We polled thousands of IT pros – and sustainability just ain't a priority right now While Big Tech wrings its hands about things like greenhouse gas emissions, IT teams out in the trenches aren't nearly as concerned about the eco-sustainability of their infrastructure. In fact, just 16.7 percent of the 2,869 IT professionals surveyed around the world this season by The Register considered sustainability a top …
"(which is a real problem - they might run out)"
I'm not afraid that it will run out. The issue will be the costs going up and up as it gets scarcer to the point where it's so expensive that only very high value products will be produced from it. That will mean curtailing a large amount of food production over time if nothing changes. "Modern agriculture is the use of soil to turn petroleum into food". ~Dr Al Bartlett
Perhaps the "Just Stop Oil" lot should be pointed at cryptocurrency and ML training.
They're idiots who should be charged with terrorism and crimes against humanity given their antics. Like attempting to destroy one of the most important UK documents, the British Library's Magna Carta. Which on a side note, I hope the police find out just how they managed to get a hammer & chisel in. I've been to the Library a few times and their security is pretty strict to prevent damage to the documents we're reading. Or thefts.
But they follow the money, and accept crypto. Or from the 'renewables' lobby. Dear'ol Dale Vince of Econtricity used to be one of their biggest donors until their antics generated too much negativity. Another big donor was this astroturfing group-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Emergency_Fund
The CEF funded actions supporting the Inflation Reduction Act.
Which included $600m for 'renewables'. If 'Just Stop Oil' were serious about 'Global Warming', they should probably be protesting outside the Met Office and campaigning for them to fix their weather monitoring stations-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/05/26/met-office-creates-warming-out-of-thin-air/
The WMO could not be clearer. Temperatures recorded at Class 3, 4 and 5 sites should never be used where they are intended to be representative of a wider area, only for local purposes, such as to give temperatures at airports for aviation purposes.
Only 24 of the 380 stations used by the Met Office to calculate UK temperatures are fit for purpose, Class 1.
Meanwhile, in other news.. I think the problem with the ESG stuff is the hard sell. Sure it provides jobs for grads in environmental studies, but they're just overheads for businesses and reduce efficiency. On the other hand, a rack full of servers that does more work and reduces energy requirements to power the thing and keep it cool reduces my opex and improves my business's efficiency. So a bit of a no brainer. Business exist to maximise shareholder value, so cutting costs is fundamental. If it allows for a press release saying it reduces emissions, great, but that's not really a business priority. Especially given most of the West's competitors don't really care about the ESG nonsense, so aren't encumbering their businesses with those costs.
Plus I think (hope) the AI bubble will burst soon, thus saving a lot of energy. Physics is a hard taskmaster which has a formal definition for 'work' and efficiency that also flows through to businesses, ie AI uses a lot of energy, but doesn't really do any useful work.
The down voters seem to be either bots or are in denial being able to offer no information to the contrary !
I think some might be bots. But it's just something that happens any time a sacred cow is poked. Especially on subjects where it actually takes a bit of thought, or research instead of just blindly believing whatever the media tells you. It's also why government efforts to clamp down on 'misinformation' and increase censorship are dangerous. Especially when some of the biggest peddlers of misinformation are bodies like the Bbc, who'll be granted immunity in the UK's online safety act.
"Or from the 'renewables' lobby. Dear'ol Dale Vince of Econtricity used to be one of their biggest donors until their antics generated too much negativity. "
I've always thought Mr Vince a complete loon. I appreciate the advocacy on some things, but he continues on like we are all going to live in trees only with electric light.
This should not come as a shock to anyone. The old line of the latest product being more efficient than the last gen is a fig leave as old as the IT Department. Sure you get more work done with less (a very little less many times) power, but somehow the work that needs doing is always going up at far higher rates than the efficiency can overcome. Consolidation is always the standard, not actually using less energy overall. The tech industry has never had a working moral compass nor even really known what morals and ethics are all about. They just want to be the first ones to hit the next big thing on the next tech rush.
"but somehow the work that needs doing is always going up at far higher rates than the efficiency can overcome."
If it doesn't look like you're busy, you will be made redundant. We all need to report to a place of business regardless of the type of work we do because..... reasons, even if working from home is more efficient. I commentard from my laptop as firing up my big box heats the room and runs up the electric bill for no gain in functionality. If I was working for The Man, I'd be working on a power hog all day whether I was running FEA sims or responding to email or updating pricing on the BoM.
@AC
"The real priorities are the planet being burnt to a cinder and people along with it, but there's all this late-stage capitalism infinite growth and consumption from finite resources nonsense getting in the way."
Are you sure? Isnt it the state (UK) who thinks Drax burning wood is green? And they have a deal to make wood burning ships which are considered to be green? Capitalism (free market) doesnt assume infinite resources, that is why burning resources on things that dont work (e.g. unreliables) takes away resources for use against actual problems.
If you think the world is gonna burn to a cinder and people with it then you are in the fantasy of propaganda, just as the advert of a drowning dog because someone didnt turn off a light switch.
The world is already at 1.56°C above pre-industrial levels and has been above 1.5°C for the past year
How do you know this, and why is this a problem. Is it because people you should be able to trust keep lying to you? Like the dear'ol Bbc claiming 'Global Waming' caused the turbulence that affected a couple of flights recently, even though there is no evidence for this..
even though there is no evidence for this
In section 1 of both of the following papers you can find further sources:
Global Response of Clear-Air Turbulence to Climate Change
Increased Turbulence in the Eurasian Upper-Level Jet Stream in Winter: Past and Future
Please do write a paper of your own debunking all the previous work if you feel it's necessary.
Please do write a paper of your own debunking all the previous work if you feel it's necessary.
I don't need to. It's already been done-
https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS2101.pdf
Your problem is you've never really understood what evidence means. So the NTSB has presented evidence in that report's Chapter 3, which shows a negative trend. There may be multiple reasons for this, ie better forecasting, route planning etc. Meanwhile, your 'evidence' is based on computer models and perhaps false attribution-
Anthropogenic activities have been increasingly strengthening the meridional temperature gradient in the upper atmosphere, which has a profound impact on the wind shear and turbulence in mid-latitudes.
