Why We Can't solve Global Warming
There are 4 reasons why I think we will fail to avoid the worst consequences of global warming:
There is simply NO MAGIC that will get us out of the bind we are in.
Will this prediction of doom affect the way you go about your life?
Fossil fuels are the source of climate warming CO2 and considerable amounts of methane, but there is no substitute for the convenience, energy intensity, and immense utility of these materials as chemical feed stock for the industrial culture on which we depend to live. When we have used up all the fossil fuels that can be had at a bearable cost, there will nothing to replace it.
In the meantime, it appears that the fossil fuel companies intend to extract every last drop of fossil fuel.
The present industrial base to produce. maintain, and replace worn out wind and solar power equipment requires a fossil-fuel-driven heavy industrial establishment. Replacing the billion automobiles now in service around the world with mass transit systems again requires exactly the kind of industry that has produced a significant portion of the CO2 causing global warming,
There are too many sunk costs that can not be recovered: The CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and the halocarbons or CFCs (gases containing fluorine, chlorine and bromine) that have been produced by industrial production since 1900 can not be retrieved, and the added heat in the oceans and atmosphere can not be quickly dissipated. These climate warming gases will take a long time to be removed from the atmosphere by natural processes.
Time is against us: Even IF we could produce all the power we needed from wind and solar (which is questionable), it will take a long time to fully implement the transition. Using a rule of thumb, it will take us at least 50 years to build-out the necessary extensive system of solar and wind facilities, not just in the US and Europe, but everywhere. If we began an all-out effort today (it's not happening) it would be 2070 before we finished. 2070 is too late to avoid population-reducing consequences around the globe.
There is simply NO MAGIC that will get us out of the bind we are in.
Will this prediction of doom affect the way you go about your life?
Comments (113)
I prioritise good quality air conditioning when choosing an apartment to live in, in the future, I think this will continue to be a priority.
I do what I can personally, I don't fly, I heat my house mostly with wood I have grown myself and am researching an appropriate ground source heat pump to install. My vehicle is a problem, I expect it will be a number of years before I can have an electric vehicle. As for products with a carbon footprint, apart from food, I mainly recycle, or use secondhand products. I can't remember the last time I bought an item of new clothing, well within reason.
I don't know. Provided whatever my area is doesn't get burned down or flooded, I should be alright. If not, may have to move for that reason down the road.
I’m a rare optimist regarding climate change, so I remain unaffected. Perhaps some good will come of it. If it doesn’t prolong the Holocene, staving off the inevitable ice age, we will at least learn a valuable lesson.
As I recollect, it wasn't so politically unpopular as technically unsuccessful. It isn't dangerous, but it is extraordinarily difficult to achieve sustained fusion inside a 'force field'. If all the powerful physical forces are not perfectly arranged, then nothing much happens.
Fusion is a great disappointment; I really wish we had been successful by now.
But energy isn't the only issue. Suppose we figure out how to make fusion power work. It will still take a good long time to build out the necessary units. Time is an issue here, an asset we are running out of. By the time fusion provides all this power too cheap to meter (dream on) we will be late in this century when the fecal matter has hit the fan.
Energy and time are not the only issues. There is also the issue of raw material processing. Making steel from ore without the chemical and physical properties of coke and limestone is an unknown technology. There will still be no substitute for the hydrocarbon molecules that are at the center of so much of our technology. 9 or 10 billion people, or 13 billion--whatever it turns out to be by the end of the century--will still exceed the sustainable fecundity of the oceans and soils. (We are already doing that, actually.).
We are pinning hope on what James Howard Kunstler called (in the title of the book) "Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation".
Where does this all leave us? I expect that there will be a large die off of the human population along with many other species, and down the road a few centuries, that our species will survive in a diminished world.
We still have an emergency brake available (the abrupt abandonment of the fossil-fuel-based economy, world wide). The brake will not be engaged because the immediate consequence would be horrendous economic, social, agricultural, cultural, industrial, and demographic decomposition. While probably saving the climate and many species, it would paradoxically produce much of the disaster we'd like to avoid.
All good. Please continue.
Unfortunately (and it really is a misfortune) the problem can not be solved by virtuous individual efforts. That doesn't mean your efforts are wasted, however. You are following the course we all could follow, and if we all did, the world would be much better off. Anyone who shows that reduced consumption is not only possible but perfectly satisfactory is doing good work.
The petrochemical/metal/auto/consumer industrial establishment is the problem, and all that is under the ownership and control of a fairly small group of very wealthy, very powerful people--maybe 10 to 15 million stockholders who make up the planet's economic elite. They are calling the shots, and they do not intend to abandon their extremely remunerative oil, coal, and manufacturing assets. They will extract the last dollar's worth of value, and the devil can take the hindmost.
China is working on it. I think we'll let them perfect it and then steal their scientists. I don't see the Chinese government ever realizing that putting your scientists in jail for unpopular research is a bad idea.
I agree about fusion, there is a lab in the UK which has achieved it, but on a tiny scale. To scale up and catch the energy in a reliable way is as yet inconceivable from what I've heard.
I agree with your overall assessment, I think optimists are thinking in terms of the best of humanity acting in the best interests of the population etc. I fear this is naivety, sure there will be many good people working on solutions for our best interests, but in a unstable geopolitical atmosphere with failing economies, moral decline, rising nationalism and populism, capitalism exposed for the inhuman force it is, a darker route is looking more likely. With human frailty, our Achilles heal.
Both of these are technically feasible (as far as I know) but again, they haven't been scaled up, so we don't know whether they will work on a very large and permanent basis. Planting a trillion trees (and more) would be another way to capture CO2, and produce a lot of O in the process. A sprouted tree may take 20 years to get big enough to make a difference, but that's a workable time scale. A trillion trees, though, means less land for agriculture. In 50 to 80 years we would have a lot of mature trees to cut down to make room or more, NOT burn them, and replant.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I appreciate that. I've had some bad years of anxiety and depression and between the disease and the medication I couldn't absorb much, let alone remember it. Fortunately, that proved transitory. Once I retired I had a return of mental clarity. It wasn't instant but it was pretty fast. Now I feel like I'm function (mentally) like a young man, instead of the old guy I am.
Best wishes for your mental health in the coming New Year, which I also hope will be happy. But let's not hold our breath. There's that election, for instance.
