7 ms·

No, the crash will come from a total systemic collapse, caused by the ecosystem destruction we are wrecking. Climate change by greenhouse gas emission is just

by esarbe 5y ago

No, the crash will come from a total systemic collapse, caused by the ecosystem destruction we are wrecking. Climate change by greenhouse gas emission is just the cherry on top. The knife to the eye, so to speak. Since the middle of the 20th century, we've lost about 75% of biomass and roundabout the same in biodiversity. Our biological support systems are collapsing all around us. System shaped by natural selection are extremely resilient. That has prevented much of the damage to manifest itself in clear signals. But now the damage has become so big that even nature's resilience cannot cope with it anymore and we start to witness more and more systems fragment and fail. See the Great Barrier reef. This is just the start. Water is beginning to get critically scarce in many regions of the world. The political upheavals caused by the effects of predatory over exploitation and pollution will bring down nations. And so forth.

bryanlarsen 5y ago
If the ecosystem and climate collapsed, us rich folk could live in air conditioned houses powered by solar or nuclear power, eat food grown in green houses and drink desalinated water. It would be a truly miserable experience, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end of civilization. The wars started by those who no longer can afford food might end civilization, but that's not assured either.
- esarbe 5y ago
  > If the ecosystem and climate collapsed, us rich folk could live in air conditioned houses powered by solar or nuclear power, eat food grown in green houses and drink desalinated water. Eh, no. We don't have the infrastructure to live in air conditioned houses powered by solar or nuclear power. Both solar and nuclear only can power a fraction of houses. And if you need additional power to grow food that fraction gets ever smaller. For both nuclear and a solar power you need an extensive, global infrastructure that will require raw materials (nuclear; fuel, solar; finished products) from all over the world. Good luck trying to acquire enough uranium from all over the world when all is going to shits. Who do you think exactly is going to do the extraction? So, I guess we'll all die, rich and poor.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    This country is working on a $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill. New Orleans was just saved by a massive infrastructure program to build levees. We'll build most of the required infrastructure. Probably not enough of it, and we'll spend too much for it, but most Americans will be "fine". (Insert "this is fine" meme picture here) Uranium is easy. That comes from Northern Canada.
    - esarbe 5y ago
      The budget - and I think you are talking about the budget reconciliation - includes a lot of stuff besides infrastructure. It's the budget after all.[0] Well... one half of the country is working on such a budget. The other half is doing everything to sabotage that budget, get back control of the senate and the house and spend that $3.5 trillion on a tax bill for the super-wealthy. You know, like the last time they did that [1]. Bit even if the infrastructure got $3.5 trillion; that isn't enough to even fully repair the existing infrastructure[2]. The last time the ASCE released an infrastrucutre report, fixing the infrastructure would cost about $4.8 trillion. That's just to fix the existing infrastructure. That money isn't going to build new nuclear reactors. By the way; how many nuclear reactors are currently being built in the US? ... Two... Two reactors with each a bit more that 1TWh. The latest one to come operational one was the Tennessee’s Watts Bar Unit 2, which began operation in June 2016. Before that Watts Bar Unit 1 in 1996. So, two new one ones in operation in 25 years. Two new ones being built. How many more do you think we would need? Well, we don't just have to cover the existing energy needs. Since it's getting hotter (I'm taking +1.5°C by 2050 as granted, since we're already at +1.25) we're going to need a bit more - but hey! - let's discount that. Let's say for living we don't need more energy, as generous as that is. Unfortunately you also want to grow food using electricity. And desalinate water. But let's also discount that. Let's discount all that and go with our current energy needs, for the sake of argument. We currently have 100 reactors with each about 1TWh. That covers about 20% of US energy needs. Let's say we can get the other renewables also up to 20%. That would still leave us with about 600 new reactors to be built. By about 2060. Do you honestly thing that this country has the political will to build 600 nuclear reactors over the span of forty years? This country cannot muster the political will to phase out coal or gas. This country cannot even muster the political will to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Sorry, my friend. I'm afraid that brute-forcing technology will save none of us. It might play a part in saving us, but unless we have a radical rethink about our current economic structure and incentives[3], this is just hot air. [0] https://wusf.org/heres-whats-in-the-democrats-3-5-trillion-budget-resolution/ https://wusf.org/heres-whats-in-the-democrats-3-5-trillion-b... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017 [2] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ [3] And we know that this isn't going to happen. See [1]