Which makes the huge assumption that any attribution is due to those anthropogenic activities, not natural variations like AMO/PDO which have been known to affect the jetstream since Lamb's days. But this is also where climate 'science' becomes cult-like with the prophets of doom like the Bbc seeing changes in the weather a consequence of Mann sinning against Nature. It's also where projects like CMIP are good because they allow predictions to be tested against reality, and if necessary, revise model assumptions. Plus there's the possibilty of transient events like the recent CME that dumped a carpton of energy into the upper atmosphere.
Multiple bullet points on page 15 clearly state they do NOT have all the data because the airlines and antiquated data collection processes, are not releasing it to them.
However, Scientific America says yes, it is increasing.
And the BBC.
And Le Monde
And Forbes
And New Scientist
...and the list goes on.
"Meanwhile, your 'evidence' is based on computer models and perhaps false attribution-"
Many of those computer models are considering the ever increasing population which is the biggest factor in anthropocentric climate change. It doesn't take much looking to find videos on YT documenting people that should never be allowed to breed. Lots of people in the town I live in work very hard to be unemployable and therefore, eligible for State sponsorship which increases with every child they are "blessed with".
Meanwhile, more work is being automated reducing the need for a large labor force to make the things we are told we want and must have. There are organizations in place to hinder the machine takeover of jobs humans have traditionally performed that we call "unions". A recent article I was reading about the HSR boondoggle in California stated many times the number of jobs that have been "created". A more efficient project would be to take what is already in place and make it better. 50 years ago, very fast transportation between LA and SF would have had more value than today with all of the advances in communications that make going to a place in person less of a requirement to get work done.
There is decades of research that has been predicting what is happening and the outcomes.
Money, head-in-the-sand and huge numbers of people nodding their heads wisely agreeing there is a problem and then simply carrying on because it is too inconvenient NOW to make changes.
You only have to look at food waste and over consumption in western countries to see that.
Now look at the overall waste that a supposed civilised society spews out and dumps everywhere.
Sadly the only time people will really take notice is when New York, Washington, London or Paris etc are under water. At that point it is too late.
You therefore believe that there is an optimum temperature for the planet and that it should never vary from this from now onwards until the Sun self terminates.
This is contrary to all historical records (tree rings / ice core samples etc.) that clearly show the temperature has always varied.
Why do you think your thoughts are correct & that nature has it wrong ?
If you think the world is gonna burn to a cinder and people with it then you are in the fantasy of propaganda, just as the advert of a drowning dog because someone didnt turn off a light switch.
A lot of people just aren't capable of context and critical thinking. We must 'prevent 1.5C warming'. Which is basically the temperature difference between say, London and Glasgow. Londoners don't need to don asbestos underpants to visit Scotland, although some may wear their tinfoil hats. A stab vest may be more sensible. And being that time of year, thousands will be jetting off to the lower latitudes to expose themselves to deadly radiation that they could avoid by sheltering in a reactor hall.
People are weird.
But those that think we're going to burn to a cinder also have never bothered reading the physics behind global warming. So the critical assumption (or true value) for climate sensitivity wrt CO2. If that's around 1.2 per doubling, and the first doubling is 275-550ppmv, the next doubling is 550-1,100 for a total of a terrifying 2.4C. But some.. slight snags. Assumption is the relationship between CO2 and temperature is logarithmic, so we've already seen all CO2 can do for the first doubling. Then based on the amount of CO2 emitted and fossil fuels consumed, there aren't enough proven fossil fuel deposits to hit the second doubling. But then this is also where climate 'science' drifts into homeopathy. If you assume CO2 is the 'control knob', then lower levels of CO2 caused more warming.. somehow, in a physics-defying way where fewer molecules can somehow 'trap' more heat.
Plus businesses are already directly incentivised to be more efficient, so produce more work for less energy.. Especially given the artificiall high energy costs in the West.
Love to see a study on which is more efficient, the current workforce or the power pulled by the AI that replaces them.
Efficiency is weird when it comes to business. For green stuff, it's natural for businesses to want to improve efficiency because it reduces costs, ie energy efficiency. AI gets fun because if businesses can replace human 'resources' with AI, they can replace labour costs with AI costs. But then that socialises the cost of paying benefits to newly laid off people, retraining or reskilling them so they can do non-AI work etc. Same is also true with ruthless cost cutting, so downsizing staff and leaving ones that surive the purge with more work and less resources, leading to employees burning out. Plus less capacity to deal with any upturns in business.
Sometimes inefficiency is a good thing. Case in point being the Ukraine conflict. We've privatised militarily critical stuff like ammunition production. Russia didn't, and factories are state owned. So Russian factories mothballed production lines for stuff like artillery shells. Being state-owned, the state was ok with this 'inefficiency' because mothballed stuff doesn't really cost a lot, and some day it may need them. In the West, this is all for-profit. Once war stocks are full, production lines only need to produce enough shells for training, and maybe some surplus to cover a small war or two. If the customer is willing to pay for this. So although the West is more 'efficient' in an MBA sense, it isn't in a General sense because 40 or so nations in the West can't match the artillery shell production of 1 country. And it'll take years to increase capacity, and cost a lot more given the profit motive.
Russia didn't, and factories are state owned. So Russian factories mothballed production lines for stuff like artillery shells. Being state-owned, the state was ok with this 'inefficiency' because mothballed stuff doesn't really cost a lot, and some day it may need them.
Russia's inefficiency is due to rampant corruption and siphoning off of funds, that is why production lines ended up mothballed. No other reason.
Russia's inefficiency is due to rampant corruption and siphoning off of funds, that is why production lines ended up mothballed. No other reason.
Uhuh. One of the reasons people hate The Putin is he cracked down on a lot of that. Or if you believe the media, kept it within the family. Point remains though that Russia is outproducing the West. That also extends to things like tanks. Russia is producing lots of those. The UK can't because once Vickers (et al) filled the order for our Challengers, the production lines were closed and to restart production means rebuilding most of that from scratch.
