Ketan Joshi: The images of the planes just rolling through a flat surface of water at Dubai airport...........it's so stunning to me how we're delivered the physical imagery of the climate crisis every few weeks, each time in a completely new way. None of this is subtle at all.

The images of the planes just rolling through a flat surface of water at Dubai airport...........it's so stunning to me how we're delivered the physical imagery of the climate crisis every few weeks, each time in a completely new way. None of this is subtle at all.

no grand point here, beyond I guess I just assumed it'd all be much more background, boiling-frog type stuff rather than catastrophic atmospheric rage fits every few fucken weeks

FWIW, I think the narrative has focussed too much on "two degrees of warming" and "centimetres of sea level rise". And not nearly enough on "industrial scale pollution of toxic greenhouse gases will cause more frequent and severe bushfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves, cyclones, and hurricanes".

Agree. I also feel like the narrative should focus more on basic human survival, and the fact that there will be none. It’s not about the planet, it’s about us not being able to live on it.

Agree bigly. When we engineer buildings, we design for peak loads not average loads. (Think max # folk on balcony, not ave #.) As we redesign buildings to protect us fm future weather, we need to plan for hottest heat waves, heaviest rains, thickest smoke, etc. “Two degrees” misleading.

Mr. Paulsen, have you had an opportunity to use the ICC Performance Code? If so, I'd be interested in your thoughts about it, or about performance-based design generally.

Hi David. I have not done an ICC code project. I work primarily on projects that meet the international Passive House standard. (I’m a PHI Building Certifier.) I also have quite a bit of experience with the (performance based) Energy Step Code here in BC. Happy to chat sometime.

Aha, in that case I might have a different question for you ;-) My colleagues in Vancouver have helped me learn that the massive Senakw development there, over which the Squamish Nation has autonomy, is still just using the basic code. Maybe they're doing more progressive things on the energy side?

None of this even discusses crops/agriculture which cannot handle extremes which will lead to a minimum of stressed/diseased crops, severe food shortages & famine.

bsky.app/profile/fufu...

Yep, it gives the impression of a generalised state when the impacts are likely to be local, local, local every time.

The term "greenhouse effect" is said to have been changed to "climate change" by Bush thinktanks because it sounded less unpleasant.

You might be right. I only remember Climate Change replacing Global Warming as it was not accurate and underplayed the range of impacts.

the famine will be global

I don't give a shit about abstract sea rise. A centimeter is nothing. I do give a shit when I see maps of what will be destroyed. I do care when I see migration patterns of climate refugees. This is almost as much a failure of science messaging as it is anything else.

Exactly. When told that the world will become 2-5 degrees hotter in the next 50 years, your first thought isn't "oh this'll swiftly eradicate many key species in delicate ecosystems, leading to knock on effects later down the line." It's "huh, 37 degree summer heat instead of 35 degree heat."

I've been talking "climate destabilization" for a few years now just because of that

No one is mentioning the approaching global famine at all

Really important point. The only part that I might disagree with is the singular — the food shortages and famines are likely to be plural. Crop failures are a direct consequence of heatwaves, droughts, and floods. They will be more frequent and severe. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

‘We’ve run out of lettuce’: supermarkets and restaurants face fresh food shortage after NSW and Queensland floodswww.theguardian.com Some suppliers fear supply chain and produce shortage will last weeks after markets and farms inundated

If we're really fortunate we'll collectively respond adequately to those to avert the Global Famine we're on course for. I saw the bizarre suggestion a couple of weeks ago that people should save *money* in case of future food shortages.

And even the catastrophic stuff doesn’t make an impact on our behavior. Madness.

Yup.

“Did you travel by boat or plane?” “Yes”

So many rich people telling themselves that climate change wouldn't affect them in any way, now watching their playground getting flooded and entire nations suffering from droughts.

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Yup - one of my friends on WhatsApp instantly replied with a video he was sent by one of his mates sitting there in a plane on the tarmac. And another friend on Instagram replied his girlfriend’s parents are currently stuck in a hotel in Dubai. This is cutting through so much more than LA did.

The fact that the rain in Los Angeles was 1 in 1000 or perhaps even 1 in 2000 year rainfall, while the rain in Dubai was 2.5 times a 1 in 100 year rainfall (which probably translates to 1 in 1000 year probability) - and both happening in a few weeks of each other, is definitely cutting through.

And we also had the extreme flooding in Queensland in Australia just a few weeks ago also. People don’t yet realise how bad the hurricane season of 2024 is going to be. England, Ireland, France, Portugal, NL, Denmark will all probably be hit by Caribbean hurricanes on their rebound.

I think that part of the issue was that when these happened on "poor" countries it was dismissed as "not important". But with these floods and bushfires it shows that everyone/everywhere can be affected and that changes the whole story

Exactly

As Richard Pryor said, "An 'epidemic' means it happens to white people"

Those poor countries like *checks notes* Greece, Australia and Germany? Or the many many incidents in USA. Or it's just small countries like.. India and China and Indonesia.

Are you aware that for Northern Europeans Greece, Spain and Portugal are considered ‘poor’ and we didn’t deserve for this to be disfrutes until it happened in Germany and uk? That, basically, it is ‘since it does not affect ME I don’t care ‘ being me a really specific WASP kind of guy.

The changes to the climate here in Ireland are already extremely evident. We've had the wettest spring on record. I'm seriously not looking forward to the string of storms that are going to hit later in the year.

For the last 5 years, I've noticed that here in New York city, springs are coming in with a LOT of rain, but also high winds. I only saw windy season in Autumn... Not anymore.

Sydney’s feeling more dank and tropical every year too :-(

We could stop polluting immediately and things would still be terrible for a few decades. Can't believe these people are in charge 🤮

But it would stop getting worse immediately!

. I'm old enough to remember being sweet sixteen in 1990, and CFCs and the #ozonelayer . That should have been the global wake-up call, NOT only just now, when my 50th birthday happens soon. #climatecrisis

Shocking how long social issues have been around and ignored. Or gotten worse

The rain and associated storms has been the unexpected shock of the last 3 years. So much, so suddenly, in so many places. Hansen's, 'Storms of my Grandchildren' being realised, with worse to come.

I arrived in Abu Dhabi in 1982 to see continuous rain and roads which didn't have the drainage to tackle it. This is much worse.

Good evening, Ed, lovely to see you here. Hx

And they claimed cloud seeding is responsible.. 😂 As if you can magically increase the amount of atmospheric moisture to that degree with silver iodide. Now why would Dubai come up with any excuse other than the crimes of the fossil fuel industry 🤔🙄

Being honest, whenever I see this happening to a major oil producing nation I'm unsettled by the sense of relief I experience 😢

People are back to the pre-pandemic way of living, or even travelling more, as if they want to experience as much as possible before everything breaks down.

Ahem that's not surface water. That's an inland sea

our currently climate disaster reality is great for b-roll for future films.

Since 2020 I've felt like I'm living in the montage of riots and disasters that play at the beginning of a post-apocalyptic movie.

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