14 ms·

Breaching a “carbon threshold” could lead to mass extinction

117 points by howard941 7y ago

kuu 7y ago
This is the key of the article: Rothman looked through these geologic records and observed that over the last 540 million years, the ocean’s store of carbon changed abruptly, then recovered, dozens of times in a fashion similar to the abrupt nature of a neuron spike. This “excitation” of the carbon cycle occurred most dramatically near the time of four of the five great mass extinctions in Earth’s history. I'm not an expert but the term "near" in geological times is not so "near" in life span times, I think the article is not so objective... However, that we're creating a problem is obvious.
marapuru 7y ago
I wonder how much longer it will take before humanity will make a stand and change habits.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Only if forced to do so.
  - trentnix 7y ago
    So then, tyranny.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      Not forced by government but by force of nature. There will be disruptions and people will have to to adapt in some way if they like it or not.
      - hombre_fatal 7y ago
        Reminds me of the quote: "Procrastination only ensures that circumstance makes your decisions for you."
    - empath75 7y ago
      The constitution is not a suicide pact.
      - trentnix 7y ago
        If history is any indicator, forcing people to live according to the whims of Others results in death and destruction. The coercive power required to get people to behave and the inevitable blowback that occurs when people are unable to govern themselves will result in a lot of both. Not everyone is going to like the environmental jihad that is being suggested, and that’s a big problem.
        Angostura 7y ago
        > Not everyone is going to like the environmental jihad that is being suggested, and that’s a big problem. The thing about democracy is that not everyone has to like everything - just the majority. I don't like that I'm going to have to change my lifestyle, in order to prevent appalling environmental damage, but I understand that I will have to. The "big problem" is the kind of people who describe pragmatic evidence-based policies designed to avoid collapse of civilisation as "an environmental jihad"
        naturlich 7y ago
        The alternative is to do nothing and that will result in death and destruction. If the ability to harm the environment and other people is a freedom people are up in arms about losing, it's a shitty freedom to have in the first place. One person's freedom should not impinge on others'. Given the choice between the state taking away coal or mass extinction, I'm choosing the former.
      - usrusr 7y ago
        It surely wasn't intended as a suicide pact, but an interpretation that puts personal liberties on a higher pedestal than survival-grade commons could easily make it one.
        primroot 7y ago
    - brighter2morrow 7y ago
      You've seen socialist tyranny, you've seen fascist tyranny, but are you ready for environmentalist tyranny? A coalition of hippies, vegans, and environmental engineers will rise up and take control of the state in order to move society forward on its inevitable march towards an environmentalist future!
      - trentnix 7y ago
        In all cases, these tyrants were utterly convinced of their righteousness and expertise.
      - daenz 7y ago
        You do understand that a key point in tyranny is forcibly imprisoning and/or murdering people who disagree with you, right? If you can justify that, then you're in a dangerous place, friend.
    - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
      Why is it not tyranny if I go dump a load of toxic waste in your backyard, just because I can because I'm more powerful. That is a particularly apt analogy for climate change, because as richer countries belch CO2 into a shared resource (the atmosphere), smaller, poorer countries pay the price with the literal destruction of their entire country (see Kiribati).
      - sascha_sl 7y ago
        while rich countries adopt expensive greener tech and blame the poor countries again seems about right
    - rebuilder 7y ago
      The tyranny of the ecosystem we live in. Nature doesn't care about us and we'll either adapt to live within the confines of sustainability or we'll pay dearly for our excesses.
      - Ididntdothis 7y ago
        My prediction is that we will do the latter first and then maybe do the former.
    - abathur 7y ago
      Tyranny might happen, but I'm more unnerved by the realization that it's probably easier (and more effective) to shift emissions by killing people than it is to change minds/politics/behavior.
      - ozmodiar 7y ago
        Yes, I can’t help but feel we’ll get the tyranny because countries will just want to start machine gunning people trying to migrate somewhere safe, and not because of any extreme environmental controls.
        primroot 7y ago
        Governments punishing people, who try to save the lives of those fleeing from climate meltdown, is the current state of things (in Italy and the US at least).
      - krageon 7y ago
