7 ms·

For those who haven't been watching this topic for the past few years: permafrost melt is the most probable factor for the possibility of a near-term extinction

For those who haven't been watching this topic for the past few years: permafrost melt is the most probable factor for the possibility of a near-term extinction event.

mistrial9 8y ago
fear and panic do not make a strategy; taking the issue seriously is, from a risk-management perspective.
- bdamm 8y ago
  NASA testified to the US Senate in 1988 that "higher temperatures can now be attributed to a long-expected global warming trend linked to pollution". [1] So, with more than 30 years of taking the issue seriously, what do you suppose we should do, from a risk-management perspective? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-beg...
  - rjf72 8y ago
    There's one big issue inhibiting any sort of productive change on this issue. "A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2030. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. ... The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown." All of that is accurately quoted with one exception. That article was published in 1989, the 'point of no return' was 2000, not 2030. And incidentally this year makes 30 years since that article was published. In spite of the "the most conservative estimate" showing an expected temperature rise of 1 to 7 degrees in these 30 years, we've seen the temperature increase by 0.62 degrees since 1989. [2] And global CO2 emissions have spiked far higher and faster than anybody could have imagined due in large part to China's ultra-rapid industrialization. Imagine you could go back in time 30 years ago armed with all the knowledge of today, and had the power to do whatever you could to try to enact action on climate change. What would you do? I think the most logical thing to do would be to put out pinpoint accurate predictions. When you do this you'd establish a substantial degree of reliability in the field. And then when the predictions start looking increasingly dire, you'd have decades of accuracy to justify action. And I think we can start this today. We need to focus on accuracy above any and everything else. When you want to enact global change you first need to establish yourself as a reliable authority. Then what we can do is look back and emphasize how accurate our predictions have been. But without reliability, we cannot expect predictions to actually drive any change that would be in any way inconvenient. [1] - https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 [2] - https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
    - flukus 8y ago
      > And I think we can start this today. We need to focus on accuracy above any and everything else. When you want to enact global change you first need to establish yourself as a reliable authority. Is anyone making more accurate predictions? Most people that disagree with NASA seem to saying anything from it's fake news to blaming other sources. How do you explain the observed warming? > The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown." Hard to tell without units but this line leads me to believe he was talking in degrees Fahrenheit and your comparing it to degrees celcius: > The difference may seem slight, he said, but the planet is only 9 degrees warmer now than during the 8,000-year Ice Age that ended 10,000 years ago.
      - rjf72 8y ago
