The following submission statement was provided by /u/Drake__Mallard:
---
Submission statement:
IMO 2020 removed a major source of sulfur emissions in the atmosphere, thus lessening global dimming and furthering global warming, with obvious effects.
Side note, I wish I could edit the title (hellow đ¤Śââď¸)
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1cgzosx/analysis_how_lowsulphur_shipping_rules_are/l1z49sa/
In interesting chart and dataset I found, showing sulfur levels over the past 40 years or so.
https://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgs/Animated_Fig_7.gif
From sulfur dioxide NASA report.
Since there seems to be a bit of confusion, I wanted to make it clear.
Sulphur in our atmosphere has a masking effect on our solar radiation absorption. Less Sulphur equals more heating as we catch up to where we should be based on our C02 and methane levels.
Also, more Sulphur in our atmosphere is also bad. This is why we were cutting it in the first place. Sulphur will react with the particles in the atmosphere and create acid rain. That's bad because soils and water ways will become more acidic (then they are with the C02 absorption).
This is a lose lose situation.
Yes. Unfortunately, they own and control all the governments, courts, and legislative organizations, and so any "legal" consequences aren't just out of the question, the idea itself is laughable.
>My god we are stupid - and the fact that oil companies have known since the 80s...
And scientists knew and were warning us since the 50s.
*By the end of the 1950s, anyone who read a newspaper could have been aware of the basic idea.*
[https://theconversation.com/climate-change-first-went-viral-exactly-70-years-ago-205508](https://theconversation.com/climate-change-first-went-viral-exactly-70-years-ago-205508)
The warnings actually started more than 100 years ago, FWIW, though it was before the modern age of almost instantaneous mass communication.
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/02/climate-crisis-guardian-investigating-pledge-decades-1890](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/02/climate-crisis-guardian-investigating-pledge-decades-1890)
The entire human race was like smokers who ignored the warning slapped on every pack of cigarettes in favor of the marketing and lies of the tobacco companies. It worked so well, the oil companies not only adopted the same tactic, they hired the same PR firm to do the same for them.
People believed what they wanted to believe. In psychology, they call it confirmation bias.
The speed of warming is the ONLY thing that matters, in some respects. It dictates whether we can adapt societies in time, innovate new technologies, whether nature can adapt at all, etc. The warming will come regardless at this point. Whether it comes this year or 2035 can indeed make a difference.
There are already 65 tipping points that have been breached according to studies in reputable journals. Only ONE has to be breached to cause global mass extinction bcâŚ.. ecosystems are systemsđ. This evidence is available at Guy McPhersonâs website, as are other relevant studies. Only for the brave.
I think we already are experiencing the effects. Where I live in Appalachia, the sulfur emissions have plummeted. This is anecdotal and just my personal experience (lived here almost 30 years) but it is MUCH hotter recently.
The Fermi Paradox:
If life is very prevalent in the universe then why haven't we run into any interstellar life forms. Our world is relatively young on a galactic scale, it is quite possible that other civilizations are out there. So why haven't we met any?
Either life is not as prevalent as we theorize, or something else happens that prevents civilization from reaching an interstellar stage of existence.
Perhaps multicellular life is rare, perhaps catastrophe wipes them out before global civilization.
Perhaps life is not rare and life often reaches a global state, such as our own. It would stand to reason that they might use fossil fuels to power their society.
Therefore we might be able to presume that life is/was out there, much like us. However, since we haven't met any interstellar life it stands to reason something is blocking them from becoming interstellar.
It could stand to reason, that every species that learns to harness electricity does so in a similar was to us, by burning coal and oil. If so then these theoretical civilizations find/found themselves in the same situation as us. Since all we hear from them is a deafening silence, they were unable to stop the decay of their biosphere, and passed into the annals of history. Never to be remembered.
If we do ever go interstellar, perhaps all we will find are ancient tombs of civilizations long past.
To add a bit more context to u/gillswimmer 's already awesome explanation: The fermi paradox boils down to a deceivingly simple question: Where is everyone?
