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[Subpar Spatula]

Yup

We are completely fucked. I don't even want kids to be honest

This line of thought is always confusing. They know climate change is bad don't understand the processes needed to remedy it.

Countries can't flip a switch and not use oil, coal, etc. because they're very much needed in a lot of places and used in a lot of manufacturing. The goal is to balance use of oil and coal while investing in renewables so overtime we use less of the former and more of the latter.

Some places on earth may become uninhabitable based on income like areas in Nevada or New Mexico (for USA) and other areas susceptible to a lot of heat. But that's the damage we all expect and is going to happen. The overall earth becoming uninhabitable is what is being prevented and since a good majority of countries are on board, there's a very, very good chance we get past this and things eventually balance out in a few centuries. Heck, even if the USA is against it, the economies of the world will switch to portable and renewable because they're becoming cheaper and can be exported easily.

 

[Cocaloch]

AGW is not going to lead to a Mad Max-esque future, to think so is hyperbolic. It's important to realize the importance of climate change without sensationalizing it.

Yes, we need a deep scientific, economic, sociological, and historical understanding of the phenomenon in order to understand the best ways to go about mitigating the damage it causes. That requires people to try and be somewhat level headed about it.

I also think it requires it requires people to not be positivistic when thinking about solutions, but I think that's the scariest lost cause here. Oh wait just saw this:

It's time to stop dillydallying about 'going green' in 50 years and instead start geoengineering to mitigate the greenhouse effect before it kicks off any unstoppable runaway warming cycles. It was never realistic to expect humanity to limit our CO2 output on a fast enough timescale to prevent this from happening, we're going to have to 'solve' this problem the same way we've solved of humanity's great challenges, with brute force and technological ingenuity.

lol

 

[fireflame]

What about considering the ability of humans and nature in general to evolve? We may experience mutations that will help us face new climate.(with time).

 

[subrock]

guess we have to wait until this threatens rich white people until anything happens eh?

 

[Nafai1123]

What about considering the ability of humans and nature in general to evolve? We may experience mutations that will help us face new climate.(with time).

Evolution is too slow.

 

[Cocaloch]

guess we have to wait until this threatens rich white people until anything happens eh?

This will probably be when serious action starts being taken. Part of the issue is that the cost to the commons from Fossil Fuel usage is heavily backloaded though.

 

[Syf]

Fake science, just a theory, China, librul propaganda, hippies, etc etc etc

 

[Linkark07]

We should increase them even more. Lets make the world an even warmer and cozy place.

 

[brawly]

I see...

I like your style.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

What about considering the ability of humans and nature in general to evolve? We may experience mutations that will help us face new climate.(with time).

Evolution won't work on these timescales. It takes hundreds of generations, if not thousands. The rate climate change is coming means that is not a plan, and do not rely on it.

 

[Shake Appeal]

So, how long do we have.

A few more decades of relative normalcy in the developed world (with more snowstorms, hurricanes, heatwaves, droughts, floods, forest fires, mud slides, etc.). Lots of chaos in the developing world. If you were born in the 20th century, most of the rest of your life will more or less resemble what you're used to, especially if you're in a country that has already made a significant shift to renewables and isn't entirely dependent on the personal automobile.

The real problem is any boilover caused by global conflicts, resource shocks, and mass migration. I mean, you could already argue that Syria is a snapshot of what climate can do to exacerbate other problems.

But I mean, none of this is predictable. We're running an unprecedented planetwide experiment.

 

[RCSI]

It has been a pleasure, ladies and gents.
This ever-sinking feeling...

The reference reminds me of this Titantic/Global warming reality.

I'm not optimistic that we will stay below 2-degree C, at least with the political climate as it is.

 

[Lucumo]

Nice to know we are all going to die.

Did you believe you were going to live forever?

 

[Cocaloch]

The real problem is any boilover caused by global conflicts, resource shocks, and mass migration. I mean, you could already argue that Syria is a snapshot of what climate can do to exacerbate other problems.

I feel like you're somewhat understating this. I mean look at what is happening in Europe right now. That is small potatoes compared to the mass migrations that will be coming. There will be political and social chaos, and the West isn't proving itself as being humane enough to deal with it that well.

 

[Hidden One]

How long till our death?

 

[LegendofJoe]

It's time to stop dillydallying about 'going green' in 50 years and instead start geoengineering to mitigate the greenhouse effect before it kicks off any unstoppable runaway warming cycles. It was never realistic to expect humanity to limit our CO2 output on a fast enough timescale to prevent this from happening, we're going to have to 'solve' this problem the same way we've solved all of humanity's great challenges, with brute force and technological ingenuity.

The oceans are super-fucked though, there is nothing we can do about that because it's based on the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere which we can't change. Learn to love eating jellyfish is about all you can do.

