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Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat
- a0zU 4y agoThat is going to make some very expensive scotch.
- thefz 4y agoInteresting read! It is amazing how some discoveries like this are made almost by chance.
- echelon 4y agoNot to veer off topic, but this felt tangential with the mention of thawing peat. I've read some analysis that says global warming will make much more of Russia arable and open up lots of new economic opportunities. China will gain new shipping lanes through the Arctic. Canada will also get more useful land, etc. Obviously it's going to wreak havoc on ecosystems and species diversity and the climates of other nations, but you don't see the lopsided benefits mentioned frequently or how these factor into the calculus of certain nations.
- baybal2 4y ago
- agilob 4y agoMany opportunities, yes, Czechia will have access to sea...
- trylfthsk 4y agoAhoj
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MAGZine 4y agoNot well, IMO. Or, at least, "it's complicated." Take for example, the boreal forest, which produces roughly equivalent amounts of oxygen as the Amazon. A large swatch of canada is covered by boreal forest. As the climate warms, the growing season could become elongated. However, there actually isn't any more arable land in Canada without deforesting. Grassland goes right up to the forest, and the forest doesn't stop until the arctic circle. Maybe you could EVENTUALLY grow in the arctic circle, but even then you face significant developmental/logistical challenges So, what do you do? Do you tear down the forest, as is happening in S. America, make room for homesteading and civilization? probably not wise. And yet, in the south, if I had to guess, the desert in the southwest will continue to creep up into the grasslands to the north and east. So say that you do decide to deforest to turn that land into something more than just forest—what then? Increasing turbulent/violent weather poses significant challenges. Arguably one of the worst parts of climate change is not just the extra warmth, but the extreme weather that it brings. Hailstorms are becoming more likely. Early frosts are becoming more likely. And both of these things will kill your crops in one fell swoop. So the existing arable land's yield is going down, not up. But yes, we'll get a new shipping lane.
- upsidesinclude 4y agoFor everything you described the opposite is also true. Now that we've largely settled on "climate change" instead of all the other catastrophic descriptors which didn't last a decade... There will be places where what you claimed is true and places where the opposite is true, if the climate changes in the way you propose. The benefits to many places will be immense, there is no rigorous science measuring at this point, because no one will pay for that investigation to take place publicly. The new paradigm with "denialism" being a career sinking position means honest appraisal is not happening publicly. The southwest US had a seven year drought through the nineties, now they experience exceptional monsoons. It is not hotter there by any measure that humans can appreciate. Data shows us it is hotter in the cities, but the climate is not warming outside of the cities once the city data is expunged. What do you do with that information? Historical data suggests that there is no safer time to be alive. And yet, people are dying from starvation, not because we don't have food, mind you. Because we won't get food to people that starve. Isn't it funny. We can focus on a future catastrophe and never have to help people or be kind now. We can be vicious and mean to people and they deserve to starve to death because they won't do as they're told and follow "the science"
- treeman79 4y agoOcean used to be 400 feet lower. We are still coming out of an ice age. People will move further inland if needed.
- NegativeK 4y agoThat feels like it's oversimplifying the effects of mass displacement and the destruction (both economic and physical) of all of the residential, commercial, agricultural, industrial, etc. property.
- upsidesinclude 4y agoAh, but it's a growth economy!
- UncleEntity 4y agoIt’s not like it’s going to happen over a weekend, people will have plenty of time to adapt to the new normal. Factories get moved (overseas), houses and people get relocated, humanity survives. The thing I like most about these debates is if you state a simple and obvious fact people will attack you as a denier because the sky isn’t falling. But I can’t resist even though I know better.
- edgefield 4y agoAs an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientific discovery (magic at the moment) can head off the worst outcomes. Edit: The responses and downvoting in this thread just prove my point. Debating human caused climate change is no different than debating that the earth is round or that Trump won in 2020. Incredible.
- momento 4y agoWhat leads you to believe there is a “significant” number of people who view the earth as flat on HN?
- akomtu 4y agoIt's flat if you consider the hypothesis of extra small dimensions.
- goatlover 4y agoIt won't become hostile to human life, it will become more challenging for human civilization to deal with the warming. And we don't need magic, we can decarbonize and pursue several strategies for mitigation.
- Arainach 4y agoIt will absolutely become hostile to human life. https://theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature https://theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-...
- edgyquant 4y agoPlease post peer reviewed papers and not sensationalist articles. You’ll quickly see how wrong you are
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]