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Aren't you sick of this tired old argument? Humans have not existed on this planet for the 4 billion years. More like 4 million. Sure, an accurately recorded h

Aren't you sick of this tired old argument? Humans have not existed on this planet for the 4 billion years. More like 4 million. Sure, an accurately recorded history of 174 is still a pretty small fraction of 4 million. So if you're going to try to downplay the increasingly obvious Great Filter our idiotic species is hurtling towards at breakneck speed, at least be dignified about it and use the right numbers. Thanks!

RandomLensman 3y ago
In what scenario is climate change removing humans from the planet? If we cannot handle/manage/remove a mere 2-3 degree increase (which is about the current trajectory), sooner or later natural variation will doom us. The great filter might very well be the unwillingness to consider more than mono-thematic solutions mixed with doomsterism, though.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  > sooner or later natural variation will doom us. Correct, but we have managed to convert "later" to "significantly sooner". The fact that eventually the climate would have changed unfavorably anyway at some unknown point in the future is no reason to be comfortable with humans inducing an unfavorable change right now. That's like saying there's no point in getting an oil change because the car engine is going to wear out eventually anyway. or like saying you might as well smoke and drink as much as you want because everyone dies at some point.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I am saying we already on a path not in the catastrophic collapse space and we need and will be able to handle things, because we need to for far more problematic things in the future anyway.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  Human race handled the Blacl Death, but was it fun? It can probably survive a global nuclear war, but is it a great idea?
- esarbe 3y ago
  You might be underestimating the social upheaval that will result from wast regions of the earth becoming uninhabitable and the effect of the population movements from desperate people trying to get away starvation. You might also be underestimating the consequences of ecosystem collapse. Since 1970 we've already lost about 60% of biomass of insects, birds and mammals. The impact of rapid climate change will put additional pressure on already vulnerable species. I have little doubt that widespread ecosystem collapse will be the death nail for our global human civilization.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    So you are an expert in these things that you don't trust other experts? Catastrophic collapse is not really something generally assumed on the 2-3 degree warming path.
    - gameoverhumans 3y ago
      > So you are an expert in these things that you don't trust other experts I don't see how the grandparent comment implied a lack of trust in other experts, nor did they imply themselves to be experts. > Catastrophic collapse is not really something generally assumed on the 2-3 degree warming path. Actually, the IPCC, which tends to be rather optimistic on how bad things could be (or already are), predicts pretty significant socioeconomic problems arising from 2-3 degrees warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Socioeconomic_Pathways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Socioeconomic_Pathways It doesn't take much imagination to come up with ways that "Social cohesion degrades and conflict and unrest become increasingly common" leads to "nation states with nukes and experiencing extreme scarcity and high social unrest declare war on each other"...
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        Your imagination might not be a good guide to take you from degrading social cohesion to something like nuclear war. Even in general, socio-economic models are not of the same quality as the physics models (and no-one is making that claim anyway). The SSPs are more like share narratives rather than forecasts.
- solumunus 3y ago
  “Sooner or later” could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of years though, so I don’t think your point holds much weight.
- brookst 3y ago
  Sooner or later I’ll die of cancer so I might as well go BASE jumping without a parachute.
- adrianN 3y ago
  For it to be a Great Filter, it needs not to wipe out humanity completely, it's sufficient to end technological civilization. A nuclear war over resources can easily do that. As Covid has shown, even minuscule disruptions can lead to widespread scarcity, so a nuclear war might not even be necessary.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I could also say: covid showed that despite widespread disruption, technology civilization actually didn't collapse at all. Anyone can imagine any kind of doom scenario, but then I could justify inaction all the time: if it isn't warming, an asteroid will get us or aliens or nuclear war or ..., so why bother?
    - gameoverhumans 3y ago