        Where murder (on any scale) is an option, it's almost always the mechanically easiest option. The reason we don't do it (collectively) as often as might be practical is because we have collectively agreed that it's not a nice idea to do so. Given those things, I don't see what exactly unnerves you. Is it the realisation that it is indeed easier because you suspected it would be difficult? Is it unnerving because you are not used to thinking of it as a solution?
        abathur 7y ago
        > because we have collectively agreed that it's not a nice idea to do so How many war crimes and genocides have been perpetrated in the shadow of these polite collective agreements? In times of relative plenty and peace? How many governments are currently defying this norm? Over the last 100 years, did more humans personally intervene to stop genocide, say "someone should do something", or look the other way? > I don't see what exactly unnerves you. Is it the realisation that it is indeed easier because you suspected it would be difficult? Is it unnerving because you are not used to thinking of it as a solution? I'll admit, I'm a little flabbergasted at this. The context of the sub-thread is the concern that it'll take the force of tyranny to move humanity to "make a stand and change habits." I find it more unnerving (than tyranny) that the kinds of organizational units sufficiently motivated by climate-threats to become emissions-tyrants will find it much easier to kill other people than repress their own.
    - kurthr 7y ago
      How about not oligarchs putting their fingers on the scales... Russian, European. American, Chinese? Isn't that considered more democratic, bit less?
    - inscionent 7y ago
      tyranny is other people
- antonmks 7y ago
  It is already too late. The extinction already started. Right now it is insects, frogs and fishes that has got to go. Our time , together with the rest of vertebrates, will come in 60-70 years.
  - mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
    This is my feeling too. I feel that even the scientists doing these studies are not considering all of the positive feedback loops. If we could somehow account for everything we’d see that we are already past the point of no return and things are going to change for the worse much faster than anticipated.
- Will_Parker 7y ago
  Maybe the prospect of a mass extinction will start to convince the far left to start taking nuclear and geoengineering seriously. And for that matter, to realize that the problem isn't lack of moral behaviour of individuals, but game theory and a global problem of coordination between China, India, Russia, USA, and the rest.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    What does that have to do with the “far left”? Is the “ far right” all set and ready? Also what serious geoengineering proposals are out there that are understood and cheaper than reducing CO2 emissions?
    - Will_Parker 7y ago
      The far right seems mostly to be denying the science, at least publicly. The far left accepts the science, but is in denial about what an effective solution would be. (E.g. a carbon tax in the US would do essentially nothing in the big picture, except create an economic disadvantage vs China and the rest of the world. Mass adoption of veganism, even less.) Both sides seem to be trying to silence the center. Another point many won't like: moralistic "nudges" are shown, scientifically, to _decrease_ support for climate policy. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333068802_Nudging_out_support_for_a_carbon_tax https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333068802_Nudging_o... Geoengineering deserves a few orders of magnitude more research than it gets, imo, probably some multiple of what NASA and the LHC get. If we actually want to solve the problem, this, and mass conversion of the grid to nuclear, are the best we've got right now. One other point that is outside the Overton window of both sides: we may not be able to reduce oil consumption that much worldwide with cheap energy, because as that gets cheaper, rulers in the Middle East will simply lower oil prices, rather than have their entire economies bust. Without oil sales, there will also be (even more) misery for hundreds of millions of people.
      - jogjayr 7y ago
        > (E.g. a carbon tax in the US would do essentially nothing in the big picture, except create an economic disadvantage vs China and the rest of the world. Wrong on two counts. 1. It gives the US tremendous moral authority in demanding change from other countries. Right now the attitude is "If the US, with all its riches and pre-existing contributions to emissions, can't be bothered to do anything, why should we?" 2. It's totally possible to prevent an economic disadvantage vs China and the rest of the world: tariffs. Countries with carbon taxes can form a tariff bloc against countries without them.
QuickToBan 7y ago
When meritocrats and technocrats fail to seize power, extinction ensues. We are extinguishing the prospect of the only intelligent life we know of in the universe by not caring for the environment, although one could argue that only a small fraction are sufficiently intelligent. The oligarchs of the world have more than enough money to fix all the climate issues, but since they derive their wealth from exploiting the climate, there is no hope for a fix from them.
