9 ms·
Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)
- swampthinker 9y agoI hate this feeling of hopelessness regarding global warming. It feels like even if you were a billionaire/massive corp, at some point you would say "wow we should stop, or else there won't even be a world to spend this money in".
- stingraycharles 9y agoI think it's partially related to something akin to the prisoner's dilemma: it's a world-wide problem, and "we" might not want to take the financial hit for being the first in leading the cause. I spent quite some time in South-East Asia the past few years, and when you see the sheer amount of boats that just dump all their trash in the ocean, and the sheer lack of awareness of the issue, it makes you hopeless. I come home, diligently recycling my trash, and I can't help but wonder whether this is all just a show, and not addressing any of the core issues that are needed to fix this.
- StavrosK 9y ago"Tragedy of the commons", it's called.
- stingraycharles 9y agoThanks, I never fully understood what people meant with that phrase. :)
- StavrosK 9y agoNo problem, it's when something can be improved when everyone does the right thing together, but nobody has any incentive to do the right thing alone. Exactly like dumping trash everywhere, if you do the right thing alone, you're just inconveniencing yourself by spending money to dispose of trash properly while everyone else dumps it wherever.
- stingraycharles 9y agoThanks again, very informative. So does that mean that the prisoner's dilemma is unrelated to this ? The reason I mentioned that is that I figured there were two outcomes: - be rich/save money now, and get a possible competitive edge over other countries - invest in your future, long-term assuming other countries do the same
- StavrosK 9y agoThe tragedy of the commons can be modeled as a game, and the matrix can be similar to the one from the prisoner's dilemma, but they're not exactly the same. For example, if you properly recycle and I just dump my trash, I'm not better off than if we just both dumped our trash, which is what happens with the prisoner's dilemma. Basically, the prisoners have an incentive to deceive each other, whereas in the tragedy of the commons, you generally don't.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yodsanklai 9y agoI share your feeling, but I also note this contradiction: > I spent quite some time in South-East Asia > I come home, diligently recycling my trash Not saying you shouldn't recycle your trash, but your flights are much more impactful for the environment than your trash.
- bamboozled 9y agoIs flying really that bad compared to ocean pollution? I feel like flying is overall a pretty efficient means of transport, everything is geared towards efficiency. Plastic in the oceans, now that’s a mess.
- the8472 9y agoConsider a world where every human traveled by plane like you do and where also every human used recycling as you do. Would you prefer living in that world?
- bamboozled 9y agoyes?
- paulryanrogers 9y agoNot the OP, but if jet fuel were more sustainable or electric planes more common then certainly. (I too feel conflicted about plane travel and it's long term impact.)
- 35bge57dtjku 9y agohttp://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/driving_vs_flying_which_is_more_harmful_to_the_environment.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/dri...
- darpa_escapee 9y ago> Consider a world where every human traveled by plane like you do and where also every human used recycling as you do. Would you prefer living in that world? According to the above article, one would prefer that. > The trend has continued so that in 2010, flying burned just 2,691 BTU per passenger mile—an improvement of 74 percent since 1970. That was 43 percent better than driving the average car, which gets about 21.5 miles per gallon (4,218 BTU per passenger mile)
- sandworm101 9y agoIt is too late to worry about going first. A great many countries have already stepped up. Recycling isnt much help. Putting a few meters of solar on your roof is far more important. Not taking a first-class flight to vacation on the other side of the planet is also good. Installing an entire roof of solar, and making sure your grandparents vote against the coal lobby, that's the best anyone can do atm.
- mdekkers 9y agoI can't help but wonder whether this is all just a show, and not addressing any of the core issues that are needed to fix this That´s exactly what is going on.
- coliveira 9y ago> I can't help but wonder whether this is all just a show Do you know that the garbage that is "recycled" in the USA used to be sent (until Dec 2017) directly to China? This is one of the scams of the century. Nobody knows what China does with the material they cannot use, and in fact they just decided not to take it anymore.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yodsanklai 9y agoI think they don't care because they will be the last ones suffering.
- dpwm 9y agoWhen I read articles like this I feel a similar helplessness. I am reminded of Bob Mankoff's cartoon: https://cartoons.bobmankoff.com/52630 https://cartoons.bobmankoff.com/52630
- danieka 9y ago"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
- brohoolio 9y agoWe fixed the ozone layer and stopped acid rain. We can fix this. It just takes commitment.
- jacquesm 9y agoAnd that commitment is exactly the problem.
- dpwm 9y agoIt's more that such a commitment goes against the incentives laid down by a means of production that is enforced almost globally by both treaty and military might.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoReality is simpler - it's in no one's (perceived, short-term) best interest to be the first to spend money, material and manpower on fixing this, because the moment they start, they'll get eaten alive by their competitors. This applies at the level of individuals, small businesses, large businesses and governments alike. It's a garden variety coordination problem - but it seems that, with technology successfully solving most of our non-social problems, lack of coordination is what underlies all the important issues humanity faces these days. See also http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ for an in-depth discussion of coordination problems.
- topmonk 9y agoWe didn't have to give up cars for the ozone layer, though. In fact, no one had to give up anything, because they invented new types of aerosol propellents. We are never going to fix this.
- worldsayshi 9y agoWe can invent ourselves out of fossil fuel reliance. It's more complicated but the work is underway. Never is a long time.