      > covid showed that despite widespread disruption, technology civilization actually didn't collapse at all. What I hear: "hey look, I pulled a piece out of the Jenga tower and it didn't collapse! Clearly from this I can infer that more pieces can be pulled without any consequences!" > if it isn't warming, an asteroid will get us or aliens or nuclear war or ..., so why bother? Uh, because we don't have control over foreign sentient beings, nor the path of celestial bodies? Do you really not see the difference between those things and anthropogenic warming as a result of rapid industrialization?
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        You think we are physically unable to build an asteroid defense? Anyway, I didn't say we should do nothing about climate change (and we are doing a lot), but if the counter to everything is: not enough, doomed anyway - then, yes, totally happy not to work in that field anymore.
        gameoverhumans 3y ago
        > You think we are physically unable to build an asteroid defense? Mate the dino-nuking asteroid that hit Earth was 10km in diameter. Even if we launched every nuke we had at such an object, it wouldn't do much to deter such an object. And that's assuming it's moving at a low enough fraction of c that we could actually detect such an object in time to mobilize all said nukes. So, no, I don't think we would be able to defend ourselves today (nor by 2100, let's say) against such an adversary. Same deal with any species that is sophisticated enough to do interstellar travel. For them it's even easier, they can just pick up a few rocks from Kuiper belt, stick some mass drivers on them and it's bye-bye Earth within a few weeks/months. > (and we are doing a lot) The point is we're not. We haven't even reached peak fossil fuel yet. Even if we stopped everything tomorrow, things would still keep getting worse for at least another few decades. But as it is we're reading today about how bad we made things for ourselves in the 80s. Since then our consumption has only continued to accelerate, which can only mean things will be even worse tomorrow. > but if the counter to everything is: not enough, doomed anyway No. That's not what I or anyone else in this thread has been saying. It's like this. We are on the Titanic. Some very clever people have charted our course and done ocean sonographs and determined there's a big-ass iceberg ahead. Many folks like you are insisting either a) there's no iceberg or b) icebergs are good for ship hulls or c) we'll out-technology the iceberg somehow and thus we don't need to worry about the iceberg. So right now all we've done is ACCELERATE towards the iceberg. If there was sensible suggestions like "let's alter our course slightly" I wouldn't be saying "well that still puts us on course for the iceberg so there's no point". I would be saying "great! that's a start!".
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  This is a problem in how warming is reported in my opinion. Saying it's just 2 or 3 degrees doesn't sound like a lot. But that is warming the whole planet on average by that amount. This is a lot of energy being injected into the climate, and regional variations and extreme weather will be much more severe.
  - esarbe 3y ago
    Just try to imagine the ludicrous amount of energy required to heat up the whole surface - and probably a good part of the ocean - by 2°C. I think it is in the order of 10^17 joules or so.
    - mr_mitm 3y ago
      But that is distributed over a ludicrous amount of volume. These numbers are so large that I can visualize neither. How is this information supposed to help me?
      - esarbe 3y ago
        First I would check the number that I gave you and make sure it is correct. Then you put it into perspective; e.g. how many millennia would it take for a couple of hundred nuclear reactors to produce that much of energy. Play with the numbers and see what you can learn about them. Not sure you need to consider that much of a volume; we're talking about surface temperature, so you can just take an approximation of heat capacity of the surface of Earth.
  - gameoverhumans 3y ago
    Meh I dunno, there's that website that reports how many hiroshimas of energy we're releasing into our planet per second, the skeptics/denialists don't seem to care much for that metric, either. I don't think the problem is how it's being reported, I think it's just that this is the kind of news some people will do anything but hear.
    - 3y ago
- Delomo 3y ago
  With 3-6 degrees we will see sea level rise of a few meters. This already affects a lot of coastal regions. And there is still a big question mark if we don't break something fundamental on the road ahead. It might not eradicate us but millions and millions / billions will suffer.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    We are not on a 3-6C trajectory, why discuss the implications there?
    - bonzini 3y ago
      Do we even know what's the trajectory?
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        Yeah, we have a reasonable good idea because we can not only see the past but also investments and plans etc.
    - Delomo 3y ago
      We are.on a 2-3 by 2100 projection. That's not far away
FFP999 3y ago
> Aren't you sick of this tired old argument? Per Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

