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Another point to balance the "how much environmental damage seems to be recovering": CO2 in the atmosphere has a long inertia. The (reduction of) emissions in

Another point to balance the "how much environmental damage seems to be recovering": CO2 in the atmosphere has a long inertia. The (reduction of) emissions in the past few months will not have any effect on the global warming for a few decades. Basically in the short/mid-term, CO2 emissions are accumulated to previous emissions, not replacing them

TeMPOraL 6y ago
This only shows that, while CO₂ concentrations are the dominant control variable in the question of our long-term survival, the overall health of the environment is influenced by many, many more things, especially short-term. Now it is especially clear that protecting the environment and mitigating the climate crisis are two different, and only partially aligned efforts. Frequently, they're in opposition - which is why it's extra important not to confuse them. The example I tend to use is plastic pollution. Interventions like switching from single-use plastic bags and bottles to reusable woven bags and glass bottles may very well help with the amount of plastics (and microplastics) present in the environment, but they're also a climate disaster, because plastic bags and bottles are ridiculously efficient to make at scale. And so here, I also worry that despite the environment taking a break from us during COVID-19, this will turn out to be a huge step back climate-wise - as soon we'll have to start rebuilding, and there will be less money and will around to fund R&D and deployment of less carbon-intensive solutions.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  > protecting the environment and mitigating the climate crisis are two different, and only partially aligned efforts I wish more people understood this. Too many times conversation are hijacked by the CO2 discussion when really in the short term we should be focusing 99% of our efforts on bio-diversity preservation.
  - NJRBailey 6y ago
    What are the benefits of focusing on biodiversity preservation? I can think of some things like food security but would global warming not also impact on those?
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      >but would global warming not also impact on those Other way around. By focusing on biodiversity preservation we increase the robustness of the ecosystem and stop the dominoes from falling. Removing biodiversity cascades through the whole ecosystem and accelerates climate change. Also once bio-diversity is gone it's impossible to get back but we can always invent technology to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Remember most of the species we're losing we don't even know they exist.
    - poooogles 6y ago
      >What are the benefits of focusing on biodiversity preservation? They're not always aligned. There's many more issues that come out of low biodiveristy than just those affected by climate change. One important one that's unrelated would be high biodiversity environments have more rich soils that are better for farming. Similarly more biodiverse environments are more resistant to disease; Ash dieback disease that affects the Ash in Europe appears not be fatal to the tree in mixed diverse forest [1]. Diverse ecosystems are also more resistant to climate change [2], so there's that too. 1. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2745.13383 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/... 2. https://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/greater-biodiversity-makes-ecosystems-more-resistant-to-climate-change/ https://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/greater-biodiversity-makes...
    - pietrovismara 6y ago
      Everything is connected in nature, for example if we lose bees the effects will be devastating. Most seemingly "useless" animals actually have a very important role in their ecosystem. Without healthy ecosystems we are doomed.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I sort of meant the reverse. You make a good point about importance of biodiversity downthread, but wrt. things like plastic pollution vs. CO₂, I'd argue we should just ignore the former. The reasoning is: - We know the ecosystem is thoroughly polluted by microplastics, but there is no evidence that it's in any way harmful. It may be, but we haven't seen it so far. - We know that without mitigation, climate change is an existential threat to civilization, that will materialize within the lifetime of many of us here. Given that, we really can deal with microplastics later. Let's first stop the house from being on fire, and then focus on tyding it up.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      I was under the impression that micorplastics are acidifying the ocean and in turn kicking off a process that removes oxygen and creates dead zones?
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        I've never heard about that. As far as I know, acidification is caused by the oceans picking up CO₂ from the atmosphere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
        rorykoehler 6y ago
        A quick search seems to back you up. If that is the case how did sealife survive during times of high co2 concentrations historically?
        im3w1l 6y ago
        It's not that high CO2 is intrinsically bad. It's just that the change is happening quicker than a lot of species can adapt.
    - tomp 6y ago
      Really interesting reasoning. I'm almost tempted to say "extremely unscientific". 1. "no evidence of microplastics being harmful" sounds very much like WHO's "no evidence of human transmission". Personally, I'd say that in both scenarios, the outcome we should be most worried about is tail risks - what if we suddenly realize the situation is much worse than we imagined, but it's already too late... 2. Is "climate change" so bad? I mean, would it be really so bad if the Earth warmed up a bit, and all of Siberia, Greenland and the Antartic became livable (and arable) land? More food, more space for new humans, ... all good! Except, obviously, 2 things - biodiversity (which you want to ignore) and tail risks - what if the Earth warms up too much, and we "trigger" some unexpected process (e.g. thawing of permafrost releases vast quantities of extremely potent greenhouse gases). I think most people are simply really confused about their reasoning process. Microplastics? Ignore tail risks. Global warming? Tail risks! GMOs? Ignore tail risks. 5G? Tail risks! Vaccines? Ignore tail risks. Endocrine disruptors? Tail risks! (Of course, the exact configuration of positions is highly correlated with one's political orientation.)
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > as soon we'll have to start rebuilding, and there will be less money and will around to fund R&D and deployment of less carbon-intensive solutions. That isn't necessarily true. There is going to be a push for jobs programs to fight unemployment. Why can't some of the jobs be those types of things?
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I feel that most of cleantech work is still essentially a luxury, which will be hard to justify in a recession market. I also didn't mention the other aspect - how many of existing environmental protections and standards will have to be suspended because everyone will argue they can't afford to survive and recover if they have to stay clean?

