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Arctic tundra is now emitting more carbon than it absorbs, US agency says
- Wololooo 2y agoThis is very bad. The warning signs were there https://news.mongabay.com/2009/02/burning-rainforests-melting-tundra-could-accelerate-global-warming-well-beyond-current-projections/ https://news.mongabay.com/2009/02/burning-rainforests-meltin... I'd lie if I'd say that I'm optimistic about the future.
- gremlinsinc 2y agoit's just a runaway feedback loop, no biggie. /s
- m463 2y agoIt will self correct by the next ice age.
- gremlinsinc 2y agoI don't think humanity will die out but there was this time we got down to very low numbers like 7k or less we might get to that...
- deadbabe 2y agoWe’re fucked, why do anything? Just ride it out. If you had kids that’s your problem to deliver the bad news.
- 0xEF 2y agoThis take is so deliriously apathetic that I am starting to wonder if HN is being infected with bot accounts.
- deadbabe 2y agoThe people who have not yet fallen into apathy are simply the people who have not yet realized the magnitude of the forces at work that we cannot stop or reverse.
- goatlover 2y agoClimate change is a matter of degree, and it will unfold over a long period of time. There is time to mitigate and adapt. It's just a matter of how much. Renewable energies are rapidly being adopted, battery storage and transmission are all improving. Nuclear is back on the table. We may still have a breakthrough in fusion. AI will help with better predictive models and eliminating waste.
- katbyte 2y agoNone of that will do anything if we get into a runaway feedback loop where all the carbon is coming from natural sources. The change is speeding up. The time to act was 60 years ago but Reagan and oil interests put profit over planet. The last time to act was the last decade or so, as it appears we are too late and the us about to floor the gas pedal on oil instead of green tech.
- melling 2y agoLyndon Johnson was president 60 years ago. I always like to start 40 years ago with Carl Sagan https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI?si=2UJST6T6IBkHtZTq https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI?si=2UJST6T6IBkHtZTq
- katbyte 2y agoYea I ball parked it whenever the epa was told by Reagan to not do anything about carbon is when I start the clock
- gremlinsinc 2y ago
- ianburrell 2y agoIt matters how fucked we are. There is a big difference between disaster that wipes out humanity, one that sends back pre-industrial technology, or one that keeps some modern technology. We might want to prepare preserving knowledge for next civilization. It matters if we can slow it down. More time means more technology. For example, robot industry might transition happen faster, and might also make possible for smaller civilization survive. It also means more time to use resources that are available now before they get scarce. It matters if we work together towards goal. That will reduce chances of people fighting which will make things worse. With fighting, "riding it out" will be unpleasant. Maybe the horse will sing.
- breakyerself 2y agoThis assumes the problem is a binary. Either we are fucked or not fucked. When in fact it's a gradient of more and more fucked that goes on indefinitely making us more fucked the longer we take to deal with it.
- Wool2662 2y agoThe problem very much is binary. Ocne you have a self sustaining feedback loop going it's game over. Its a gradient until it isn't.
- k4rli 2y agoBeing vegan or buying an electric car would surely change everything.
- gmuslera 2y agoThat's the negative things about positive feedback loops, eventually they grow enough to be noticed, and by then is already too late to avoid them to become massive, because taking action will take time, and meaningful action even more. And it is not the only system that went from net absorber to net emitter of carbon, the Amazon rainforest crossed that line some years ago already.
- DoctorOetker 2y agothinking damage control: can a least destructive CO2 absorber invasive species / ecosystem outpace this positive feedback loop?
- HighGoldstein 2y ago> thinking damage control: can a least destructive CO2 absorber invasive species / ecosystem outpace this positive feedback loop? Humans can fit this description and can definitely fix this if we tried. The technology we used to cause this issue in the first place is about as complex as fire and the pointy stick compared to what we have today, our executive capacity has simply not kept pace with our technological one.
- r14c 2y agoits not really an executive issue, the systems that govern our world were imposed by force and perfer loop that maintain the status quo. with such a system in place, we can't address any issue unless it is obcenely profitable. We have far more effective executive systems available, but we aren't using them.
- vdupras 2y agoWe invented guns centuries ago. Technology must, by now, be advanced enough to undo the effects of its bullets.
- BizarroLand 2y agoSounds like a problem for the rich to fix. Good luck!
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y agoThis is depressing. If we could just stop testing the carbon would stop increasing.
- rqtwteye 2y agoThat may happen very soon.
- everybodyknows 2y agoSimilarly for temperatures. There's reason to expect the longitudinal ocean wind monitoring station on Mauna Kea (think that's the one?) will some time early next year cease to report measurements, rising every year as they have since mid-20th century.
- morkalork 2y agoAwesome learning about the potential for this feedback loop in highschool chemistry back in 2005. Sadly I think my chemistry teacher cared more about this stuff than the people running the country.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fulafel 2y agoOr the voters.
- thworp 2y ago> than the people running the country. This attitude and its variants with different scapegoats really irks me. Let's say that in 1980 all the world's governments and businesses conspired and implemented measures to get close to 0 carbon emissions by 2010. For the moment let's ignore the most dire issues[0] and just focus on the economic cycle. Do you honestly think that they could have stayed in power in the face of a severe economic depression with no end in sight? Even in non-democracies such policies would be political suicide. [0]: lack of fertilizer, labor demand of non-mechanized agriculture, breakdown of the food supply chain
- every 2y agoIf you need me, I'll be arranging deck chairs on the Titanic...
- briantakita 2y ago[flagged]
- HWR_14 2y ago50 years ago science consensus was talking about global warming.
