What can be done to prevent more dangerous heatwaves in Europe?
Does Europe need to plant more trees in it’s cities?
It appears that Europe does many things right for sustainability and climate change - public transit over cars, recycling, reducing carbon footprint better compared to other parts of the world. Of course all communities can do better at reducing their carbon footprint - Is this America’s fault with their carbon footprint that Europe is suffering? America has their cars, and simply cranks up their Air conditioners when it’s hot.
What else is there to do? I thought China had success improving their renewable energy output, even though they are still polluters, is it the actions of China and the USA causing misery in Europe? How do we help Europeans suffering and prevent this from happening again?
We’re past the “prevention” phase and have moved on to the “adaption” phase.
We can do both! And call it pre-daptive
is this serious ?
120yrs ago, yeah CO2 emissions will be a problem in the decades to come
50 years ago, yeah emissions will be a problem in decades to come, including heatwaves that will damage infrastructure and kill poeple
30 years ago, yeah emissions will be a problem in decades to come, including heatwaves that will damage infrastructure and kill poeple
10 years ago, yeah emissions will be a problem in decades to come, including heatwaves that will damage infrastructure and kill poeple
this year, how about that heat, if only we’d been warned /s
it very likey that if we’re not near emission system by 2030/2035 (not net zero bullshit) then we’ll end civilization in the decades to come as there is no coming black from the increasing tipping points. Strat with bannibg all private jets.
It appears that Europe does many things right for sustainability and climate change
as long as this sort of bullshit is prevalent in the zeitgeist then nothing changes.
As to doing something ? vote green (not to get the Greens into power per se but to move the Overton Windows) , don’t fly, don’t drive.
What we’ll do instead is normalise out stupidity as we go fascist and keep on keeping on, like we do with inequality, hunger, homelessness, war erc
The idea we seem to be going with is that we could kill everyone in Europe who isn’t extremely wealthy. Then there will be no one in that region in danger from climate change, and far less pollution globally.
Or we could guillotine the most wealthy in Europe, which would be interesting
Yes, I fully support the genocide of the global top 1%.
You know those reflector screens they put in cars, yeah picture that but enough to cover a continent.
What if the reflective screen is angled towards another planet and signs of life appear?!
I was thinking aiming it back at the sun to give it a taste of its own medicine but your idea works as well.
End all fossil fuel use asap and make trade blocks that prefer countries that do the same. Tarrifs for those that use dirty fuels beyond the Eurobloc’s schedule.
Remember, even if we stopped today, there is a 20 year lag time so it’s getting way, way worse.
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/fossil-fuels#tracking
We are still growing fossil fuel use. The repercussions are enormous, and effectively, permanent.
At this point we need to spend all of our effort in advancing ways we can pull carbon out of the atmosphere and ocean, we are fucked unless we find an efficient way to do so.
Yes, but I don’t believe there is any process could ever be efficient enough.
Deep ocean algae farms might do it. Oil companies have brought up and side lined research on it for decades however.
But that would hurt fossil fuel companies, so we can’t do that. (/jk)
You can’t prevent them you can only prepare for them mainly with AC. Europe must get on AC or at least have more cooling centers for people.
So we will just run for cover from ac spaces to other ac spaces like americans? No thanks.
AC just displace the issue, you will be good in your ACed appartment but the neighbor who face the exhaust will be blasted with hotter air.
At a building scale it creates “hot air islands”, at a city/datacenter scale it is +2°C at least in a large radius.
AC should be only a part of the solution, as it adds more issues (electricity needs, pfas emissions, dangerous fluids management).
So we will just run for cover from ac spaces to other ac spaces like americans? No thanks.
Well, your other options are enduring the heat or move to somewhere cooler.
At least for the most vulnerable, like the elderly
Sure, and maternities and schools.
This is a part of the solution, like a bandage, but it should not be the whole plan.
I know nothing but according to some scientists the most efficient cooling system is forests and humid zones.