- redleggedfrog 7y ago
  "...only intelligent life... Not sure we deserve that. Got to remember that huge, huge numbers of the population fully expect there to be some sort of Armageddon. That the earth might be on a run-away path to destruction is a good thing to them, as it brings them closer to their rapture.
  - mistrial9 7y ago
    sure, but if their community internalizes a "coming Armageddon" and then also go about the daily efforts of life too, then how does that compare to those that "discover" a coming Armageddon and come unglued, rejecting many daily efforts of life and instead flipping out into dysfunctional behaviors (both on self and others). Maybe internalizing a shared story of "coming Armageddon" is some kind of a pressure release and that community overall adapts better through extreme circumstances over time. possible ?
- lisper 7y ago
  > When meritocrats and technocrats fail to seize power, extinction ensues. That's not the problem. The problem is that the meritocrats and the technocrats have failed to grasp the real problem. The real problem is that at the end of the day the dynamics of living systems are determined by Darwinian evolution, and Darwinian evolution has no foresight. It optimizes for solutions that reproduce well (relative to competitors) in the short term. So, for example, genes that build brains that have an instinctive revulsion against things like abortion and birth control will reproduce better than genes that build brains that think it's perfectly OK to choose not to have kids. As a result, the world becomes populated by the former sort of brain, along with all of the ancillary effects that building such brains has, such as having a resistance to certain kinds of objective facts, like the long-term consequences of overpopulation. The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here on earth, and that is an overabundance of humans. But saying that is taboo, even here on HN. I try to make this point here on occasion and every single time I do I am downvoted into oblivion, not because I'm wrong, but because the world is full of brains with an instinctive revulsion towards the idea that there are, or even could be, too many of us, because the genes that build that kind of brain reproduce better than the genes that build brains that think it's perfectly OK, even necessary, to have fewer people. This is a very hard problem to solve. It's not at all clear that it even has a solution. It could even be the answer to Fermi's paradox. I hope not, but it's starting to look like a real possibility.
ttul 7y ago
Real question: why isn’t some billionaire using subversive techniques to manipulate the population into doing something? If it can work for Russia to put Trump into the Whitehouse, can it not work in support of carbon reduction?
- Angostura 7y ago
  They are. They are using subversive techniques to manipulate the population into believing the climate change isn't an issue or isn't anything to do with human activity, or is impossible to solve or is part of a big conspiracy to increase government control. See the comment by brighter2morrow in this discussion.
- jbigelow76 7y ago
  Maybe a lack of a recognition? You can slap your name on the side of a hospital, museum, or college library with a big enough check and everybody will know you spent some money to do it. Save the earth and the bunch of ungrateful plebes that get to continue living will never believe it, they'll think the problem never existed in the first place.
- AbrahamParangi 7y ago
  I think many people believe that carbon reduction isn’t a serious solution.
- raisedbyninjas 7y ago
  Or a rogue terraforming project like seeding the ocean with iron or deploying reflective particulates into the atmosphere.
  - Roark66 7y ago
    Perhaps, because anyone capable of launching a project like this is also aware of the terminal stupidity of doing so. Proposing geoengineering when we can't even predict weather for 7 days into future in a reliable way despite having monitoring stations everywhere is akin to hitting a computer with a hammer to fix a software bug. Unfortunately we are affecting a system we do not understand. The only rational choice is to stop affecting it, not desperately try to swing it the other way with no understanding of how it works. The biggest danger of the climate change is that some nation or company gets a bright idea how to fix it and then seriously fucks the climate up. If you think few degrees too warm is bad, consider how bad having a mile thick ice cap all over Europe and North America would be if we manage to swing the system the other way.
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
Yeah, it's 150ppm. Anything less than that and we're definitely heading towards mass extinction, as proven by history. Anything on the upper bound is theoretical and based on shaky models, whereas the lower bound is proven based on historical examples. Edit: Bring on the downvotes, but it won't change the science.
permatech 7y ago
How many super computers can get get churning away at predicting how we can geo-engineer our way back to stability. For those that don't believe in climate change it sounds pointless, to many that acknowledge climate change it sounds too dangerous. Might it be our only hope?