My vague memory is something more in this vein. May have also (or instead) involved using algae, and possibly turning the biochemical product of that process into feedstock for industrial purposes that currently rely on petroleum-sourced chemistry. (Something about vast shallow pools in cheap desert land with plentiful sunlight for power comes to mind, but I might be mixing up different things here.)
Quoting Bitter Crank
Thanks! You too.
I'm not against reduce, reuse and recycle of course. It makes sense to preserve nature and prevent irreversible damage to the ecosystem. However, to say the world is on the verge of a climatic disaster is probably an exaggeration that is best left to Hollywood.
Climate science is solid science, like most areas of science. Climate science is not the equivalent of chiropractic medicine and astrology. It is NOT controversial because it hasn't been done well; it is controversial because the consequences of events revealed by the science are so catastrophic. Standard Oil scientists were the first to reveal the connection between fossil fuels, CO2, and climate change. Once the implications of their findings became clear to the company, the PR department took over and buried their results. That would make a good movie -- something like the one about Karen Silkwood. Bearers of bad tidings often end up without honor, if they survive.
Probably not. I already know about it, so the prediction changes nothing.
Suppose the problem went away. Suppose some trivial solution existed and the climate would remain reasonably unchanged despite what we're doing. Would that change the outlook for humanity in say the next century? If not, perhaps there are bigger fish to fry.
That’s a very interesting point. I’m hoping that people are going to look at climate change a little differently than we have been.
And it would really be wonderful if it works even moderately well. I would be ecstatic if ITER works really well. Pollution free energy would be a huge help. Just remember, though, even if ITER works as intended, it won't be a "production reactor". The routine production reactors will follow, and will take 40 to 50 years (possibly a low ball guess) to be installed around the world. Meantime, CO2 will continue to be dumped into the atmosphere.
Also, Tokamak reactors (and associated equipment) are heavy duty industrial equipment which will require a lot of energy and matériel to build.
However, you do know, since much has been said of it, that a theory to count as scientific there must be a way to disprove it. I don't hear climatologists making strong enough claims that can be tested against observation in a way that permits of refutation. All the evidence for global warming is based on temperature trends over the past few or so decades and even if there is an upward trend we can always ask if it could be cherry-picking the data and don't even ask how cherries are doing so well in a warming world.
Global warming could well be a fact and the failure of climatologists in making the case for it may be chalked up to poor organizational skills; they probably imbibed some of the chaos inherent in climate. If they're serious about the issue they better get their act together and fast because all this bickering between them and climate change deniers makes them less and less credible with each passing season.
As it happens, the evidence for global warming is not based just on a few decades of temperature trends. Geologists, 'ice'ologists, oceanographers, and various other specialties have been studying the past few million years for evidence of the relationship between CO2 in the atmosphere and climate. Take ice cores: What they find in very old ice are tiny bubbles of the then existing atmosphere. When the climate at the time is compared to the levels of CO2 in the ice, the correlation is strongly in favor of more CO2 = warmer climate. The same relationship is found in ocean floor mud, tree rings, cores of soils which go back thousands of years in time. Conversely, when CO2 levels are lower than average, the climate is cold. It isn't a correlation between CO2 and temperature: It's a causative relationship. CO2 absorbs and radiates solar energy more than other normal gases in the atmosphere. The more CO2, the hotter the climate.
In itself, global warming is neither a good nor a bad thing. At one time both ice caps had melted, and millions of years later, here we all are. The difference between past gyrations in climate (and there have been a few) is that they were slow. Plants and animals were able to adjust because they had many years in which to adapt to new conditions: Thousands of years, not 50 to 100 years.
That the climate should warm fast enough to melt the Arctic ice cap during a human lifetime, is unprecedented. That the average temperature should rise 2 or 3 degrees F in a human lifetime is unprecedented. That the 70% of the earth that is ocean has warmed up and become more acidic as a result of human activity in a one or two human lifetimes is astounding.
How often do you hear any scientist announce at a press conference that his theory is falsifiable? Isn't falsifiability an entry level condition for a good scientific theory, rather than something that rates a major announcement?
I think one of the problems is that when you hear that the earth’s temperature might warm by 2.5 degrees, a lot of people say ‘so what? Temperatures change by more than that every hour.’ They don’t realise the fundamental importance of what used to be called ‘the balance of nature’.
To be fair the level of drought and fires is the result of lack of rain. I think the balance of nature in Australia is exactly what’s happening now and always has been.
Silly we, thinking that drought might be caused by something other than a lack of rain!
Somewhere in the United States there is almost always a drought (lack of rain) in progress. These droughts usually begin and end within 6 to 9 months and affect relatively small areas. During the last decade the world has seen remarkably more severe and widespread droughts than would normally be expected. The dry periods have lasted for several years, and as a result there have been severe forest fires -- in Russia, on the west coast of the US, and in Australia.
The reverse, extremely heavy rainfall producing floods of unprecedented severity, have also become more common. The mammoth rainfall on Houston from Hurricane Harvey, was up to 60 inches--more than Houston normally would receive over a year's time. This was the heaviest rainfall in American history -- unprecedented -- and cost 125 billion dollars.
What produced all this rain in Houston, and in other hurricanes recently, is that the atmospheric conveyor belt that normally moves storms along at a brisk clip has slowed down -- a prediction from global warming scientists.
Yes, there is an important circulation in the North Atlantic called the Gulf Stream, or North Atlantic Drift. It's quite possible that this could stop circulating with quite drastic consequences for the climate of the whole area. When this is considered alongside the rapid warming of the Arctic, we are in for a rollercoaster ride over in Europe. Such developments are on the cards all around the globe and we could see a shutting down of circulation which delivers warmth to areas further away from the equator. Resulting in more extreme and fixed temperature zones, with a band around the equatorial regions which is uninhabitable for humans. The consequences can not be predicted at the moment, we are just along for the ride, who knows where we will end up.
