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_security_during_the_COVID...
The foregone economic activity in just one year of lockdowns in the US is a significant fraction of cumulative worldwide damages anticipated from climate change through 2050.
When it comes to climate (the topic here), banning beef is being used by climate inactivists as a cultural wedge issue to stop climate action. Michael Mann, a vegan, has strong opinions on not harping about beef out if its true importance in the climate policy fight:
https://theclimatepod.libsyn.com/dr-michael-mann-on-the-new-...
As for the non-climate concerns for beef, sure, but that's not the topic here.
There are serious and legitimate concerns about albedo modification research which have nothing to do with politics. I don’t think that anyone in the field is concerned that this small-scale experiment will lead to global catastrophe, but it’s a stepping stone to something which could lead to those bad outcomes—and it’s not clear that a small test like this would be able to answer the most important questions that we’d need answered before actually embarking on a global albedo modification programme.
Of the various issues already covered by the Daily Mail story, one thing it doesn’t really talk about is that albedo modification requires a functioning human civilisation capable of injecting aerosols to the atmosphere to exist, without ever stopping, for thousands of years. A single disruption could cause up to 0.7°C of warming in one year[0].
About the only case in which something like this makes sense is if we’ve solved the emissions problem, but a bit too late, so only need a bridge for a few decades while we are actively pulling CO2 from the atmosphere.
If you want to learn more, away from the sensationalism of the Daily Mail, the podcast Brave New Planet had an episode about this last October[1], which is where most of my current knowledge comes from.
[0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045...
[1] https://www.bravenewplanet.org/episodes/a-radical-approach-c...
That is absolutely not what scientists and economists are predicting. An RCP 8.5 scenario (which is considered on the worse side of what's likely in a "do nothing" world) is expected to knock 6.7-14.3% of US GDP by 2100: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019102... (p. 7). That would be about half as bad as the COVID lockdowns (but permanent): https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/us-gdp-q2-2020-first-reading....
Note that's a 14.3% hit compared to what GDP would be in 2100. That's a big impact. It's equivalent to going from 3% annual GDP growth between then and now to 2.7% annual GDP growth.
Now, the numbers hide some really terrible costs. The Florida and Gulf coast will become uninhabitable, destroying half the economy in those areas. To put it into perspective the 2018 California wildfires cost 0.75% of GDP. So this is like 20 times worse. It's bad! But it's not an "untold cost." It's not an outcome worth spending any amount to avoid.
Scientists don't think mitigation will cost more than the damages from climate change, because scientists aren't proposing to mitigate climate change by shutting down the economy the way we did during the COIVD lockdown. That's an insanely inefficient way to achieve mitigation. I mentioned the economic loss from COVID lockdown not to suggest that is actually how we would reduce emissions, but to put into perspective what the expected costs of climate change are.
Saying that climate change will have "untold cost" is problematic because it makes you believe that mitigation strategies that will have massive costs will be justified to avoid climate change damages. It's worth the U.S. spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on climate-change mitigation. The EU is planning on spending 260 billion euro annually by 2030. That's roughly the scale of Biden's plan.
But the "World War II-style" mobilization of the economy that Green New Deal advocates want will hurt economic growth by more than climate change will. If we go from 3% annual GDP growth to 2% annually we'll shoot ourselves in the foot.
> It's worth the U.S. spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on climate-change mitigation. The EU is planning on spending 260 billion euro annually by 2030. That's roughly the scale of Biden's plan.
I’m not arguing against those investments. My point is that saying climate change will have “untold cost” suggests that massive economic shutdowns or “war time mobilization of the economy” will be worth it to avoid climate change. They won’t be. In particular, anything that jeopardizes economic growth through Green New Deal-style government takeover of vast sectors of the economy will cause more harm than it averts.
More information here: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/how-much-will-the-green-ne...
It advocates a “World War II” style mobilization, of the sort that existed back when the federal government took over almost half the entire economy.
I understand that’s not what you support, but people do support massive efforts like this to combat climate change. My point is simply that when you say climate change will have “untold cost” you make it impossible to understand why the programs you support might be worth it, while a World War II-style mobilization would do more harm than good.
And no, climate change, even if we do nothing, won’t cause the economy to collapse by 2100: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/how-much-will-the-green-ne...
> “While it is true that we estimated damages as high as 10% of GDP annually at the end of the century for warming of 15°F above pre-industrial levels, the odds of a temperature change that would drive damages of this magnitude are slim,” he wrote. “In fact, they are less than 1-in-100 by our original calculation.”
It’s worth spending a lot of money to avoid a 10% GDP loss. But it’s not worth spending the kind of money you’d be willing to spend if you thought the economy was going to collapse completely otherwise.
It'll take a lot more than climate for those areas to become productive. Glaciers have scraped away most of the topsoil in the Canadian shield[1], for instance. The Sahara desert's sand isn't a great growing medium. And so on.
Which isn’t to say the same rules apply to humans, but it’s also critical to get this right.
This looks like a misquote of: "Likewise, David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), warned of alarming global hunger and food insecurity, with the number of people “marching towards starvation” spiking from 135 million to 270 million as the pandemic unfolded." (from https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/ga12294.doc.htm)
[Not that it isn't bad, but it's a doubling of an existing problem from X to 2X, not a new problem of size X-2X]
Also if we keep saying, 'it's only 3% or 4%' and do nothing then we won't mitigate & repair at the scale we need to. We need to tackle it all.
looking at literally 'global warming' actual temperatures there are examples. 1000 dead in Japan in a summer.
WHO says 250k per year starting 2030 and that's only looking at heat, diarrhea, malnutrition.
Add in pollution deaths (already huge), refugees, war.
Climate change already directly leads to death and it will become more deadly
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Connection-between-the-h...
I focused on the perfect memory and calculator like abilities of the savant as a descriptive analogy for the level of intelligence you're displaying. It is indeed a compliment of untold proportions.
>Then, anatomically modern humans did not start expanding millions of years ago. And most species do not have an innate fear of humans.
No other species has been called "invasive" after millions of years have passed. Look it up. Most apex predators do have an innate fear of humans:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190717084243.h...
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/humans-p...
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/fear-human-superpr...
https://wildlife.org/human-presence-creates-fear-response-in...
The animals that don't fear humans are located here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_tameness
>Preserving the environment is not a political agenda, it is an extension of our survival instinct. Just like food security is not treated as a politically charged topic because everyone can agree that they need food.
But talking about things that are clearly not true to serve your agenda is wrong. Humans are not invasive. We are destroying the environment through technological development not by being invasive.
>Pretty much everything you said is a bunch of nonsense. I regret having read that. Clearly the educational system failed you. I do not have an agenda.
I'm a environmental biologist by trade, aka scientist. All I did was point out your mistaken attribution to humans being "invasive."
You may actually be limiting lives more by not locking down.
My view is very coloured by living in New Zealand where aggressive lockdown has lead to normality (with limited international travel and mandatory managed isolation).
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
This diagram shows that "CARES Act" was very much not about "expanding existing welfare and unemployment benefits". [0]
Americans who haven't traveled have no concept of how a functioning polity cares for citizens during a pandemic. If our government doesn't care for us, why do we tolerate it?
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/CARES_Ac...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/savant
Take a look at definition 1.
>If you want to feel better with yourself and believe in stupid fairy tales about how we humans are special
I'm not, I am correcting a technical mistake you made. We cannot be an invasive species because we already invaded practically every habitat eons ago. The term no longer applies.
I have a lot of questions about whether that's true of even rats: https://www.gwern.net/Questions#mouse-utopia
