5 ms·

El Niño Is Coming-and the World Isn't Prepared

29 points by kungfudoi 4y ago

tmtvl 4y ago
This article isn't citing any sources, but here is a relevant article from the NOAA: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/e...
henriquez 4y ago
Global heating is the only thing that will save our planet from ending up like Mars. Do you know why there are no dinosaurs? Because the atmosphere is literally too thin for them to breathe now. Every decade the atmosphere thins even more. The world has been dying slowly for hundreds of millions of years. Humans with our vast knowledge of how the planet should be, gleaned from measurements taken over the last few hundred years interpreted through a lens of scientific hubris, have determined that artificial cooling, blackening the atmosphere and the continued decline of breathable oxygen is necessary to maintain an environmental “status quo” which definitely will put a stop to our current mass extinction event, and all future mass extinction events. Humans know what is best for ecology. Like that one time the scientific community decided to put a stop to forest fires in Yosemite and accidentally fucked the park ecology in the process. Turns out those fires, which had been happening longer than even the residency of the native Americans who we stole Yosemite from, those fires served a useful ecological purpose for the reproduction of rainforest trees. But everyone makes mistakes. I’m sure blackening Earth’s atmosphere will be fine. Or maybe, just maybe, the only way to prevent our planet from becoming the next Mars is to start terraforming the shit out of it right now. We should make it like it was when the dinosaurs thrived. More oxygen, more nitrogen, a lot more CO2 and giant plants. We should start burning all the fossil fuels possible. Just burning them. Release quadrillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Green house to the max. Heat the earth. Plants will love it. The atmosphere will be thick with a beautiful cocktail of oxygen, nitrogen and diesel exhaust. Finally we can clone and rebirth all extinct species from the Jurassic age. We will bring back the dinosaurs! We will all drive around in supercharged V12 armored SUVs that get 20 gallons per mile! The Earth will be saved, at least until the sun fans into a red giant and engulfs us in flames in 800 million years.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  The blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived on planet Earth. During the last ice age there was an abundance of mammalian megafauna as large as all but the largest dinosaurs. What higher oxygen concentrations allowed was mosquitos the size of a DJI drone. No thanks.
- Valgrim 4y ago
  Utter nonsense, and dangerous train of tought. It's incredible to see how internet echo chambers can be damaging to one's critical thinking.
  - xwowsersx 4y ago
    The comment was made in jest. You are meant to enjoy it for its humor and colorful prose.
    - throwawayoaky 4y ago
      Doesn't matter if he's kidding; address the people who will take it seriously. folks who think they're smart but lack systems thinking ability are capable of believing anything; they're like early socialist dictators without the power.. which makes sense given the commonality which is the failure of rationalism in the face of large unknowns
      - throwawayoaky 4y ago
        Agree he's kidding though; there's a zero percent chance we'll survive our AI oppressors. Also never listen to infrastructure talk from someone who can't keep their own website up
  - henriquez 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
sjkoelle 4y ago
el nino de feliz navidad
fallingfrog 4y ago
It’s kind of funny, the stock market won’t react at all to global warming until the electrical grid of some major city collapses and people start dying of heatstroke. That’s the point where the cost of fossil fuels will suddenly start getting priced in. (Oopsy daisy!). The market is blind to anything happening farther away in time than next quarter’s earnings reports.
- mempko 4y ago
  Exactly, relying on the stock market for any sort of prediction is silly. Markets are short lived, over react, and basically rely on the supply of cheap money and growth of money to keep going up. But exponential growth can only go for so long.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  The only thing that matters is what the fed will do. The fed and government spending is the stock market
haroldflowers 4y ago
I have had “Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations” by Brian Fagan (2009) on my bookshelf for a while but haven’t found the time to sit down and read it. Just noting the book here in case others are interested and want to look into it :-)
zamalek 4y ago
Beyond doing what I can at a personal level, I'm all spent on worrying about climate. Life goes on, or it won't, American politics has shown me that there is bugger-all I can do.

