Whenever I’ve discussed anthropogenic global warming on this blog, I’ve often written climate models were wild guessing. I’ve come across a study that suggests I was wrong. The study looked at 11 scientific papers with 14 projection models that estimated changes in average global temperatures over time. The papers were published between 1970-1993. The authors of this study then compared those projections from the models to average temperatures as of 2017. Though some models slightly overestimated temperatures and others slightly underestimated temperatures, most were remarkably consistent. The models were based on estimates calculating natural climate change plus manmade emissions of CO2 influence.
Climate models were remarkably consistent with real observations. Chart from the below study.
Energy use is projected to increase exponentially in the future, and this means an increase in burning fossil fuel and even greater CO2 emissions. The creation of bitcoins alone equals the energy use of New York state or the country of Poland. I don’t understand how cryptocurrency is even legal. Bitcoin creators are wasting earth’s resources creating artificial wealth out of nothing. Data centers that support internet infrastructure already use almost 5% of the power generated in the world. This computational infrastructure is going to increase as humans rely more and more on robots.
Bitcoin mining uses an enormous amount of energy, creating nothing that is useful for society. A few people will get rich at the expense of a lot of chumps.
Data centers will expand, as humans rely more and more on robots, hence increasing energy use even more.
As more fossil fuel is used, earth’s climate is headed for an uncomfortable atmosphere that resembles what it must have been like for dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Age. There is no reversing this nightmare scenario. People aren’t going to give up driving cars and central heating and air conditioning. (Especially air conditioning, since the world is going to become so much warmer.) Selfish totalitarian rulers don’t care about the environment. Wind and solar won’t be able to provide enough power for the world to end use of fossil fuels. We are doomed to live in a world of misery caused by climate change.
Robots will contribute to an apocalyptic future, but probably not in the way depicted in the Terminator movies. Instead, the energy demand to drive robots will cause global warming that will devastate the atmosphere.
Reference:
Hausfather, Z.; H. Drake, T. Abbott, G. Shmidt
“Evaluating the Performance of Past Climate Model Projections”
Geophysical Research Letters 2021
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