systematical 7y ago
Changing the economy is too slow. Need to engineer the planet at this point. It's and end user hack, but what are the other options?
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  I agree. We've been engineering the atmosphere for hundreds of years by burning fossil fuels. We have to continue engineering it by blocking heat energy or radiating it away from the planet somehow. We'll still have to then sequester the carbon we'll continue to emit in various niche industries, and sequester the massive amount of historical emissions. I was thinking with the cheapened cost of space flight in the next couple of decades, couldn't we lift a huge solar reflector sail in between our planet's poles and the sun? Just block 1% of the heat energy or so, would that be possible?
  - _Microft 7y ago
    Shading 1% of the area of Earth would mean an 'umbrella' of the size of roughly 1.5 million square kilometers. A mylar foil at 10g/m² would weigh 12 million metric tons. With SpaceX' Starship's proposed >100t to low earth orbit, that would mean over 100,000 launches. That's difficult.
    - systematical 7y ago
      There are small scale tests being performed to spray chemicals into the atmosphere that would reflect heat. I hope it works and they can verify there won't be any negative consequences. I get laughed at when I say this, but I'd dump billions into DARPA for researching this. Since its DARPA, you can call it defense spending to appease the elephants. I'd charge them with finding a way to "scoop" the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Somehow splitting it into carbon and oxygen. I envision thousands of solar powered flyers destroying CO2 some day.
deevolution 7y ago
The single best thing as an individual you can do for yourself[1] and the planet[2][3] is adopt a vegan diet. we could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 24% simply by abstaining from meat and dairy products. [Edit]Other key insights from J.Poole's study addressing climate change thru food[1] >Eating vegetable products - even the highest emitting products, will still have a better impact on the environment than selecting only low emitting meat products >Food responsible for 31% of global GHG >High impact beef producing 5000% more emissions than low impact beef >Agriculture sits at heart of all environmental problems >Population size highly correlated with global c02 1. https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-to-heart-disease-reduction-during-war https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-to-h... 2. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b0b1227172f/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=Reducing_foods_environment_impacts_Science%2B360%2B6392%2B987%2B-%2BAccepted%2BManuscript.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b...
- nightski 7y ago
  How is that possible when animal agriculture only accounts for ~3% of greenhouse emissions? Even if you take into account the entire agriculture sector it's only 9%. Let's not use this as a grandstand for pushing political agendas. There are much larger contributors that can be addressed. It just dilutes the entire climate change message by pushing a vegan agenda. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
  - caust1c 7y ago
    It's pretty simple actually. Think of energy as a closed loop system down here on earth. Now imagine the amount of energy it takes to: Grow the feed to feed the animals, butcher and transport the meat/dairy in refrigerated vehicles, store/prepare/cook the meat, etc. The impact is much greater than the "cow farts" that are released into the atmosphere, despite methane actually being a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (which I'm not sure if they account for in the report). The energy, of course, has to come from somewhere. Typically it comes from coal or gasoline.
joshypants 7y ago
Hey everyone remember after the 2016 US presidential election when HN decided it would be a good idea to not allow political discussion for a while? Ha ha ha that was great. Anyway..... if anyone here votes Republican ever again, you've got a death wish for humanity.
LUmBULtERA 7y ago
All is not lost, yet. It is not said that we have yet passed this "critical threshold". We are seeing rapid adoption of renewable energy now, and new leadership in the United States might bring about an even more rapid shift to renewable energy. I just ask that people VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE (just once, but definitively).
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  It'll make a big difference if the USA has a Democratic president, but the Senate will still be GOP most likely, and the supreme court is majority conservative AKA GOP, and unlikely to help. Therefore, we need massive pushes on the innovation/cost front, we need blue states to pull us forward (thank you NY, CA, and MA), and we need a lot of individual effort towards greening our transport, homes, diet, etc.
bronzeage 7y ago
I find it funny that people blame other people for climate change. facts are, most of the pollution comes from industries, and only the powerful CEO s and country leaders have the power to stop the incoming disaster, while everyone else is powerless.