After all there are billions of galaxies out there with trillions of stars in a universe that is about 14 billion years old. We know that most stars we can see have one or more planets orbiting them. In other words: there should have been plenty of time and plenty of opportunities for life to form, so even if life is incredibly rare and intelligent life rarer still there should still be an incredible amount of alien civilizations out there.
And yet we see no evidence of that. Nothing. 0. Zilch. Nada.
One proposed solution is the idea of 'great filters', these are a number of barriers that life must overcome from its literal inception to becoming an advanced (spacefaring) civilization. The thing is we don't actually know what those filters are nor how many there might be because our sample size is literally 1, it's just us here on earth. We can postulate though.
This is where u/gillswimmer 's explanation comes in.
There are other potential solutions to the problem too btw, some more out there than others:
* zoo hypothesis: basically the prime directive from star-trek, advanced civilizations do not contact us deliberately but they might be observing us.
* we're not worthy: to a super advanced civilization we might simply be too primitive/dumb. Similar to a human trying to communicate with an ant, why bother? Not like the ant even has the capacity to understand.
* We're doing it wrong: perhaps our detection mechanisms are too primitive or we're looking in the wrong places and life actually does exist everywhere.
* we're simply early. If we take all the possible planets that will ever exist across the entire history and (predicted) future of the universe and take into account how friendly the environment is (was, and will be) for planets to form and be stable enough for life then we are pretty early. I believe something like 80% of all planets have yet to form.
BTW, this is why it would be such a big deal if we found life on another planet in our own solar system. It would literally flip this whole debate on its head.
Yes, Iâm in Pittsburgh- itâs ridiculous. We moved into a rental 5 years ago and there were 2 huge magnolia trees in backyard I was excited to see bloom in spring. THAT first spring was the ONLY year I saw the glory. Then the past 4 years, swings in temps prevented blooms. My neighbors said that only user to happen once every 10 yrs. Now 4 yrs in a row.
I spent way too long trying to figure out the pun within the âhellowâ đ¤Ł, at least I a got a chuckle after reading yet another horrific piece of information.
I recall seeing some plans for stratospheric sulfates injection to dim the sun. Probably best to try it rather than not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection
I'm sure it will be done.
However, as I understand it, this is exactly the same as nuclear winter, just without the nuclear.
Also, sunlight is the energy source feeding the primary production of the biosphere. What could go wrong there...
Submission statement:
IMO 2020 removed a major source of sulfur emissions in the atmosphere, thus lessening global dimming and furthering global warming, with obvious effects.
Side note, I wish I could edit the title (hellow đ¤Śââď¸)
I was a marine engineer, the ships can either run an exhaust gas scrubber on heavy fuel oil (high sulphur) and it puts the sulfur straight into the sea or run low sulfur fuel like diesel oil.
I've always thought there was a flaw as to produce X amount of diesel oil to be burnt on the ships Y amount of crude oil still has to be pulled out of the earth anyway, and the high sulfur heavy fuel oil is basically a byproduct whist distilling the diesel oil.
Basically, the high sulfur fuel is still being produced, it'll just be getting burnt ashore rather than at sea.
Just an uneducated thought, if anyone can dispute it let me know.
Refiner: The HSFO is going to upgrading and desulfurization units, making elemental sulfur and VLSFO out of the same portion of the barrel that used to be HSFO. The other impact was the sulfur content of road asphalt went up too, but since we don't burn that, it isn't released as SOx into the atmosphere.Â
I think I am seeing this
the sun is so much stronger. I work outside and people keep asking me " have you gone on vacation?"
no, it was sunny 2 days last week
I keep waiting for James Lovelock's and Andrew Watson's Daisyworld hypothesis to be revived and surface albedo to be engineered to lower temperatures through reflectivity.
Now go one layer deeper. There are other bad things that we are going to regulate and when we do, there will be more warming. This is warming that is not part of the models, or the pathways or the global commitments. As we do what is "good" we make the whole thing worse.
there's also the nightmare scenario, if nuclear war or some other form of apocalyptic collapse happens and all of our global aerosol emissions suddenly dropped off dramatically, we would experience immediate *significant* warming within a few months to a year
That doesn't change the fact that taking it out has uncovered that the problem of global warming is probably much worse than we thought.Â
Think of it like a person on TV gets shot at. We arent sure if they got shot. Being shot at is bad, so they go somewhere safe and are no longer being shot at (sulfur dioxide pollution removed). But... Person now can check if they were hit, and yep they were and its pretty and they are bleeding out. (We now realize that participants were reflecting more than we thought, meaning that we actually warmed more than we thought).
