5 ms·

I was halfway through my post when I reworded it to avoid this point. Not really sure how hn likes the doom talk yet, but seeing as you brought it up.. I watche

by lugg 13y ago

I was halfway through my post when I reworded it to avoid this point. Not really sure how hn likes the doom talk yet, but seeing as you brought it up.. I watched a ted talk a while back where the speaker basically laid it out like this: 2 degrees c = screwy weather patterns, extreme storms 4 degrees c = sea level rise, no real seasons anymore, just a big swinging mess from extreme drought to extreme storms 6 degrees c = mad max 8 degrees c, he basically said humans were long gone at this point. Remember, 1 degree average = massive localised changes. Hmm now that I've written all this, I'm not sure, were you speaking in celsius or fahrenheit? edit, specified celcius, also I think this may have been the guy but not quite the same talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8

m_mueller 13y ago
I was talking Celsius / Kelvin. I'm assuming the speaker was referring to Fahrenheit - I'm thinking mankind as a whole might be able to survive +8 degree K iff we find efficient synthetic food sources that work in such a climate (which I assume we will) - however it would probably be at a fraction of the population we have today - whether our civilization could survive an indirect genocide on a global scale to have the infrastructure to do this is another question. edit: re your edit: if it's true that +6 degrees sets perpetual heating mechanisms in motion which lead to +12 degrees by 2300 (as suggested in the ted talk), yes, we probably wouldn't survive +8 in the long run. it's damn scary, really - if we screw this up in the next 20 years, we basically damn the whole planet.
- adambard 13y ago
  You mean, mankind might survive +8 degrees F (about +4.5 deg celcius)
  - m_mueller 13y ago
    I meant Celsius, but see my edit - I have to revise that guess. Given that +6 degree C will probably cause runaway warming processes to initiate (which I wasn't thinking about before), surviving for even a few more centuries suddenly becomes a tough order.
ck2 13y ago
I would place a bet that at 5c rise they still would let all the behaviors in the USA that are causing the warming to continue. Because the corporate lobbys would insist "jobs jobs jobs" even while the Florida keys would be completely under water - all the ceos and politicians would just literally sit in their towers and keep voting to continue.

by lugg 13y ago

m_mueller 13y ago

I was talking Celsius / Kelvin. I'm assuming the speaker was referring to Fahrenheit - I'm thinking mankind as a whole might be able to survive +8 degree K iff we find efficient synthetic food sources that work in such a climate (which I assume we will) - however it would probably be at a fraction of the population we have today - whether our civilization could survive an indirect genocide on a global scale to have the infrastructure to do this is another question. edit: re your edit: if it's true that +6 degrees sets perpetual heating mechanisms in motion which lead to +12 degrees by 2300 (as suggested in the ted talk), yes, we probably wouldn't survive +8 in the long run. it's damn scary, really - if we screw this up in the next 20 years, we basically damn the whole planet.

adambard 13y ago
You mean, mankind might survive +8 degrees F (about +4.5 deg celcius)
- m_mueller 13y ago
  I meant Celsius, but see my edit - I have to revise that guess. Given that +6 degree C will probably cause runaway warming processes to initiate (which I wasn't thinking about before), surviving for even a few more centuries suddenly becomes a tough order.

ck2 13y ago

I would place a bet that at 5c rise they still would let all the behaviors in the USA that are causing the warming to continue. Because the corporate lobbys would insist "jobs jobs jobs" even while the Florida keys would be completely under water - all the ceos and politicians would just literally sit in their towers and keep voting to continue.