wyager 5y ago
> Since the middle of the 20th century, we've lost about 75% of biomass This is clearly an absurd claim. Did you mean to qualify this somehow, like “non-livestock mammalian biomass”? That would still be incorrect, but at least might not be off by orders of magnitude. > Water is beginning to get critically scarce Not really. Even desalination is cheap enough at this point (on the order of 1kL/$, last I checked) that we’d be fine with modest cost increases. > But now the damage has become so big that even nature's resilience cannot cope with it anymore What exactly are you predicting here? This sounds very apocalyptic but doesn’t match any plausible model I’m aware of for ecological failure modes.
- esarbe 5y ago
  > Did you mean to qualify this somehow, like “non-livestock mammalian biomass”? That would still be incorrect, but at least might not be off by orders of magnitude. Not necessary. The loss in biomass in fish[0][1] and insects[2][3] and tropical rainforests[4] can account for that. Birds have also taken a deep dive[6]. The most visible I think it is for fish. There alone we've lost an approximate 80% since the 1950ies. Imagine that. 80% of fish biomass, just gone. Similar for insects. German nature reserves have seen a decline of insect population by 75%. Really; non-livestock mammalian biomass is the least of our problems. > Not really. Even desalination is cheap enough at this point (on the order of 1kL/$, last I checked) that we’d be fine with modest cost increases. That only covers populations near bodies of water. Ironically these are the most vulnerable to climate change and threatened by the rising sea level. And while it might be possible to build and maintain the desalination infrastructure for the 9M people in Israel, good look trying the same thing in countries like India[8] or Balgladesh[8a]? Water crises have been ranked in the top five of the World Economic Forum's Global Risks by Impact list nearly every year since 2012[9]. A quarter of the world's population faces severe water shortage[10]. Are you going to provide water to 3 Billion people using desalination plants? In many of these places, even water treatment plants are too expensive to operate. What are you going to power these plants with? Coal? We don't even have a plan to migrate the already existing energy infrastructure to renewables. > What exactly are you predicting here? This sounds very apocalyptic but doesn’t match any plausible model I’m aware of for ecological failure modes Here's a helpful link[11]. The norther African coast of the Mediterranean used to be woodland. The continued depletion and over exploitation of the has led to it being the arid region it is today [12]. Now imagine that, but on a global scale. Because the last 250 years have been harsh for our ecosystem and it's now as threadbare as it can be. Ecosystem fragmentation is already a dire issue. The strings in the web are breaking, one by one [13]. [0] https://www.aaas.org/news/researcher-reports-stunning-losses-ocean-fish-biomass https://www.aaas.org/news/researcher-reports-stunning-losses... [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266684781_A_century_of_fish_biomass_decline_in_the_ocean https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266684781_A_century... [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations [4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326657472_Loss_of_biodiversity_and_shifts_in_aboveground_biomass_drivers_in_tropical_rainforests_with_different_disturbance_histories https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326657472_Loss_of_b... [5] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210225082525.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210225082525.h... [6] https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Bird-Decline-paper_Science-formatted_final.pdf https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Bird-Decline... [7] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309200743_Defaunation_and_biomass_collapse_of_mammals_in_the_largest_Atlantic_forest_remnant https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309200743_Defaunati... [8] https://qz.com/india/1114843/chinas-grand-plan-for-the-brahmaputra-a-1000km-tunnel-to-divert-water-away-from-tibet/ https://qz.com/india/1114843/chinas-grand-plan-for-the-brahm... [8a] https://undark.org/2021/08/04/the-water-crisis-in-climate-vulnerable-bangladesh/ https://undark.org/2021/08/04/the-water-crisis-in-climate-vu... [9] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2021.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_202... [10] https://news.trust.org/item/20200902202142-ku0o2 https://news.trust.org/item/20200902202142-ku0o2 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_collapse [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman... [13] https://theecologist.org/2012/feb/27/humanity-has-already-had-four-major-ecological-collapses-how-can-we-avoid-fifth https://theecologist.org/2012/feb/27/humanity-has-already-ha...