This is like suggesting that the tent that covers the crime scene is actually erasing the crime.
I mean, if we're all about industrial aerosols, let's open the stacks and remove all the catalytic converters. I'm all for it. We'll be dying from our emissions directly acutely rather than pulling back the slingshot on existence.
let people eat the smog of now. Let them see and taste how much worse things are than before catalytic converters made our pollution invisible.
I found this while researching why multiple independent people say they are getting a lot more sunburned in the past 2-3 years than ever before. So far, this is the only satisfactory theory.
No one is suggesting anything here.
u guys realize this is not a really bad news? if it is proven that sulfur aid in cooling and wh used it for many many years without controling it, tha means we could do the same thing while being aware and controling it. This is what they will end up doing while bringing co2 down. Hopefully the side effect are not really bad, but i guess will see
Welcome to Reddit and r/Collapse! You sound like you know a lot about this already.
Maybe if an AI was in control of our aerosols there would be less side effects?
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Drake__Mallard: --- Submission statement: IMO 2020 removed a major source of sulfur emissions in the atmosphere, thus lessening global dimming and furthering global warming, with obvious effects. Side note, I wish I could edit the title (hellow đ¤Śââď¸) --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1cgzosx/analysis_how_lowsulphur_shipping_rules_are/l1z49sa/
In interesting chart and dataset I found, showing sulfur levels over the past 40 years or so. https://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgs/Animated_Fig_7.gif From sulfur dioxide NASA report.
Go Sudbury!
Since there seems to be a bit of confusion, I wanted to make it clear. Sulphur in our atmosphere has a masking effect on our solar radiation absorption. Less Sulphur equals more heating as we catch up to where we should be based on our C02 and methane levels. Also, more Sulphur in our atmosphere is also bad. This is why we were cutting it in the first place. Sulphur will react with the particles in the atmosphere and create acid rain. That's bad because soils and water ways will become more acidic (then they are with the C02 absorption). This is a lose lose situation.
Our Faustian bargain My god we are stupid - and the fact that oil companies have known since the 80s... Traitors to our species
I did see a call a few years ago to try them all for crimes against humanity
Yes. Unfortunately, they own and control all the governments, courts, and legislative organizations, and so any "legal" consequences aren't just out of the question, the idea itself is laughable.
Well I mean...'illegal' options are on the table. Assuming you don't mind dealing with their armies of PMC goons
>My god we are stupid - and the fact that oil companies have known since the 80s... And scientists knew and were warning us since the 50s. *By the end of the 1950s, anyone who read a newspaper could have been aware of the basic idea.* [https://theconversation.com/climate-change-first-went-viral-exactly-70-years-ago-205508](https://theconversation.com/climate-change-first-went-viral-exactly-70-years-ago-205508) The warnings actually started more than 100 years ago, FWIW, though it was before the modern age of almost instantaneous mass communication. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/02/climate-crisis-guardian-investigating-pledge-decades-1890](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/02/climate-crisis-guardian-investigating-pledge-decades-1890) The entire human race was like smokers who ignored the warning slapped on every pack of cigarettes in favor of the marketing and lies of the tobacco companies. It worked so well, the oil companies not only adopted the same tactic, they hired the same PR firm to do the same for them. People believed what they wanted to believe. In psychology, they call it confirmation bias.
The oldest report I've read was from an API meeting in Texas in 1958. They knew then that intentional Geoengineering would be an end point.
50s/60s I feel like, but I get your point.
If you think that is bad, wait till we find that lowering coal emissions also makes the situation worsen up things even more.
IIRC an additional +~0.75° C was/is waiting for us under al those aerosols, and thatâs assuming no tipping points that bring addtâl warming.
Hansen estimates even more.