Also such developments could affect the temperature conditions of the earths crust resulting in seismic and volcanic activity.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well I said that because there’s the suggestion that climate change temperatures cause the fires. I can’t speak for other regions in the world but for Australia it’s this;
Four factors contribute to the dryness of the Australian landmass:
Cold ocean currents off the west coast
Low elevation of landforms
Dominance of high-pressure systems
Shape of the landmass
(Wikipedia)
I’d suggested that there were probably more atheists in the world than there’d ever been, that in itself was a change and some progress. But it wasn’t really a successful successor to religion because it claimed there was nothing, when in fact there had to be something. So I didn’t see how atheism could offer anything to replace religion and form the basis for a better world.
Nor did the alternative spirituality of new wave religions offer any long term or obvious benefits.
I did suggest though that climate change may be that replacement. It offers a relationship with something bigger than ourselves, which is the planet, life and the universe. Climate change is a quasi religion that promises a better world, a closer, more meaningful relationship with the environment. It’s message and quest are beyond question; who would not think it imperative to save the world, who would not want to embrace such a beautiful existence?The future, once we overcome climate damage, is golden, Edenic, perfect in its balance between needs and resources, everyone happy, everyone taking only what they need, everyone giving and sharing. An end to capitalism, an end to greed, an end to poverty.
The battle with climate change is about reaching this place. The fight is merely the road to get there, the good and righteous fight of all pilgrims. All will be rewarded with a better world, but you have to give up everything you have, everything you’ve ever thought or believed to get there so that you can pass through the eye of the needle.
There are, indeed, more atheists than every before -- maybe as many as 1 in 7, but that's just an off the cuff guess. That still leaves 6 billion plus believers in various sorts of supreme beans.
Are you familiar with secular humanism?
Crises, any big crisis, pick one -- that one over there, for instance -- stir up the human heart. Unfortunately, some people are brought together, and others are driven apart. The hot mess of planetary warming is going to stir things up big time -- it already has started.
You seem to have a bright streak of mystical romantic idealism. That's just a guess, and not meant to be critical of you. Am I way off?
Quoting Punshhh
Where did you hear this? I don't know whether that's possible or not, and if so, how severe the seismic activity would be. But then, pumping water out of aquifers or pumping fracking crap into rocks has caused seismic activity -- not terrible yet, but still... I don't quite see a connection between ocean currents and volcanic activity. How would that work?
*** This is not a recommendation. I don't find secular humanism all that attractive. We are crazy naked apes and are not altogether trustworthy or reliable. Religion has the function of providing we lunatic spasmodic primates with an additional control system. We need all the help we can get.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I never thought of myself in specific terms. But I’d be interested to hear more.
Quoting Punshhh
It’s not so much what my opinion of it is as it hasn’t really had a huge impact on the world at large. I haven’t seen evidence of it entering public institutions or having major cultural effects. I have nothing against, either.
Gosh that’s clever. I wonder why no one here thought of that.
Quoting Wayfarer
The only thing you mention specifically in your post in relation to the fires is this comment on temperature changes. So it seems to suggest you connect the fires to temperatures. Maybe I read it wrong.
OF COURSE. Global warming is based on the fact that pouring hundreds of billions of tons into the atmosphere will change the atmosphere and cause global temperatures to rise, drastically affecting the climate. That is 'the science of climate change'. Which part of this is 'philosophical'?? All the graphs, all the charts, and all the evidence, is in line with the predictions - actually, a lot worse than the predictions, it's happening faster than scientists thought (and hoped).
There are not 'two sides to the story', there are not 'significant numbers of scientists that disagree' - all of that is disinformation circulated by the fossil fuel industry and propagated by vested interests. I can't even be bothered arguing it, if I could, there are literally millions of pages of data. The one thing nobody has, is time.
Quite, philosophy etc is peripheral in our world. All that counts in terms of the direction we go forward in is capitalist profit (and by extension control) and political success (meaning the ability to get into office for a term). There is the small matter of public opinion and demand, but that is a slow burn and can be controlled and redirected by the other two forces.
Ditto.
Thanks for jogging my memory. What you said above more or less sums up my knowledge on global warming. It seems I've made a glaring error but only if Wikipedia is correct: There is currently a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities.
If global warming is a fact and I suspect much of the research on it is done in the west, specifically the US, why has dear ol' Uncle Sam not taking the lead on the issue? If I recall correctly the US as recently as a few years ago pulled out of a climate accord. If the most well-informed of all nations behaves in such a callous manner what can we expect from other countries whose economic engines run on fossil fuel?
What could be a more pressing concern than global warming to the nation that the world considers its leader? I guess Trump's slogan, America First, says it all: according to the wikipedia entry, the countries that'll be affected most severely will be the underdeveloped ones and most industrialized nations will be able to ride out the storm fairly unscathed. I guess the "global" in global warming means Africa and Asia and not the US.
At this point, I have no faith in the abilities of government bodies alone to be able to tackle the issue properly. They've had decades to address the problem and very little to show for it, and when we currently have psychopaths like Trump, Bolsonaro, and Morrison in office, I don't feel like that's gonna change anytime soon.
So much as there will be positive developments I think it'll come primarily from technological breakthroughs in green energy and other technologies like carbon capture which will provide an economic reason for people to get off of fossil fuels or at the very least cut their emissions, cause apparently that's all that matters to people. We're not gonna see any real changes until that happens, and thankfully there have been some promising steps toward that direction. My only hope is that by the time we do adopt solar and wind as our primary energy sources that it won't be too late to stop the worst of climate change.
Just because the US is the country that produces alot of significant scientific breakthroughs doesn't mean that the US population, and the elected officials chosen by that population, are the most well informed.
I believe this is incorrect. Thanks to the media's propensity for sensationalism, climatologists have been making the headlines across almost all news networks over many years. Surely the apathy can't be because of being uninformed; ergo, there is a deliberate attempt to marginalize the issue and climatologists, instead of getting the warm reception they rightly deserve are given the cold shoulder. Ironic.
Who do you mean when you say “ not enough” are prepared to make the effort and what is the effort required of them?
Quoting Mr Bee
What are you “terrified” of?
Quoting Punshhh
Volcanic activity can put a huge amount of ash into the atmosphere, lowering the atmosperic temperature significantly. Maybe the "balance" has not yet been lost and we've yet to see the swing back the other way.
