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> I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this. Oh, much worse. First off we, fertilizer or no, we're already facing cro

> I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this. Oh, much worse. First off we, fertilizer or no, we're already facing crop failures in the US [0] and will continue to face even more extreme crop failures [1]. Even if we had unlimited fertilizer we've already signed up for massive famine. But if you really want to talk about the unmitigated climate change path, which is what happens if we choose not to keep hydrocarbons in the ground, I really recommend reading Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky [2]. He's a respected geologist that makes a compelling case that the vast majority of mass extinction events were caused by rapid rises in CO2. One of the realistic scenarios we're facing, he argues, is the break down of the AMOC ultimately leading to the oceans becoming anoxic and releasing hydrogen sulfide rather than oxygen. The entire marine ecosystem is essentially wiped out except for some cyanobacteria. The oceans are the foundation of all of our food systems. It would make the planet uninhabitable my most complex life of today. This has happened before in Earth's climate history. All of the "bad-awful" but not-extinction event scenarios assume that we do not burn all of the fossil fuel reserves currently leased. We are already looking at a grim future, but given that we're rapidly pumping millions of years of stored CO2 into the atmosphere, upper bounds for the damage we can do are tremendous. 0. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/kansas-wheat-harvest-drought.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/kansas-wheat-harvest-d... 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/4/scientists-warn-of-crop-failure-uncertainties-as-earth-heats-up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/4/scientists-warn-of-c... 2. https://www.amazon.com/Under-Green-Sky-Warming-Extinctions/dp/0061137928 https://www.amazon.com/Under-Green-Sky-Warming-Extinctions/d...

robnado 3y ago
Sounds like the classic trolley problem where your choice is to pull a lever and immediately kill half the world's population because 100 million kilometres away, the entirety of life on earth is comfortably resting on the train tracks. You're saying, let's pull that lever. I'm saying, let's organize a project to move the trolley tracks since we have ample time to do so. Sure some people will get hit by the trolley as it races by while the track is still being moved, but it sure beats killing 4 billion people in one fell swoop.
- IKantRead 3y ago
  > You're saying, let's pull that lever. First off, I'm not saying "starting tomorrow now fossil fuels!", I'm saying you must keep fossil fuels in the ground to avoid worst case. And the start of that means you have to identify some fossil fuels that will never be extracted. > since we have ample time to do so. I seriously have no idea where you got that impression, but with climate change once you start feeling the effects you're already in the danger zone. We've already signed up for famine and potentially billions dead even if we had zero emissions today. I do suggest you read up a bit more on the topic. No serious research around climate change would claim we have "ample time". The bigger question is: how close are we to climate "tipping points". We do know that geologically it seems there are points where positive feedbacks start accelerating climate change rapidly. We just don't know where the line is for those tipping points. If we seriously want to avoid extinction of the species we should already be starting to strategize a schedule of what fossil fuels reserves we promise to keep in the ground, and what we're going to do about future discoveries. To be honest, I don't really think we will do this, but if we wanted to survive at all we should start talking about it very seriously.

robnado 3y ago

Sounds like the classic trolley problem where your choice is to pull a lever and immediately kill half the world's population because 100 million kilometres away, the entirety of life on earth is comfortably resting on the train tracks. You're saying, let's pull that lever. I'm saying, let's organize a project to move the trolley tracks since we have ample time to do so. Sure some people will get hit by the trolley as it races by while the track is still being moved, but it sure beats killing 4 billion people in one fell swoop.

IKantRead 3y ago
> You're saying, let's pull that lever. First off, I'm not saying "starting tomorrow now fossil fuels!", I'm saying you must keep fossil fuels in the ground to avoid worst case. And the start of that means you have to identify some fossil fuels that will never be extracted. > since we have ample time to do so. I seriously have no idea where you got that impression, but with climate change once you start feeling the effects you're already in the danger zone. We've already signed up for famine and potentially billions dead even if we had zero emissions today. I do suggest you read up a bit more on the topic. No serious research around climate change would claim we have "ample time". The bigger question is: how close are we to climate "tipping points". We do know that geologically it seems there are points where positive feedbacks start accelerating climate change rapidly. We just don't know where the line is for those tipping points. If we seriously want to avoid extinction of the species we should already be starting to strategize a schedule of what fossil fuels reserves we promise to keep in the ground, and what we're going to do about future discoveries. To be honest, I don't really think we will do this, but if we wanted to survive at all we should start talking about it very seriously.