But corruption and misallocation of funds is also a problem for Ukraine. It used to build tanks and APCs-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Morozov_Machine_Building_Design_Bureau
Given Ukraine inherited a lot of military and aerospace industry from the old Soviet days.. But then ran them into the ground. This includes once famous names like Antonov-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov#Expansion_to_free_market
In 2014, the Antonov produced and delivered only two An-158 airplanes. This trend continued onto 2015, producing one An-148 and one An-158. Since 2016, no aircraft have been produced or delivered to clients
and Antonov has now been 'liquidated'. But that's also why it was arguably a bad idea for Ukraine to try and pivot towards the EU and West. Sorry, the EU tank is the Leopard. The EU aircraft is Airbus. Sure, Ukraine did have some small successes selling a domestic version of the T-80 to Pakistan and Cyprus, but was competing against Russia and other MBT producers. And because most of those industrys were in western Ukraine, they're now either rubble, or potentially being absorbed back into Russia like Kharkiv.
Which is also one of life's little ironies. Soviet Russia worked on a doctrine of distributed production to reduce the risk of war losses, and also was 'inefficient' because that also duplicated production capacity. Which Russia may be translating into war gains if it captures those production facilities and gains them back.
"A lot of people just aren't capable of context and critical thinking." -- well said.
To go on and demonstrate not just a lack of critical thinking, but maybe a lack of thinking at all.
What cereal box informed you that the issue was bringing London temperature to Glasgow?
How much energy does it take to warm the surface of the planet by 1.5C?
Dunderheed was the term my Dad preferred.
"We must 'prevent 1.5C warming'. Which is basically the temperature difference between say, London and Glasgow. "
Part of the problem is how warming is presented. To say 1.5C doesn't mean it's slightly warmer on any given day. It is a global average which can mean a much larger difference for a given locale as it's a shift in the graph to the right.
Humans have always changed their environments to suit their needs and have become better at it over time. Many modern issues can be reduced down to greed (disposable economy) and poor government goals (more and more people/infinite growth). The only nod to efficiency is when it's cheaper in the short term to be efficient. Long term thinking is shunned and replaced with "what have you done for me lately". As I get older, I do more long term thinking as I won't be able to work as much. I try to spend strategically so I'm investing towards the lowest monthly cost of living I can manage. Much of that is efficiency. A home that doesn't need as much heating and cooling costs me some money now, but means lower bills in future. My passive solar heating that I've been expanding and improving over time means in winter the only heating I use is my wonderful electric blanket and an electric heater in the bathroom when I bathe. In summer, evaporative cooling works a treat and will be solar powered this year.
If you think the world is gonna burn to a cinder and people with it then you are in the fantasy of propaganda
Perhaps there is someone reading from Delhi who can open the window and confirm if it's propaganda or not?
IMD Heatwave Warning : '50.5°C, 50.3°C, 49.9°C...'
TOI City Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Updated: May 29, 2024, 12:51 IST
North Indian states like Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi are facing an intense heatwave with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius in some regions. Delhi recorded its highest temperature at 49.9 degrees Celsius. The health department confirmed four deaths due to heatstroke in Jaipur. Churu in Rajasthan sizzled at 50.5 degrees Celsius, marking the 17th consecutive day of extreme heat.
That is the classic answer from people who have no concept of what climate change is.
Take the Gulf Stream. It is weakening all the time due to the volume of cold water that is coming from the Arctic, all caused by increasing temperatures melting ice. When (and it is when, not if) the Gul Stream collapses the impact on the UK will be horrendous. Our temperate climate will be severely impacted and temperatures, particularly in winter will plummet.
Also Baghdad that is hitting near record temperatures already, which given record temps are 47c and summer hasn't yet fully kicked in doesn't bode well. Though the middle east has a horrific carbon footprint, Kuwaitis for example leave the AC running at full power even when they are away from home for weeks on end due to subsidised power prices
Perhaps there is someone reading from Delhi who can open the window and confirm if it's propaganda or not?
Looks like it's been partly propagandised-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c166xxd4y36o
The IMD described the recording as an "outlier compared to other stations", which had recorded temperatures ranging from 45.2C to 49.1C in different parts of Delhi.
Scientists have said global warming has made extreme heatwaves in India much more likely.
In Delhi, construction, traffic and a lack of green spaces have added to the problem.
I think the 'scientist have said globaly warming' is automatically inserted into all Bbc articles on pain of pain and termination. But then they point to what's probably the real problem, population density and pollution and Delhi is a massive urban heat island. This is still an anthropogenic issue, but 'global warming' also just happened to coincide with the UK and other western countries introducing Clean Air Acts. Smog cleared, Londoner's could stop coughing and see clear blue skies again. This hasn't always worked, eg LA people still live in a soup bowl, but it will be contributing to Delhi's problem. And the solution is hard given the amount of air pollution produced.
The world is not being burnt to a cinder. A 1.5C increase is not going to do that. 50 million years ago in the Eocene the world was 15C hotter and it didn't burn to a crisp then either. The climate was equable
and it was a good time for life. The oceans were warm and teeming with fish and on the land flora and fauna thrived.
BTW - modelling the equable climate back then is problematic as energy balance models and proxy data differ substantially. From a scientific method perspective this does show that our current climate models are broken.
and it was a good time for life. The oceans were warm and teeming with fish and on the land flora and fauna thrived.
This is one of the fascinating things about climate science, and people's response to it. So we have groups like 'Extinction Rebellion' preaching doom and everything burning to a crisp. Yet as you say, much life thrived and evolved in conditions where both temperatures and CO2 levels were much higher than today. And we're seeing signs of this with the 'greening of the Earth'. Plants just love CO2, even though some humans do not. Then again, +15C around the equator would be.. problematic.
BTW - modelling the equable climate back then is problematic as energy balance models and proxy data differ substantially. From a scientific method perspective this does show that our current climate models are broken.
Yup. But on the plus side, comparing simulations to reality helps us understand just how and why they're broken. It's interesting that someone cited Gavin Schmidt, one of the original 'Hockey Team' and 'RealClimate' who's finally come out and realised there are problems with both models and CO2 dogma. But there comes a point were you just can't deny reality any more. Problem is we've already committed billions into decarbonisation, and a lot of people are still making a lot of money out of those scams. Changing government in the UK is unlikely to change course, especially if good'ol Ed Milliband is put in charge of energy policy.
It's also why real climate science is fascinating. Take this simple critter-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliania_huxleyi
This means that coccolithophores, including E. huxleyi, have the potential to act as a net source of CO2 out of the ocean. Whether they are a net source or sink and how they will react to ocean acidification is not yet well understood.