Do you know of some good summaries to read about the effects of ocean acidification? I'd like to read about the likelihood of specific effects without having to parse through the explanation of model jargon.

 

[Azuran]

Thanks a lot you old self-interst crooks. You assholes may be dead within the next 10 to 15 fifteen years but others like me are still stuck in this planet for at least a half century, if not more.

It's pretty amazing how we manage to complete destroy a large part of our natural environment in such a short period of time. Places that took millions of years to develop gone in a whim because people only give a shit about money.

Fuck me, the other day I read they wanted to build a road through the Seregenti. Stuff like that perfectly illustrates why humans absolutely suck.

 

[PeskyToaster]

Well we should figure out what people 10,000 years ago did to reverse it

 

[Cocaloch]

Thanks a lot you old self-interst crooks. You assholes may be dead within the next 15 fifteev years but others like me are still stuck in this planet for at least a half decade, if not more.

It's pretty amazing how human manage to complete destroy a large part of our natural environment in such a short period of time. Places that took millions of years to develop gone in a whim because people only give a shit about money.

Fuck me, the other day I read they want to build a road crossing through the Seregenti. Stuff like that perfectly illustrated why humans absolutely suck.

This is an incredibly complicated problem with no easy solutions. Greed plays a part but probably a smaller one than cultural inertia, ignorance, and geo-politics. This isn't just a few assholes getting rich at everyone else's expense, our entire society is completely predicated on fossil fuel usage.

 

[soldat7]

I'm not worried. Scott Pruitt and the Environmental Protection Agency are on it.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

lol

It's pretty simple risk-management actually; Risk = Probability x Loss, our probability for the events is low but the loss is apocalyptic so we must act because the risk is extinction. We have a variety of runaway warming cycles that could easily be triggered over the next 25-50 years if current warming trajectories go unchallenged (thawing permafrost, deep-sea methane clathrates, glacial collapses in Antarctica, etc). If all we had to worry about was the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, then sure, let's take the long road approach since the warming is so gradual.

But that's not the real threat. The real threat is that this gradual warming from CO2 triggers any one of these exponential runaway cycles (which will then trigger the rest as well). Those would be extinction-level events, not just a 'well this small part of the earth isn't habitable anymore'.

 

[RumblingRosco]

CO2 levels have reached periods above 400 ppm ("the point of no return") since at least 2015. This isn't new as far as I can tell. We were just as hosed a few years ago as we are today. So I mean, obviously this is really bad, but it has been really bad for years.

Also, "the point of no return" is misleading. We absolutely can return from those levels. The real crux is that maintaining ABOVE 400 ppm for extended periods is what is catastrophic, but nothing about being above 400 ppm is permanent... well, wouldn't be permanent if society got its head out of its ass and started doing something about it.

 

[SilentRacoon]

When are we getting a movie made so I can dissect the details of this news and I can start panicking accordingly.

We are a cancer to this planet, we will drag our host down with us.

 

[mike6467]

We should increase them even more. Lets make the world an even warmer and cozy place.

This view has actually been pushed significantly the last few years. Saying that all this CO2 is helpful for the planet and we should actually be trying to up our production.

A quick Google search will show these articles (including an entire site titled "ilovec02". I'm not going to link to any of them because they're likely banned sources or places I have no desire to give clicks to.

It's completely insane. My Mom sent me a link to the website above. That was all she needed to see to be convinced the entire scientific community was lying, and that there were supporters on both sides. Of course her view wasn't being pushed by big government, so it was obviously me that was believing lies.

It's hard to have faith in humanity lately.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Well we should figure out what people 10,000 years ago did to reverse it

Good idea. Let's revert all technology to what we had in 8000BC, for a start. That'll reduce new carbon emissions greatly, at least.

I'll leave it to you to work out how to convince people to go along with that.

 

[commedieu]

When are we getting a movie made so I can dissect the details of this news and I can start panicking accordingly.

We are a cancer to this planet, we will drag our host down with us.

The planet will be fine. We are just a quick bout of the clap.

 

[Azuran]

This is an incredibly complicated problem with no easy solutions. Greed plays a part but probably a smaller one than cultural inertia, ignorance, and geo-politics. This isn't just a few assholes getting rich at everyone else's expense, our entire society is completely predicated on fossil fuel usage.

Yeah, and it only has been made worse because development and research into alternate sources of energy continue to be underfunded and underdeveloped. When you have people like the Koch Brothers dictating what they want, I have little hope about the environmental issues in our lifetime.

I understand our entire society ruins on fossil fuels, but considering the other technological advancement we have seen in the past ten to twenty years, it's ridiculous we're still driving vehicles using the same type of fuel people were using back in the 1920s.

Our entire society needs a hard reboot.

