4 ms·

There isn't really a "worst" case here. We can always make it worser...

by lutorm 9y ago

lisper 9y ago
The destruction of civilization will probably cap our ability to do further significant damage. If not, then our extinction surely will.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Yes, that's the fundamental negative feedback on anthropogenic carbon emissions.
- stale2002 9y ago
  Nobody believes that global warming will cause the literal extinction of the human race. The scientific consensus is that sea levels will rise by a couple feet over the next 2 hundred years. That's the science. Doesn't sound like doomsday to me.
  - ForHackernews 9y ago
    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...
    - tempestn 9y ago
      The first paragraph: > It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.
    - fencepost 9y ago
      The annotated version with links to source data is probably a better option to link. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...
      - stale2002 9y ago
        The guy is talking about 10 degrees C scenarios, aka scenarios that nobody believes is going to happen. The IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change, believes that there will be 2-3 degrees C increase in temperature over the next century. When someone can rationally talk about what will happen in the IPCC predicted scenarios, which is the scientific consensus, then I will listen to them. If you are some crank, who is talking about 1000 parts per million of C02, and 10 degrees C temp increase by 2100, well then you shouldn't be taken seriously.
        ForHackernews 9y ago
        Elsewhere in this thread, it's been stated that the IPCC has omitted runaway positive-feedback loop scenarios from their predictions, either because they're too poorly understood, or because they're too depressing. The doomsday scenarios may be uncertain, but they do not (to my layman's understand) seem impossible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
        fencepost 9y ago
        I haven't gone back to re-read for this, but I believe 10 degrees is presented as a worst-case scenario because if we hit that it's pretty much game over. The part you may want starts around footnote 20, in a paragraph that notes 4 degrees as a median projection from the IPCC, with up to 8 degrees at the high end of the curve without factoring in permafrost melt and its associated carbon release or any of a variety of other exacerbating factors (footnoted in the article). There are ways to calculate how much effort or expense is reasonable to attempt to mitigate a risk, I believe that's often part of the job description of actuaries. Part of it involves figuring out what the cost is if the event in question happens, then what the likelihood of the event is.
    - stale2002 9y ago
      That article is wrong on a number of facts. For example, it explicitly mentions 10 degrees C of warming over the next century. A 10 degrees C scenario is not something that any respectable scientist believes is going to happen. The IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change, believes that there will be a 2-3 degrees C increase in temperature over the next century. Thats the facts. Please listen to the scientists. Every single doomsday prediction that this guy is making, can be traced back to this fundamental problem that he is talking about scenarios that the experts and the scientists do NOT believe has even a remote chance of happening.
      - FrozenVoid 9y ago
        Such short-term warming due methane clathrates is certainly possible. A study based on a coupled climate–carbon cycle model (GCM) assessed a 1000-fold (from <1 to 1000 ppmv) methane increase - within a single pulse, from methane hydrates (based on carbon amount estimates for the PETM, with ~2000 GtC), and concluded it would increase atmospheric temperatures by >6 °C within 80 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis#Model_simulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis#Model...
  - notfromhere 9y ago
    we have 7 billion people with a new billion every decade. 1-2C differences in temperature are going to have a huge impact on agriculture.
  - arnoooooo 9y ago
    http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2015/december/global-warming-disaster-could-suffocate-life-on-planet-earth-research-shows http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2015/decem... "a sufficiently large warming (roughly estimated as 5–6 ◦C, see Robinson 2000) would inevitably lead to an ecological disaster resulting in a complete depletion of oxygen."

There isn't really a "worst" case here. We can always make it worser...

by lutorm 9y ago

There isn't really a "worst" case here. We can always make it worser...

The destruction of civilization will probably cap our ability to do further significant damage. If not, then our extinction surely will.

mirimir 9y ago
Yes, that's the fundamental negative feedback on anthropogenic carbon emissions.
stale2002 9y ago
Nobody believes that global warming will cause the literal extinction of the human race. The scientific consensus is that sea levels will rise by a couple feet over the next 2 hundred years. That's the science. Doesn't sound like doomsday to me.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...
  - tempestn 9y ago
    The first paragraph: > It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.
  - fencepost 9y ago
    The annotated version with links to source data is probably a better option to link. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...
    - stale2002 9y ago
      The guy is talking about 10 degrees C scenarios, aka scenarios that nobody believes is going to happen. The IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change, believes that there will be 2-3 degrees C increase in temperature over the next century. When someone can rationally talk about what will happen in the IPCC predicted scenarios, which is the scientific consensus, then I will listen to them. If you are some crank, who is talking about 1000 parts per million of C02, and 10 degrees C temp increase by 2100, well then you shouldn't be taken seriously.
      - ForHackernews 9y ago
        Elsewhere in this thread, it's been stated that the IPCC has omitted runaway positive-feedback loop scenarios from their predictions, either because they're too poorly understood, or because they're too depressing. The doomsday scenarios may be uncertain, but they do not (to my layman's understand) seem impossible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
      - fencepost 9y ago
        I haven't gone back to re-read for this, but I believe 10 degrees is presented as a worst-case scenario because if we hit that it's pretty much game over. The part you may want starts around footnote 20, in a paragraph that notes 4 degrees as a median projection from the IPCC, with up to 8 degrees at the high end of the curve without factoring in permafrost melt and its associated carbon release or any of a variety of other exacerbating factors (footnoted in the article). There are ways to calculate how much effort or expense is reasonable to attempt to mitigate a risk, I believe that's often part of the job description of actuaries. Part of it involves figuring out what the cost is if the event in question happens, then what the likelihood of the event is.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    That article is wrong on a number of facts. For example, it explicitly mentions 10 degrees C of warming over the next century. A 10 degrees C scenario is not something that any respectable scientist believes is going to happen. The IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change, believes that there will be a 2-3 degrees C increase in temperature over the next century. Thats the facts. Please listen to the scientists. Every single doomsday prediction that this guy is making, can be traced back to this fundamental problem that he is talking about scenarios that the experts and the scientists do NOT believe has even a remote chance of happening.
    - FrozenVoid 9y ago
      Such short-term warming due methane clathrates is certainly possible. A study based on a coupled climate–carbon cycle model (GCM) assessed a 1000-fold (from <1 to 1000 ppmv) methane increase - within a single pulse, from methane hydrates (based on carbon amount estimates for the PETM, with ~2000 GtC), and concluded it would increase atmospheric temperatures by >6 °C within 80 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis#Model_simulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis#Model...
- notfromhere 9y ago
  we have 7 billion people with a new billion every decade. 1-2C differences in temperature are going to have a huge impact on agriculture.
- arnoooooo 9y ago
  http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2015/december/global-warming-disaster-could-suffocate-life-on-planet-earth-research-shows http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2015/decem... "a sufficiently large warming (roughly estimated as 5–6 ◦C, see Robinson 2000) would inevitably lead to an ecological disaster resulting in a complete depletion of oxygen."