Which is a critical biomarker for a lot of climate proxies. Some things are well understood, like 'ocean acidification' ain't going to happen on account of the amount of carbonates in and around the oceans that will keep it alkaline. But there are debates around how E.huxleyi responds to both temperature and CO2.. which is pretty important give the answer to that may invert a lot of proxy records and series based on their abundance.
It might have been a good time for life, but not humans where we now are, dependant on farming as we now have it for food.
The Earth will always survive to a few billion years when the Sun will absorb it. Life will survive for a few percent of that. Human civilisation I'm not betting more than a few centuries...
@Paul Crawford
"It might have been a good time for life, but not humans where we now are, dependant on farming as we now have it for food."
This seems to contradict a bit. It was a good time for life, lots of life, crops/animals/fish the very things we like to eat. Especially with increased Co2
What "real priority", shifting porn and cat videos slightly faster? Running LLMs that are unlikely to ever turn a profit? Mining crypto whose entire economy is based on crime? Those "real priorities"? It's not a first world problem, and it's not a rich people only problem. It's a short-term versus long-term problem.
Corporations have a next-year horizon at best, more often next-quarter. Given that, of course they don't give a crap about sustainability. I mean, they rarely give a crap about the sustainability of their own business model, nevermind society at large.
In theory, that's why we have governments; so that we can work towards long-term objectives. In practice, governments now have a horizon of next-election at best. So, we're screwed.
Climate change is going to cause tangible economic damage, easily in excess of whatever we're saving by not acting to prevent it. This is a "rich people problem" only in the Vimes' Boots sense, except that we're being too stupid to buy the good boots even if we could.
"Long term" nowadays means "next year". I could offer to give someone a million bucks now, but kill them in ten years time, and they'll not only take the money, but mock anyone who doesn't, because the million buck is a "real priority".
That is what is really unsustainable. It's not climate change that will get us in the end; it will be inability to plan on the time scale of a society.
@Filippo
"Climate change is going to cause tangible economic damage, easily in excess of whatever we're saving by not acting to prevent it."
We are still waiting on evidence for that. I know there are a lot of claims, often wrong, but nothing really concrete to suggest warmer will be more dangerous than colder (often demonstrated the other way) or that we have much of an effect.
"That is what is really unsustainable. It's not climate change that will get us in the end; it will be inability to plan on the time scale of a society."
I am fairly sure similar logic was used for going up a hill to be rescued by aliens or whatever before the end happens the following day.
However as an alternative-
Humans have innovation and the ability to control our own little climates to keep us comfortable and safe. While the actual poor look to get cheap reliable energy which will vastly improve their lives, we in the rich countries fall for unproven scares. So much so that if MMCC Co2 theory was an honest and serious we wouldnt be doing the so called solutions which work counter to the tale.
Instead of opposing nuclear for decades the believers would have been driving our development of such. Instead of squandering vast resources on unreliables and other glitzy but not ready tech we could have used that to create a cleaner environment with plenty energy to research further viable solutions instead of awaiting some magic future tech. Between government and doom prophets we have a lot of propaganda that has been shown to be lies and garbage to push this belief on people and wasted huge resources to make us all poorer for no good reason. So obviously people get hostile against the idea. Especially when it hits their standard of living.
>We are still waiting on evidence for that.
Right. Okay. There are two separate discussions to be had. Conflating them is frequent, and always results in confusion. I'll have to try to disentangle them.
The first discussion is on the nature of climate change. Whether it exists, how much damage it can do, to what degree it can be prevented, to what degree it can be mitigated. It is a worthwhile discussion, but I am not interested in having it right now. I am choosing to proceed under the assumption that the IPCC is roughly right, with some margin. If you think that's far enough from the truth that it cannot be taken as a valid premise, that is your prerogative and, as I mentioned, I am not interested in challenging it.
However, if that were the case, I'd have to note that your OP then wasn't about "priorities" between problems at all, but rather about rejecting a problem altogether. That makes my attempt to talk about short-term versus long-term priorities entirely pointless. A non-existant problem doesn't have a priority. Just stop reading here and have my regards, in that case.
The second discussion, which is what I was trying to have, is about whether sustainability is a luxury. My observation is that acting early to prevent extremely expensive damage can hardly be describe as a luxury, even if the damage is far in the future. It seems to me that, on the contrary, it is a very sensible economic decision in a long-term perspective. One could argue to prioritize the short-term; there are many reasons for that, and some are even good. But it is dishonest to dismiss long-term problems altogether.
>I am fairly sure similar logic was used for going up a hill to be rescued by aliens or whatever before the end happens the following day.
I'm... really not sure how you jump from the concept of "we should be able to make and execute plans on at least a multi-decade time scale" to... something that involves literally believing there's no tomorrow, and also believing that can be fixed with no planning at all? The two concepts look diametrically opposed to me. I'm clearly missing something.
Also, I'm fervently pro-nuke. I'm also pro-renewables. Generally speaking, I'm very much pro "when you have an extremely serious problem, deploy all solutions that look roughly feasible simultaneously, because you don't know in advance which one will actually work".
@Filippo
"The first discussion is on the nature of climate change"
We can both agree with science and history that the climate has changed throughout history. How much is attributable to humans is a worthy question and if it is a bad thing is also a serious question (there is argument of it being a positive. Especially for crops and life in general).
"The second discussion, which is what I was trying to have, is about whether sustainability is a luxury"
Yes it is. Again we know it is through history until we made scientific progress known and not. The poor people desperate to survive dont care about sustainability, they care about eating, heating, and the essentials now. Populations wiped out through not having enough and not being able to store enough along with historic over hunting/fishing etc before the populations were rich enough to care. Those of course are problems and meet the criteria you mention of expensive damage.
Compare that to a poorly understood potential problem of fuzzy facts buried under a sea of propaganda and that is where immediate action and squandering resources in a flailing effort seems unwise, especially where it increases damage.
"to... something that involves literally believing there's no tomorrow, and also believing that can be fixed with no planning at all?"
The aliens apocalypse example is about the power of belief over reason. Unfortunately dragging us all down over multi-decades of poor planning doesnt sound appealing. And this is my issue. Scrap the propaganda and bull, it undermines any credibility that there could be a potential problem. And the propaganda is pushed by governments and 'scientists' which leads to being discredited to the point of looking like a religion or cult. And second the actions and solutions should be grounded in reality and certainly not directly the opposite of what is claimed needed. I dont take MMCC Co2 theory seriously because of those 2 massive flaws while accepting there is maybe the possibility of some sort of issue.