by esarbe 5y ago

bryanlarsen 5y ago

If the ecosystem and climate collapsed, us rich folk could live in air conditioned houses powered by solar or nuclear power, eat food grown in green houses and drink desalinated water. It would be a truly miserable experience, but it doesn't necessarily mean the end of civilization. The wars started by those who no longer can afford food might end civilization, but that's not assured either.

esarbe 5y ago
> If the ecosystem and climate collapsed, us rich folk could live in air conditioned houses powered by solar or nuclear power, eat food grown in green houses and drink desalinated water. Eh, no. We don't have the infrastructure to live in air conditioned houses powered by solar or nuclear power. Both solar and nuclear only can power a fraction of houses. And if you need additional power to grow food that fraction gets ever smaller. For both nuclear and a solar power you need an extensive, global infrastructure that will require raw materials (nuclear; fuel, solar; finished products) from all over the world. Good luck trying to acquire enough uranium from all over the world when all is going to shits. Who do you think exactly is going to do the extraction? So, I guess we'll all die, rich and poor.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  This country is working on a $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill. New Orleans was just saved by a massive infrastructure program to build levees. We'll build most of the required infrastructure. Probably not enough of it, and we'll spend too much for it, but most Americans will be "fine". (Insert "this is fine" meme picture here) Uranium is easy. That comes from Northern Canada.
  - esarbe 5y ago
    The budget - and I think you are talking about the budget reconciliation - includes a lot of stuff besides infrastructure. It's the budget after all.[0] Well... one half of the country is working on such a budget. The other half is doing everything to sabotage that budget, get back control of the senate and the house and spend that $3.5 trillion on a tax bill for the super-wealthy. You know, like the last time they did that [1]. Bit even if the infrastructure got $3.5 trillion; that isn't enough to even fully repair the existing infrastructure[2]. The last time the ASCE released an infrastrucutre report, fixing the infrastructure would cost about $4.8 trillion. That's just to fix the existing infrastructure. That money isn't going to build new nuclear reactors. By the way; how many nuclear reactors are currently being built in the US? ... Two... Two reactors with each a bit more that 1TWh. The latest one to come operational one was the Tennessee’s Watts Bar Unit 2, which began operation in June 2016. Before that Watts Bar Unit 1 in 1996. So, two new one ones in operation in 25 years. Two new ones being built. How many more do you think we would need? Well, we don't just have to cover the existing energy needs. Since it's getting hotter (I'm taking +1.5°C by 2050 as granted, since we're already at +1.25) we're going to need a bit more - but hey! - let's discount that. Let's say for living we don't need more energy, as generous as that is. Unfortunately you also want to grow food using electricity. And desalinate water. But let's also discount that. Let's discount all that and go with our current energy needs, for the sake of argument. We currently have 100 reactors with each about 1TWh. That covers about 20% of US energy needs. Let's say we can get the other renewables also up to 20%. That would still leave us with about 600 new reactors to be built. By about 2060. Do you honestly thing that this country has the political will to build 600 nuclear reactors over the span of forty years? This country cannot muster the political will to phase out coal or gas. This country cannot even muster the political will to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Sorry, my friend. I'm afraid that brute-forcing technology will save none of us. It might play a part in saving us, but unless we have a radical rethink about our current economic structure and incentives[3], this is just hot air. [0] https://wusf.org/heres-whats-in-the-democrats-3-5-trillion-budget-resolution/ https://wusf.org/heres-whats-in-the-democrats-3-5-trillion-b... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017 [2] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ [3] And we know that this isn't going to happen. See [1]

wyager 5y ago

> Since the middle of the 20th century, we've lost about 75% of biomass This is clearly an absurd claim. Did you mean to qualify this somehow, like “non-livestock mammalian biomass”? That would still be incorrect, but at least might not be off by orders of magnitude. > Water is beginning to get critically scarce Not really. Even desalination is cheap enough at this point (on the order of 1kL/$, last I checked) that we’d be fine with modest cost increases. > But now the damage has become so big that even nature's resilience cannot cope with it anymore What exactly are you predicting here? This sounds very apocalyptic but doesn’t match any plausible model I’m aware of for ecological failure modes.

