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Is the root cause of emergence of these currents somehow related to human activity? If yes then it sounds a bit like we are (again) blaming the knife for a kill

Is the root cause of emergence of these currents somehow related to human activity? If yes then it sounds a bit like we are (again) blaming the knife for a killing, like in ancient Greece : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buphonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buphonia The axe, therefore, as being polluted by murder, was immediately afterward carried before the court of the Prytaneum, which tried the inanimate object for murder, and, after the water-bearers who lustrated the axe, the sharpeners who sharpened it, the axe-bearer who carried it, each denied in turn responsibility for the deed, the guilty axe or knife was there charged with having caused the death of the ox, for which the axe was acquitted (Pausanias) or the sacrificial knife was thrown into the sea (Porphyry).

jemmyw 3y ago
Well yeah, we've added a bunch of energy to the sea and atmosphere. The problem is it's hard to make the specific second/third/fourth order connections between that extra energy and changing currents, rather than just warmth.
weregiraffe 3y ago
Blaming? I don't believe it's illegal to collapse Antarctic ice, no more than it was illegal to develop industrial civilization.
- scotty79 3y ago
  How about immoral? How about damaging to the future success of the entire humankind? That's bound to be an offence of sorts.
  - weregiraffe 3y ago
    People who don't exist yet can't be plaintiffs.
    - scotty79 3y ago
      Capacity to be plaintiff matters in insignificantly few contexts.
gmuslera 3y ago
I suppose that with complex systems, specially the ones with some fragility or in some sort of equilibrium that only can sustain push below some threshold, a big enough disturbance will put it off balance, and everything that emerges from that will probably end being negative. Think in someone balancing itself standing over a ball, and get hit by a strong wind, if the things he does are not very precise and in the right direction he will fall, but maybe not in the direction of the wind that pushed him. And we don't have something actively trying to rebalance the system, nor our current understanding will let us be precise at the time of messing with it somewhat to try to fix this. In any case, we are talking about hotter sea currents, and the ocean is absorbing a lot of the extra heat both by having more greenhouse gases, and positive feedback loops triggered by them like the melting of floating ice (so less albedo, and the ocean gets more heat from the sun).

jemmyw 3y ago

Well yeah, we've added a bunch of energy to the sea and atmosphere. The problem is it's hard to make the specific second/third/fourth order connections between that extra energy and changing currents, rather than just warmth.

weregiraffe 3y ago

Blaming? I don't believe it's illegal to collapse Antarctic ice, no more than it was illegal to develop industrial civilization.

scotty79 3y ago
How about immoral? How about damaging to the future success of the entire humankind? That's bound to be an offence of sorts.
- weregiraffe 3y ago
  People who don't exist yet can't be plaintiffs.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    Capacity to be plaintiff matters in insignificantly few contexts.

gmuslera 3y ago

I suppose that with complex systems, specially the ones with some fragility or in some sort of equilibrium that only can sustain push below some threshold, a big enough disturbance will put it off balance, and everything that emerges from that will probably end being negative. Think in someone balancing itself standing over a ball, and get hit by a strong wind, if the things he does are not very precise and in the right direction he will fall, but maybe not in the direction of the wind that pushed him. And we don't have something actively trying to rebalance the system, nor our current understanding will let us be precise at the time of messing with it somewhat to try to fix this. In any case, we are talking about hotter sea currents, and the ocean is absorbing a lot of the extra heat both by having more greenhouse gases, and positive feedback loops triggered by them like the melting of floating ice (so less albedo, and the ocean gets more heat from the sun).