"Also, I'm fervently pro-nuke. I'm also pro-renewables."
I take no issue with either of those. I do take issue with unreliables because we know they dont work as they are being applied. To make them work we need to completely reinvent the whole energy system and back it up with equivalent power generation (often gas) and still relying on some magic technology being invented to defeat the very real physics issues we have.
"Generally speaking, I'm very much pro "when you have an extremely serious problem, deploy all solutions that look roughly feasible simultaneously, because you don't know in advance which one will actually work"."
But you also need to cut 'solutions' when they are not, when they have demonstrated as not and there has to be a problem first. Companies try to follow the latest fad. Governments are even slower at keeping up with the fads. It looks like finally peoples priorities are moving away from the luxury feel good fad and back towards their standard of living.
The second discussion, which is what I was trying to have, is about whether sustainability is a luxury. My observation is that acting early to prevent extremely expensive damage can hardly be describe as a luxury, even if the damage is far in the future.
You can also flip that around and ask if luxury is sustainable. Some seem to want us to go back to a pre-industrial age lifestyle where only the rich can afford hot baths, heating & lighting at the flick of a switch or own their own personal, private transportation. Ecoterrorists just threw paint over David Geffen's $300m yacht though. That kind of transport isn't sustainable for everyone given it'd cost around $30m a year to run. If it were scrapped, it would make no difference to global temperatures.
But acting also comes with costs and consequences. Ok, so the ecoterrorists get their way and we Just Stop Oil. Great. No plastics, fuels, lubricants, medicines etc etc. There are a vast range of products produced from petrochemicals. Sure, there have been efforts to create alternatives, but that's lead to amusing consequences like rats & squirrels eating brake and hydraulic lines. Or thousands of tonnes of plastics are used in hospitals because they can be sterile, used in a wide range of tasks and biologically inert. Alternatives aren't, with the best known probably being latex with people allergic to the proteins contained in natural latex.
Every 'Just Stop Oil' protestor should be made to live 1yr without consuming any petrochemical derived product and see how far they get. That would require a rather radical lifestyle change that might not be sustainable either.
Or there's the old saying, act in haste, repent at leisure. We're told we have to Act Now! But what if our actions are the wrong ones? We're being told to do X or the plant gets it. What if they're wrong? What if all that does is waste or divert resources from more useful activities? Most obvious is building windmills, again. We've been there, done that and yet people seem convinced that going back to pre-industrial technology will somehow save the planet. It won't, and our ancestors knew the disadvantages. They're intermittent, unreliable and dependent on the weather. Yet we're told we're going to get ever more extreme weather. Like Texas, Oklahoma and other parts of the US discovered as tornados destroyed wind & solar farms. Why are we being rushed into 'investing' in primitive technology that was obsoleted around 150yrs ago when we have much better alternatives like nuclear, which are far less vulnerable to 'climate change'?
But you cannot avoid The Science because that's what is driving the lobbying and money waste. So a simple question. What was the average UK temperature for May, 1732? And what was the average global temperature? The Science tells you it's 1.52C warmer than 1850. But then history tells us that 1850 was the end of the LIA, so we'd expect warming. It might be an interesting exercise for you to try and find the answer. Especially if you look at the uncertainty around those answers. Or the sparsity of actual data available for any global figure. Platinum resistance thermometers didn't exist. The first detailed description of platinum was only in 1750. The Met Office can't even tell you an accurate UK temperature for today because the majority of it's weather stations fall below WMO siting standards. Yet it produces temperatures 'accurate' to 2 decimal places using stations with an accuracy +/- 2.5C.
But that's how many people turn from believers into sceptics. If you look at how actual climate 'science' is conducted, you'd be shocked at the results.
As someone who's worked in metrology for well over a decade, the trust in temperature estimates for time periods long before reliable temperature measurement existed always baffles me. If I test a thermometer from 0 to 100 C, a reading at -5 C is slightly iffy, -20 is unreliable, and -50 is a rough guess. Thermometers with a standardized scale have existed for about 300 years, with sub-degree-C accuracy only in the past hundred. How accurate were weather measurements 100 years ago? Maybe +/-1 degree, if they were particularly careful. How about 500 years ago? They didn't exist. A thousand? You're kidding, right? Any estimate of temperature over 100 years ago is based on a couple (modern) decades of direct observation and an assumed correlation with something else, like the ratio of isotopes. This comes with an entire list of assumptions, any one of which may be wrong and invalidate the entire theory, or be slightly off and have a drastic effect on the estimates.
Picture a cantilever beam (like a diving board) - one end fixed, the other free. As long as you're on the supported part, it's solid. The farther you get from the support, the wobblier it gets. Imagine standing at the free end of a 1000-foot diving board, where only the first 30-40 feet are solidly supported. It doesn't matter what you make the board from, it'll be wobbly. Same with "it was like ___ 1000 years ago" kind of estimates.
As someone who's worked in metrology for well over a decade, the trust in temperature estimates for time periods long before reliable temperature measurement existed always baffles me. If I test a thermometer from 0 to 100 C, a reading at -5 C is slightly iffy, -20 is unreliable, and -50 is a rough guess. Thermometers with a standardized scale have existed for about 300 years, with sub-degree-C accuracy only in the past hundred. How accurate were weather measurements 100 years ago? Maybe +/-1 degree, if they were particularly careful.
Oh, metrology! A fascinating field, and also one of the reasons I became a sceptic. I know how accurate measurements were around 40yrs ago because I sometimes took them. My grandfather had a farm which had one of the longest continuous measurement series. Mainly because he'd walk up the field a couple of times a day with a diary, note the temperatures from a min/max thermometer and take measurements from the rain gauge. Then they'd get phoned in to the Met Office and became part of our 'climate' history. Plus I got to do that some days. The data were probably good enough for government work of the day, but not exactly high precision. Also interesting that that station's in the CEDA archives, but the location given for that station is off by around 500m.
But this article explains the problem-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/05/27/poorly-sited-stations-undermine-met-offices-uk-temperature-claims/
The bulk of the Met Office's weather stations have uncertainties of 2C or 5C, yet the error margins or uncertainties are very rarely shown in their press releases or general public information. Which has to be deliberate because it's a deliberate choice to not show them, and leads to people confidently making claims like '1.52C warming since 1850'. If that was shown as +/-5C.. the message might get lost.