29 points by kungfudoi 4y ago

This article isn't citing any sources, but here is a relevant article from the NOAA: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/e...

henriquez 4y ago

Global heating is the only thing that will save our planet from ending up like Mars. Do you know why there are no dinosaurs? Because the atmosphere is literally too thin for them to breathe now. Every decade the atmosphere thins even more. The world has been dying slowly for hundreds of millions of years. Humans with our vast knowledge of how the planet should be, gleaned from measurements taken over the last few hundred years interpreted through a lens of scientific hubris, have determined that artificial cooling, blackening the atmosphere and the continued decline of breathable oxygen is necessary to maintain an environmental “status quo” which definitely will put a stop to our current mass extinction event, and all future mass extinction events. Humans know what is best for ecology. Like that one time the scientific community decided to put a stop to forest fires in Yosemite and accidentally fucked the park ecology in the process. Turns out those fires, which had been happening longer than even the residency of the native Americans who we stole Yosemite from, those fires served a useful ecological purpose for the reproduction of rainforest trees. But everyone makes mistakes. I’m sure blackening Earth’s atmosphere will be fine. Or maybe, just maybe, the only way to prevent our planet from becoming the next Mars is to start terraforming the shit out of it right now. We should make it like it was when the dinosaurs thrived. More oxygen, more nitrogen, a lot more CO2 and giant plants. We should start burning all the fossil fuels possible. Just burning them. Release quadrillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. Green house to the max. Heat the earth. Plants will love it. The atmosphere will be thick with a beautiful cocktail of oxygen, nitrogen and diesel exhaust. Finally we can clone and rebirth all extinct species from the Jurassic age. We will bring back the dinosaurs! We will all drive around in supercharged V12 armored SUVs that get 20 gallons per mile! The Earth will be saved, at least until the sun fans into a red giant and engulfs us in flames in 800 million years.

jiggawatts 4y ago
The blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived on planet Earth. During the last ice age there was an abundance of mammalian megafauna as large as all but the largest dinosaurs. What higher oxygen concentrations allowed was mosquitos the size of a DJI drone. No thanks.
Valgrim 4y ago
Utter nonsense, and dangerous train of tought. It's incredible to see how internet echo chambers can be damaging to one's critical thinking.
- xwowsersx 4y ago
  The comment was made in jest. You are meant to enjoy it for its humor and colorful prose.
  - throwawayoaky 4y ago
    Doesn't matter if he's kidding; address the people who will take it seriously. folks who think they're smart but lack systems thinking ability are capable of believing anything; they're like early socialist dictators without the power.. which makes sense given the commonality which is the failure of rationalism in the face of large unknowns
    - throwawayoaky 4y ago
      Agree he's kidding though; there's a zero percent chance we'll survive our AI oppressors. Also never listen to infrastructure talk from someone who can't keep their own website up
- henriquez 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - selimthegrim 4y ago

sjkoelle 4y ago

el nino de feliz navidad

fallingfrog 4y ago

It’s kind of funny, the stock market won’t react at all to global warming until the electrical grid of some major city collapses and people start dying of heatstroke. That’s the point where the cost of fossil fuels will suddenly start getting priced in. (Oopsy daisy!). The market is blind to anything happening farther away in time than next quarter’s earnings reports.

mempko 4y ago
Exactly, relying on the stock market for any sort of prediction is silly. Markets are short lived, over react, and basically rely on the supply of cheap money and growth of money to keep going up. But exponential growth can only go for so long.
rdtwo 4y ago
The only thing that matters is what the fed will do. The fed and government spending is the stock market

haroldflowers 4y ago

I have had “Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations” by Brian Fagan (2009) on my bookshelf for a while but haven’t found the time to sit down and read it. Just noting the book here in case others are interested and want to look into it :-)

zamalek 4y ago

Beyond doing what I can at a personal level, I'm all spent on worrying about climate. Life goes on, or it won't, American politics has shown me that there is bugger-all I can do.