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Scientists have detected a major change to the Earth’s oceans
- lopsidedvictor 10y ago.
- kwrobel 10y agoRead the paper and convince yourself.
- jlg23 10y agoThe comment you responded to has a point - even I take WaPo-publications with a truckload of salts of grain nowadays and I don't even have a stake in US-politics.
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- wyldfire 10y agoRead the article published in "Nature" instead: > Ocean models predict a decline in the dissolved oxygen inventory of the global ocean of one to seven per cent by the year 2100, caused by a combination of a warming-induced decline in oxygen solubility and reduced ventilation of the deep ocean. > It is thought that such a decline in the oceanic oxygen content could affect ocean nutrient cycles and the marine habitat, with potentially detrimental consequences for fisheries and coastal economie
- lopsidedvictor 10y ago.
- gotchange 10y agoApparently, you're new here. So let me give you a bit of orientation here. This kind of gratuitous politically-charged commentary is frowned upon and discouraged here. You're more than welcome to express your opinion without resorting to dismissive or inflammatory language that wouldn't add to the discussion. Enjoy your time here
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- TheShadowRunner 10y agoLast I checked, that was not published in a peer-reviewed journal. And even disregarding the fact that this statement is a red herring, using your logic, there's a 2% chance that someone else could win. That means there is still a chance, no matter how small.
- codeisawesome 10y agoThis is genuinely scary. I'm especially concerned over both the loss of food to populations, and the suggested nitrous oxide loop for further warming.
- codeisawesome 10y agoCould it be that as a species, humans have failed to evolve the intelligence required for ensuring long term survival, even though we have the short term ability to manipulate our environment to a certain degree of benefit.
- Filligree 10y agoWe have enough intelligence to build technological civilization. Barely. If that had been possible at any lower level of intelligence, then it would have happened sooner. We're the stupidest possible technological species.
- daenz 10y agoOr maybe the jump from biological to technological is actually really really ridiculously hard. We didn't evolve in a vacuum...we share and shared the earth with many other vicious species and environmental effects, and we had to come out on top. We had to evolve certain behaviors to even make it to the technological point. And the persistence of those behaviors in our evolutionary memory is what ensured we survived. And now we're just supposed to shed them off because of 100 years of technology? People are thinking too micro. Change does not happen that fast. You can't shed off in-group preferences, general selfishness, and combativeness because those are the things that literally pushed us into these higher stages of evolution. Personally I think the earth isn't fit for a long term evolution of a technological species, if its environment starts collapsing so soon. Again, 100 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things, and people are arguing that 100 years of technology is destroying the earth. We need a lot longer than 100 years to get anywhere useful.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
- neom 10y agoI don't know when we as humans are going to fucking get it together and start acting like a better species. I hope that the rate of climate change will push us to stop worrying about what bathroom another human decides to use or whom one selects to love and focus more on the ill's of the collective.
- ianai 10y agoI genuinely think people will not change until the worst affects of climate change begin.
- salesguy222 10y agoIn my opinion, even the worst possible effects of climate change (flooding, storms, acidification, desertification, species die-off, restoration of crocodiles living on Greenland)... will not be enough of a problem for the most-polluting humans to care about
- linuxkerneldev 10y ago> will not be enough of a problem for the most-polluting humans to care about I live in the country that pollutes the most per capita. I'm ashamed to say I haven't significantly changed my behavior and consumption patterns. But I look around myself and nobody else has either. Heck, we even voted in someone whose team wants to take actions that accelerate climate change. So this party will keep going until something terrible happens that actually impacts the folks at the top.
