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I no longer worry. I'm extremely pessimistic about the impending climate change. I believe Sabine isn't pessimistic enough about what to anticipate. Consider th
by pk-protect-ai 3y ago
I no longer worry. I'm extremely pessimistic about the impending climate change. I believe Sabine isn't pessimistic enough about what to anticipate. Consider the tundra methane emissions and the explosive release of methane-hydrates from the oceans, along with water vapor, a potent greenhouse gas. The disaster looming over all ecosystems (a mass extinction event) that will happen in decades and the doom-phase could last for 200,000 years. The chances of humanity surviving are incredibly slim, IMO. We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil, and it would take thousands of years to develop it. Without saying so, we don't have this amount of time.
- jhoechtl 3y agoI am glad that I survived oil outage, sour rain, the Ozone hole, mass famine because of overpopulation. All in a lifetime. I must have had sheer luck.
- adrianN 3y agoThere was massive concerted effort to stop acid rain and ozone depletion. Maybe we should try that for the climate crisis if we want similar success at preventing catastrophe.
- refurb 3y agoAmazing how the ozone hole repaired itself despite China releasing thousands of tons of CFCs. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/china-factories-releasing-thousands-of-tonnes-of-illegal-cfc-gases-study-finds https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/china-factorie...
- styfle 3y agoThe article doesn’t seem to support your claim. “After the ban came into force, global concentrations of CFC-11 declined steadily until about 2012. However, last year scientists discovered the pace of that slowdown slowed by half between 2013 and 2017. Because the chemical is not naturally occurring, the change could only have been produced by new emissions.” “If emissions do not decline, it will delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, possibly for decades”
- refurb 3y agoCFC-11 is one specific CFC, you need to look at all of them. Overall they’re increasing, yet the ozone layer has continue to “heal”.
- quickthrower2 3y agoA bear is chasing you. “Glad I survived crossing a dangerous road, smoking a cigarette and unprotected sex”
- slaw 3y agoRecently I survived covid exponential deaths apocalypse and Al Gore's sea levels rising in 2016.
- moffkalast 3y agoCovid was no joke, 3 million people died despite the entire world grinding to a halt and hiding in their houses for months. Sea levels are up 10 cm since Gore was VP and it's accelerating.
- slaw 3y ago61 milion people died in 2023 with and without covid. Al Gore predicted 20ft by 2016 not 10cm.
- ben_w 3y ago> Al Gore predicted I see no predictions by him. What I do see are examples of him selectively quoting other people and that he was in turn selectively quoted himself. This is also why you shouldn't rely on politicians for anything. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-gore-2014/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-gore-2014/
- slaw 3y agoAl Gore got Nobel prize for PowerPoint presentation.
- ben_w 3y ago"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize." Which was extra ironic, given Kissinger reportedly said to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin "I figure it like Groucho Marx said 'any club that took him in he would not want to join'. I would say that anything Lê Đức Thọ is eligible for, there must be something wrong with it." while Lê Đức Thọ declined the prize, on grounds that such "bourgeois sentimentalities" were not for him and that the Paris Peace Accords (for which he and Kissinger had been awarded the prize) were not being adhered to in full.
- getlawgdon 3y agoYour list is a 1.75. What's occurring and coming fast is a 9.9. Thanks for sharing the kind of naivete that helped get us here.
- BodyCulture 3y ago[flagged]
- TOMDM 3y agoCome on, it was a bad prediction with some pretty bad consequences. Yes some racists adopted it because it fit their agendas, but it was hardly fascist on the whole.
- paulcole 3y agoAlso you’re in what, likely the top 10-20% of the wealthiest people on Earth?
- baq 3y agoYeah, but are you building a bunker in Hawaii? Because Mark Zuckerberg is building a bunker in Hawaii.
- vasco 3y agoI think extreme doomers like this create a shitty world to live in where you're surrounded by people that adopted an extreme "nothing matters the world is doomed soon" perspective that is depressing.
- CalRobert 3y agoOk, but are they wrong?
- _y5hn 3y agoThey are correct: Daily Sea Surface Temperature (notice the new paradigm started in 2023 and extending into 2024): https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ Daily Surface Air Temperature: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world Daily Sea Ice Extent (click on "Show Southern Hemisphere", also showing concerns of being low in 2023): https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/ https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/ The most shocking is the sea surface temperature, but we see rising temperature in all layers of the troposphere. A factor that has dampened global warming for very long, since the last ice age, is the ocean's capacity for absorbing heat. If this gets saturated, and since surface waters don't mix much with deep waters.. If the same surplus heat equivalent to 15 hiroshima bombs per second today hits the surface, and rising. All that goes into heating air and surface, it's going to accellerate warming going forward. Early projections are in fact showing accelleration already. That most people are incapable of emotionally processing this, is part of the problem.
- flir 3y agoThere's a good chance that the sudden bump in sea surface temperature is a consequence of us cleaning up marine diesel. Which is at least interesting, because it suggests we were doing geoengineering without even knowing it. (Random thought: what's the sulphur content of automotive diesel? I know it's cleaner, but there are so many more cars than boats. Could we see another sea surface temperature bump as we phase out diesel cars?)