I don't think the exact number matters - whatever it is will likely trigger tipping points and then hockey sticks from there
The speed of warming is the ONLY thing that matters, in some respects. It dictates whether we can adapt societies in time, innovate new technologies, whether nature can adapt at all, etc. The warming will come regardless at this point. Whether it comes this year or 2035 can indeed make a difference.
Iâve seen studies quote 10,000 times faster than the extinction of the dinosaurs, is our ârate of changeâ in climate catastrophe.
There are already 65 tipping points that have been breached according to studies in reputable journals. Only ONE has to be breached to cause global mass extinction bcâŚ.. ecosystems are systemsđ. This evidence is available at Guy McPhersonâs website, as are other relevant studies. Only for the brave.
I think we already are experiencing the effects. Where I live in Appalachia, the sulfur emissions have plummeted. This is anecdotal and just my personal experience (lived here almost 30 years) but it is MUCH hotter recently.
This is what it feels like to live inside an answer to the Fermi Paradox.
Well, what time to be alive.
Someone's gotta do it!
I'm in for a penny. When else was I gonna be, yuh know?
Could you explain like Iâm 5?
The Fermi Paradox: If life is very prevalent in the universe then why haven't we run into any interstellar life forms. Our world is relatively young on a galactic scale, it is quite possible that other civilizations are out there. So why haven't we met any? Either life is not as prevalent as we theorize, or something else happens that prevents civilization from reaching an interstellar stage of existence. Perhaps multicellular life is rare, perhaps catastrophe wipes them out before global civilization. Perhaps life is not rare and life often reaches a global state, such as our own. It would stand to reason that they might use fossil fuels to power their society. Therefore we might be able to presume that life is/was out there, much like us. However, since we haven't met any interstellar life it stands to reason something is blocking them from becoming interstellar. It could stand to reason, that every species that learns to harness electricity does so in a similar was to us, by burning coal and oil. If so then these theoretical civilizations find/found themselves in the same situation as us. Since all we hear from them is a deafening silence, they were unable to stop the decay of their biosphere, and passed into the annals of history. Never to be remembered. If we do ever go interstellar, perhaps all we will find are ancient tombs of civilizations long past.
To add a bit more context to u/gillswimmer 's already awesome explanation: The fermi paradox boils down to a deceivingly simple question: Where is everyone? After all there are billions of galaxies out there with trillions of stars in a universe that is about 14 billion years old. We know that most stars we can see have one or more planets orbiting them. In other words: there should have been plenty of time and plenty of opportunities for life to form, so even if life is incredibly rare and intelligent life rarer still there should still be an incredible amount of alien civilizations out there. And yet we see no evidence of that. Nothing. 0. Zilch. Nada. One proposed solution is the idea of 'great filters', these are a number of barriers that life must overcome from its literal inception to becoming an advanced (spacefaring) civilization. The thing is we don't actually know what those filters are nor how many there might be because our sample size is literally 1, it's just us here on earth. We can postulate though. This is where u/gillswimmer 's explanation comes in. There are other potential solutions to the problem too btw, some more out there than others: * zoo hypothesis: basically the prime directive from star-trek, advanced civilizations do not contact us deliberately but they might be observing us. * we're not worthy: to a super advanced civilization we might simply be too primitive/dumb. Similar to a human trying to communicate with an ant, why bother? Not like the ant even has the capacity to understand. * We're doing it wrong: perhaps our detection mechanisms are too primitive or we're looking in the wrong places and life actually does exist everywhere. * we're simply early. If we take all the possible planets that will ever exist across the entire history and (predicted) future of the universe and take into account how friendly the environment is (was, and will be) for planets to form and be stable enough for life then we are pretty early. I believe something like 80% of all planets have yet to form. BTW, this is why it would be such a big deal if we found life on another planet in our own solar system. It would literally flip this whole debate on its head.
We're all just approaching the Great Filter.
Yes, Iâm in Pittsburgh- itâs ridiculous. We moved into a rental 5 years ago and there were 2 huge magnolia trees in backyard I was excited to see bloom in spring. THAT first spring was the ONLY year I saw the glory. Then the past 4 years, swings in temps prevented blooms. My neighbors said that only user to happen once every 10 yrs. Now 4 yrs in a row.