- methehack 9y agow/r/t the tragedy of the commons... The thing that I'm a little afraid to say out loud is that I don't see how any of this is solved with our current political structures. Sovereign nations? Democracies? At some point -- when the sh#$ really hits the fan -- these structures are going to seem like idealistic but ineffective luxuries. I suppose catastrophe (my sense is there will be no need to engineer it) could spur inspired alignment; or some kind of global consciousness awakening event (we're waiting, Jesus 2.0/Whatever). The long arch of hope seems pretty hopeless from an individual's perspective at this moment in time, so much so that I actively try (and fail) _not_ to think about this. I can't imagine what folks at, say, the pentagon, are planning out who spend all day obsessing on it. They must have some pretty dark scenarios mapped out. Simply put, we have grown to the size of our resource container and that container is about to shrink. We're far from ready. The species will likely eek it's way through. Civilization? Not so much.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- taf2 9y agoWait isn’t this what Tesla is helping solve? It’s why you should invest in them.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agoI can't help feeling you will have more impact investing in a bicycle.
- jacquesm 9y agoThe oceans are by far the most important eco system on the planet, they have tremendous capacity for healing and regeneration but once that gets pushed too far there may be no way back. And without the oceans alive the world will be hungry. There are many bad things the Trump administration might be remembered for domestically but internationally the most visible decision was the withdrawal from the climate change accords and it may eventually make the USA a pariah state no matter what military might they have.
- throwaway9990 9y agoPosting from a throwaway because politics. Wouldn't there also be more different fish now especially in places that used to be covered by ice? Sure, some species might die off but you might get more new species as well. Some new fish perhaps that is good at living in lower oxygen concentration. Also, the fish that lived in the tropics can move to subtropics and so on. I see it as more of a change that's not really bad or good. As Joe Carlin once said, the Earth will be fine. Here is the clip: https://youtu.be/EjmtSkl53h4 https://youtu.be/EjmtSkl53h4
- bamboozled 9y agoAll levels of the food chain need to be healthy for the bigger fish to survive, no oxygen means no bait fish. Ice levels will be irrelevant.
- mapcars 9y agoAre you serious in quoting a comic guy regarding such a big thing? I mean his goal is to entertain people and not to bring you an expert opinion.
- dpwm 9y agoThe adaptations you're talking about happen over centuries. The changes you're talking about are happening over decades. These changes will not be limited to just the oceans. And the main takeaway point from that George Carlin clip that I can find is that the planet will be fine because people won't be. I can only assume you didn't bother to watch it before posting it for others to watch.
- staunch 9y agoHow many nuclear powered vessels would it take to generate and pump in sufficient oxygen?
- noiv 9y agoWell, considering most of the atmospheric oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the ocean that's a receipt for suffocation.
- jacquesm 9y agoWhere will you get that oxygen? Where did it come from?
- aszantu 9y agoWell I think there is/was a balance of produced o² and co2, it's probably not good to change that in either direction.
- spodek 9y agoNobody mentioned reducing pollution and greenhouse emission is the best way to help the situation so I will -- non-polluting alternatives to flying, eating meat, heating and cooling (I'm surprised how many people heat their homes in the winter so they can walk around in shorts), packaged food. Having fewer children. As a community, HN seems to think nuclear energy is easy while carpooling or flying less are misguided wastes of effort.
- aneil 9y agoConscious consumption doesn't work. It ignores financial incentives, and we know how that story plays out. In particular, companies have a fiduciary responsibility to exploit resources for shareholder gain. Until that problem is addressed, we're headed for disaster.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago> As a community, HN seems to think nuclear energy is easy while carpooling or flying less are misguided wastes of effort. Yes, because it's the truth. Knowing that reflects understanding. It's orders of magnitude easier to design[0] a nuclear reactor than it is to get a meaningful number of people to voluntarily refrain from flying, or even driving cars. Getting lots of people to agree on something, especially when they have strong short-term incentives for not following through on that agreement, is a near-impossible thing. Pretty much the only way to tackle coordination problems (without going full-authoritarian, one dictator to rule the world) is to develop technologies and strategies that reduce the "activation energy" required for people to coordinate on an issue. We won't get ourselves out of this mess by appeals to our shared human heritage, because responsibility for the planet always takes a backseat when one's tired and has to choose between 20 minutes in a car or 1 hour in a bus to pick up their daughter from school. -- [0] - and build it; but notice where pretty much all the problems with building a nuclear plant are - getting the local population to agree to it.
- Tharkun 9y agoThat's an interesting perspective, and one I hadn't considered before. I have to admit that it only fuels my fatalism. If people can't be convinced not to (e.g.) throw their trash out the window, then I can't help but despair.
- Parcissons 9y agoWould it help to pump a lot of air down tubes with additonal LEDs to bring light- and thus generate a algea bloom sending the C02 back to where it came?
- ZenoArrow 9y agoAn important topic, but can we at least have some mention of what we can do to improve oxygen levels in the oceans (aside from reducing the level of pollution, which is the obvious but slowest to implement solution). Surely there's something that could be done to tackle this in a more immediate manner? Are there plants within the ocean ecosystem that convert carbon dioxide to oxygen?
- tzahola 9y ago>It is estimated that between 50% and 85% of the world's oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton
- ZenoArrow 9y agoThank you, that was the information I was looking for.
- jacquesm 9y agoThink of the oceans - not the forests - as the earth's lungs.
- erric 9y agoThis could very well be humanity’s Great Filter.