RandomLensman 3y ago

In what scenario is climate change removing humans from the planet? If we cannot handle/manage/remove a mere 2-3 degree increase (which is about the current trajectory), sooner or later natural variation will doom us. The great filter might very well be the unwillingness to consider more than mono-thematic solutions mixed with doomsterism, though.

nerdponx 3y ago
> sooner or later natural variation will doom us. Correct, but we have managed to convert "later" to "significantly sooner". The fact that eventually the climate would have changed unfavorably anyway at some unknown point in the future is no reason to be comfortable with humans inducing an unfavorable change right now. That's like saying there's no point in getting an oil change because the car engine is going to wear out eventually anyway. or like saying you might as well smoke and drink as much as you want because everyone dies at some point.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  I am saying we already on a path not in the catastrophic collapse space and we need and will be able to handle things, because we need to for far more problematic things in the future anyway.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
Human race handled the Blacl Death, but was it fun? It can probably survive a global nuclear war, but is it a great idea?
esarbe 3y ago
You might be underestimating the social upheaval that will result from wast regions of the earth becoming uninhabitable and the effect of the population movements from desperate people trying to get away starvation. You might also be underestimating the consequences of ecosystem collapse. Since 1970 we've already lost about 60% of biomass of insects, birds and mammals. The impact of rapid climate change will put additional pressure on already vulnerable species. I have little doubt that widespread ecosystem collapse will be the death nail for our global human civilization.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  So you are an expert in these things that you don't trust other experts? Catastrophic collapse is not really something generally assumed on the 2-3 degree warming path.
  - gameoverhumans 3y ago
    > So you are an expert in these things that you don't trust other experts I don't see how the grandparent comment implied a lack of trust in other experts, nor did they imply themselves to be experts. > Catastrophic collapse is not really something generally assumed on the 2-3 degree warming path. Actually, the IPCC, which tends to be rather optimistic on how bad things could be (or already are), predicts pretty significant socioeconomic problems arising from 2-3 degrees warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Socioeconomic_Pathways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Socioeconomic_Pathways It doesn't take much imagination to come up with ways that "Social cohesion degrades and conflict and unrest become increasingly common" leads to "nation states with nukes and experiencing extreme scarcity and high social unrest declare war on each other"...
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Your imagination might not be a good guide to take you from degrading social cohesion to something like nuclear war. Even in general, socio-economic models are not of the same quality as the physics models (and no-one is making that claim anyway). The SSPs are more like share narratives rather than forecasts.
solumunus 3y ago
“Sooner or later” could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of years though, so I don’t think your point holds much weight.
brookst 3y ago
Sooner or later I’ll die of cancer so I might as well go BASE jumping without a parachute.
adrianN 3y ago
For it to be a Great Filter, it needs not to wipe out humanity completely, it's sufficient to end technological civilization. A nuclear war over resources can easily do that. As Covid has shown, even minuscule disruptions can lead to widespread scarcity, so a nuclear war might not even be necessary.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  I could also say: covid showed that despite widespread disruption, technology civilization actually didn't collapse at all. Anyone can imagine any kind of doom scenario, but then I could justify inaction all the time: if it isn't warming, an asteroid will get us or aliens or nuclear war or ..., so why bother?
  - gameoverhumans 3y ago
    > covid showed that despite widespread disruption, technology civilization actually didn't collapse at all. What I hear: "hey look, I pulled a piece out of the Jenga tower and it didn't collapse! Clearly from this I can infer that more pieces can be pulled without any consequences!" > if it isn't warming, an asteroid will get us or aliens or nuclear war or ..., so why bother? Uh, because we don't have control over foreign sentient beings, nor the path of celestial bodies? Do you really not see the difference between those things and anthropogenic warming as a result of rapid industrialization?