        No, nobody is making accurate predictions right now and that's the fundamental problem. We want to enact change on future predictions, but the models we're using to predict things have a history that's shown them to be unreliable. Each time a prediction fails to pass it ends up undermining the entire system of climate modeling more and more. We can't expect national bodies to engage in anything other convenient changes based on predictions with a poor track record. This is why you need accuracy above all. As for the temperature increase, I don't picture things in such a polarized fashion. I think there's little doubt that humans are contributing to climate change. But what really confounds this issue is that climate, even absent humanity, is a very unstable system. These [1] are the data from the ice cores over the past 800k years, so literally before humanity existed. And you'll note a regular and often quite extreme shift in temperatures. For instance check out the end of the ice age before our most recent one - about 130k years ago. In an extremely brief period of time the temperatures skyrocketed something like 14 degrees celcius. We then gradually made our way out of that ice age hitting unprecedented lows dropping some 15 degrees celcius before once again starting an extremely rapid rise about 12,000 years ago which we are now in. And we've yet to hit the 'normal' highs of times past. So even if humans did not exist, we would almost certainly be seeing rapid warming. As for his comments referencing temperature, I'm also not entirely sure. His comment was somewhat unusual since the last ice age obviously did not only last 8,000 years. It also didn't end 10,000 years ago (though that's not too far off). And it would also be quite unusual for a UN speaker to use Fahrenheit. In this case, I think we can dodge this issue since 0.68C = 1.2F and that's given not only a failure to reverse carbon emissions but an unprecedented spike in them, so the point holds true in either case. Extreme CO2 increase = bottom or below the bottom of "most conservative scientific estimates" in temperature increases? We can't expect nations to engage in urgent action based on data like this. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/media/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/med... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event
- mistrial9 8y ago
  try https://exponentialroadmap.org https://exponentialroadmap.org
ImprovedSilence 8y ago
I'm pretty sure it's well known that we're currently in one of the largest extinction events.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mirimir 8y ago
  From another perspective, we are "one of the largest extinction events".
  - koheripbal 8y ago
    Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming less and less informative, and more and more like Reddit zingers?
    - gdubs 8y ago
      From the Hacker News guidelines [1]: “Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.” 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - mirimir 8y ago
      I was just darkly joking about the possibility that it's not all about us. That, for all the millions of other species going down, we're not that distinguishable from the Chicxulub asteroid. Some of them might even be conscious, on long timescales.
dv_dt 8y ago
Meanwhile politicians argue about plans for the minimum effort, longest timeline response to climate change, while not even putting into action that minimum when really we should be mobilizing for much sooner.
southern_cross 8y ago
Pretty much as soon as temperatures reach the point where permafrost naturally starts melting, then they've also reached the point (or soon will) where local flora (including microorganisms) start soaking up all or most of any emitted CO2. (AFAIK, the same holds true for methanotrophs and methane, too.) So while everybody likes to talk about exacerbating factors here, almost nobody talks about mitigating factors, which are considerable. Also, the scary picture shown is of the Batagaika crater, and while they state that the permafrost there has been melting since the 1960s, they fail to mention that this was initiated by tree removal at that location (not sure what the story is there), so hardly a naturally occurring event. Also, that's 50 years' worth of melting you see there, so hardly a speedy event, either, and certainly not something which happened practically overnight. All of those trees still surrounding the area are no doubt soaking up as much of any freshly-emitted CO2 as they can get, too.

For those who haven't been watching this topic for the past few years: permafrost melt is the most probable factor for the possibility of a near-term extinction event.

mistrial9 8y ago

fear and panic do not make a strategy; taking the issue seriously is, from a risk-management perspective.

bdamm 8y ago
NASA testified to the US Senate in 1988 that "higher temperatures can now be attributed to a long-expected global warming trend linked to pollution". [1] So, with more than 30 years of taking the issue seriously, what do you suppose we should do, from a risk-management perspective? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-beg...
- rjf72 8y ago
  There's one big issue inhibiting any sort of productive change on this issue. "A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2030. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. ... The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown." All of that is accurately quoted with one exception. That article was published in 1989, the 'point of no return' was 2000, not 2030. And incidentally this year makes 30 years since that article was published. In spite of the "the most conservative estimate" showing an expected temperature rise of 1 to 7 degrees in these 30 years, we've seen the temperature increase by 0.62 degrees since 1989. [2] And global CO2 emissions have spiked far higher and faster than anybody could have imagined due in large part to China's ultra-rapid industrialization. Imagine you could go back in time 30 years ago armed with all the knowledge of today, and had the power to do whatever you could to try to enact action on climate change. What would you do? I think the most logical thing to do would be to put out pinpoint accurate predictions. When you do this you'd establish a substantial degree of reliability in the field. And then when the predictions start looking increasingly dire, you'd have decades of accuracy to justify action. And I think we can start this today. We need to focus on accuracy above any and everything else. When you want to enact global change you first need to establish yourself as a reliable authority. Then what we can do is look back and emphasize how accurate our predictions have been. But without reliability, we cannot expect predictions to actually drive any change that would be in any way inconvenient. [1] - https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 [2] - https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
  - flukus 8y ago
    > And I think we can start this today. We need to focus on accuracy above any and everything else. When you want to enact global change you first need to establish yourself as a reliable authority. Is anyone making more accurate predictions? Most people that disagree with NASA seem to saying anything from it's fake news to blaming other sources. How do you explain the observed warming? > The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown." Hard to tell without units but this line leads me to believe he was talking in degrees Fahrenheit and your comparing it to degrees celcius: > The difference may seem slight, he said, but the planet is only 9 degrees warmer now than during the 8,000-year Ice Age that ended 10,000 years ago.
    - rjf72 8y ago
      No, nobody is making accurate predictions right now and that's the fundamental problem. We want to enact change on future predictions, but the models we're using to predict things have a history that's shown them to be unreliable. Each time a prediction fails to pass it ends up undermining the entire system of climate modeling more and more. We can't expect national bodies to engage in anything other convenient changes based on predictions with a poor track record. This is why you need accuracy above all. As for the temperature increase, I don't picture things in such a polarized fashion. I think there's little doubt that humans are contributing to climate change. But what really confounds this issue is that climate, even absent humanity, is a very unstable system. These [1] are the data from the ice cores over the past 800k years, so literally before humanity existed. And you'll note a regular and often quite extreme shift in temperatures. For instance check out the end of the ice age before our most recent one - about 130k years ago. In an extremely brief period of time the temperatures skyrocketed something like 14 degrees celcius. We then gradually made our way out of that ice age hitting unprecedented lows dropping some 15 degrees celcius before once again starting an extremely rapid rise about 12,000 years ago which we are now in. And we've yet to hit the 'normal' highs of times past. So even if humans did not exist, we would almost certainly be seeing rapid warming. As for his comments referencing temperature, I'm also not entirely sure. His comment was somewhat unusual since the last ice age obviously did not only last 8,000 years. It also didn't end 10,000 years ago (though that's not too far off). And it would also be quite unusual for a UN speaker to use Fahrenheit. In this case, I think we can dodge this issue since 0.68C = 1.2F and that's given not only a failure to reverse carbon emissions but an unprecedented spike in them, so the point holds true in either case. Extreme CO2 increase = bottom or below the bottom of "most conservative scientific estimates" in temperature increases? We can't expect nations to engage in urgent action based on data like this. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/media/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record#/med... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2_kiloyear_event
mistrial9 8y ago
try https://exponentialroadmap.org https://exponentialroadmap.org

ImprovedSilence 8y ago

I'm pretty sure it's well known that we're currently in one of the largest extinction events.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mirimir 8y ago
From another perspective, we are "one of the largest extinction events".
- koheripbal 8y ago
  Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming less and less informative, and more and more like Reddit zingers?
  - gdubs 8y ago
    From the Hacker News guidelines [1]: “Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.” 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mirimir 8y ago
    I was just darkly joking about the possibility that it's not all about us. That, for all the millions of other species going down, we're not that distinguishable from the Chicxulub asteroid. Some of them might even be conscious, on long timescales.

dv_dt 8y ago

Meanwhile politicians argue about plans for the minimum effort, longest timeline response to climate change, while not even putting into action that minimum when really we should be mobilizing for much sooner.

southern_cross 8y ago

Pretty much as soon as temperatures reach the point where permafrost naturally starts melting, then they've also reached the point (or soon will) where local flora (including microorganisms) start soaking up all or most of any emitted CO2. (AFAIK, the same holds true for methanotrophs and methane, too.) So while everybody likes to talk about exacerbating factors here, almost nobody talks about mitigating factors, which are considerable. Also, the scary picture shown is of the Batagaika crater, and while they state that the permafrost there has been melting since the 1960s, they fail to mention that this was initiated by tree removal at that location (not sure what the story is there), so hardly a naturally occurring event. Also, that's 50 years' worth of melting you see there, so hardly a speedy event, either, and certainly not something which happened practically overnight. All of those trees still surrounding the area are no doubt soaking up as much of any freshly-emitted CO2 as they can get, too.