- Facemelters 2y agothese people don't actually care lol
- erik_seaberg 2y agoI remember science news articles about cooling rather than warming. Newsweek had to retract at least one of theirs: https://www.newsweek.com/newsweek-rewind-debunking-global-cooling-252326 https://www.newsweek.com/newsweek-rewind-debunking-global-co...
- defrost 2y agoSure, "news articles" put out by fossil fuel / Koch brother backed think tanks were already spreading the FUD 40 years ago. That's at least how long C02 emmissions have been recognised as a pressing problem and how long those making Texas Oil baron profits (globally, not just in Texas) have been delibrately confusing the issue to avoid doing anything to slow emmissions. The first sound thoughts on the matter were over a century past, rightly speculating on the consequences of putting more blankets on the bed (ie: more insulating gases in the atmosphere), and the first solid atmospheric geophysics paper on C02 and warming dates back to 1967. The "aww, but an ice age" stuff is just a distraction for the kiddies. If anything, that stuff really highlights the issue as assuming "all things being the same" the planet probably should be headed back into more glaciation (we're already in an "ice age" - the poles have ice; we're in an age of cyclic glaciation) .. except it isn't. Humans have not only stopped the expected advance of glaciers, we've added enough insulation to reverse them and start to heat up our "sweet spot" of the ages in which human civilisation developed.
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- sinuhe69 2y agoFirst the Amazon forest, now it's the Arctic tundra. What will be next? Our oceans? I fear the catastrophic chain reaction has begun.
- piva00 2y agoThe oceans are already fucked as well, we have disrupted their carbon cycle, warmed up and acidified it. For example, we've killed some 20-30% of phytoplankton already, ocean stratification is increasing, etc. Don't forget: Antarctica is becoming greener.
- karussell 2y agoThe oceans have already changed over the last decades and yes, the chain reaction has very likely already started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm_YZ2juQL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm_YZ2juQL4
- aurareturn 2y agoSlightly off-topic, if CO2 increases in the atmosphere, would plants and trees not take advantage and grow faster/bigger? What about farming food? Would it be easier/cheaper to grow grains, vegetables, and fruits?
- Yizahi 2y agoPlants release most of CO2 when they die. Locking CO2 in plants only works with actual living green mass. And we need a colossal and ever increasing amount of plants to offset our emissions. And plants needed just don't live in the tundra now. As for easier food - tundra is poor environment, so it will be hard to grow anything there, even simply due to solar day/night issues. On the other hand, climate change on a scale when tundra becomes a place to grow food, would mean that some of the existing places to grow food could possibly stop being it. Imaging rice dies out in the hottest regions of the planet, where billions live. World war would be a child play compared to that.
- lm28469 2y agoGrowing food is already dirt cheap, that's why we don't care so much about wasting 30%-50% globally. > would plants and trees not take advantage and grow faster/bigger? Not significantly, and it still doesn't solve any of the other issues, CO2 is but a tiny part of the problem, we talk about it because it's the only one we can pretend to be able to fix
- floppiplopp 2y agoWell, that's depressing... luckily the upcoming US administration will put a stop to those bad news by defunding NOAA and making scientific results illegal, because it's bad for big business.
- gremlinsinc 2y agoPutting your head in the sand is a noble way to tackle novel problems. Just look at the noble ostrich... lol
- orev 2y agoDon’t Look Up
- the_cramer 2y agoSuch news always remind me of the great filter hypothesis [1]. They also remind me on how ignorant we all are/were. Now "simply" stopping high energy consumption is not enough anymore. Perhaps SpaceX-Musk is right in what he does, although Mars makes a terrible home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
- financetechbro 2y agoWe are our own biggest enemy
- jfengel 2y agoAs bad as climate change is, it will never make Earth harder to live on than Mars. Even the most egregious runaway scenario feedback loops won't make the planet unlivable. It might be extremely uncomfortable. Billions of people might die. Civilization could collapse utterly. But it's still going to have more oxygen, better temperatures, and more resources than Mars. There can be good reasons to go to Mars, but a "backup planet" just isn't really a good one. If all we care about is the survival of the human race, it's really not in jeopardy. Certainly not from climate change, and not even from a war, asteroid, or pandemic.
- bmitc 2y agoPlease don't give any credence to Musk. He's a pathological liar and schemer and cares negatively about the environment and about people for that matter.
- namaria 2y agoThe early conquistadors were horrible people as well and they brought about epochal change. I'm not supportive of any billionaire much less the ones actively corrupting democracies. But that doesn't mean that they won't cause historical things to happen.
- bmitc 2y agoWhat positive change, particularly to the environment, is he bringing?
- bokohut 2y agoPossible words to consider from a nobody thinker. The earth is currently a spheroid which has shaped itself over eons of time per the slow ice accumulation at the poles. Some "simple" math can roughly speculate the weight of that ice at each pole and such calculations reflect very large mass numbers that many humans have difficulty comprehending given the large numerical value let alone the consideration of the vast quantities of time that these processes have occurred. Science now reflects an accelerated melting to which the normalized equilibrium established over those eons prior to humans is changing. Scientific proof also exists that the poles once had flourishing plant life and global water levels over our studied geological record have both been higher and lower than they are now as we know them. Returning to the spheroid mentioned relative to the ice mass that is now being dispersed back into liquid spread throughout the oceans our real problems have yet to begin of which I have heard few mention but some have paused in awe when talked upon. As that ice melts and that mass is redistributed from the poles our spinning ball of rock will naturally rebound to a sphere and in doing so that rock will crack and shift in time to return to that shape not incurring the weight provided by the poles. In our data driven connected world everyone can now play along with this nobody thinkers theory watching in near real time by observing the ever increasing anomalous seismic and volcanic activity as that rebound sets in. We do not know what we do not know however no one can escape our future which is being dictated by every past human action. A truly great time to be alive as change is the only thing guaranteed. Stay Healthy!