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      You think we are physically unable to build an asteroid defense? Anyway, I didn't say we should do nothing about climate change (and we are doing a lot), but if the counter to everything is: not enough, doomed anyway - then, yes, totally happy not to work in that field anymore.
      - gameoverhumans 3y ago
        > You think we are physically unable to build an asteroid defense? Mate the dino-nuking asteroid that hit Earth was 10km in diameter. Even if we launched every nuke we had at such an object, it wouldn't do much to deter such an object. And that's assuming it's moving at a low enough fraction of c that we could actually detect such an object in time to mobilize all said nukes. So, no, I don't think we would be able to defend ourselves today (nor by 2100, let's say) against such an adversary. Same deal with any species that is sophisticated enough to do interstellar travel. For them it's even easier, they can just pick up a few rocks from Kuiper belt, stick some mass drivers on them and it's bye-bye Earth within a few weeks/months. > (and we are doing a lot) The point is we're not. We haven't even reached peak fossil fuel yet. Even if we stopped everything tomorrow, things would still keep getting worse for at least another few decades. But as it is we're reading today about how bad we made things for ourselves in the 80s. Since then our consumption has only continued to accelerate, which can only mean things will be even worse tomorrow. > but if the counter to everything is: not enough, doomed anyway No. That's not what I or anyone else in this thread has been saying. It's like this. We are on the Titanic. Some very clever people have charted our course and done ocean sonographs and determined there's a big-ass iceberg ahead. Many folks like you are insisting either a) there's no iceberg or b) icebergs are good for ship hulls or c) we'll out-technology the iceberg somehow and thus we don't need to worry about the iceberg. So right now all we've done is ACCELERATE towards the iceberg. If there was sensible suggestions like "let's alter our course slightly" I wouldn't be saying "well that still puts us on course for the iceberg so there's no point". I would be saying "great! that's a start!".
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
This is a problem in how warming is reported in my opinion. Saying it's just 2 or 3 degrees doesn't sound like a lot. But that is warming the whole planet on average by that amount. This is a lot of energy being injected into the climate, and regional variations and extreme weather will be much more severe.
- esarbe 3y ago
  Just try to imagine the ludicrous amount of energy required to heat up the whole surface - and probably a good part of the ocean - by 2°C. I think it is in the order of 10^17 joules or so.
  - mr_mitm 3y ago
    But that is distributed over a ludicrous amount of volume. These numbers are so large that I can visualize neither. How is this information supposed to help me?
    - esarbe 3y ago
      First I would check the number that I gave you and make sure it is correct. Then you put it into perspective; e.g. how many millennia would it take for a couple of hundred nuclear reactors to produce that much of energy. Play with the numbers and see what you can learn about them. Not sure you need to consider that much of a volume; we're talking about surface temperature, so you can just take an approximation of heat capacity of the surface of Earth.
- gameoverhumans 3y ago
  Meh I dunno, there's that website that reports how many hiroshimas of energy we're releasing into our planet per second, the skeptics/denialists don't seem to care much for that metric, either. I don't think the problem is how it's being reported, I think it's just that this is the kind of news some people will do anything but hear.
  - 3y ago
Delomo 3y ago
With 3-6 degrees we will see sea level rise of a few meters. This already affects a lot of coastal regions. And there is still a big question mark if we don't break something fundamental on the road ahead. It might not eradicate us but millions and millions / billions will suffer.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  We are not on a 3-6C trajectory, why discuss the implications there?
  - bonzini 3y ago
    Do we even know what's the trajectory?
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Yeah, we have a reasonable good idea because we can not only see the past but also investments and plans etc.
  - Delomo 3y ago
    We are.on a 2-3 by 2100 projection. That's not far away

FFP999 3y ago

> Aren't you sick of this tired old argument? Per Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"