 

[Cocaloch]

It's pretty simple risk-management; Risk = Probability x Loss where our probability for the events is low but the loss is apocalyptic. We have a variety of runaway warming cycles that could easily be triggered over the next 25-50 years if current warming trajectories go unchallenged (melting permafrost, deep-sea methane clathrates, glacial collapses in Antarctica, etc). If all we had to worry about was the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, then sure, let's take the long road approach since the warming is so gradual.

But that's not the real threat. The real threat is that the gradual warming from CO2 triggers any one of these exponential runaway cycles which will then trigger the rest to occur as well.

All that is evidence for is that this is a serious problem. It isn't a justification for positivism. That would seem to be the implicit assumption that positivism is right, therefore if there is a serious problem we need a positivist solution.

Geoengineering will lead to a whole host of other social, political, and economic problems that you probably haven't really thought about.

Much like how once there were problems in Britain that were solved by steam engines leading to a completely unforeseen global climatic problem......

This is of course ignoring the more overly positivistic problems with your last post. We've certainly solved problems in non-technological ways before. Look at the Montreal Protocol for a particularly obviously relevant example.

 

[MarveI]

It's going to hit a point where the people who don't see climate issues as a major problem to deal with are going to hit so hard with reality at some point where it'll be too late. All they'll say is ''I was wrong'' but it won't mean jack as the damage is already done. Hope the people who voted for them are proud.

 

[Pomerlaw]

Evolution won't work on these timescales. It takes hundreds of generations, if not thousands. The rate climate change is coming means that is not a plan, and do not rely on it.

Evolution isn't what has made us go this far. Our creativity did.

I know I have said it before, but there are really a lot of depressive pessimists (and a lot of whiners) on GAF. I think a lot of you need to let go of videogames and internet a bit to get some fresh air.

We have challenges ahead of us, nothing worse than what our ancestors had to get through with diseases and natural disasters they had almost no clue how to fight. Like every other challenges we face it's going to be a rocky road and some poeple won't make it through.

We WILL switch to green energies, it's up to everyone to make it happens sooner than later. The entire world isn't as dumb as Trump voters.

There are also carbon captures technologies that in the long run could help stabilize climate.

 

[UFO]

I, for one, welcome my new fish overlords.

More like plant overlords because plants thrive in high CO2.

 

[Cocaloch]

Yeah, and it only has been made worse because development and research into alternate sources of energy continue to be underfunded and underdeveloped. When you have people like the Koch Brothers dictating what they want, I have little hope about the environmental issues in our lifetime.

Sure some people are being evil assholes making things worse, I'm not disputing that. Yet, the core of the problem is our very society itself. Our narratives of global warming need to reflect that.

I understand our entire society ruins on fossil fuels, but considering the other technological advancement we have seen in the past ten to twenty years, it's ridiculous we're still driving vehicles using the same type of fuel people were using back in the 1920s.

Err why? Humans had been using the same sources of fuel, pretty much with the sole exception of a single island off the coast of Europe, (I'm ignoring peat because that could never have worked on a large scale) for all of recorded history until very recently. It's an odd view of technological and scientific change that requires constant progress in a particular direction without a reason. The bigger issue is that we've pretty much known about the damage from fossil fuels since the 80s and have done little to try and curb usage. Other than that Jevons, and later the Club of Rome I guess, was the only force really pushing for curbing fuel usage. Even then Jevons had seemed to be proven wrong until fairly recently.

Edit: To be clear by we used the same sort of fuel for all of history until very recently I meant we used the same sources of fuel until fossil fuel adoption beginning in the late 18th century.

Our entire society needs a hard reboot.

I would say this is the key issue, but it wouldn't be a reboot. Instead it would be a revolution.

 

[blanchot]

Nice to know we are all going to die.

yes

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

I think this is like the third time in the last couple years we've been "past the point of no return." I don't doubt it's been true every time, but you're just preaching to the choir by repeating it unless you can get a Fox News anchor or someone like that to say it too.

 

[Marky Mark]

http://www.smh.com.au/small-busines...-australian-air-to-china-20160502-gojw1x.html

 

[jet1911]

Our entire society needs a hard reboot.

That's what will happen when the shit hit the fan.

 

[Astral Dog]

We are all gonna die

 

[Arttemis]

This is an incredibly complicated problem with no easy solutions. Greed plays a part but probably a smaller one than cultural inertia, ignorance, and geo-politics. This isn't just a few assholes getting rich at everyone else's expense, our entire society is completely predicated on fossil fuel usage.

Greed plays the absolute biggest part. We now we are damaging the world, and the countries most capable of manufacturing and implementing the alternatives aren't committing adequately because to do so is too expensive. China is committing billions of dollars to solar energy while the US doubles down on coal for the sake of voting sway. Sure, third world countries will be decades behind, but it HAS to start somewhere and sometime, and we've already waited decades to adequately do it.

