5 ms·
What we’re doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66M yrs, scientists say
- crygin 11y agoJames Hansen is somewhat controversial, but this paper has been reviewed and accepted for publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, and it's very serious: https://app.box.com/s/i4u002tbpcvkamj9wq4n8t1u8wxsjhis https://app.box.com/s/i4u002tbpcvkamj9wq4n8t1u8wxsjhis I'd summarize but anyone interested in the near-term (this century) effects of climate change and already on HN should be willing to read the actual paper.
- alatkins 11y agoI'm not familiar with Hansen, can you give an idea of how he's been controversial?
- crygin 11y agoSorry for the next-day response, went to bed shortly after posting that. Long story short, this paper received a lot of press attention when it was published to the ACPD last summer for discussion: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/whiplash-warning-when-climate-science-is-publicized-before-peer-review-and-publication/?_r=0 http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/whiplash-warnin... Which led to a fair number of climate scientists upset about what they saw as the press reporting on preliminary results. It's linked in that article but the key point is that Hansen has spent the last ~10 years calling out what he sees as a reticent attitude among climate scientists towards (what he feels is justified) alarmism: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/2/024002/fulltext/ http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/2/024002/fulltext/
- alatkins 11y agoThanks, good to be able to put this and the author in some context, though the science should stand for itself.
- EGreg 11y agoThis sounds really scary! I think it's a safe bet we'll use up all the fossil fuels we can find, and release the carbon into the atmosphere, regardless of the carbon taxes and cap and trade. And even after that, we'll continue to boil water with nuclear rods to generate electricity with tons of heat waste. Where does all that go? The best we might hope to do is somehow capture the carbon in the air and put it back underground... trees and seaweeds seem to do that. And then we mighy try to capture all the plastic we dumped in the pacific ocean... Seriously doesn't think make you think twice about the future for our grandchildren?
- godzillabrennus 11y agoWe are a fairly intelligent species capable of doing great things when motivated. My bet is we can do a lot to slow the damage and then reverse it. Things like this give me hope: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/print/volume-16/issue-5/bioenergy/a-new-win-win-co2-eating-microalgae-as-a-biofuel-feedstock.html http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/print/volume-16...
- grondilu 11y agoAnother comforting article : http://gizmodo.com/after-years-of-deforestation-chinas-forests-are-starti-1765930837 http://gizmodo.com/after-years-of-deforestation-chinas-fores...
- bluejekyll 11y agoI might be misunderstanding that article, but it sounds like the company captures the co2 and then converts that to fuel. Then they sell the fuel, which I assume will be burned. It definitely reduces total co2 released, but sounds more like recycling than actually improving the existing problem. Did I understand that correctly?
- anexprogrammer 11y agoHmm, but the motivation is often money > all. An acquantance of mine works in the oil industry. It's chilling to hear his enthusiasm for exploring the artic now climate change has made it possible. My bet is most continue to ignore the issue until, like Easter Island long ago, we're passing the last chance moment.
- rcthompson 11y agoMaybe we'll get lucky and the fossil fuels will run out before we make the planet completely uninhabitable.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rosser 11y agoWe'll never make the planet completely uninhabitable. Even our nuclear weapons couldn't do that, let alone burning dinosaurs, however profligately. All we have to do is make the planet uninhabitable for us, and the problem ultimately corrects itself.
- Nutmog 11y agoAre there any serious predictions that the planet will become uninhabitable, even a little bit? People can live in a huge range of climates, far more extreme than global warming predictions. Plants also grow well in high temperatures and with artificial irrigation, don't require regular rainfall.
- ghshephard 11y agoParts of the world currently inhabitable will become unlivable. In particular, Dubai, which is one of the most inhospitable places I've ever been on earth (combination of humidity + high temperature) - becomes lethal by 2100 in some projections - http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/world/persian-gulf-heat-climate-change/ http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/world/persian-gulf-heat-cl... Hot temperatures are much more difficult to handle than cold temperatures for humans. With proper clothing/goggles/face masks, I've been downright cozy at -43 celsius in northern British Columbia - spent hours completely comfortable. In Dubai, on a hot, humid day in September, I can manage maybe 15 minutes of exertion before I have to escape back to air-conditioning.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoClearly, it'll be the world's first domed city
- intrasight 11y agoIf I and others succeed in getting ourselves cryogenically frozen in a couple tens of years, then we'll be able to come back (unfrozen) in a couple hundred years and say "wow, they were right".
- Nutmog 11y agoWhat makes you expect them to be right instead of wrong? Couldn't you also wake up and say "wow, they were wrong"? If you know they're right, then everyone else can too and there's no need for anyone to worry about what's right or not.
- hyperbovine 11y agoIf you accidentally thaw in a couple of decades then they were definitely right.
- intrasight 11y agoClearly I failed to imbue sufficient sarcasm in how I wrote my comment.