Quoting Brett
The human being, "man" in particular, has always had a fascination with the idea of exercising control over "nature", complete dominance. It's sort of a fantasy, which with the aid of science, has developed into an illusion, that we actually can have control over the natural world. In the past, the illusion has always been shattered when "the hand of God" strikes, Noah's flood for example. Replacing "God" with the more submissive "mother nature", is the first step from fantasy to illusion, or even delusion. The concept of "climate change" is another such step. We produce the science which shows that we have affected the climate to the extent of X degree, which validates the claim that we as humans can change the climate. Then we argue that such and such actions are needed to negate this affect, bringing the climate to a "normal" state, thereby propagating the illusion that we might exercise control over mother nature. This is well received by those with the urge to dominate.
Now, the problem is that since this is rightly described as an illusion, or even delusion, the people who see through this illusion have no desire to act on this premise, regardless of how dangerous the pollutants actually are. So the premise of this "climate change" movement is faulty, because it cannot get action from the people it needs to get action from. If instead, we address the various pollutants such as CO2, and describe exactly why the pollutant is harmful, and why emissions ought to be controlled, rather than launching into nebulous ideas about human beings having the power to change the climate, the movement would probably have more credibility.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well put.
Right. Let's all pray for a super-volcano, then. Maybe Yellowstone. It might make a lot of North America uninhabitable for a century or so, but consider the upside!
Quoting Mr Bee
I have to object to categorising Scott Morrison with those other two, even though I completely agree that the Australian government has no climate change policy whatever and deserve to be held to account for it. But in other respects, Morrison is not in the same dismal class as Trump and Bolsonaro (and I speak with some first-hand knowledge, as one of my sons is married to an American, the other a Brazilian :-) .
Quoting Mr Bee
Quoting Mr Bee
Quoting xwyhzol
"The People" (you, me, and most others) are not in a position to effect the critical changes such as: very rapid cessation of fossil fuel use, crash program to implement wind and solar energy, immediate minimization of unnecessary production (like SUVs, private jets, McMansions, etc.), rapid transition from private auto to mass transit, and so on. The small percentage of the population who actually own the mines, oil wells, refineries, factories, and so on refuse to give up the source of their great wealth.
The American People didn't pull out of the Paris Accords, one idiot named Donald Trump did that, and he, moron, is doing many other very bad things as well.
Ironic; and utterly appalling.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Quoting Bitter Crank
The Australian voters elected a conservative part (The Liberals) in the recent elections. In choosing the Liberals they rejected the climate change policy of the opposition (Labour). So the people did have an effect, and it was a critical move, it just wasn’t the one people such as yourself would have wanted. Labour got only 1/3 of the popular vote. The voters most definitely had an effect.
That vote also made clear the stake and support that the voters had in the mines, the export of coal and coal fired power stations owned by a small percentage and did not wish to give up that source.
You are displaying your naivety here (or perhaps humour). Firstly to generate such a large effect it would require a large caldera to go off, like Yellow Stone for example, which would likely accelerate any climate change considerably with signifant pollution, not to mention large amounts of greenhouse gasses. The sun probably wouldn't shine for a decade. Secondly this would almost certainly result in the rapid acidification of the oceans to the extent that all ocean ecosystems would collapse. The acidification already caused by human pollution is reaching worrying levels. There would be mass ecosystem collapse on land as well and humanity would be at each other's throats.
Nice try at saying everything will be ok after all.
In regard to ocean currents, I was thinking of a rapid change in ocean temperature in certain areas for example the Humbolt current, or the Gulf Stream. The Humbolt current is adjacent to a subduction zone.
More recently in 1815, 13,000 ft volcanic Mount Tambora in Indonesia exploded, blasting away 12 cubic miles of rock, dust, and gas into the atmosphere. The blast was 10 x the power of Krakatoa in 1883. Tambora causes "the year without summer" in North America and parts of Europe. In Massachusetts, for instance, it snowed in June, July, and August (the warmest months of course) of 1816, and there was widespread crop failure followed by a period of famine (in the United States!) There were epidemics in Europe.
There is an interesting problem about the Yucatan meteorite strike, the possible cause of the demise of the Dinosaurs. First, they didn't all die that day, or in the years following. It took quite some time for the dinosaurs to disappear. Secondly, it didn't wipe out the winged dinosaur, the descendants of which are eating at your bird feeder. Third, it didn't wipe out the mammals. That's why we are here, feeding the birds. Ditto for the amphibians and fish.
Here is a picture of a site in North Dakota created on the same day as the Chicxulub strike. The tidal wave crossed the Caribbean and raced up the center of North America. Meanwhile, debris fell from the sky. It isn't very often that we can see a 66 million old event frozen in time on or about the same day.
The Deccan Traps are less familiar to me than Chicxulub.
Not true. Voters rejected labor on many grounds but climate change hardly figured. (Might have been different had the vote been held now.) But the back-story was that the Liberals had dumped their own Prime Minister in August 2018 because his painstakingly-negotiated and extremely modest climate change policy proposal, the National Energy Guarantee, was torpedoed by the right of the party which again demonstrated its unswerving commitment to fossil fuel and utter contempt for science. Again. The Libs have destroyed energy and climate policy in Australia by politicising it, and will forever be held in opprobrium for that.
The Australian Labour Party actually succeeded in passing an emissions trading scheme in 2011, which overall would have worked as intended and at least provided a climate policy. The conservative troglodytes got back into power and torpedoed it, to their eternal disgrace, and since then climate and energy policy in Australia have been an international laughing stock. As a visiting expert recently remarked, Australia possesses abundant resources for both traditional and clean energy supplies yet has had among the most rapid increases of energy costs in the developed world.
It is true that Australia’s overall direct contribution to global greenhouse gas is around 1.5%, not counting the fact that we’re one of the biggest coal exporters. But the attitude of contempt for the science and unwillingness to face the inconvenient truth of global warming is what is at issue here.
Quoting Wayfarer
What ever your thoughts, and whatever the many grounds, the voters rejected them and their climate change policy.
“This has been called the climate change election, and with good reason: concern about the climate and environment has never been greater.”
(https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/12/the-climate-change-election-where-do-the-parties-stand-on-the-environment).
That reminds me, I've got to buy some dinosaur food.
More fool them.
That's not what I was trying to say. I was saying something more along the lines of "for many of us there is no such thing as ok".