"Most obvious is building windmills, again. We've been there, done that and yet people seem convinced that going back to pre-industrial technology will somehow save the planet. It won't, and our ancestors knew the disadvantages. They're intermittent, unreliable and dependent on the weather. "
Wind turbines aren't being used in a fashion that takes into account their intermittency and dependency on the weather. They aren't a drop-in replacement for fossil fuel power plants. There's almost no public discussion about how they can be used in a way that makes sense. Solar is the same with different sets of constraints. It's not useless either but isn't a drop-in base load power replacement either. The way my electric rates are going up, I may be full solar much sooner than I had planned. I'd still have a grid connection as I think the city would condemn my house if I didn't. At night, I would be buying power as batteries still don't have an ROI in my situation. On a cloudy day, I'd refrain from doing laundry or things that draw a lot of power and make sure I'm doing those things when I'm generating the energy from the roof. It's not being green, it's the financial aspect that will motivate me. The chest freezer is already solar powered with a battery back up (makes lots of sense) and that's all backed up with the grid. There's some large Tesla branded Li batteries for sale locally and I'm hoping I can flog off a bunch of junk and get one. 5kWh of storage would run the freezer for ages and even be useful for other things. Wind turbines are banned by the city for a residence. The little ones are annoyingly loud buzzy things that don't produce enough energy for the racket they make. The big ones need to be up higher which would often be a fall hazards to neighboring properties. The city isn't interested in looking at anything on a case by case basis as the employees would have to put aside their more important social media activities to do work, which would be so unfair.
The IPCC isn't mandated to examine the causes of climate change. It just assumes, without questioning, that man made carbon dioxide emissions are the only cause of climate change. If the Vatican said the correct number of angels on a pin is 7 would you accept that as true? It assumes the existence of angels without questioning it.
If you go into the IPCC report you will find they even admit there is no evidence of extreme weather increasing. It is in Chapter 12:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/ipcc-attributions-climate-and-extreme-weather/
There is no evidence of any increase or decrease, globally or by region, in the frequency, severity or extent of frost, mean precipitation, river floods, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, landslides, aridity, hydrological drought, agricultural or ecological drought, fire weather or wildfires, mean wind speed, severe wind storms or tornados, tropical cyclones or hurricanes, sand and dust storms, snow glacial or ice sheets, heavy snowfall and ice storms, hail, snow avalanche, relative sea levels, coastal floods, coastal erosion, marine heatwaves, ocean acidity, air pollution weather or radiation at earth’s surface.
And even that is under the absurd RCP8.5 scenario. you do know what the RCP scenarios are don't you?
==
As for computer models - even the head of NASA's climate modelling, Gavin Schmidt, has admitted the computer models are running "too hot" - see his article in Nature magazine May 2022 if this link doesn't work:
https://irp.cdn-website.com/0bdd390b/files/uploaded/NatureGavinSchmidtClimateModels.pdf
Page 2 of that article shows that if you eliminate the more absurd hot models the climate crisis evapoates. (The blue lines on the graph)
@ecofeco
"YOU are still waiting for evidence you will never accept."
And so the religious approach. You have all the evidence you need of your belief and so us unbelievers will obviously never understand your greatness. Thats ok, you hold to your beliefs.
The fact that you manage to address absolutely nothing of my comment that contains a lot concerning the actual evidence and actions that have been taken surely shows your devotion to never question or critically think about the issue. May your faith be rewarded by your *insert deity*.
"Instead of squandering vast resources on unreliables and other glitzy but not ready tech we could have used that to create a cleaner environment with plenty energy to research further viable solutions instead of awaiting some magic future tech."
That's a larger scale problem of modern society. Things that can be accomplished today are pushed aside and not done in anticipation of things that might be even better tomorrow. Too often, those things don't pan out or don't come about as soon as forecasters had promised. Autonomous cars, anybody? Ever since the passenger train service from Los Angeles to Las Vegas was discontinued attempts have been made to restart it. When those come around, they get hijacked by a vision of HSR and the whole things goes down the drain. Wouldn't it be so much better if we could make the trip in 1.5 hours rather than the 6-7 it can take to drive on a Friday afternoon? Of course, the HSR planned right now doesn't actually get all the way to Los Angeles so it's still a nasty drive to get to the planned terminus where one will need to leave their car (for a fee) and hope it's still there and intact when they get back. There are freight tracks for that route still in use and adding 125mph spec dedicated passenger tracks along side the vast majority of the route across nearly empty land is something that can be done today for far less money. Even if the trip took twice as long (3 hours), it's still twice as fast during peak travel times. A robust schedule would also mean there really is no point to take a car. LA to SF via HSR is going to be preempted by 50mph service on lightly used tracks via sleeper service for the cost of the rolling stock. Get onboard, have a nightcap, sleep and wake up at your destination to a coffee and a bun. Spend the day and return the next night. You need to sleep anyway so why not be traveling at the same time rather than wasting hours at airports while awake?
if you think that climate is important https://voteclimate.uk/ will help you work out how to vote. A of background.
I did one of those "who do I vote for given my beliefs" thing at the last election, thinking I'd come out "lib dem". Was surprised that I actual came out Labour, who do appear to have a uch better grip on the climate than the Tories, who seem to use the RAF as their own personal Uber
I'm surprised you could insert a cigarette paper between the main parties' policies on climate for the last few years. As fas as I can see, all parties are in favour of switching off all of the stable generation, and just dealing with the intermittent power that results. Oh, and "you, lowly citizen! Get out of that car and walk!".
I feel that the problem is, with the vast amounts of power being pissed away on AI (crypto before that) and the endless deluge of useless cheap crap from you know where, plus oh so many companies still making it as hard as possible to repair devices, we are bound to arrive at a situation where a person could easily think "why am I inconveniencing myself to save the planet when so many far larger problems don't give a fuck".
[Case in point, what do you think will happen over the left side of the pond when Trump gets his second term?]
Easy enough to say "that place where the cheap stuff is made" not so easy to realise we are why that exists.
No where would make cheap landfill items if "we" in the west didn't demand exactly that, and put the entire chain of dependencies in place decades ago to make it that we can get cheap stuff and not have to think about the consequences of it.
