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Unless you can stop the marine ecosystem from cratering (virtually a given if CO2 levels continue to rise unabated) it's all for naught. Enjoy your lack of oxyg

Unless you can stop the marine ecosystem from cratering (virtually a given if CO2 levels continue to rise unabated) it's all for naught. Enjoy your lack of oxygen.

idbehold 9y ago
Agreed, these types of solutions are really just a stopgap (and a relatively short one at that). But that's always been the case. I mean, there's no beating entropy. Eventually the heat-death of the universe will make it, literally, all for naught.
- bdamm 9y ago
  The difference between end of all time in however many tens of billions of years vs the economic collapse of human society in a handful of generations is a fairly major scale difference.
  - idbehold 9y ago
    Oh, there are plenty of things that will wipe out humans far earlier. I was just pointing out that there's always something threatening to destroy us.
    - s_kilk 9y ago
      I just don't see the point in this. Knowing about the eventual heat-death of the universe doesn't make the immediate prospect of my family and I dying in a water riot any more palatable.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Yeah, we've got less than two billion years before the Sun expands enough to cook off our atmosphere. I suspect we will be extinct before that, however. As a collective, we're not very bright.
    - sslayer 9y ago
      Really we should just be focusing on building a time machine and re-populate the pre-human past. I imagine that no matter what happens, we could just populate infinite timelines (But we are more likely to already be on that exact timeline)
      - KGIII 9y ago
        That seems a bit of a long-shot. I'm not sure if it is less likely than us causing our own extinction, however. I don't watch a lot of movies, and I recall even fewer, but there is an appropriate line in The Matrix about how a human can be smart but humans are pretty dumb as a whole. It seems to be remarkably true.
        kahnpro 9y ago
        You're thinking of Men in Black. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
        KGIII 9y ago
        I suspect you're right. I don't watch many movies so I'll defer to you.
      - bigbugbag 9y ago
        This would be great, except time does not exist. it is an artificial human construct we use to explain ourselves some stuff we do not comprehend.
    - perilunar 9y ago
      We've got two billion years to learn how to control the sun, increase the Earth's orbital radius, or move home. Sounds manageable.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    A handful of generations seems far fetched, a couple seems a loose estimation. next generation seems closer to reality. AFAIK the collapse has already begun and is happening right now.
stcredzero 9y ago
I'm highly dubious that all marine photosynthesis is going to be stopped easily. Do you have citations?
- pixl97 9y ago
  On mobile so I'll let you search for it, but start at Wikipedia for anoxic oceanic event. You don't have to stop much photosynthesis for the oceans to produce huge amounts of deadly hydrogen sulfide
  - damnfine 9y ago
    The wiki does not support 'huge amounts', and makes some tenous connections to some localized events and worldwide extinction event ones, as do most of the people who bring this up. It makes it hard to have the same conversation if they are conflated. However, note the end of the wiki, where they state that the oxygenated state of the ocean currently is likely not the 'default' state of things if extrapolated beyond human history. It is certanly a concern. However there are ways to stimulate blooms, which may help serve to sequester carbon, and add oxygen in one fell swoop. Perhaps it is time to investigate the feasibility of such an action.
- darkmarmot 9y ago
  https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32815525/wignallTwit1996.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1503698167&Signature=RolCR6KI65l2ni0ZTKbNJHMxgWI%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DOcean_anoxia_and_the_end-Permian_mass_ex.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32815525/wig...
  - andai 9y ago
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Unless you can stop the marine ecosystem from cratering (virtually a given if CO2 levels continue to rise unabated) it's all for naught. Enjoy your lack of oxygen.

idbehold 9y ago

Agreed, these types of solutions are really just a stopgap (and a relatively short one at that). But that's always been the case. I mean, there's no beating entropy. Eventually the heat-death of the universe will make it, literally, all for naught.

bdamm 9y ago
The difference between end of all time in however many tens of billions of years vs the economic collapse of human society in a handful of generations is a fairly major scale difference.
- idbehold 9y ago
  Oh, there are plenty of things that will wipe out humans far earlier. I was just pointing out that there's always something threatening to destroy us.
  - s_kilk 9y ago
    I just don't see the point in this. Knowing about the eventual heat-death of the universe doesn't make the immediate prospect of my family and I dying in a water riot any more palatable.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Yeah, we've got less than two billion years before the Sun expands enough to cook off our atmosphere. I suspect we will be extinct before that, however. As a collective, we're not very bright.
  - sslayer 9y ago
    Really we should just be focusing on building a time machine and re-populate the pre-human past. I imagine that no matter what happens, we could just populate infinite timelines (But we are more likely to already be on that exact timeline)
    - KGIII 9y ago
      That seems a bit of a long-shot. I'm not sure if it is less likely than us causing our own extinction, however. I don't watch a lot of movies, and I recall even fewer, but there is an appropriate line in The Matrix about how a human can be smart but humans are pretty dumb as a whole. It seems to be remarkably true.
      - kahnpro 9y ago
        You're thinking of Men in Black. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
        KGIII 9y ago
        I suspect you're right. I don't watch many movies so I'll defer to you.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      This would be great, except time does not exist. it is an artificial human construct we use to explain ourselves some stuff we do not comprehend.
  - perilunar 9y ago
    We've got two billion years to learn how to control the sun, increase the Earth's orbital radius, or move home. Sounds manageable.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  A handful of generations seems far fetched, a couple seems a loose estimation. next generation seems closer to reality. AFAIK the collapse has already begun and is happening right now.

stcredzero 9y ago

I'm highly dubious that all marine photosynthesis is going to be stopped easily. Do you have citations?

pixl97 9y ago
On mobile so I'll let you search for it, but start at Wikipedia for anoxic oceanic event. You don't have to stop much photosynthesis for the oceans to produce huge amounts of deadly hydrogen sulfide
- damnfine 9y ago
  The wiki does not support 'huge amounts', and makes some tenous connections to some localized events and worldwide extinction event ones, as do most of the people who bring this up. It makes it hard to have the same conversation if they are conflated. However, note the end of the wiki, where they state that the oxygenated state of the ocean currently is likely not the 'default' state of things if extrapolated beyond human history. It is certanly a concern. However there are ways to stimulate blooms, which may help serve to sequester carbon, and add oxygen in one fell swoop. Perhaps it is time to investigate the feasibility of such an action.
darkmarmot 9y ago
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32815525/wignallTwit1996.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1503698167&Signature=RolCR6KI65l2ni0ZTKbNJHMxgWI%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DOcean_anoxia_and_the_end-Permian_mass_ex.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32815525/wig...
- andai 9y ago
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