117 points by howard941 7y ago

kuu 7y ago

This is the key of the article: Rothman looked through these geologic records and observed that over the last 540 million years, the ocean’s store of carbon changed abruptly, then recovered, dozens of times in a fashion similar to the abrupt nature of a neuron spike. This “excitation” of the carbon cycle occurred most dramatically near the time of four of the five great mass extinctions in Earth’s history. I'm not an expert but the term "near" in geological times is not so "near" in life span times, I think the article is not so objective... However, that we're creating a problem is obvious.

marapuru 7y ago

I wonder how much longer it will take before humanity will make a stand and change habits.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Only if forced to do so.
- trentnix 7y ago
  So then, tyranny.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Not forced by government but by force of nature. There will be disruptions and people will have to to adapt in some way if they like it or not.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      Reminds me of the quote: "Procrastination only ensures that circumstance makes your decisions for you."
  - empath75 7y ago
    The constitution is not a suicide pact.
    - trentnix 7y ago
      If history is any indicator, forcing people to live according to the whims of Others results in death and destruction. The coercive power required to get people to behave and the inevitable blowback that occurs when people are unable to govern themselves will result in a lot of both. Not everyone is going to like the environmental jihad that is being suggested, and that’s a big problem.
      - Angostura 7y ago
        > Not everyone is going to like the environmental jihad that is being suggested, and that’s a big problem. The thing about democracy is that not everyone has to like everything - just the majority. I don't like that I'm going to have to change my lifestyle, in order to prevent appalling environmental damage, but I understand that I will have to. The "big problem" is the kind of people who describe pragmatic evidence-based policies designed to avoid collapse of civilisation as "an environmental jihad"
      - naturlich 7y ago
        The alternative is to do nothing and that will result in death and destruction. If the ability to harm the environment and other people is a freedom people are up in arms about losing, it's a shitty freedom to have in the first place. One person's freedom should not impinge on others'. Given the choice between the state taking away coal or mass extinction, I'm choosing the former.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      It surely wasn't intended as a suicide pact, but an interpretation that puts personal liberties on a higher pedestal than survival-grade commons could easily make it one.
      - primroot 7y ago
  - brighter2morrow 7y ago
    You've seen socialist tyranny, you've seen fascist tyranny, but are you ready for environmentalist tyranny? A coalition of hippies, vegans, and environmental engineers will rise up and take control of the state in order to move society forward on its inevitable march towards an environmentalist future!
    - trentnix 7y ago
      In all cases, these tyrants were utterly convinced of their righteousness and expertise.
    - daenz 7y ago
      You do understand that a key point in tyranny is forcibly imprisoning and/or murdering people who disagree with you, right? If you can justify that, then you're in a dangerous place, friend.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    Why is it not tyranny if I go dump a load of toxic waste in your backyard, just because I can because I'm more powerful. That is a particularly apt analogy for climate change, because as richer countries belch CO2 into a shared resource (the atmosphere), smaller, poorer countries pay the price with the literal destruction of their entire country (see Kiribati).
    - sascha_sl 7y ago
      while rich countries adopt expensive greener tech and blame the poor countries again seems about right
  - rebuilder 7y ago
    The tyranny of the ecosystem we live in. Nature doesn't care about us and we'll either adapt to live within the confines of sustainability or we'll pay dearly for our excesses.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      My prediction is that we will do the latter first and then maybe do the former.
  - abathur 7y ago
    Tyranny might happen, but I'm more unnerved by the realization that it's probably easier (and more effective) to shift emissions by killing people than it is to change minds/politics/behavior.
    - ozmodiar 7y ago
      Yes, I can’t help but feel we’ll get the tyranny because countries will just want to start machine gunning people trying to migrate somewhere safe, and not because of any extreme environmental controls.
      - primroot 7y ago
        Governments punishing people, who try to save the lives of those fleeing from climate meltdown, is the current state of things (in Italy and the US at least).