Not so easy to own it and look at the vast array of things surrounding you that came from where ever it is you might be alluding to.
[Case in point, what do you think will happen over the left side of the pond when Trump gets his second term?]
There will be a brief spike in energy usage as people watch reaction videos on YT, X etc of lefties losing it. Then normal business may resume.
You're right about junk though. So recycling. I'd really rather not sort all my rubbish into neat piles to get turned into stuff people don't really want at great energy cost. But manufacturers and retailers have been sneaky like this. Rather than reducing the amount of packaging, they kick the problem down the line to consumers and councils. Honorable mention to Tescos though. I've been using their 'Woosh' service and my orders then turn up in decently sized brown paper bags that I then use for my garbage.
If you asked (especially in the US.. living here I can say "sustainability" is a politically loaded word to some) at many IT departments if they were interested in sustainability, they'd say "No" or not have it in their plans at all. We have strict emissions rules for cars and pretty tight environmental regulations but the general public tends to be strictly divided between those who are very interested and those who don't give a toss at all. You ask those very same people "Are you trying to save electricity costs, save cooling costs, and reduce waste where possible?" and they are going to (usually) say "Yes of course we are!"
...really the damage by the Internet isn't very large. Compare it to transport, agriculture, manufacturing, and so on.
The best solution is to put your servers in to a data centre connected to a solar power plant. In fact, aren't most cloud providers pretty onto the green energy stuff already? Solar is the cheapest source of electricity... and data centres can be located pretty much wherever.
The best solution is to put your servers in to a data centre connected to a solar power plant. In fact, aren't most cloud providers pretty onto the green energy stuff already? Solar is the cheapest source of electricity... and data centres can be located pretty much wherever.
Slight snag. Night time. But it's an energy density problem, mixed with a bit of latency. So work out how much power you can generate with 1m^2 of solar panels, then how many you'd need to power a 1MW data centre. It would be a LOT. But location location location. So there have been various ideas to build massive solar farms in N.Africa and do the electron shuffle all the way to the UK. Collossal costs and huge losses. Why not instead move the data centres to N.Africa and build them in places like Morocco. Or Libya. Or Sudan. Ok, the last two.. are problemantic given the chance of raining artillery shells, but for AI workloads, latency back to say, the UK doesn't really matter.
But because of night time, you'd also need to build say, 8MWh of battery or some other storage to power your 1MW data centre over night. Which then means you'd need at least another 1MW of solar to charge the batteries again ready for the next night. And those batteries have a limited number of charge/discharge cycles before their capacity drops and they need replacing.. Which is why solar isn't really cheap.
UK National demand for ALL energy types, transport, heating and everything else is about 1200TWh.
The estimates of Bitcoin alone needing about 127TWh (globally) suggest that IT is a reasonably fair target to go after. When "AI" is being used to target adverts consuming kW per ad per endpoint (person/account/device); this is an unbelievable waste even compared to Bitcoin.
Transport is approximately 40 percent of the UK total, and heating about 46%. I absolutely agree other sectors are important targets.
Reducing usage through property improvements is an unbelievably obvious and relatively low cost thing to target; though energy companies would rather you burn stuff to make money than reduce demand in perpetuity. Transport; well, the difficulties there are obvious and short of enormous investment in both primary production (copper mining & refining) and infrastructure (who by?) that isn't going to change on a whim.
The whole economy is built upon consuming and so the only vaguely practical ways to get away from that are to de-restrict supply side. Hence the current fad for renewables and wish-list approach to Fusion power. The alternatives to that over a timescale of 50 to 100 years are called "doing without". Oil IS going to run out, it is a question of WHEN not IF.
The economic consequences of Oil running short are plainly obvious and so gearing up alternatives and/or reducing demand on where practicable are good things for Humans at large. Climate change, whether you believe it or not is somewhat irrelevant; the economic consequences will happen anyway.
"Transport is approximately 40 percent of the UK total, and heating about 46%"
Those are both low hanging fruit when it comes to improvements. How much energy is wasted on transport to get people from their homes to work during two narrow time windows each day? Work from home is an option and so is incentivizing some companies to shift their schedules. If an employer began their 'day' shift at half nine or 10am, people would be going to work after the morning rush hour. This would also let those with children get them bundled off to school. Getting off an hour or so later than has been the norm shouldn't be too hard to accommodate. In a two parent household (cheeky to suggest, I know), if one is working from home, they can take on the after school run or just look after the kids when they get home and have started earlier in the morning so they finish up sooner (I wasn't chauffeured back and forth to school as a child).
Heating efficiency has lots of options and in some areas can be augmented with solar (a bit trickier in the UK, easy where I am). Building standards are already being improved, but there's always going to be room for more improvement. Some big improvements through proper siting of a home is often ignored so a development has winding roads rather than looking like it was laid out on graph paper. The problem is that even in ancient times, architects and even peasants knew that how a house was proportioned and sited were very important.
Great ideas..... Mao Zedong tried some of them out in China.
It's one of those 'spot the Marxist' things. Or a Marxist who hasn't read history-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_farming
In 1932–1933, an estimated 11 million people, 3–7 million in Ukraine alone, died from famine after Stalin forced the peasants into collectives (see: Holodomor). It was not until 1940 that agricultural production finally surpassed its pre-collectivization levels
Although that was also partly a result of 'climate change', and bad weather reducing crop yields. Plus a climate of fear with local and regional apparatchiks being terrified of giving Stalin (a Georgian) bad news and faking data. Stalin later executed a couple of senior members of the Ukrainian SSR for lying about Ukraine's production and seed levels. But then in shades of climate 'science', along came a chap by the name of Lysenko, who..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism#Context
Some Marxists, however, perceived the mechanism of individual random mutations bequeathed to subsequent generations as contravening the Marxist framework of "immutable laws of history" and the spirit of collectivism, and considered it a liberal doctrine
Climate history is similarly immutable, although neo-Lysenkoists haven't gone quite as far as Lysenko did and had 'deniers' executed or sent to concentration camps. Some climate 'scientists' have suggested this however. But Lysenko's.. novel ideas wrt genetics and agriculture ended up crippling Soviet agriculture.
And much the same is still happening. The EU had a few attempts at biofuels, until it realised growing crops to burn instead of eat was probably a bad idea. But farmers are still dealing with stuff like this-
https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/05/29/uk-government-urged-to-halt-solar-farm-expansion/
Minette Batters highlighted that solar farms are being built as dairy and arable farming face an uncertain future.