- salesguy222 10y agoI don't blame you :) it is a crisis of leadership for sure, since so many rich businesses are polluting, and so many individual consumers justify things to themselves by saying "but i NEED my SUV, mcmansion, refrigerator" and etc in my opinion it will be more necessary to find a way to suck co2 out of the atmosphere and place it somewhere, rather than attempt to limit how much demand there is for things that produce it as a waste product
- Asmod4n 10y agoso long and thanks for all the fish
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- EGreg 10y agoFor all the climate change deniers and skeptics that point out WaPo is a "liberal" outlet as a way to skip even reading the data: How about the scientific journal Nature ? http://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature21399 http://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature21399 While I'm at it, please explain why science has become so politicized by the political right. I have literally heard my conservative friends say they think "science is leftist" and Obama paid off scientists around the world to blow up a global warming hoax. Tell me, why would an American political party engage in an elaborate hoax with scientists around the world, and somehow "pay them all off", just so they would... what, raise your gas prices? Subsidize clean energy? For that matter why would scientists around the world spend years studying complicated subjects, and then decades doing research, and NEARLY ALL accept a bribe from the leftists of YOUR country to sabotage their own sensors and models and data? Finally - and here is the kicker - what are you afraid of if we transition away from fossi fuels? Electric cars open up electricity to be generated in a variety of ways. Wind farms have just powered OVER HALF of the central USA. Investment in solar has just overtaken fossil fuels. There are plenty of jobs to be made. Why are the "conservatives" so keen on subsidizing the fossil fuel industry so the government can pick winners and losers? If fossil fuels become too expensive, that means more innovation and investment in clean energy generation! Where is the economic loss from this? I am always amazed just how much "Stockholm Syndrome" the conservatives have when it comes to big corporations. Whatever they do - big bonuses to CEOs, pollution, etc. it is always rabidly defended by a mob angry that any criticism of their destructive activities, whether by scientists or by people who lost their jobs, is "socialism" and "libtards". Do you really think preventing the rise of sea levels, deforestation and loss of millions of species through overfishing, factory farms, colony collapse disorder etc. is going to tank your economy? Isn't this the height of idiocy?
- jjawssd 10y agoCreate more jobs in renewables and the problem solves itself. I have a solar installation out of necessity in one particular application, and in another I purchase wind power from the grid by choice because it offers competitive rates in my electrical market. I voted with my wallet and you should be able to as well.
- fsloth 10y agoWhy was it a piece of cake to regulate CFC:s but no one has the vision to strive to control CO2 and methane. I'm 37 years old. I've been scared of CO2 accumualation in the atmosphere before I went to school and I'm no genious. I can't understand why has it been so hard recognize and act on CO2. And it's not only the industry and politicians. Green parties have been the craziest in actively blocking nuclear power. Why has this been so hard to see?
- salesguy222 10y agoWell, when nuclear power fails, it tends to fail catastrophically. That leads to more public pressure. Also, theres no clear reason why humans should be consuming so much electricity and energy, which is a particular wing of the green party ideology i would say that most likely, rich people's businesses produce a ton of CO2 as waste, but they don't consider it "waste". so they buy politicians with campaign funding and etc, who, upon grabbing power, block any attempts to (((regulate))) carbon waste
- lightlyused 10y agoNot really on your first point. A lot of the failures are not in the dangerous radiation parts of the nuclear plant, but in the cooling and power generation aspects. I've worked on planning software for a plant and have seen the incredible detail that goes into plant maintenance. Done right, nuclear power is safe. Don't go thinking that I'm a conservative, very liberal and environmentally friendly here. I completely agree on your second point. It is all about profit.
- salesguy222 10y agoThank you! i am pro nuclear too. i was narrating why other people are anti-nuclear. couldn't agree with you more it is all about the profit for them. genuinely scared of how powerful they are
- gus_massa 10y agoDams failure can be even more catastrophic, but people is not worried about it. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam > Its failure in 1975 caused more casualties than any other dam failure in history at an estimated 171,000 deaths and 11 million displaced.[1] The dam was subsequently rebuilt.
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- zouhair 10y ago"Total fake news". In other times this comment would mean I am a stupid person, a wannabe troll but now it is just a sad state of affairs.
- codecamper 10y agoPut a tax on carbon & market forces will solve everything. We'll have cleaner cities, and hopefully won't need to worry about runaway climate change. Yeah, some rich people will suffer, but that's OK they are rich and won't stop being rich when their industries are forced to change.
- specialist 10y agoMy understanding (reading, friends of friends) is that most of industry is on board with a carbon tax. Among other reasons, businesses need predictability. But as always there's a few defectors who screw it up for everyone else, eg Koch brothers.
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- guelo 10y agoIf you tried to tax carbon market forces would run a massive disinformation and propaganda campaign. Market forces would spend massive amounts on campaigns electing anti tax legislators. If a tax was passed they would sue, obstruct, and lobby for years and decades constantly trying to water it down and kill it. Market forces are stronger then our democracy. We are doomed.
- gdubs 10y agoI would have thought this, but conservatives are actually starting to make a case for a Carbon Tax. See the most conservative voices in the Wall Street Journal today, for instance. They'll want complete regulatory rollback in return, which will leave it to the left to decide whether it's a worthwhile trade off. Personally, I think it is. What happened with Washington State's Carbon Tax proposal is a bad omen though. Had bipartisan consensus but fell apart due to fighting between the left and the left.