Entire economies could remove around this industry of reinventing the power grid, but it would cost money upfront, and the current tycoons of the energy industry wouldn't profit from this. Greed.

 

[Ghgghggh]

As soon a second civilization started genocide on indigenous humans we were doomed. Western civilizations encroschment into the Americas was the final nail on the coffin.

Hopefully a mass extinction event can stop our society from degrading things even further ..

 

[Schattenjäger]

Maybe we will make advances in science that will reverse it

 

[Version 3.0]

The planet will be fine. We are just a quick bout of the clap.

"The planet" as in the big ball of rock and stuff? Yeah, it's not going to break apart or anything.

But there's a real chance that we've actually set events into motion that will result in 100% extinction of life on Earth. That Earth will end up similar to Venus; too hot for existing life to survive.

Maybe we will make advances in science that will reverse it

There are possibilities. But first we have to get past the flipping deniers - at the very least, past the ones in charge. And then, the scale of a possible is the same as the scale of the cause. And that was millions of vehicles and factories, and deforestation, etc. It's possible, but it has to be our #1 priority.

 

[Astral Dog]

Maybe we will make advances in science that will reverse it

Advances in sciences caused this

 

[Arttemis]

Sure some people are being evil assholes making things worse, I'm not disputing that. Yet, the core of the problem is our very society itself. Our narratives of global warming need to reflect that.




Err why? Humans had been using the same sources of fuel, pretty much with the sole exception of a single island off the coast of Europe, (I'm ignoring peat because that could never have worked on a large scale) for all of recorded history until very recently. It's an odd view of technological and scientific change that requires constant progress in a particular direction without a reason. The bigger issue is that we've pretty much known about the damage from fossil fuels since the 80s and have done little to try and curb usage. Other than that Jevons, and later the Club of Rome I guess, was the only force really pushing for curbing fuel usage. Even then Jevons had seemed to be proven wrong until fairly recently.




I would say this is the key issue, but it wouldn't be a reboot. Instead it would be a revolution.

What the fuck.

There is so much false, here. Fossil fuels haven't been used to power societies until the industrial revolution, mostly in the 19th century. Animal fats were used before petroleum. Windmills and water were used to mill flour for millennia.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

All that is evidence for is that this is a serious problem. It isn't a justification for positivism. That would seem to be the implicit assumption that positivism is right, therefore if there is a serious problem we need a positivist solution.

Geoengineering will lead to a whole host of other social, political, and economic problems that you probably haven't really thought about.

Much like how once there were problems in Britain that were solved by steam engines leading to a completely unforeseen global climatic problem......

This is of course ignoring the more overly positivistic problems with your last post. We've certainly solved problems in non-technological ways before. Look at the Montreal Protocol for a particularly obviously relevant example.

The only one trying to constantly have a debate on positivist philosophy has been you (insert trumanshow.gif here). "Positivism is bad, your post is positivism, therefore you're wrong" is not an argument. First off, positivism is not an a priori bad thing, second, my post is not an argument for positivism or an argument that it is a good thing, and finally, even if I was trying to make that argument I'd much rather be on the side of the positivists when it comes to tackling complex scientific problems.

As for the actual content of your post, the idea that the Ozone problem was comparable in scope to global warming is ridiculous; we were successful in phasing out CFCs and HCFCs precisely because we had an existing alternative in HFCs. You can call me when the world discovers a readily available substitute to oil and plastics with no carbon footprint, until that happens the situation is not comparable.

As for geo-engineering having additional effects and impacts, I never claimed it was immune to those considerations. What I am claiming is that those effects and impacts are no worse than what climate change is already going to do, and they are far more preferable to deal with then exponential runaway warming cycles that would actually cause extinction.

 

[Luminaire]

 

[Alex_Mexico]

We best change to clean coal then!

 

[NESpowerhouse]

I think you'll go down with a smile

Awesome! My parents will get their ocean-front property they've always wanted. They won't have to move or anything.

 

[pr0cs]

What a title. Melodramatic but then that's what people respond to these days I suppose. We've been hearing about acid raid, global warming and now climate change since the 70s yet here we are.. zzzzz wake me up when there is something worth talking about

 

[HoodWinked]

ctrl+f cow

i think its funny that people focus on fossil fuels so much when cow farts/burps and our consumption of red meat is a major contributor to green house gases which hasnt even been mentioned once in this thread.

 

[Aikidoka]

ctrl+f cow

i think its funny that people focus on fossil fuels so much when cow farts/burps and our consumption of red meat is a major contributor to green house gases which hasnt even been mentioned once in this thread.

Because all agricultural sources of greenhouse gases are only 9% of total emissions. Moreover, Methane only persists in the atmosphere like 10-15 years where as carbon dioxide persists for ~1000 years.
from the EPA: