6 ms·

what is the meaning of "too late"? the planet will survive, the organisms will adapt, humanity will die so what? maybe some amebas will evolve into something mo

what is the meaning of "too late"? the planet will survive, the organisms will adapt, humanity will die so what? maybe some amebas will evolve into something more peaceful that the savages we have become.

reallydontask 6y ago
> what is the meaning of "too late"? I take it to mean for the human race to continue its existence in roughly the same way we've become accustomed over the past century or so (though the time frame will vary according to people, I suppose. >maybe some amebas will evolve into something more peaceful that the savages we have become. that could well be the case or we might be in this situation in a few billion years
saddlerustle 6y ago
Humanity won't die. Climate change is bad, but it's pretty well established that it's likely not a existential threat.
- jnsaff2 6y ago
  Not trying to be obtuse but I'd be interested in your sources.
  - saddlerustle 6y ago
    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climate-change-human-civilization-existential-risk https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climat... links to some sources. But from a common sense angle: the world can get a hell of a lot hotter before siberia is less habitable than arizona is now.
    - jnsaff2 6y ago
      Siberia is already very hot in the summers. Like 40C+ in the summers and -40-50C in the winter. That range is not going to be 'Mediterranean' anytime ever.
      - saddlerustle 6y ago
        Greenland or Antarctica, then.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        esarbe 6y ago
        How many people are going to live there? Supported by what infrastructure? How is the infrastructure going to be maintained? Where are all the machines that you need to repair and replace the infrastructure? Where are the plants to produce the machines? Who is going to maintain the infrastructure, the machines and the plants? How do you decide who's going to get to Antarctica? How are you going to prevent other from going there themselves? How are you going to stop the rest of the world from nuking Antartica in retaliation? How are you going to stop the USA and China from going to war over that last habitable piece of earth? How are you going to provide food and oxygen to the few survivors? Not really.
      - sleepysysadmin 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia#Climate It doesn't seem to be.
        andy-x 6y ago
        Siberia is vast, checking one town for it's climate is not representative. While most of the southern part of Siberia is relatively mild (like nothern central US) there are huge regions that are known for more extreme temperatures, in particular Sakha (Yakutiya): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakha#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakha#Climate
        sleepysysadmin 6y ago
        The context of the point is that Climate change's max increase is only another 0.5celcius and at worst the currently too cold places will become warm enough to live comfortably.
- esarbe 6y ago
  It's very likely an existential threat. We're currently on-track for a +5°C increase in temperature by 2050. Besides wreaking havoc to all existing ecosystems, it's also very likely that this will kill off most of the phytoplankton in the oceans. That's the stuff that makes most of the O2 for us. There's no way we (humans) are going to survive this scenario.
  - sleepysysadmin 6y ago
    >It's very likely an existential threat. Al Gore is of the opinion that it's not. You can take that with a grain of salt because Al Gore's predictions have been quite incorrect. He claimed the Icecaps would be completely gone 6+ years ago. He claimed Florida and India would be under water today. >We're currently on-track for a +5°C increase in temperature by 2050. I'm happy to tell you that it's not. The source of this is the IPCC report from 2014. The claim comes from RCP8.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... RCP8.5 was never an expected prediction, it was a theoretical worst case of some unknown huge increase in carbon emissions. When in reality, humanity has done some amount of decrease. The RCP8.5 claim is basically considered wrong now. In fact we are on track for RCP4.5 despite not doing what IPCC says we need to do to reach this. This is great news. We also know fossil fuels mostly run out in around 2050-2060. A simple reality that even if we don't do anything, we simply run out and must adapt to life without fossil fuels. So we are going to peak about 1.4celcius warmer. We are around 1celcius already. Therefore, we don't have much more to go. >There's no way we (humans) are going to survive this scenario. The reality is that climate change is impossible to stop; in fact it's probably a disaster to try to stop climate change. In the past 50 million years the earth has dropped 14 celcius. Between 20,000 years and 10,000 years ago we have increased 7 celcius. Just 125,000 years ago the Earth was 2-4 celcius warmer than today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian#Global_temperatures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian#Global_temperatures Humans didn't affect any of these events. The climate changes, we shouldn't try to prevent it.
    - esarbe 6y ago
      > We also know fossil fuels mostly run out in around 2050-2060. We don't know that, it will just get more expensive to extract it. And given that beneath the ice shelves of the arctic are untapped vast reserves of oil, we cannot even expect that to remain true anymore. Norway and Russia are already preparing exploitation of these reservoirs. > So we are going to peak about 1.4celcius warmer. At about 1.5 to 2°C we're going to see the methane in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf starting to be released. We were expecting this to start in the 2040ies, but guess what; it already started and we've seen the increase in CH4 ppm from 2018 through 2020. And while CH4 quickly degrades in the atmosphere, the release will very likely trigger a feedback loop that at about 3.0 to 3.5°C will start melting the suboceanic frozen CH4. This will then kick us easily up to 5°C (or above). The IPCC models don't include any trigger points or feedback loops because our models are just not sophisticated enough. > The climate changes, we shouldn't try to prevent it. The climate change we're currently experiencing is human-made. It's orders-of-magnitudes faster than anything we see in the records. To say that this is just the same as the natural fluctuations of climatic behavior over tens of thousands of years is false equivalence. We definitely must do something about it or face extinction as a civilization (and possibly even as a species).
throwmeaway_pls 6y ago
If people can live in Florida, I think humanity can make it through climate change.
raxxorrax 6y ago
> humanity will die so what Good news is that this is extremely unlikely. Bad news is that survival of humanity isn't equivalent to survival of everyone.
esarbe 6y ago
> maybe some amebas will evolve into something more peaceful that the savages we have become. That's very unlikely. Our behavior is rooted in our biological need to consume resources and reproduce. Our failure to moderate our behavior is the same as the rabbit that's unable to reproduce once the environment's carrying capacity has been reached. I'm pretty sure that this fundamental biological behavior (compete for resources to reproduce) is the Big Filter. So I reckon that every species going planetary apex will make the same mistake.
- candiodari 6y ago
  Why? Clearly we have more resources than we need, and a bunch of energy sources we can start to master. If even one of those pans out (and even if it doesn't Nuclear fuel reserves will get us well into 3000 even with exponential growth) So how do you know your prediction is any different from John Malthus' ? You're assuming quite a lot of efforts will fail. I don't understand how you justify that assumption. Especially since, if those efforts succeed and we massively increase the energy resources available to the human species, we can trade energy for just about any other resource (including reducing co2, or purifying water, or ...). At that point having hundreds of billions of humans becomes realistic.
Recurecur 6y ago
Not enough time. Life on Earth, as we know it, has less than a billion years left. Now, cockroaches might evolve impressively! More seriously, humans will soon escape this particular rock, and things will look a LOT different. Smart people are optimistic. There is a workable, brute-force solution to climate change if needed - orbital sunshades. We'll also have enough energy to supply the galaxy with diamond semiconductor substrates, carbon fiber, nanotubes, buckyballs, and the myriad other useful substances and items made from carbon extracted from the atmosphere. Again, if needed. Market forces, with a nudge from government, are moving things in the right direction (electric cars, renewables, nuclear power, natural gas). China and India are the main worries at this point, as they have a lot invested in coal at the moment. We'll have a better idea about negative feedback from existing natural systems over the next few years, there's some reason for optimism there. This is a highly nonlinear system.

reallydontask 6y ago

> what is the meaning of "too late"? I take it to mean for the human race to continue its existence in roughly the same way we've become accustomed over the past century or so (though the time frame will vary according to people, I suppose. >maybe some amebas will evolve into something more peaceful that the savages we have become. that could well be the case or we might be in this situation in a few billion years

saddlerustle 6y ago

Humanity won't die. Climate change is bad, but it's pretty well established that it's likely not a existential threat.

jnsaff2 6y ago
Not trying to be obtuse but I'd be interested in your sources.
- saddlerustle 6y ago
  https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climate-change-human-civilization-existential-risk https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climat... links to some sources. But from a common sense angle: the world can get a hell of a lot hotter before siberia is less habitable than arizona is now.
  - jnsaff2 6y ago
    Siberia is already very hot in the summers. Like 40C+ in the summers and -40-50C in the winter. That range is not going to be 'Mediterranean' anytime ever.
    - saddlerustle 6y ago
      Greenland or Antarctica, then.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - esarbe 6y ago
        How many people are going to live there? Supported by what infrastructure? How is the infrastructure going to be maintained? Where are all the machines that you need to repair and replace the infrastructure? Where are the plants to produce the machines? Who is going to maintain the infrastructure, the machines and the plants? How do you decide who's going to get to Antarctica? How are you going to prevent other from going there themselves? How are you going to stop the rest of the world from nuking Antartica in retaliation? How are you going to stop the USA and China from going to war over that last habitable piece of earth? How are you going to provide food and oxygen to the few survivors? Not really.
    - sleepysysadmin 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia#Climate It doesn't seem to be.
      - andy-x 6y ago
        Siberia is vast, checking one town for it's climate is not representative. While most of the southern part of Siberia is relatively mild (like nothern central US) there are huge regions that are known for more extreme temperatures, in particular Sakha (Yakutiya): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakha#Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakha#Climate
        sleepysysadmin 6y ago
        The context of the point is that Climate change's max increase is only another 0.5celcius and at worst the currently too cold places will become warm enough to live comfortably.
esarbe 6y ago
It's very likely an existential threat. We're currently on-track for a +5°C increase in temperature by 2050. Besides wreaking havoc to all existing ecosystems, it's also very likely that this will kill off most of the phytoplankton in the oceans. That's the stuff that makes most of the O2 for us. There's no way we (humans) are going to survive this scenario.
- sleepysysadmin 6y ago
  >It's very likely an existential threat. Al Gore is of the opinion that it's not. You can take that with a grain of salt because Al Gore's predictions have been quite incorrect. He claimed the Icecaps would be completely gone 6+ years ago. He claimed Florida and India would be under water today. >We're currently on-track for a +5°C increase in temperature by 2050. I'm happy to tell you that it's not. The source of this is the IPCC report from 2014. The claim comes from RCP8.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... RCP8.5 was never an expected prediction, it was a theoretical worst case of some unknown huge increase in carbon emissions. When in reality, humanity has done some amount of decrease. The RCP8.5 claim is basically considered wrong now. In fact we are on track for RCP4.5 despite not doing what IPCC says we need to do to reach this. This is great news. We also know fossil fuels mostly run out in around 2050-2060. A simple reality that even if we don't do anything, we simply run out and must adapt to life without fossil fuels. So we are going to peak about 1.4celcius warmer. We are around 1celcius already. Therefore, we don't have much more to go. >There's no way we (humans) are going to survive this scenario. The reality is that climate change is impossible to stop; in fact it's probably a disaster to try to stop climate change. In the past 50 million years the earth has dropped 14 celcius. Between 20,000 years and 10,000 years ago we have increased 7 celcius. Just 125,000 years ago the Earth was 2-4 celcius warmer than today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian#Global_temperatures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian#Global_temperatures Humans didn't affect any of these events. The climate changes, we shouldn't try to prevent it.
  - esarbe 6y ago
    > We also know fossil fuels mostly run out in around 2050-2060. We don't know that, it will just get more expensive to extract it. And given that beneath the ice shelves of the arctic are untapped vast reserves of oil, we cannot even expect that to remain true anymore. Norway and Russia are already preparing exploitation of these reservoirs. > So we are going to peak about 1.4celcius warmer. At about 1.5 to 2°C we're going to see the methane in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf starting to be released. We were expecting this to start in the 2040ies, but guess what; it already started and we've seen the increase in CH4 ppm from 2018 through 2020. And while CH4 quickly degrades in the atmosphere, the release will very likely trigger a feedback loop that at about 3.0 to 3.5°C will start melting the suboceanic frozen CH4. This will then kick us easily up to 5°C (or above). The IPCC models don't include any trigger points or feedback loops because our models are just not sophisticated enough. > The climate changes, we shouldn't try to prevent it. The climate change we're currently experiencing is human-made. It's orders-of-magnitudes faster than anything we see in the records. To say that this is just the same as the natural fluctuations of climatic behavior over tens of thousands of years is false equivalence. We definitely must do something about it or face extinction as a civilization (and possibly even as a species).

throwmeaway_pls 6y ago

If people can live in Florida, I think humanity can make it through climate change.

raxxorrax 6y ago

> humanity will die so what Good news is that this is extremely unlikely. Bad news is that survival of humanity isn't equivalent to survival of everyone.

esarbe 6y ago

> maybe some amebas will evolve into something more peaceful that the savages we have become. That's very unlikely. Our behavior is rooted in our biological need to consume resources and reproduce. Our failure to moderate our behavior is the same as the rabbit that's unable to reproduce once the environment's carrying capacity has been reached. I'm pretty sure that this fundamental biological behavior (compete for resources to reproduce) is the Big Filter. So I reckon that every species going planetary apex will make the same mistake.

candiodari 6y ago
Why? Clearly we have more resources than we need, and a bunch of energy sources we can start to master. If even one of those pans out (and even if it doesn't Nuclear fuel reserves will get us well into 3000 even with exponential growth) So how do you know your prediction is any different from John Malthus' ? You're assuming quite a lot of efforts will fail. I don't understand how you justify that assumption. Especially since, if those efforts succeed and we massively increase the energy resources available to the human species, we can trade energy for just about any other resource (including reducing co2, or purifying water, or ...). At that point having hundreds of billions of humans becomes realistic.

Recurecur 6y ago

Not enough time. Life on Earth, as we know it, has less than a billion years left. Now, cockroaches might evolve impressively! More seriously, humans will soon escape this particular rock, and things will look a LOT different. Smart people are optimistic. There is a workable, brute-force solution to climate change if needed - orbital sunshades. We'll also have enough energy to supply the galaxy with diamond semiconductor substrates, carbon fiber, nanotubes, buckyballs, and the myriad other useful substances and items made from carbon extracted from the atmosphere. Again, if needed. Market forces, with a nudge from government, are moving things in the right direction (electric cars, renewables, nuclear power, natural gas). China and India are the main worries at this point, as they have a lot invested in coal at the moment. We'll have a better idea about negative feedback from existing natural systems over the next few years, there's some reason for optimism there. This is a highly nonlinear system.