I would think that conditions not to dissimilar to what we have now would be the closest we could come to ok (or are you saying that this is also not ok?). Once large, or rapid global changes start to happen ( I'm not saying they will necessarily), we will, I expect, discover that the climactic conditions we have been used to for the last few thousand years were remarkably stable and settled and that they would rapidly become unstable and extreme, relatively.
The climatic conditions change from day to day, season to season, year to year. What would you mean by "not too dissimilar to what we have now"?
Quoting Punshhh
The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago, and there was a "Little Ice Age" in medieval times, so I don't know where you get the idea that the climatic conditions have been "remarkably stable" for the last few thousand years.
There is an outer ecology, but also an inner ecology of mind. The inner climate has to be in a snarl (if it is we that are indeed accelerating climate change, and don't drop out, or somehow stop contributing at the individual level) before the outer climate is brought to a snarl. One precedes the other. Going along with the status quo, which is destroying the environment and inviting global climate issues, is to conform to a system caused by ignorance of the inner ecology. This is a central concern.
Where is the self-limiting factor in the human system? People have to deal with economic pressures, paying the bills in the future which never arrives. Is it this kind of collective fantasy, magical thinking, or mental time travel which lies at the heart of the mess? Socio-economic concerns rest on a pseudo-foundation, a pseudo-environment. The climate knows nothing of this figment at the center of every human relationship. Yet consequences take place in the reality common to everything that walks, slithers, flies, oozes or crawls on the surface of the legitimate environment. Collective idealism has superseded individual idealism; collective idealism is a dominating fantasy that on the individual level is healthy, and necessary part of ecology of mind (thinking freely for oneself).
In a very veridical sense, anyone that claims to be a realist (depending on his lifestyle), is lying to himself. Why? A socially, scientifically, technologically, or economically constructed world is not the world. If the dominant species on a planet puts these fundamentalisms before what actually exists...of course havoc will be unleashed on the environment and you get the tortured earth we see today. Our habits aligned with these fundamentalisms is a patent conduit of planetary destruction...quite unreal. If you smoke, you know its a bad habit and quitting is absolutely necessary for your health. Whatever it is that keeps us from dissociating with what destroys the environment is an unreflecting addiction/habit like smoking.
When you think freely for yourself, one concept you may come across is one that appears wholly absent to modern society: appropriateness. Another one: necessity. Ie., there's a reason entertainment has become so ecumenical to a modern life...it distracts attention from focusing on what is really necessary, or what you're really doing most the time. But is this much entertainment appropriate? Is being productive or entertaining yourself necessary or appropriate if it's during the eschaton? There may come a time when every action to save the planet harms it. In this case, it is appropriate to stop being productive, to stop taking action (which goes against social conditioning: we are taught to achieve, to make an impact, to behave... not to be metacognitive). I've had the long standing belief our species was meant to veg way more than it does; after all, what makes us different as a species is metacognition, the sort of awareness which doesn't involve extensive outward travel or concern beyond a certain point. Humans, in a way, have developed a psychological illness, a mass-hysteria that is a variant of Tourette tics. You have to move for the sake of movement, you just can't help it. But how much movement is appropriate, necessary? How do you know this?
For those who accept it, this long-term global concern will usually take a back seat to everyday concerns like paying the bills or buying the latest iphone. And of course, each individual can rationally assert that their own little contribution to the problem is miniscule. Humans are not good at collective action that costs them individually. We rationalize and discuss what "they" ought to do.
What do I do personally? I'm big on energy efficiency - I drive a plug-in Prius hybrid, have smart thermostats, and led lights throughout the house. Ho hum , I know. I support political change; I'd welcome a carbon tax, and tax supports for wind, solar, geothermal, etc. And tax breaks for doing the right thing. In short we need government action to rig the system to make doing the "right" thing of individual benefit.
Is it hopeless? I agree we probably can't prevent some serious problems, but I don't think there's an upper bound on how bad it can get - so it's still worthwhile to push for as much positive action as possible.
You missed the word "relatively" ( at the end of my sentence) I think. My point was that the climate can become far more unstable and severe than what we experience now. I did say that I think, I don't think you have accepted it. Even the mini ice age was small beer.
Also, are you saying that we have not passed the tipping point and could still have another ice age soon?
Because I love being alive. It's fuckin glorious. I wish to share it forward.
People aren't convinced and aren't educated to the data, and furthermore many who might be simply do not care. People mistrust decades of research because humans are shady and greedy bastards. And as a result well... here we are.
I really hope it's just a big bunch of bullshit. I hope anyone who thinks it is gets to rub it right in my face in 40 years. But the risk vs reward is askew against your favor because you are essentially asking me to risk now what could be very terrible danger on the horizon for the sake of being correct about whether or not it is a risk. Taking the risk for the sake of being correct is far more foolish than planning for the risk in the event that it happens at all. Whether it does or not is irrelevant to the fact that many are saying that it can and will. Such the same as one would wear safety goggles in woodshop to protect the eyes. The risk of losing your vision is not worth the reward of looking cooler without safety goggles.
How: Through the overthrow of the existing economic structure by revolution, not necessarily violent, but certainly uncomfortable for those who own the means of production. There are people who have described methods that would, most likely work were they implemented (People like DeLeon, Miller, various socialists). They involve intensive and extensive labor and political organizing toward the revolutionary ends of dispossessing the dispossessors (aka the uber rich, 1/10 of 1% to 1 or 2% of the population).
When? As soon as possible, or yesterday, which ever comes first.
Revolutionary change is in order because fossil fuels are the basis of the world economy and have been for over a century (for coal, maybe 150-200 years).
Beware, however: Abandoning fossil fuels will NOT be easy. There is no substitute for oil, in terms of molecules that are energy-rich and the basis of a vast amount of chemistry that composes the feedstock of many types of production. The world economy is organized dependence on fossil fuels.
Chances of success: slightly better than a snowball in hell.
Quoting Lif3r
All that may be true, especially we all being shady greedy bastards. But remember, whether we continued using oil and coal was never something about which 99% of the people ever had a choice. Property rights trump good sense, every time. Those who own oil wells and coal mines have decided that coal and oil will continue to be used until it is gone.
Scientific theories cannot be "disproven" or proven. According to Popper's (still controversial) idea scientific theories can be falsified when the predictions they make fail to be observed. The idea of human influenced global warming predicts rising global temperatures, rising sea levels and increasing and increasingly intense weather events, all of which have been observed.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614917/our-pathetically-slow-shift-to-clean-energy-in-five-charts/
click on "READ THE WHOLE STORY"
This isn't a well formulated point. There can always be "worse".
That being said, we have already dealt severe damage to the ecosystems in terms of biodiversity loss (not only in number of species but genetic diversity within those species), mostly through other means that, along with climate change, will do even more damage going forward, much we cannot avoid in any scenario.
However, as bad as the already passed and yet-to-be biodiversity loss is, things can get even worse.
The climate change battle is now to prevent a "hot house" climate regime where there is no ice at all in the North Poll and rapidly deteriorating glaciers, first in Greenland followed by parts of Antarctica.
There are two stable climate epochs in the current configuration of continents. The one we currently live in is the "Ice box" where there is permafrost, glaciers in the north and a north poll ice cap on the sea. In this regime continental glaciation oscillates wildly in response to volcanic activity and incremental changes in the earths orbit and tilt.
Because of the long term efficiency of weathering to remove carbon dioxide from the carbon cycle, leaving only what is in earth and plants and living creatures, and volcanic additions (which are small) the long term stable state is this Ice Box configuration.
However, it is only a meta-stable state due to earth being a closed system without other sources of carbon to get into the atmosphere in the past hundred millions of years.
With a new source of pumping carbon from underground by humans, the earth can be pushed into a Hot Box epoch.
The consequences of entering the Hot Box climate regime are so severe that it's arguable no humans at all would survive. Bunkers may not be maintainable long term on an earth without one or several of the following elements: edible biomass in nature, breathable atmosphere and relatively calm weather as we are used to now. Weather is, in my opinion, what people forget to imagine in our future bunker dwellers. Even the best setup bunker (that avoided destruction from vengeful pirates / militaries during the transition) will require some interactions with the outside world, in turn requiring some sort of exterior infrastructures to make that interaction efficient enough to run the bunker. Severe storms and hurricanes are going to create crisis points untop of every other problem (which are many). Maybe it is solvable ... maybe not. What is for certain is that bunker dwelling near the polls will be the only option in a Hot Box world and very few will be invited to join.
This scenario is now essentially the path we are currently on, but is still avoidable with difficult, but feasible, large scale action.
There's also uncertainty around the Hot Box point of no return; we may have more time than we think, which is a possibility that, again, warrants taking what action we can.
Edit: found the image I was looking for that shows the above (credit: Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene; Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, ProfileKatherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, ProfileMichel Crucifix, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Steven J. Lade, Marten Scheffer, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber; https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252).
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree with most of your analysis of why we have had very little action so far and the difficulty of the task.
But I disagree that political revolution is necessary.
Real political change is a generational affair and takes time, time we don't have. Whatever we are going to do will be through the political institutions we have at the moment. Action has been very light so far, but our institutions are not inconceivably far from doing something effective. For instance, the EU (now that the UK is leaving) is currently discussing a "carbon tariff", which is something the EU is institutionally setup to be able to do and would be actually an effective step to start and then gradually increase. The EU is a large enough economic block to impose a carbon tariff.
One must keep in mind that although the general population was not able to be convinced of the case for action compared with the climate denial PR industry highly attractive offer of being an edgy contrarion, this phase of intellectual failure was in the absence real world consequences. There is a small window where real world consequences may tip the balance of public opinion but are not yet too severe to breakdown or overload the institutions that are able to act. This window may or may not be before or after the point of no return towards a Hot Box climate. Previous failure does not guarantee continued failure: both learning and changes in key factors are a basis for continued attempts.
I am also working on a project developing a renewable energy technology that has no resource, financial or skills bottlenecks to scaling. Although most renewable energy technology has some scaling problem rendering it largely irrelevant to our problem, it is an erroneous inference that therefore all renewable energy technology has a scaling problem. For instance, smart phones rapidly scaled in a incredibly short period of time. Renewable energy is different from smart phones, but the example does demonstrate that it is possible for a technology to "super scale" globally; the ven diagram of "renewable technologies" and "globally scalable technologies in a short enough time to affect climate change significantly while not requiring a too large carbon investment to make" may overlap, if only ever so slightly; it is worth investigating whatever points may exist within the overlap in any case. That the vast majority of firms, scientists, and thinkers and engineers swim around in the part that doesn't overlap because it is spacious and easy to make new discoveries (the bureaucrats and kickstarter supporters having no reasonable criteria about anything generally speaking) and so peddle counter-productive hype, is not evidence that there is no reasonable criteria that can be found and focused on.
Pressuring institutions to do more and developing magic bullet technologies (to either amplify the affect of policy or make large scale disruptions to the fossil industry) are, in my opinion, the only effective actions available. Both are a roll of the dice. We will see where they land in the next couple of decades.
I very much hope political revolutions will bring democracy to China and Saudi Arabia and other tyrannies. I very much hope political revolution will bring proportional democracy to the US and UK. However, these things happening are not a pre-requisite for large scale effective action. The functioning democracies that we do have, despite exterior opposition, can have large scale consequence if bold action is taken. Functioning democracies do not seem bold because they lack totalitarian madmen to write headlines about, but this apparent teptitude is an illusion; once sufficient consensus is reached, action can be extremely swift and efficient due to lacking a "house divided against itself".
There is evidence that capital has seen the light. Mark Carney the out going head of the Bank of England, soon to become the UN special envoy for climate change, spoke on the BBC a few days ago. That, in no uncertain terms, that investments and infrastructure developed for the exploitation of fossil fuels will become worthless in a few years and that capital should look to invest in investments and infrastructure designed to replace them with renewable sources of energy and the emerging green economy (my wording, but this is the jist of what he was saying).
I presume the planet experienced a hot house state before, which was liveable . Presumably it is the rapid transition to this state which you are suggesting is unliveable? In which case I agree, however I do expect a small colony of humanity to survive and rebuild. Whether they manage to take any knowledge with them, is the worry. Otherwise we may go back to square one again, and start all over again, as we have done before.
Quoting Punshhh
So, from modern man right back to Homo Sapiens Sapiens, barely able to retain the knowledge to make tools.
There is no possible way of renewables replacing fossil fuels in a few years, which is the only way fossil fuels will become worthless. Do you really imagine that in a few years China and India will change to renewables?