esarbe 5y ago
> Did you mean to qualify this somehow, like “non-livestock mammalian biomass”? That would still be incorrect, but at least might not be off by orders of magnitude. Not necessary. The loss in biomass in fish[0][1] and insects[2][3] and tropical rainforests[4] can account for that. Birds have also taken a deep dive[6]. The most visible I think it is for fish. There alone we've lost an approximate 80% since the 1950ies. Imagine that. 80% of fish biomass, just gone. Similar for insects. German nature reserves have seen a decline of insect population by 75%. Really; non-livestock mammalian biomass is the least of our problems. > Not really. Even desalination is cheap enough at this point (on the order of 1kL/$, last I checked) that we’d be fine with modest cost increases. That only covers populations near bodies of water. Ironically these are the most vulnerable to climate change and threatened by the rising sea level. And while it might be possible to build and maintain the desalination infrastructure for the 9M people in Israel, good look trying the same thing in countries like India[8] or Balgladesh[8a]? Water crises have been ranked in the top five of the World Economic Forum's Global Risks by Impact list nearly every year since 2012[9]. A quarter of the world's population faces severe water shortage[10]. Are you going to provide water to 3 Billion people using desalination plants? In many of these places, even water treatment plants are too expensive to operate. What are you going to power these plants with? Coal? We don't even have a plan to migrate the already existing energy infrastructure to renewables. > What exactly are you predicting here? This sounds very apocalyptic but doesn’t match any plausible model I’m aware of for ecological failure modes Here's a helpful link[11]. The norther African coast of the Mediterranean used to be woodland. The continued depletion and over exploitation of the has led to it being the arid region it is today [12]. Now imagine that, but on a global scale. Because the last 250 years have been harsh for our ecosystem and it's now as threadbare as it can be. Ecosystem fragmentation is already a dire issue. The strings in the web are breaking, one by one [13]. [0] https://www.aaas.org/news/researcher-reports-stunning-losses-ocean-fish-biomass https://www.aaas.org/news/researcher-reports-stunning-losses... [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266684781_A_century_of_fish_biomass_decline_in_the_ocean https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266684781_A_century... [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations [4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326657472_Loss_of_biodiversity_and_shifts_in_aboveground_biomass_drivers_in_tropical_rainforests_with_different_disturbance_histories https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326657472_Loss_of_b... [5] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210225082525.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210225082525.h... [6] https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Bird-Decline-paper_Science-formatted_final.pdf https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Bird-Decline... [7] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309200743_Defaunation_and_biomass_collapse_of_mammals_in_the_largest_Atlantic_forest_remnant https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309200743_Defaunati... [8] https://qz.com/india/1114843/chinas-grand-plan-for-the-brahmaputra-a-1000km-tunnel-to-divert-water-away-from-tibet/ https://qz.com/india/1114843/chinas-grand-plan-for-the-brahm... [8a] https://undark.org/2021/08/04/the-water-crisis-in-climate-vulnerable-bangladesh/ https://undark.org/2021/08/04/the-water-crisis-in-climate-vu... [9] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2021.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_202... [10] https://news.trust.org/item/20200902202142-ku0o2 https://news.trust.org/item/20200902202142-ku0o2 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_collapse [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman... [13] https://theecologist.org/2012/feb/27/humanity-has-already-had-four-major-ecological-collapses-how-can-we-avoid-fifth https://theecologist.org/2012/feb/27/humanity-has-already-ha...