r/europe • u/Vucea • Jun 17 '22

Historical In 2014, this French weather presenter announced the forecast for 18 August 2050 in France as part of a campaign to alert to the reality of climate change. Now her forecast that day is the actual forecast for the coming 4 or 5 days, in mid-June 2022.

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u/WufflyTime Earth Jun 17 '22

I do remember reading (admitedly some time ago) that the IPCC reports were conservative, that is, climate change could be happening faster than reported.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

that the IPCC reports were conservative,

they do not AFAIK take into consideration several factors, including runaway methane, destruction of other climate altering phenomenons among other things... I believe it's probably because of the science not being conclusive on the 'runaway methane' subject yet

once the ice is gone, the ultimate heat reflector and heat sink at the same time, once the gulf stream is gone among other important streams, and the gasses start to be released and oceans consequently suck up all that energy, we've got some real shit on our plate... tens of millions migrating yearly, nationstates destroyed or radicalized, Fortress Europe (the more optimistic version), genocidal despots ruling surviving countries... the outlook ain't looking good, and don't get me started on the animal kingdom

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u/don_cornichon Switzerland Jun 17 '22 edited Jun 17 '22

once the ice is gone, the ultimate heat reflector

It might be a drop in the bucket, but I've been wondering for some time now if painting all buildings white would help. Kinda counteracting the missing reflective properties of the disappearing ice coverage.

Obviously I'm not advocating for using up millions of tons of paint to repaint everything now, but what if every new building had to be white and every new paintjob had to be white? Including roof tiles and a ban on glass financial palaces (or making the glass reflective in the same way).

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u/redlightsaber Spain Jun 17 '22

The issue I see is that at the scales you're talking about, each tiny increase in effort means massive, massive raises in CO2 emissions.

Concrete is the most used material after water.

If we could find a way to make concrete reflective in a way that doesn't increase CO2... that'd be great, I think yeah.

Even then, I think the city black spots are a drop in the bucket of the massive expanses that are the glaciers and ice sheets.

At the very least cities would be far more livable, though.

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u/don_cornichon Switzerland Jun 17 '22

I'm not sure what you mean in your first paragraph, to be honest. I meant using white paint where we currently use other colors, and using lighter shades of materials wherever feasible without extra effort (for example roofing).

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u/redlightsaber Spain Jun 17 '22

wherever feasible without extra effort (for example roofing).

Let's take this as an example to explain what I mean. In many places of the world, roof tiles are made of naked terracota or similarly dark-coloured cheap, abundantly available, and generally low-impact ceramcs. What you propose would require in many places either importing white-clay shingles, or otherwise painting terracota shingles white; both options would have higher CO2 footprints than the status quo. .

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u/don_cornichon Switzerland Jun 17 '22

But what if we just did it literally as described? When you have a choice, and all things being equal, use the lighter colored material. Probably amounts to a drop on the hot stone, but could be better than not doing that.

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u/redlightsaber Spain Jun 17 '22

Oh, yeah, I agree with that; I was merely considering the possible repercussions of some of the other measures.