    - krageon 7y ago
      Where murder (on any scale) is an option, it's almost always the mechanically easiest option. The reason we don't do it (collectively) as often as might be practical is because we have collectively agreed that it's not a nice idea to do so. Given those things, I don't see what exactly unnerves you. Is it the realisation that it is indeed easier because you suspected it would be difficult? Is it unnerving because you are not used to thinking of it as a solution?
      - abathur 7y ago
        > because we have collectively agreed that it's not a nice idea to do so How many war crimes and genocides have been perpetrated in the shadow of these polite collective agreements? In times of relative plenty and peace? How many governments are currently defying this norm? Over the last 100 years, did more humans personally intervene to stop genocide, say "someone should do something", or look the other way? > I don't see what exactly unnerves you. Is it the realisation that it is indeed easier because you suspected it would be difficult? Is it unnerving because you are not used to thinking of it as a solution? I'll admit, I'm a little flabbergasted at this. The context of the sub-thread is the concern that it'll take the force of tyranny to move humanity to "make a stand and change habits." I find it more unnerving (than tyranny) that the kinds of organizational units sufficiently motivated by climate-threats to become emissions-tyrants will find it much easier to kill other people than repress their own.
  - kurthr 7y ago
    How about not oligarchs putting their fingers on the scales... Russian, European. American, Chinese? Isn't that considered more democratic, bit less?
  - inscionent 7y ago
    tyranny is other people
antonmks 7y ago
It is already too late. The extinction already started. Right now it is insects, frogs and fishes that has got to go. Our time , together with the rest of vertebrates, will come in 60-70 years.
- mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
  This is my feeling too. I feel that even the scientists doing these studies are not considering all of the positive feedback loops. If we could somehow account for everything we’d see that we are already past the point of no return and things are going to change for the worse much faster than anticipated.
Will_Parker 7y ago
Maybe the prospect of a mass extinction will start to convince the far left to start taking nuclear and geoengineering seriously. And for that matter, to realize that the problem isn't lack of moral behaviour of individuals, but game theory and a global problem of coordination between China, India, Russia, USA, and the rest.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  What does that have to do with the “far left”? Is the “ far right” all set and ready? Also what serious geoengineering proposals are out there that are understood and cheaper than reducing CO2 emissions?
  - Will_Parker 7y ago
    The far right seems mostly to be denying the science, at least publicly. The far left accepts the science, but is in denial about what an effective solution would be. (E.g. a carbon tax in the US would do essentially nothing in the big picture, except create an economic disadvantage vs China and the rest of the world. Mass adoption of veganism, even less.) Both sides seem to be trying to silence the center. Another point many won't like: moralistic "nudges" are shown, scientifically, to _decrease_ support for climate policy. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333068802_Nudging_out_support_for_a_carbon_tax https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333068802_Nudging_o... Geoengineering deserves a few orders of magnitude more research than it gets, imo, probably some multiple of what NASA and the LHC get. If we actually want to solve the problem, this, and mass conversion of the grid to nuclear, are the best we've got right now. One other point that is outside the Overton window of both sides: we may not be able to reduce oil consumption that much worldwide with cheap energy, because as that gets cheaper, rulers in the Middle East will simply lower oil prices, rather than have their entire economies bust. Without oil sales, there will also be (even more) misery for hundreds of millions of people.
    - jogjayr 7y ago
      > (E.g. a carbon tax in the US would do essentially nothing in the big picture, except create an economic disadvantage vs China and the rest of the world. Wrong on two counts. 1. It gives the US tremendous moral authority in demanding change from other countries. Right now the attitude is "If the US, with all its riches and pre-existing contributions to emissions, can't be bothered to do anything, why should we?" 2. It's totally possible to prevent an economic disadvantage vs China and the rest of the world: tariffs. Countries with carbon taxes can form a tariff bloc against countries without them.