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- kogepathic 10y agoSo what can we do about it? Is anyone still seriously working on iron fertilization to encourage phytoplankton growth? [0] The main arguments I've heard against it is that we don't know what the effect will be on the ecosystem: > The side effects of large-scale iron fertilization are not yet known. Creating phytoplankton blooms in naturally iron-poor areas of the ocean is like watering the desert: in effect it changes one type of ecosystem into another Well, guess what? We're going to affect the ocean ecosystems negatively if we don't reduce atmospheric CO2, and I don't see that happening any time soon. How about we just go for broke and try it out on the off chance it helps things? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
- nikdaheratik 10y agoIt's not a great solution for a variety of reasons. First, it costs energy to extract the iron and dump it in areas of the ocean, so we'd have to do this in a way that generates less CO2 than it sucks out from the plankton (in which case, why do we need the plankton?). Second, it will cause large blooms which suck all of the O2 out of the water and fish will die off in those areas. Third, if we don't go ahead and reduce emissions, this will maybe buy time but not solve the actual problem. These sorts of solutions are only a good idea if we finally get moved over to a low carbon economy and still find we can't reduce warming any other way.
- diafygi 10y agoHowdy! I work in cleantech, and I guess it's that time again for your wall of links about what you can do to fight climate change. To start, here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" So what can you do about it? Work at a new energy technology company! We are currently growing exponentially[1], and we need as many smart people as we can get. There are lots of companies hiring software engineers. How do I find a job fighting climate change? I'd recommend browsing the exhibitor and speaker lists from the most recent conference in each sector (linked below). * Energy Storage[2][3] * Solar[4][5] * Wind[6] * Nuclear[7] * Electric Utilities[8][9] * Electric vehicles[10] Also, if you're in the SF bay area, I'd recommend subscribing to my Bay Area Energy Events Calendar[11]. Just start showing up to events and you'll probably find a job really quickly. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/22/energy-is-the-new-new-internet/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/22/energy-is-the-new-new-inte... [2]: http://www.esnaexpo.com/ http://www.esnaexpo.com/ [3]: https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/u.s.-energy-storage-summit-2016 https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/u.s.-energy-stora... [4]: https://www.intersolar.us/ https://www.intersolar.us/ [5]: http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/ http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/ [6]: http://www.windpowerexpo.org/ http://www.windpowerexpo.org/ [7]: https://www.nei.org/Conferences https://www.nei.org/Conferences [8]: http://www.distributech.com/index.html http://www.distributech.com/index.html [9]: https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/grid-edge-world-forum-2016 https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/grid-edge-world-f... [10]: http://tec.ieee.org/ http://tec.ieee.org/ [11]: https://bayareaenergyevents.com/ https://bayareaenergyevents.com/
- pvaldes 10y agoMust be: Sunke Schmidtko, Lothar Stramma and Martin Visbeck have detected a major change to the Earth's oceans.
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- aisofteng 10y ago>The authors then used interpolation techniques for areas of the ocean where they lacked measurements. Speaking as someone that studied pure mathematics more than science, I am curious as to whether there is formal justification that this interpolation is valid. As far as I understand, global systems like this often, if not always, exhibit chaotic behavior.
- laughfactory 10y agoWe would solve most of this problem if we'd get people to 1) stop buying new cars unless their previous car had died, 2) stop commuting to work, and 3) stop living in situations which require lots of driving. If we incentivized companies to transition all possible staff to remote positions, we'd eliminate a huge amount of emissions. The problem is that while everyone knows cars produce a huge amount of emissions, no one is willing to not buy that fancy new car. I mean, "it gets better gas mileage!", or "it's electric!" passifies everyone's environmental concerns. Never mind that new car production is incredibly environmentally unfriendly (in most cases driving an old car, even one with poorer emissions profile or worse gas mileage, is better on net for the environment), and that all the commuting we do is disastrous for the environment. But until the problem is owned at the personal level nothing will change. A big piece of this is that politicians aren't interested in going to bat against the auto manufacturers. No politician wants to be linked to the death of such a huge industry (and a loss of hundreds of thousands or millions of jobs). The only way this will change is if all of us start to 1) live close to work (so we can walk, cycle, or simply drive less) or require remote work options, 2) own fewer and older model cars and drive them until they die, and 3) contact our elected representatives to encourage them to support law and policy which incentivizes employers to employ remote workers. We would all do well, too, to remember the three Rs: reduce (our consumption), reuse (buy used and put off replacing our possessions until absolutely necessary), and recycle (duh). But when even climate warriors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore show wanton disregard for the cost of their lifestyle on the environment (apparently they like to raise a ruckus, but expect others to do something magical about it), there's little hope for things to get much better any time soon. Talk is cheap, people; Let's see some real action on a personal level.