Essentially yes, given the hot house scenario described by Boethius. It might be more like a late Bronze Age, or a medieval level of technology, depending primarily on the extent population. This really is an interesting subject, there has been a lot of thought given to it including interesting films dramas etc. Exploring the extent to which a civilisation would fall given a catastrophe. Perhaps that's for another thread.
But as a starter, let's say that the population were less than 1% the current levels (I was suggesting only a few thousand). Let's pretend there aren't ravaging bandits everywhere, but it is quite peaceful in terms of human conflict. Do you think we would be able to maintain an electrical supply and run electrical appliances, vehicles, with gazolene? How easy, or not, would it be to feed the population, what about healthcare?
Now take your answers and think how things would be after say 500 years, 20 generations. I suggest that the answer to these questions depends almost entirely on the numbers in the population.
On the point regarding capital moving from fossil fuels to renewables. I was only conveying what Mark Carney said the other day. I would suggest he knows what he's talking about. Don't shoot the messenger.
Quoting Punshhh
He’s a banker.
The problem is transportation. You can have electric cars, but aviation represents a problem.
Yes, this sort of thing is essentially what I mean by depending on our present institutions. In this case, (some) representatives of capital are starting to make some preemptively actions anticipating better policies (which then put additional pressure on policy makers, forming a virtuous cycle). However, if you wish to say here that this is evidence of the "market mechanism" working in and of itself, then I disagree; I would argue it is partly the market mechanism responding to regulation changes and partly the moral concern of the individuals themselves.
For me it is not a question of whether there will be an attempt by our institutions to reasonably respond at some point, the question is whether that point is soon enough, which is a segue into your second point:
Quoting Punshhh
Yes, there was plenty of life in all the previous hot house climate regimes, it is the speed of the transition from one to the next that generally triggers mass extinction of the ecosystems that had evolved under the previous regime. Currently, the extinction rate is estimated to be around 1000 times the historical background norm, and biodiversity within species maybe an even higher rate of loss. It is not the destination but the journey, as with so many things in life.
I agree colony bunker living is conceivable and has some non negligent probability associated with it even with the most extreme climate outcomes. However, non negligent probability in a complex system that something will happen entails also a non negligent probability that it won't happen. The climate transition to a hot house maybe "really bad" but does not crash oxygen levels to unlivable nor a cyanide ocean event ... but, maybe it will; there's also black swan events that may befall our future bunker dwellers such as an ice sheet slipping into the ocean and causing a tsunami which washes away the things on the surface (either infrastructure or biological resources) needed for long term survival, not to mention just "normal" tsunamis and volcanoes and so on that may befall any colony (with glacial rebound causing more of this sort of thing).
A human colony without a breathable atmosphere I think faces sever challenges, and non-breathable atmosphere is entirely possible without the amazon or other forests and deadzones the size of entire oceans.
Avoiding the hot house climate regime not only avoids the above problems of would be bunker dwellers, but also allows hundreds of millions of other people and other species to survive as well: their cultures and heritage in the flesh, not just a few books (which will be the only things that remain long term once the colony clean room becomes too contaminated to produce silicon and the micro films were lost in a fire).
Touché
Realistically, it is not even possible to buy food without buying garbage as well, plastic packaging that needs to be burned. Enter any supermarket, and think of all the packaging which already now you know will become waste that needs to be burned. On a daily basis. So it is part of our CO2 production, like breathing. Arguably it makes the earth greener, but also warmer. I dont see how the packaging problem would be solved by fusion power either. Maybe bio-degradable plastics is one of the other most important projects apart from nuclear fusion development. So far plastics are the best packaging materials.
Yes, investors are just dipping their toes in so far. Some corporations have gone further. But there is a worry amongst start up companies that government incentives and regulations change like the wind, which has certainly happened in the UK, with political developments.
I certainly sense a head of steam developing, but even with that many of the technologies are not tried and tested, or roll out has not been ironed out. People won't want to change their lifestyles much on mass, unless forced and politicians are notoriously averse to unpopular actions, it can bring down their political career overnight. So reticence is going to be a big stumbling block and will surely result in a few years of dither and delay, even when it all becomes a no brainer.
I hadn't really been considering an unliveable hot house scenario, can you give any idea of how likely that would be, or what tipping point would precipitate it?
I think we should factor in the rapid greening up of an area in which humanity were extinguished, provided plant life can survive. For example, if we imagined humanity disappeared overnight, most of the landmass of the globe would be reforrested in around 50-100 years. Provided that plant life could survive. There are plans around to plant billions of trees, but how do we know what to plant and where. Also I expect that there will be continuing swings in climate conditions from place to place making human efforts to farm a great struggle, resulting in more famine etc.
Regarding Tsunami, I hadn't thought of glaciers causing them, but rather landslides and seismic activity due to changing sea levels, glacial rebound and changes in climactic conditions, like increases in rainfall. The example drawn to mind is the unstable ridge along the Island of La Palma, which could go, causing a mega tsunami affecting the eastern sea board of the Americas and to a lesser extent Europe and Africa. Also, there could be numerous other examples which haven't been identified as yet, probably below sea level.
I agree that governance is going to be key, as things starts to get worse and government becomes less stable, many countries could fall into chaos as constitutions fail, resulting in no coordinated infrastructure change and civil unreast leading to mass starvation etc.
The difficulty seems to be that governments are dominated by capitalists, and capitalism demands short-term profits NOW, at what ever cost. Since the older generation has been taught very firmly that we won't be allowed to change capitalism, most people with experience don't give themselves the mental pain of looking it the implications of the truth.
Yes, I completely agree with your thoughts here. And if things just continued like they are now (in terms of our social conditions), then I think sufficient people would never be convinced to do something about the environment for environmental conditions to change (i.e. if we could just keep playing video games and every other species vanished, I think most people -- as in, the people that matter in Western countries who directly or indirectly dictate global policy through voting or plutocracy -- would find that pretty ok).
Evidence point 1, people who watched "Ready Player One" made by one of our most brilliant and treasured film maker, didn't, I would wager, mostly experience the movie as "this is a dystopian hellscape with a lot bigger problems than who controls a computer game; how is anyone even able to eat, much less stay toned, in this scenario?"; rather, I think most Western people (again, the ones that matter when it comes to setting global policy) experienced the film as "you son of a bitch, I'm in", complying to the social programming goal of promoting the fledgling VR industry that the film set out to achieve.