- anexprogrammer 11y agoYou have a plan to cryogenically survive possible power outages, civilization meltdown, war, riot, floods and storms? Without anyone unplugging you? Bet that cost you a few $ :)
- Nutmog 11y agoThis is great news but somehow presented in a negative tone. The slow (4000 year duration) PETM release had no lag before temperature increased. Our release is much faster and according to the article, the faster the release, the greater the lag. So we should expect to see a lag. I wonder how long - hopefully on the order of magnitude of the duration of the last release - 1000s of years or perhaps the current release - 100s of years. The problem with climate change isn't what it might change into, but how fast it happens. It's quite already to have a change slow enough for societies, farmers, migration of species and geoengineering technology to adapt. We don't need enough time for evolutionary adaptation because we've actually got considerable control over our environment, unlike all species before us.
- sbov 11y agoBut if you're not feeling your current effects until 1,000 years in the future you may be completely screwed before you end up doing something about it.
- Nutmog 11y agoWhy would it happening later be more trouble? At best we'd see it coming and have 1000 years to prepare. At worst it'd happen just as suddenly as people already expect it to. In either case, we'll probably have better technology to manage it in 1000 years than we do today.
- sbov 11y agoAt worst we wouldn't do anything for 1,000 years because there's been little effect. In the meantime we've built up another 1,000 years we're going to have to deal with, which might be impossible at that point. In comparison, if we instantly felt the effects we could obviously see we're causing specific problems, and react appropriately. With the lag it's a crapshoot and deniability can creep in.
- ivanca 11y agoWhat we need is some effective marketing against the causes of climate change. People don't watch documentaries, people don't read studies, truth is to to really make an impact you have to use the same shady tactics politicians and media outlets use, it's sad but that's the way it is. For example we need to start calling all companies associated with coal extraction climate-terrorists, we need to commercials of averages Joe's grandchildren being slowly roasted alive (movie-like not any gore. As a fear inducing warning about climate change over the next decades). All the hate people have for Mexicans and Muslims should be redirected to oil companies, to coal mining companies, to stop government subsidies for those, for their employees. To do anything that increases the price of dirty energy sources and related practices, then after the price is higher than the alternative capitalism should take care of the rest.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoGuilting people into reducing emissions has been ineffective. Better would be to embrace geoengineering.
- taurath 11y agoIf you take the title completely at face value, it seems like an absolutely obvious statement. At no point have there been this many humans on the planet, so of course there is no parallel to what we're doing.
- x5n1 11y agoWe went from less than 5 million humans on the planet to more than 7 billion in 10,000 years. That's a 1,400x increase. So yeah, we're pretty much already breaking all the rules. What's one more. We will pay for it, but we'll deal with it how we deal with these sorts of things, as problems to be solved. And we'll find solutions, but the Earth will be a totally and irreversibly different Earth. Less life, less biomass, more difficult and unhappier place. But we'll make rhetoric about how everything is much better than it used to be, and prescribe more and more drugs and alcohol to help people deal with it. It's how we live, how we have lived... it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
- duaneb 11y agoA little late, but is this any worse than humanity going out in a blaze of hedonistic glory?
- dbpokorny 11y agoDon't say "we", say "a few very wealthy and powerful individuals who do not represent anyone other than themselves"
- x5n1 11y agoI used to blame the rich, but the fact is that they are through Capitalism only feeding human desires. In this case I think it's not them, it's human beings with unlimited desires and all these other behaviors tuned for maximum exploitation of the environment, combined with a highly efficient system which encourages just that. People in general are to blame for the way we are acting on this planet. Creating more and more people, being irresponsible, etc. We all do it together, every time we do anything we are partaking in the human conspiracy to destroy the environment, or as we like to call it the economy.
- yongjik 11y agoThat's quite an odd expression for a group of people that includes, among others, those who drive.
- anexprogrammer 11y agoAre you meaning the 1%? The global 1% who have cars, use TVs, computers, have centrally heated homes and earn $30k or more? That pretty much covers all of HN and Washington Post readers I'd say.
- pdkl95 11y ago> ... and major die-offs of some marine organisms followed due to strong acidification of the oceans. This is the part that I'm worried about. Regardless of what happens to global temperature or climate, the damage we've done to the oceans is insane. As Alex Cannara explained[1], In 150 years we have brought the chemistry of oceans to a point not seen in 300 million years. He is referring to the large shift in ocean pH caused by our release of over 30x the amount of carbon than the ocean can sequester. This is particularly bad problem because the process that sequesters atmospheric CO2 is based on marine life shells/skeletons being sinking and ending up as limestone. We have already disrupted that process, with some areas (such as the north Atlantic) are already seeing species starting to fail from the acidity. At some point in the next few decades, the pH will be sufficiently acidic that CaCO2 becomes soluble and any species with a shell goes extinct. Never mind the massive food change disruption, this stops the main CO2 sequestration process. I don't think we can stop this; it's already too late. While there are ideas about how this could be fixed, we aren't going to accomplish any of them. So maybe we should start getting ready for another event like the Permian–Triassic (P-Tr) extinction. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ
- raddad 11y agoI suspect this is why there is such a push for space travel these days. Those with the means will journey off to some habitable place or one they can make habitable, and leave everybody else behind in the toxic wasteland. All those sci-fi movies might be predicting the future of planet earth; they have before.