That’s why we are planting trees in cities instead of parking lots and in schools courts. It’s a good start but we need moooore
nothing, nothing we do now will stop the warming. if we end all fossil fuel burning, concrete production, and livestock production tomorrow, the atmosphere will continue to warm for hundreds of years before peaking. We are cooked. Grab your popcorn.
👆
Also, it would be helpful not to worsen it with some hype, currently AI or to let go of old fossil technology. But there we go.
So lets do nothing uh?
Fuck it I will do my best.
I’m not saying do nothing. I’m saying nothing can be done about the warming.
This. What part of “well past the tipping point” do people not understand? The time to take drastic action was 20 years ago. It’s “adapt or die” time. The good news is, the elderly are more vulnerable so that should help with the population decline issue.
Sorry. But this comment made me think of this:
Anyway? We’re fucked and the game now is to mitigate and adapt.
nothing, nothing we do now will stop the warming.
What if (theoretically speaking, because I don’t think we’re close yet) we rolled out carbon-capture technology and implementation on a massive scale? How much useful impact would that have on mitigating CC versus how much of that is still out of our hands?
Carbon capture technology was always some kind of excuse that execs had to pollute today because we could theoretically fix it in the future.
Despite some technology that works to remove carbon from the atmosphere, it’s just not viable. We output so much CO2 to the atmosphere that we just have no capacity to even build enough carbon capture facilities to reach net zero, and that’s without taking their energy consumption into account. Even if we stopped producing CO2 tomorrow, and suddenly enough carbon capture facilities to capture carbon at the same rate we were releasing it appeared, it would still take decades to make a meaningful change.
And carbon isn’t our only problem. Methane is a way worse greenhouse gas, and we keep releasing it to the atmosphere because it’s cheaper than trying to control it.
This is not to discourage from building such carbon capture technology. If it’s powered by renewables and built without a significant carbon/other contaminants footprint, by all means, build it. But it won’t save us from what’s to come.
Carbon capture technology was always some kind of excuse that execs had to pollute today because we could theoretically fix it in the future.
You’re exaggerating. While that’s true, and fits a pattern of such executive / corporate behavior, there’s more to it from what I know. That is, various science researchers around the world really have been studying CC tech as a potential helper to mitigation, if not as a primary solution. That goes back to the late 70’s if I understand correctly.
And carbon isn’t our only problem. Methane is a way worse greenhouse gas, and we keep releasing it to the atmosphere because it’s cheaper than trying to control it.
Last I recall, methane is ~20x more potent than CO2 in the GH effect, and arguably represents one of the more potent tipping points.
Even if we stopped producing CO2 tomorrow, and suddenly enough carbon capture facilities to capture carbon at the same rate we were releasing it appeared, it would still take decades to make a meaningful change.
My original point was about if CC tech could make a dramatic difference in the CO2 we’ve already placed in the atmosphere. Not just do a ‘working offset.’ I think that still presents problems in mitigation, I’m just not sure why from a science standpoint.
And yet we must stop climate change instead of making it even worse.
A time machine
That’s the thing about climate change.
One place can do everything right…if the other countries in the world doesn’t do the same everyone is fucked regardless.
NO! This is not just false, it’s dangerously false.
If a country takes measures to emit 500M less tons of CO2 per year, the result is… 500M less tons of CO2 in the air per year than otherwise. That helps!
There isn’t a single fucked/not fucked threshold. There are a lot of nuances of fucked and each one we dodge puts us in an incrementally less awful place. Who knows how many more lives saved for each Mton CO2 not produced. Who knows how many species get to live, how many fewer days of heatwave per year, how many more glaciers survive.
I STG, “we’re already fucked anyway” is oil shill talk. Fuck that noise, let’s make oil obsolete, let’s avoid entire shades of fucked, we’ve already made insane progress with renewables and electric cars, let’s just keep going! Let’s pressure our individual politicians because you know the fuckers love it when you give up! You on board?
If a country takes measures to emit 500M less tons of CO2 per year, the result is… 500M less tons of CO2 in the air per year than otherwise. That helps!
Not if that country just offloads industry to another country. This is what the west is doing, offloading dirty industry to China, then pointing fingers at China.
💯
Australia is “reducing” their emissions by having China manufacture everything using the coal that companies dig out of our ground and sell them, then we buy it all back and ship it over here on planes and boats, while claiming we’ve reduced emissions.
It’s all a grift.
let’s make oil obsolete
Yeh good luck with that. There is literally no known replacement for oil. It is in the creation of basically everything that you interact with every single day.
I’m not exaggerating btw. There is no known oil substitute for most products that we use oil for.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-we-really-live-without-oil-bruce-l--g7f8f
“Nobody else is doing anything about it so why should we go slightly without and pay slightly more to do our part?”
- pretty much everyone at the same time, unironically.
Build infrastructure to make Europe more heat tolerant.
A lot of what Americans do to deal with the heat, like air conditioning and ice water, need to get adopted in Europe. As for the concern of the energy needed to power air conditioners, most demand generally follows peak solar production. Also, if you install heat pumps instead of normal air conditioners, it will help lower carbon requirements for heating.
I have generally found the lack of urban trees in Europe pretty shocking. Even in wide open squares where there’s no reason not to have them it’s often just cobblestones. While Europe is certainly cooler than where I live, even so it seems like it would be very hot and unpleasant if the weather gets even a bit warm.
Some countries like France and the Netherlands are doing some good work on this lately but it needs to be more widespread and unfortunately it will take some time to pay dividends.
And yes we need to decarbonize more aggressively. It may be a bit painful but less so than the pain of inaction.
The “reason” not to is that trees need tending and cobblestone does not.
It’s a stupid reason, but you know…
yeah this totally, demolishing significant chunks of hot, lifeless city and creating dense woodland in cities would help a lot, also with flooding
It appears that Europe does many things right for sustainability and climate change - public transit over cars, recycling, reducing carbon footprint better compared to other parts of the world.
No. It wasn’t enough by far
There have been many right ideas, but what has actually been done was only a tiny little change, not significant.
Interesting. What are a couple things Europe should do to reduce it’s carbon footprint?
Stop burning things (oil, gas, …).
(Stop does not mean reduce by 3%)Stop producing and buying so many animals for food.
Grow new woods (real large, not tiny).
Europe is already better per capita than most regions. not much point in getting Europeans to cut C02 more when Americans are still driving tanks and burning coal.
Do you blame the US or other polluter nations for Europe’s heatwave?
Wouldn’t simply addressing climate change generally be the answer? I don’t understand why this might be confusing.
Because billionaires make that impossible.
The CEO of starbucks lives in LA. The HQ of starbucks is in Seattle.
He COULD move the HQ to LA. He COULD buy a 2nd house in Seattle.
Instead he takes his own personal commercial jet DAILY from LA to Seattle, and back again. Every day.
There is a commercial jet that flies the skies, using up fuel, and burning through the atmosphere 365 days a year.
All because this fuckwit doesn’t want to have a ZOOM meeting.
That’s one billionaire. One. Now think of the fact that 1 billionaire on average creates more environmental damage than 1 million regular people combined.
And that’s ONE. Now think of all the billionaires in the world. Combined.
And then there’s America. I live in America. If I need something from the store, I’ll walk. Yeah, it may be a 15 minute walk. Each way. But, c’mon. It’s not that far. By the time you look for your keys, and open the garage, and start the car, and everything, you’re looking at 5-10 minutes anyways. May as well just walk. I got a little wagon I use to carry all my groceries. It handles 750lbs.
Now, every car on the road, doing these short little trips. It feels like not much, but it adds up.
On top of all that, I have a theory that paved surfaces retain natural heat, and in the case of black tar surfaces, RAISE the heat.
As opposed to grass, which would lower it.
But billionaire or middle class, nobody wants to give up their ammenities. Even if the planet suffers. Guess we’ll all just die in an inferno.
I have a theory that….
That’s not a theory that only you have lol. Concrete greatly increases the surrounding temperature. Solar panels also unfortunately greatly contribute to higher ambient and surface temperatures during the day, and make it colder at night. Big concrete cities with solar panels everywhere ironically make heatwaves worse.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40280-9
Results showed that increasing PVSPs can raise peak summer ambient temperatures by up to 1.4 °C and surface temperatures by up to 2.3°C at city-scale. …. The large-scale deployment of PVSPs at local district-scale of the Sydney during a typical hot day caused air temperature to rise by 1.5 °C during the daytime and decrease by 2.7 °C at nighttime.
Note that that “1%” isn’t just millionaires and billionaires. Anyone lower middle class and up in the Western world is part of that 1%. People mistakenly think the jet setters are the main polluters. Everyone who isn’t poor in the West is the main polluter.
The main polluters aren’t people, they’re manufacturing industries.
should the EU take action against billionaires or the US to address climate change? I suppose they could impose sanctions, fines, or something to save EU lives?
Or Guillitines. I’m good with that too.
Many people seem comfortable with bringing back guillotines, including me. It would be interesting to see the reaction.
Lemme tell you man, i don’t think you can sound more impersonal and alien then you are doing now. Yes I would vote to do something about, yes. Maybe some hanging is required.
Yes, they should.
Trumo’s threat to impose new, higher, tariffs on EU for starting to legislate against US tech monopolies and support local startups show how it would go.
But better to put it forwards under the chicken taco and make headway, and then future US leaders (if any) would have to make open moves against environmental measures.
The EU could take steps towards less dependency of the US (and other continents for that matter)
Absolutely should.
But the EU would like to continue to benefit from US military power and espionage while getting to pretend it is more moral. If the EU were to more overtly break with the US it would have to dramatically reformulate its neo-colonial economics.
Is Europe addressing climate change?
Ideally, yes. But we’re way past the point where mitigation alone can solve this. We need climate change adaptation, too.
Methinks this needs policy-level changes. There’s only so much we can do individually at this point
Immediate terms: There’s nothing that can be done to curb the heatwave IMO, but there are ways to prevent danger. Namely, AC, cooling centers, public education on preventing heat-related injuries/deaths… Maybe govts can even temporarily reduce regulations/give subsidies on split-systems to help nudge some folks, but nothing much else can be done. One pet-idea I have is cooling centers, since I know Houston (which has extreme weathers) opens cooling/warming centers when the weather is too extreme; it is a very progressive implementation that benefits those who are underprivileged
Slightly longer term: Trees/green spaces always help. Public transit systems always help. Some fairly sweeping changes in climate-related regulation (ease AC regulations, tighten car regulations, tax on pollution, etc), aimed at both reducing danger and improving the climate… or at least recuperate some “pollution tax” so the govt can use the money to plant more trees and build more trains. Also some European countries can do so much better at discouraging car use (or at least switch to EVs) given how good the train networks are; for countries without good train networks, build some
Even longer term: Massive investments in green energy; if they are investing already, invest more. But be practical… temporary solutions like nuclear are not everyone’s cup of tea but they help with the transition. Do better on international collaboration. Find ways to discourage international trading partners from over-polluting (probably a combination of tariffs and negotiations… not my specialty).
Obligatory not an economist/political scientist, there are probably better ways to implement these than what I suggested
Your last point should be first. Europe (and the UK) are reducing their carbon output but our success is dwarfed by the increase in co2 output by China and India. The US has also made no effort to reduce emissions but because industry there is declining it hasn’t increased for a few years. We need to apply a carbon tax to imports from those countries.
As well as planting trees we need to stop concreting over gardens.
Our hyper individualist mindset and society will also have to go, because this is a problem that will require each of us doing our part together and becoming more fairer to each other and the Earth.
We treat the world like crap because we think it is crap, when it is just us that are crap. So in order to change the way we behave to the world we have to change the way we behave to each other. Otherwise we will never come together and agree on any coherent plan to stave off climate change.
Climate change is a problem that will be either the making or ending of us, and it’s up to us which of those will happen.
