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Fires are raging from British Columbia to California
- rapnie 8y ago> Why would we gut policies that save thousands of lives and eliminate tens of thousands of cases of childhood asthma, bronchitis and emphysema annually? Why wouldn’t we want more efficient cars when we’re still importing three million barrels of oil a day from OPEC countries like Libya, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela? Countless articles like this ask the same kind of questions over and over again. Leaving the reader to ponder the answers to them. I'll answer here: People in power earn their money that way.
- mirimir 8y agoIt's not just "people in power". People have voted for them, in support for such policies. How has that happened?
- tyfon 8y agoThe politicians (at least in the US it looks like from abroad) are subject to legal corruption aka lobbyists and PACs. That is where they are getting the money not from the voters. They will say whatever they can to get votes then turn around the day after elected to ask their patrons what to vote for.
- gaius 8y agoThat is where they are getting the money not from the voters. They will say whatever they can to get votes then turn around the day after elected to ask their patrons what to vote for. Exactly this. The Clintons went from stony broke to a $250m fortune and no one quite seems sure how. Even the lucrative speakers fees from Goldman’s can’t explain it. Love him or loathe him, no one can deny that Trump doesn’t need to do that kind of chicanery.
- pjc50 8y ago> Trump doesn’t need to do that kind of chicanery .. because he's funded by laundered Russian money instead? https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundr...
- oblio 8y agoDoesn't Trump park half of the Secret Service 100 times a year at his golf resorts at huge costs? Besides the various scandals regarding his Russian contacts.
- Fjolsvith 8y agoThat Secret Service doesn't get vacation when he's at the White House. And they never slacked off for other presidents. Why does it seem that government expenses are suddenly Trump's fault?
- pjc50 8y agoPeople much prefer a convenient scapegoat from the Others than actually doing the hard work of fixing a problem. And the easiest way to deal with a problem like global warming is to deny it exists, then all the hard tradeoffs of fixing it go away. After all, so long as it's not your house burning down, does it really matter?
- mirimir 8y agoRight, and who cares about those snowflakes in California ;) But damn, what about when we see lots more hurricanes and tornadoes? Maybe some sour grapes?
- Fjolsvith 8y agoWell, with all this global warming, it seems to me that the storms that produce tornadoes have been much fewer this year (from my Kansan perspective). The storms have been milder but with greater rainfall. Sweet grapes for sure.
- mirimir 8y agoI wasn't remembering whether any projections have been as specific as Kansas. But a quick search says likely drier, but no clear impact on tornado frequency and intensity (increased atmospheric instability, but decreased wind shear).[0,1] As I understand it, decreased wind shear follows more or less from lower temperature gradient between equatorial and polar regions. Also, more days over 38°C. 0) https://www.kansasforests.org/resources/resources_docs/climate-change-ks%202016.pdf https://www.kansasforests.org/resources/resources_docs/clima... 1) http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/conferen/kepc07/Feddema_KEPC.pdf http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/conferen/kepc07/Feddema_KEPC.pdf
- Fjolsvith 8y agoThe local news reports otherwise: https://www.kansas.com/news/weather/article212365444.html https://www.kansas.com/news/weather/article212365444.html Also a severe weather analysis for Kansas: https://www.weather.gov/media/ddc/SWAW_2018_Final_UPDATED.pdf https://www.weather.gov/media/ddc/SWAW_2018_Final_UPDATED.pd...
- nikanj 8y agoAs evidenced by the "rollin' coal" phenomenon, destroying the environment is a way to signal how manly you are.
- mirimir 8y agoDamn, I had forgotten about that. But really, isn't it just a form of trolling?
- gear54rus 8y ago> Practitioners cite "American freedom" and a stand against "rampant environmentalism" as reasons for coal rolling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal My god. Every time I think I've seen all the possible dumb shit people do something like this inevitably comes up.
- mirimir 8y agoFunny you should say "god". Some argue that environmentalism is inconsistent with Genesis. In that God gave us everything to use as we see fit. But others say that God made humans responsible for managing the Earth. So that environmentalism is indeed Godly. That makes more sense to me, not that I'm particularly religious.
- halfdan 8y agoIt's interesting - yet eating a single apple cast us out of paradise. Maybe the symbolism here is: Don't take what wasn't yours for the taking (i.e. earth's resources). For the religiously inclined, consider that this planet earth could become our "paradise". Destroying its resources may just cast all of us out of paradise once again.
- mirimir 8y agoNot that it's likely to change anyone's mind, but I do recommend The Making of a Conservative Environmentalist by Gordon K. Durnil (Indiana Univ., 1995).[0] As I recall, one of the core arguments was the equivalence of abusing a child, and poisoning them by polluting the environment. So if one is evil, why not the other? 0) https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gordon-k-durnil/the-making-of-a-conservative-environmentalist/ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gordon-k-durnil/t...
- mirimir 8y agoOK, what about President Trump? Does be or his close family have major investments in Lukoil, Yukos, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz?