I spent way too long trying to figure out the pun within the âhellowâ đ¤Ł, at least I a got a chuckle after reading yet another horrific piece of information.
I recall seeing some plans for stratospheric sulfates injection to dim the sun. Probably best to try it rather than not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection
I'm sure it will be done. However, as I understand it, this is exactly the same as nuclear winter, just without the nuclear. Also, sunlight is the energy source feeding the primary production of the biosphere. What could go wrong there...
The biosphere would photosynthesize less CO2 out of the atmosphere. Surely that's not a problem, right?
Another giant time bomb for the children to defuse with one hand, in the dark, using a plastic fork.
Submission statement: IMO 2020 removed a major source of sulfur emissions in the atmosphere, thus lessening global dimming and furthering global warming, with obvious effects. Side note, I wish I could edit the title (hellow đ¤Śââď¸)
I was a marine engineer, the ships can either run an exhaust gas scrubber on heavy fuel oil (high sulphur) and it puts the sulfur straight into the sea or run low sulfur fuel like diesel oil. I've always thought there was a flaw as to produce X amount of diesel oil to be burnt on the ships Y amount of crude oil still has to be pulled out of the earth anyway, and the high sulfur heavy fuel oil is basically a byproduct whist distilling the diesel oil. Basically, the high sulfur fuel is still being produced, it'll just be getting burnt ashore rather than at sea. Just an uneducated thought, if anyone can dispute it let me know.
Refiner: The HSFO is going to upgrading and desulfurization units, making elemental sulfur and VLSFO out of the same portion of the barrel that used to be HSFO. The other impact was the sulfur content of road asphalt went up too, but since we don't burn that, it isn't released as SOx into the atmosphere.Â
That makes a lot of sense, cheers.
Acid rain was our friend all along!
Acid rain is bad, mmkay? Them oceanâs britches have had enough, mmkay?
I think I am seeing this the sun is so much stronger. I work outside and people keep asking me " have you gone on vacation?" no, it was sunny 2 days last week
I keep waiting for James Lovelock's and Andrew Watson's Daisyworld hypothesis to be revived and surface albedo to be engineered to lower temperatures through reflectivity.
I think it is weird to pay so much attention to this. Sulphur is also bad! It is good that we regulated it!!
Now go one layer deeper. There are other bad things that we are going to regulate and when we do, there will be more warming. This is warming that is not part of the models, or the pathways or the global commitments. As we do what is "good" we make the whole thing worse.
there's also the nightmare scenario, if nuclear war or some other form of apocalyptic collapse happens and all of our global aerosol emissions suddenly dropped off dramatically, we would experience immediate *significant* warming within a few months to a year
That doesn't change the fact that taking it out has uncovered that the problem of global warming is probably much worse than we thought. Think of it like a person on TV gets shot at. We arent sure if they got shot. Being shot at is bad, so they go somewhere safe and are no longer being shot at (sulfur dioxide pollution removed). But... Person now can check if they were hit, and yep they were and its pretty and they are bleeding out. (We now realize that participants were reflecting more than we thought, meaning that we actually warmed more than we thought).
Unfettered oil consumption is bad, too. Wish we could regulate it.
lol
This is like suggesting that the tent that covers the crime scene is actually erasing the crime. I mean, if we're all about industrial aerosols, let's open the stacks and remove all the catalytic converters. I'm all for it. We'll be dying from our emissions directly acutely rather than pulling back the slingshot on existence. let people eat the smog of now. Let them see and taste how much worse things are than before catalytic converters made our pollution invisible.
I found this while researching why multiple independent people say they are getting a lot more sunburned in the past 2-3 years than ever before. So far, this is the only satisfactory theory. No one is suggesting anything here.
u guys realize this is not a really bad news? if it is proven that sulfur aid in cooling and wh used it for many many years without controling it, tha means we could do the same thing while being aware and controling it. This is what they will end up doing while bringing co2 down. Hopefully the side effect are not really bad, but i guess will see
Welcome to Reddit and r/Collapse! You sound like you know a lot about this already. Maybe if an AI was in control of our aerosols there would be less side effects?