TeMPOraL 6y ago

This only shows that, while CO₂ concentrations are the dominant control variable in the question of our long-term survival, the overall health of the environment is influenced by many, many more things, especially short-term. Now it is especially clear that protecting the environment and mitigating the climate crisis are two different, and only partially aligned efforts. Frequently, they're in opposition - which is why it's extra important not to confuse them. The example I tend to use is plastic pollution. Interventions like switching from single-use plastic bags and bottles to reusable woven bags and glass bottles may very well help with the amount of plastics (and microplastics) present in the environment, but they're also a climate disaster, because plastic bags and bottles are ridiculously efficient to make at scale. And so here, I also worry that despite the environment taking a break from us during COVID-19, this will turn out to be a huge step back climate-wise - as soon we'll have to start rebuilding, and there will be less money and will around to fund R&D and deployment of less carbon-intensive solutions.

rorykoehler 6y ago
> protecting the environment and mitigating the climate crisis are two different, and only partially aligned efforts I wish more people understood this. Too many times conversation are hijacked by the CO2 discussion when really in the short term we should be focusing 99% of our efforts on bio-diversity preservation.
- NJRBailey 6y ago
  What are the benefits of focusing on biodiversity preservation? I can think of some things like food security but would global warming not also impact on those?
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    >but would global warming not also impact on those Other way around. By focusing on biodiversity preservation we increase the robustness of the ecosystem and stop the dominoes from falling. Removing biodiversity cascades through the whole ecosystem and accelerates climate change. Also once bio-diversity is gone it's impossible to get back but we can always invent technology to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Remember most of the species we're losing we don't even know they exist.
  - poooogles 6y ago
    >What are the benefits of focusing on biodiversity preservation? They're not always aligned. There's many more issues that come out of low biodiveristy than just those affected by climate change. One important one that's unrelated would be high biodiversity environments have more rich soils that are better for farming. Similarly more biodiverse environments are more resistant to disease; Ash dieback disease that affects the Ash in Europe appears not be fatal to the tree in mixed diverse forest [1]. Diverse ecosystems are also more resistant to climate change [2], so there's that too. 1. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2745.13383 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/... 2. https://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/greater-biodiversity-makes-ecosystems-more-resistant-to-climate-change/ https://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/greater-biodiversity-makes...
  - pietrovismara 6y ago
    Everything is connected in nature, for example if we lose bees the effects will be devastating. Most seemingly "useless" animals actually have a very important role in their ecosystem. Without healthy ecosystems we are doomed.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  I sort of meant the reverse. You make a good point about importance of biodiversity downthread, but wrt. things like plastic pollution vs. CO₂, I'd argue we should just ignore the former. The reasoning is: - We know the ecosystem is thoroughly polluted by microplastics, but there is no evidence that it's in any way harmful. It may be, but we haven't seen it so far. - We know that without mitigation, climate change is an existential threat to civilization, that will materialize within the lifetime of many of us here. Given that, we really can deal with microplastics later. Let's first stop the house from being on fire, and then focus on tyding it up.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    I was under the impression that micorplastics are acidifying the ocean and in turn kicking off a process that removes oxygen and creates dead zones?
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      I've never heard about that. As far as I know, acidification is caused by the oceans picking up CO₂ from the atmosphere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        A quick search seems to back you up. If that is the case how did sealife survive during times of high co2 concentrations historically?
        im3w1l 6y ago
        It's not that high CO2 is intrinsically bad. It's just that the change is happening quicker than a lot of species can adapt.
  - tomp 6y ago
    Really interesting reasoning. I'm almost tempted to say "extremely unscientific". 1. "no evidence of microplastics being harmful" sounds very much like WHO's "no evidence of human transmission". Personally, I'd say that in both scenarios, the outcome we should be most worried about is tail risks - what if we suddenly realize the situation is much worse than we imagined, but it's already too late... 2. Is "climate change" so bad? I mean, would it be really so bad if the Earth warmed up a bit, and all of Siberia, Greenland and the Antartic became livable (and arable) land? More food, more space for new humans, ... all good! Except, obviously, 2 things - biodiversity (which you want to ignore) and tail risks - what if the Earth warms up too much, and we "trigger" some unexpected process (e.g. thawing of permafrost releases vast quantities of extremely potent greenhouse gases). I think most people are simply really confused about their reasoning process. Microplastics? Ignore tail risks. Global warming? Tail risks! GMOs? Ignore tail risks. 5G? Tail risks! Vaccines? Ignore tail risks. Endocrine disruptors? Tail risks! (Of course, the exact configuration of positions is highly correlated with one's political orientation.)
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> as soon we'll have to start rebuilding, and there will be less money and will around to fund R&D and deployment of less carbon-intensive solutions. That isn't necessarily true. There is going to be a push for jobs programs to fight unemployment. Why can't some of the jobs be those types of things?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  I feel that most of cleantech work is still essentially a luxury, which will be hard to justify in a recession market. I also didn't mention the other aspect - how many of existing environmental protections and standards will have to be suspended because everyone will argue they can't afford to survive and recover if they have to stay clean?