QuickToBan 7y ago

When meritocrats and technocrats fail to seize power, extinction ensues. We are extinguishing the prospect of the only intelligent life we know of in the universe by not caring for the environment, although one could argue that only a small fraction are sufficiently intelligent. The oligarchs of the world have more than enough money to fix all the climate issues, but since they derive their wealth from exploiting the climate, there is no hope for a fix from them.

redleggedfrog 7y ago
"...only intelligent life... Not sure we deserve that. Got to remember that huge, huge numbers of the population fully expect there to be some sort of Armageddon. That the earth might be on a run-away path to destruction is a good thing to them, as it brings them closer to their rapture.
- mistrial9 7y ago
  sure, but if their community internalizes a "coming Armageddon" and then also go about the daily efforts of life too, then how does that compare to those that "discover" a coming Armageddon and come unglued, rejecting many daily efforts of life and instead flipping out into dysfunctional behaviors (both on self and others). Maybe internalizing a shared story of "coming Armageddon" is some kind of a pressure release and that community overall adapts better through extreme circumstances over time. possible ?
lisper 7y ago
> When meritocrats and technocrats fail to seize power, extinction ensues. That's not the problem. The problem is that the meritocrats and the technocrats have failed to grasp the real problem. The real problem is that at the end of the day the dynamics of living systems are determined by Darwinian evolution, and Darwinian evolution has no foresight. It optimizes for solutions that reproduce well (relative to competitors) in the short term. So, for example, genes that build brains that have an instinctive revulsion against things like abortion and birth control will reproduce better than genes that build brains that think it's perfectly OK to choose not to have kids. As a result, the world becomes populated by the former sort of brain, along with all of the ancillary effects that building such brains has, such as having a resistance to certain kinds of objective facts, like the long-term consequences of overpopulation. The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here on earth, and that is an overabundance of humans. But saying that is taboo, even here on HN. I try to make this point here on occasion and every single time I do I am downvoted into oblivion, not because I'm wrong, but because the world is full of brains with an instinctive revulsion towards the idea that there are, or even could be, too many of us, because the genes that build that kind of brain reproduce better than the genes that build brains that think it's perfectly OK, even necessary, to have fewer people. This is a very hard problem to solve. It's not at all clear that it even has a solution. It could even be the answer to Fermi's paradox. I hope not, but it's starting to look like a real possibility.

ttul 7y ago

Real question: why isn’t some billionaire using subversive techniques to manipulate the population into doing something? If it can work for Russia to put Trump into the Whitehouse, can it not work in support of carbon reduction?

Angostura 7y ago
They are. They are using subversive techniques to manipulate the population into believing the climate change isn't an issue or isn't anything to do with human activity, or is impossible to solve or is part of a big conspiracy to increase government control. See the comment by brighter2morrow in this discussion.
jbigelow76 7y ago
Maybe a lack of a recognition? You can slap your name on the side of a hospital, museum, or college library with a big enough check and everybody will know you spent some money to do it. Save the earth and the bunch of ungrateful plebes that get to continue living will never believe it, they'll think the problem never existed in the first place.
AbrahamParangi 7y ago
I think many people believe that carbon reduction isn’t a serious solution.
raisedbyninjas 7y ago
Or a rogue terraforming project like seeding the ocean with iron or deploying reflective particulates into the atmosphere.
- Roark66 7y ago
  Perhaps, because anyone capable of launching a project like this is also aware of the terminal stupidity of doing so. Proposing geoengineering when we can't even predict weather for 7 days into future in a reliable way despite having monitoring stations everywhere is akin to hitting a computer with a hammer to fix a software bug. Unfortunately we are affecting a system we do not understand. The only rational choice is to stop affecting it, not desperately try to swing it the other way with no understanding of how it works. The biggest danger of the climate change is that some nation or company gets a bright idea how to fix it and then seriously fucks the climate up. If you think few degrees too warm is bad, consider how bad having a mile thick ice cap all over Europe and North America would be if we manage to swing the system the other way.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

Yeah, it's 150ppm. Anything less than that and we're definitely heading towards mass extinction, as proven by history. Anything on the upper bound is theoretical and based on shaky models, whereas the lower bound is proven based on historical examples. Edit: Bring on the downvotes, but it won't change the science.

permatech 7y ago

How many super computers can get get churning away at predicting how we can geo-engineer our way back to stability. For those that don't believe in climate change it sounds pointless, to many that acknowledge climate change it sounds too dangerous. Might it be our only hope?

systematical 7y ago

Changing the economy is too slow. Need to engineer the planet at this point. It's and end user hack, but what are the other options?