- 127361 3y agoThis might just be the same thing as apocalyptic religious predictions, I think? But environmentalism this time?
- mitthrowaway2 3y agohttps://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/25/is-everything-a-religion/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/25/is-everything-a-religi... But that said, religious apocalypse scenarios usually aren't quite as specific as "methane hydrate runaway feedbacks".
- fulafel 3y agoDepends a lot on your relationship with religion. For some religious people, yes. In fact religious belief in apocalypse might contribute to the apathy about climate policy from the voters, people can either conflate the two or think the religious apocalypse is nearer so no need to address the climate catastrophe: https://www.newsweek.com/shocking-number-americans-believe-living-end-times-1762615 https://www.newsweek.com/shocking-number-americans-believe-l...
- adrianN 3y agoReligious predictions never come with data to support them. That’s an important difference.
- graphe 3y agoPythagoreans did. If it is truthful, do such "religious" beliefs stops being religion? Climate change people seem like a doomsday cult anyways, but if what if they're right?
- 127361 3y agoI looked at the overall actions of the group of people, instead of what they are saying.
- bsdpufferfish 3y agoIf we were looking at data we wouldn’t be - banning plastic bags and straws - buying expensive electrical vehicles - ignoring other risks in our circle of influence - listening to public figures and scientists who gave us “point of no return” dates several times in the last 30 years
- flir 3y ago> We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil Just on this example, you can physically pick soil up and move it. Enough for 9bn people? No. Enough for 100k? Yes.
- pvaldes 3y agoOr just keep your intestine working actively If the sea is fertile the soil can be hacked to be fertile. Any seabird could tell us how But this is not the problem. The sea level will raise
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoI've thought about this as well. It's feasible to move soil only to certain regions. Greenland and Antarctica aren't among them (remember the ice shields; they will continue to scrape all the soil as they melt). Some islands in Antarctic Ocean could potentially sustain a population of 20-40k. However, you need to start moving the soil now, but you will also need to develop methods of preserving this soil until it is needed, because right now it will be useless and it will be eroded by wind and hydro factors. What might happen is a gradual migration towards the poles on the Americas and Eurasia, moving the soil as migration progresses. This will be bloody and ruthless. But none of these solutions take into account the "exponent", and there is no way to forecast if a Venus atmosphere scenario will occur or not due to the water vapor. Edit: good point in the next comment, expect sea levels rising for at least 10m.
- flir 3y agoAren't we hypothesizing a situation where there is no (or a much reduced) Greenland ice sheet? I'm imagining "hey, look at all this bare rock that's suddenly available, and it's gonna take a couple of thousand years for erosion and lichen to develop soil here, so lets take a short cut". I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm saying it's a theoretically possible idea in the face of an extinction-level event.
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoHere is where you are incorrect in your anticipation. The amount of land usable for agriculture will be decreasing faster than the ice shields melt. The territory where the fertile soil is available will not be human-friendly for the entire season, if at all. You can't make people work at 50°C or even 45°C with 90° humidity. You can't breathe water... https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
- adrianN 3y agoHumanity is quite resilient. I’m confident that we’ll survive. However I’m much more pessimistic about technological civilization surviving.
- wkjagt 3y agoThere’s more than just humans and their tech here to worry about though. I get so depressed when I hear people describe the gravity of climate change only in terms of the chance of survival of us humans.
- willis936 3y agoMass extinction events have happened many times before. The tragedy here is that it is the first preventable mass extinction event. If speaking about it in self-centered terms gets people to act then we should do it. Pragmatism is essential.
- petemir 3y ago> The tragedy here is that it is the first preventable mass extinction event I think that being responsibles for it is even more of a tragedy.
- graphe 3y agoIf climate change didn't affect humans we wouldn't care. Did we care when the skies started to glow at night due to air pollution and destroyed the ecology, or the importation of European honeybees, or effects of toxins on fauna. No it was "marvelous" a "triumph against nature". The ONLY question to most people is: what will happen to me from it, if it will, why me changing anything will help?
- wkjagt 3y agoI’m not disagreeing. This is exactly how it is. I’m just saying that this way of thinking (not yours, but the one you describe) is depressing.
- hnmullany 3y agoClimate change is a catastrophe, but it's not going to be the apocalypse and if we keep working on mititgation, there is a good chance it will merely be a "normal" scale disaster. For example - it's possible that tundra methane emissions in many areas could be mitigated relatively quickly by the regrowth of birch and pine scrubland whose increased evapotranspiration will reduce water tables and eliminate methane emissions. And aboveground carbon sequestration in woody tree mass could outweigh losses from belowground oxidation. This already occurs in fenlands in Southern Finland (paper I read) We don't know enough about methane hydrates to assess their stability. Many ecosystems will be reasonably resilient to climate change - maybe up to 2/3 of them, although some specific species groups like tropical amphibians are going to have a really bad time.
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoWhat was that story about a frog which was slowly boiled in a pot and didn't know it about it until it was too late? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7069279/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7069279/
- moffkalast 3y agoOh the frog knows in our case, it knows perfectly well. But it's so nice and warm in the pot and freezing outside, plus it's sure that if it concentrates real hard it'll come up with a solution to being cooked alive while still being able to stay in the pot.
- qayxc 3y agoFunny how everyone always leaves out the part where in the original experiment, said frog's brain was removed before putting it in the pot :)
- infradig 3y agoWell that only makes it even more relevant.
- cuu508 3y ago
- badpun 3y ago> We can't colonize Greenland or Antarctica due to the lack of fertile soil, and it would take thousands of years to develop it. I wonder if it would be possible to rip soil off places that are no longer habitable and transport it to Antarctica.
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoIt's all about timing. You need the ice shields to be gone before you deploy the new soil; otherwise, it will be scraped or eroded. You also need to consider rising sea levels. You may need to think about bringing the soil first and storing it there until it's usable. Otherwise, you could lose it.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago> We can't colonize Greenland But we can dig it up fast enough ro build all those batteries we need.
- refurb 3y agoHumanity not surviving? That seems completely unlinked to any sort of scientific consensus.
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoOh... How many mass extinction events have humanity survived as a species so far? I would also like to see this data... pretty please?
- refurb 3y agoThere is no scientific consensus that global warming will be a mass extinction event that would threaten humanity.
- ben_w 3y agoYou're in one right now.
- oceanplexian 3y agoLiterally the Ice Age, with cave-man era technology.
- tim333 3y agoThere historically hasn't been much mass extinction in hot phases. It usually seems to happen when cold, especially if an asteroid has hit the place. I guess hot, life can move towards the poles, cold if everywhere freezes and plants die life is a bit screwed.
- pvaldes 3y agoWe should ask this to an archeologist, but If I remember correctly we dodge the bullet a few times. Almost gone 900.000 years ago. Human DNA points to several genetical bottlenecks.
- slibhb 3y agoThe IPCC 6 says "It is very unlikely that gas clathrates (mostly methane) in deeper terrestrial permafrost and subsea clathrates will lead to a detectable departure from the emissions trajectory during this century". Your pessimism may be trendy but it isn't supported by the bear available evidence.
- refurb 3y ago[flagged]
- baq 3y agoYou can always print more money… it’s harder to print clouds
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoDon't misunderstand me here. I'd rather be wrong regarding my "doomism," and I no longer worry about climate change; it doesn't make sense to worry about something that can't be changed. However, I observe that people aren't scared enough to take action. They continue to dance around the issue in political euphoria. The changes to our lifestyle are happening too slowly to be effective. The gas and oil industry is doing a lot of carbon emission washing, like CSS. Many optimists argue, "We can't predict it, therefore we shouldn't be worried."
- Elextric 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering
- bemusedthrow75 3y agoPerhaps this is fundamental attribution error: You don’t worry because it’s inevitable. You perceive them not worrying, but they aren’t scared enough? What if they also have the (intuitive, but not necessarily correct) sense that it’s inevitable?
- ajross 3y ago
- Geee 3y agoThere won't be an extinction event. We already know that warm periods in Earth's history are the most friendly for all kinds of life. And we know that cold periods kill species and reduce biodiversity. In the most catastrophic case Earth will end up as a tropical paradise, resembling the Eocene period [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Flora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Flora
- naasking 3y agoThis is naive. It's not the absolute temperature that's the problem, it's the rate of change. Temperature is going to change faster than most species can adapt, and that's why the food chain could collapse in the worst case.
- Geee 3y agoThat's true, but I think it's quite debatable what would actually happen. Most species wouldn't need to adapt, but just migrate. There are a lot of species which already thrive in warm / tropical climates, and those species would increase in numbers.
- petemir 3y agoAnd what about the species that do not warm nor thrive in tropical climates? Or those that cannot migrate? Even if some species increase in numbers, it still means that all other species would get lost, reducing biodiversity and effectively meaning an extinction-level event.
- bavell 3y ago> ...all other species would get lost, reducing biodiversity and effectively meaning an extinction-level event. Reducing biodiversity doesn't equate to an extension-level event though. It also doesn't mean all species who didn't thrive would be lost - many would be affected but not existentially so. I'm reminded of George Carlin's joke about the planet being fine long-term, we're the ones who will be screwed.
- throwuwu 3y agoYou don’t need soil, you need fertilizer and water. We farm outside now because it’s cheap. If you move to a temporarily inhospitable place then farming outside is no longer cheap so it is better to do it inside or in outdoor hydroponic or aeroponic systems if the weather is nice enough.
- aik 3y ago2 questions: 1. How does this perspective affect you today? Is it debilitating? Depressing? Affect your wellbeing and productivity? 2. What do you believe is the probability of what you say here? Estimate with a percentage. Does the unknown associated to the percentage in #2 make the perspective rational and helpful?