- sgt101 8y agoThe title is nothing to do with the article
- rflrob 8y agoThe title here (“The long night that will last centuries...”, in case a mod changes it) is the last sentence of the essay.
- dtornabene 8y agoand it also perfectly encapsulates the point of the piece.
- pgsandstrom 8y agoWell, it made me think the piece would speculate about the climate change effects for the coming centuries. So for me it would have helped with a more straight forward title.
- car 8y agoI took the liberty to change the title to the poignant conclusion of the article. There is some weight behind this; Rob Jackson is Stanford faculty: https://woods.stanford.edu/about/woods-faculty/robert-jackson https://woods.stanford.edu/about/woods-faculty/robert-jackso.... Here a couple more of his columns on SA: https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/rob-jackson/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/rob-jackson/
- TheForumTroll 8y agoIt says a lot that it is easier to get China onboard anti-pollution deals than the US.
- AstralStorm 8y agoChinese will enter most of the deals then either weasel their way out to be compliant with the letter not the spirit of renege altogether. It is common in manufacturing and will be common in ecology as well. (corruption is a symptom of this)
- YokoZar 8y agoChina is much more obviously polluted such that ordinary citizens have to deal with it every day. Most parts of the west aren't so visibly polluted anymore, but that doesn't mean the air is clean.
- mirimir 8y agoNOx in particular is a hard problem for all motor vehicles. And they react with naturally occurring atmospheric hydrocarbons to create ozone pollution. Which is hard on lungs, and on rubber products. Also particulates for diesel vehicles.
- mirimir 8y agoWell, China does get slack as a developing country. I tend to agree that's fair. But they're clearly better off than most of Africa, for example. But maybe Africa gets more slack. And yes, I could google that, but I'm tired.
- mirimir 8y agoScientific American or not, this is just a rant. It's not that I don't share the author's concerns. It's just that there's a large jump from a summer with lots of fires in the Northern Hemisphere to the collapse of human civilization. Maybe if the next summer or two are as bad or worse. I honestly don't understand how we got to current US policy. But it does seem pretty clear that people who voted for Trump wanted these policy changes. Arguably because it's all become so horribly polarized and confused. Somehow, concerns about terrorism, trade imbalances, immigration, affirmative action, changes in sexual identity and so on have become associated with skepticism about anthropogenic global climate change. It makes no sense to me.
- m0nty 8y ago> the collapse of human civilization I must have missed that bit in the article.
- mirimir 8y agoOK, that's my reading of "the long night that will last centuries".
- m0nty 8y agoAlways worth remembering that the person who writes the article usually doesn't write the headline. My reading is that climate-change effects have got dramatically worse in the last few years, and are not likely to improve in any foreseeable time-frame. I hope this is hyperbole but it doesn't look good so far.
- mirimir 8y agoI don't disagree. But I just hate to see stuff that polarizes the debate further.
- asdfasdffdsfdsf 8y agoFires are not caused by global warming. I'm shocked to read that in Scientific American.
- mirimir 8y agoWell, I'd say that they likely are. But I agree that there's not enough evidence to claim it as strongly as the article does.
- asdfasdffdsfdsf 8y agoDo higher temperatures even lead to less rainfall? Hot and very humid places seem to exist. I just googled, wood starts burning at 451°F - I don't think global warming has lead to such temperatures yet.
- mirimir 8y agoAs I understand it, the mechanism is that global climate change includes changes in rainfall patterns.[0] > As the climate warms, moisture and precipitation levels are changing, with wet areas becoming wetter and dry areas becoming drier. > Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring snowmelt typically cause soils to be drier for longer, increasing the likelihood of drought and a longer wildfire season, particularly in the western United States. > These hot, dry conditions also increase the likelihood that wildfires will be more intense and long-burning once they are started by lightning strikes or human error. 0) https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/global-warming-and-wildfire.html https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/im...
- southern_cross 8y agoI've seen estimates which say that up to 90% of wildfires these days are started by humans. So who's starting all of those wildfires in British Columbia?
- notacoward 8y agoWhile likely true[1] I think that's a pretty gross diversion of the topic. However fires start, there remain issues of how quickly they spread, how damaging they become, and how hard they are to control. Those all come down to the overall condition of the land. If somebody drops a lit cigarette or fails to bank a cookfire properly, but that doesn't cause a fire of any consequence because the local plant life hasn't all turned to tinder, that doesn't even become part of the statistics. The problem is that conditions have become so bad that previously harmless human activity can now cause a massive conflagration, and we shouldn't distract from that. [1] https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluations.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluations...
- bryanlarsen 8y agoHumans put out >> 90% of wildfires before they become out of control.
- orev 8y agoIf humans had allowed the fires to burn, then there wouldn’t be so much fuel laying around in the first place, and fires that do start wouldn’t be so bad.
- Fjolsvith 8y agoJust reading into your comment, I'd say that 90% of those wildfires in British Columbia are started by humans.
- southern_cross 8y agoBears. It's bears, I'm thinking. Smokey Bear never made it across the Canadian border, as far as I can tell, so I reckon their bears just never got the message!