WhompingWindows 7y ago
I agree. We've been engineering the atmosphere for hundreds of years by burning fossil fuels. We have to continue engineering it by blocking heat energy or radiating it away from the planet somehow. We'll still have to then sequester the carbon we'll continue to emit in various niche industries, and sequester the massive amount of historical emissions. I was thinking with the cheapened cost of space flight in the next couple of decades, couldn't we lift a huge solar reflector sail in between our planet's poles and the sun? Just block 1% of the heat energy or so, would that be possible?
- _Microft 7y ago
  Shading 1% of the area of Earth would mean an 'umbrella' of the size of roughly 1.5 million square kilometers. A mylar foil at 10g/m² would weigh 12 million metric tons. With SpaceX' Starship's proposed >100t to low earth orbit, that would mean over 100,000 launches. That's difficult.
  - systematical 7y ago
    There are small scale tests being performed to spray chemicals into the atmosphere that would reflect heat. I hope it works and they can verify there won't be any negative consequences. I get laughed at when I say this, but I'd dump billions into DARPA for researching this. Since its DARPA, you can call it defense spending to appease the elephants. I'd charge them with finding a way to "scoop" the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Somehow splitting it into carbon and oxygen. I envision thousands of solar powered flyers destroying CO2 some day.

deevolution 7y ago

The single best thing as an individual you can do for yourself[1] and the planet[2][3] is adopt a vegan diet. we could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 24% simply by abstaining from meat and dairy products. [Edit]Other key insights from J.Poole's study addressing climate change thru food[1] >Eating vegetable products - even the highest emitting products, will still have a better impact on the environment than selecting only low emitting meat products >Food responsible for 31% of global GHG >High impact beef producing 5000% more emissions than low impact beef >Agriculture sits at heart of all environmental problems >Population size highly correlated with global c02 1. https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-to-heart-disease-reduction-during-war https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-to-h... 2. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b0b1227172f/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=Reducing_foods_environment_impacts_Science%2B360%2B6392%2B987%2B-%2BAccepted%2BManuscript.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b...

nightski 7y ago
How is that possible when animal agriculture only accounts for ~3% of greenhouse emissions? Even if you take into account the entire agriculture sector it's only 9%. Let's not use this as a grandstand for pushing political agendas. There are much larger contributors that can be addressed. It just dilutes the entire climate change message by pushing a vegan agenda. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- caust1c 7y ago
  It's pretty simple actually. Think of energy as a closed loop system down here on earth. Now imagine the amount of energy it takes to: Grow the feed to feed the animals, butcher and transport the meat/dairy in refrigerated vehicles, store/prepare/cook the meat, etc. The impact is much greater than the "cow farts" that are released into the atmosphere, despite methane actually being a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (which I'm not sure if they account for in the report). The energy, of course, has to come from somewhere. Typically it comes from coal or gasoline.

joshypants 7y ago

Hey everyone remember after the 2016 US presidential election when HN decided it would be a good idea to not allow political discussion for a while? Ha ha ha that was great. Anyway..... if anyone here votes Republican ever again, you've got a death wish for humanity.

LUmBULtERA 7y ago

All is not lost, yet. It is not said that we have yet passed this "critical threshold". We are seeing rapid adoption of renewable energy now, and new leadership in the United States might bring about an even more rapid shift to renewable energy. I just ask that people VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE (just once, but definitively).

WhompingWindows 7y ago
It'll make a big difference if the USA has a Democratic president, but the Senate will still be GOP most likely, and the supreme court is majority conservative AKA GOP, and unlikely to help. Therefore, we need massive pushes on the innovation/cost front, we need blue states to pull us forward (thank you NY, CA, and MA), and we need a lot of individual effort towards greening our transport, homes, diet, etc.

bronzeage 7y ago

I find it funny that people blame other people for climate change. facts are, most of the pollution comes from industries, and only the powerful CEO s and country leaders have the power to stop the incoming disaster, while everyone else is powerless.