Ms Batters pointed out that wealthy investors, including overseas financiers, are buying large areas of the countryside, often displacing tenant farmers in the process.
Grow solar, not food. Ironic when we're being told to reduce food miles and buy local. Or we're all supposed to go vegetarian, which means more land would be needed to grow crops. But it's sometimes worth following the money, especially when it comes to 'renewables' and subsidy farming. See, for example-
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/offshore-wind-needs-bigger-subsidies-warns-government-adviser-p3d823xjv
State subsidies for new offshore wind projects may not be generous enough to drive the projects needed to achieve targets for boosting clean energy, a leading climate adviser to the government has warned.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chairwoman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Climate Change Committee, the independent non-departmental public body, said Britain had been “slow” and “not very clever” in its handling of offshore wind auctions.
How can this be? The 'renewables' industry has been telling us costs have been falling, and now 'renewables' need more subsidies? How can this be? Well, here's one possible answer-
https://orsted.com/en/who-we-are/our-organisation/management/board-of-directors
Oh look. Baroness Brown is also on the board of one of the world's biggest subsidy farmers.. Funny how that works.
"although neo-Lysenkoists haven't gone quite as far as Lysenko did"
The modern day equivalent is the MBA holders who are taught that if they put something on a schedule and hold meetings, it will happen. Somebody will figure it out because it "needs to happen".
Communism is DOA because it takes no account of human greed and laziness. I'm no different. I work as hard as I need to so I get by. Being self-employed in the US, there are huge disincentives to doing too well and not working for some company. A State run economy where everything is owned by the State has the possibility of being highly efficient. There's just no incentive for the workers to do more than the minimum to stay in breeze block flats with HVAC every other Thursday and food vouchers that would be great except there isn't much to buy with them at the State shops. The system takes away any incentive to be more efficient or innovate. The only way up is to turn into a pig and be "more equal" with very little in between to aspire to.
"How? Starving us all to death?"
If the global population continues to increase at the same rate, starvation is a given. Food production is already propped up by extreme measures and the big agra companies are trying to push even harder to realized more tonnage per hectare every year. Not food quality nor nutritional value, but tonnage.
Every facet of the modern world has to be evaluated which includes data centers. That doesn't mean nothing else goes under the microscope, but there are plenty of people to look at many different things at the same time.
Yeeeeeah no surprise here. I care about a LOT of things as relate to the technologies I use, and sustainability is very, very much not one of them. Stay with me...
I care about the planet, but what am I gonna do in this context? I don't manufacture anything, and I choose to not work for weapons manufacturers, the petrochemical industry, or anyone that generally is in the business of building orphan-crushing machines. What goes into a 1U thing, of any kind? Lots of stuff, all alike. How does it get manufactured? By people in a factory downtown, I suppose. I want my switches and routers to have a lifecycle of 5-7 years, less is a waste, more means I'm running obsolete things (and probably exposing myself to liability of some kind, and probably also wasting electricity).
This is like blaming individual people for the existence of the disposable plastic fork, when the factory that makes the damn things is belching smoke down the road. The only people that can make anything I do more sustainable are not me, and they don't even work in the same industry that I do. I'm an end-user of goods that require dirty manufacturing. I'd be thrilled if, say, someone came up with a PCB substrate that wasn't resin-impgrenated fibreglass, that recycled better, and that got used, but I won't care, nor could I even choose, what gets incorporated into the products I use, because I shouldn't. It's an irrelevant externality to me, I care if it moves packets from A to B without going down on Saturday night unexpectedly, and that if it doesn't, the vendor can swoop in and replace a broken thing with a repaired thing 24x7x365 within four hours. Sorry.
Hopefully that enables other people to do their jobs well and efficiently, not involving belching smoke into the environment. If I thought it did, I'd go do what I do elsewhere. I keep utensils at my desk so I don't waste disposable plastic forks, and if I'm about to e-waste a functional thing, I find out if a buddy wants it for a homelab before I do. That's reasonably what I can be expected to do about this problem.
"I'd be thrilled if, say, someone came up with a PCB substrate that wasn't resin-impgrenated fibreglass, that recycled better, and that got used, but I won't care, nor could I even choose,"
In a disposable economy, yes. In a sustainable economy where things are built to last, FR-4 PCB's that can last decades are a better option (right now). In the US, the push towards low V.O.C. coatings has been a success and a failure. VOC's have been reduced and the replacements have had dismal longevity in many cases. The plastic fork might be fine if it was made with a material that would degrade in a short time span. It makes them worse for keeping on hand, but perhaps better for the environment if the process to make them is also cleaner. I rarely use plastic utensils and have a bunch in my picnic tote that have been in there for ages. They might even be dried out and useless and I guess I'll find out someday if I try to use them. They trade off I'm making is being sure I'm not going to have a dose of food poisoning through using metal utensils I haven't been able to clean properly. If that means a trip to hospital, the energy trade makes it better to have used the plastic fork and plastic coated paper plate. All of that said, that happens to be a place where new manufacturing techniques and materials are making advances. Biodegradable cling film isn't horribly expensive any more. I also try to separate aluminum foil but if that's going to be smelly, I'll roll up up into a ball by itself so it can be plucked out at the waste sorting facility.
The whole green / carbon neutral ethos isnt sustainable period, nevermind just in the IT sector.
The technology and infrastructure simply isn't up to the job. Here in the UK the power grid is at least 10 years behind for the needs of coping withe EV alone...
Just recently the government have pushed back the date for the banning of new natural gas boilers for domestic use.... The world's gone made
I cannot understand why so many fall for the co2 driven warming lie. All those deniers denying that climate change is natural while simultaneously point to "scientists" who have come up with a scale (Global Warming Potential) whose base value is derived from a variable (The effective radiative forcing of co2).
There have been time where I have thought that maybe they are simply misguided, but it is difficult to see how using the ERF of Co2 as a baseline for GWP is not a deliberate act; especially when the ice core data points to co2 being incapable of driving climate and that it is impossible for a feedback mechanism (their favoured hypothesis) to be the cause of historic co2 rises lagging behind warming when there is no evidence of a saturation point (without which, no such feedback mechanism can exist).
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