Though this is just some fun trivia, the much stronger evidence is that we haven't done much about species extinction so far, and it's been part of the public discussion since the commercially driven extinction of the dodos and carrier pigeons.
However, of course the environment cannot continue to degrade while our social conditions remain the same. For instance, last year in California I discussed with some libertarians who experienced needing to evacuate due to fires in their area; the decrease of their property value had caused them to reconsider some things. Likewise, the current fires in Australia are affecting the public debate there.
Although it's extremely painful to recognize we did not do much to live in balance with the environment because we value other life, this does not exclude, faced with a existential threat to our species and property value, acting to find a balance required for our own survival.
As an environmentalist I'm willing to help humanity save it's own skin, for the sake of future generations who I have no cause to be disappointed with as well as for the sake of other life that also gets to live in such a scenario. The motivations are less than honorable, but the purposes overlap with mine now that we are faced with the consequences. And, yes, although life would continue even if we don't succeed, I don't go around burning down museums simply because people can paint new pieces, nor disregard suffering caused directly or indirectly by my actions because bacteria will still be around in even the most extreme outcomes of our collective suffering project.
Quoting Punshhh
For lot's of interesting mathematical reasons about complex systems, it's not very meaningful to try to calculate a precise probability.
To make a long story short, complex systems with pseudo stable states (such as a balanced ecosystem), respond in non-linear ways when pushed outside the boundaries of the pseudo-stability. The variables that indicate these non-linear processes may not be practically observable.
A good example of a complex system is the human being. Someone with a job and a dwelling and some friends we can consider is in a balanced pseudo-stable state; this human being, and society they are in, is very complex, yet life is fairly predictable. Now, apply a forcing (some change in conditions), even gradually, and things will move towards instability. If this human being is unable to eat and gets hungry we can predict will do things to return to the pseudo-stability of a banal existence, but if things go further then we can predict that, at some point, thing get unpredictable but we would have trouble predicting exactly when this change happens and we'd have even more trouble predicting the actions that follow that change. Another example, let's say a new boss makes life gradually and relentlessly intolerable, whether due to malice or incompetence; as stress increases in this scenario, we can predict that the pseudo-stable state may end, but we are unable to track the variables that actually indicate a radical change; in this case, we are unable to know much about the internal life of our disgruntled worker. If they "snap", whether that means a angry outburst being fired or some violent altercation or even a positive direction of just quitting and going and living on a beach or something, that non-linear change cannot be predicted with much accuracy even with careful observation; at some point there's the the proverbial last straw, and it may seem obvious in hindsight or totally surprising. You can replay this work-conditions scenario with a toxic relationship for similar insights.
I've seen last straw situations that I truly didn't get, likewise I've seen many that seemed to progress like clockwork.
The point of these examples it that once stresses exceed buffers, it's difficult to know what will happen or exactly when. What we can know is that it's best to avoid allowing stresses to exceed buffers in the first place: it's best to not get so hungry that one is forced into a life of crime or cannibalism one's fellow cast-anyways; it's best to smoothly transition to a new working conditions rather than let conditions become intolerable; it's best not to drive on the wrong side of the road to see what happens.
The better approach is to first ask "what risk is acceptable" and then understand the factors that increase that risk or not. For instance, species extinction (and biodiversity loss within remaining species) makes ecosystems more vulnerable, increasing the likelihood of an ecological collapse; however, it's not feasible to know exactly how much biodiversity loss earth systems can sustain. Maybe we still have a fairly large biodiversity budget ... maybe it's razor thin ... maybe we've already passed the threshold.
Why we can be confident there is a threshold? The best evidence is not the math, but that mass extinctions have happened in the past. Again, we cannot know if conditions were much worse precipitating those mass extinctions, but, likewise, we cannot know if conditions were much better either. What we can know is that increasing stress on earth systems will lead to bifurcation.
Complex systems build up complexity gradually but radically simplify when conditions exceed limits: it takes much longer to build a house than to burn it down. So we can also be confident that a mass extinction event won't be suddenly replaced with even more complex and vibrant life systems.
As we let stresses continue on earth ecological systems, there is non-linear feedback mechanisms with society. Maybe if we get all the ecological experts and top mathematicians in the room to debate this, we'd be convinced that even worst case global warming conditions "won't be so bad", on the scale of earth being livable or not and so we wouldn't be faced with a bunker scenario. We might be pretty happy about that. However, this wouldn't matter if deteriorating conditions towards such a simpler time and ecosystem that's, thank our lucky starts, is at least still liveable on the surface, triggers a strategic nuclear exchange.
Once there is global crop failure, all bets are off as to what happens next.
I see the problem is rather that environment is global, whereas governments are local. Which brings us back to Kant and the idea of world governance (hence the first part of my earlier post). Only some form of global regulation could effectively internalize the external effects generated by our modern lifestyle (speaking in economics terms). Because if one country can bail out (e.g. out of climate accords), then the prisoners dilemma will always kick in and prevent the best possible outcome.
Even less capitalist governments (like Denmark where I live) produce plenty more emissions and plastic packaging waste than lets say a similar sized developing country, because consumption per capita is much higher.
Is the euphemism 'processed' for 'burned' intentional? :) Because eventually all non-reusable and non-recyclable waste (such as small and soft plastics) will need to be burned since they cannot be reabsorbed by the ecosystem in any other form. Here in Denmark this residual waste is therefore also labelled as 'burnable' waste'. So that everyone is clear when they enter a supermarket, all the nice packaging they get is actually (carbon-based) fuel which will cause emissions at some later point. Which apparently didn't stop the trend that now if i want to buy 5 slices of cheese or 5 slices of ham, i get them in plastic packaging, which was not the case at the grocers 40 years ago. On another thought, I also think that landfills for 11 bn people x 150+ years will get really crowded at some point, whereas burning has the economic benefit of generating heat or electricity (of course with emissions).
I agree, this why it is important that we in the UK root out the endemic anti socialist ideology in the media and the people who take it as read that socialism is a disaster.
I really hope this is all a big lie and science is wrong. If it is I will be happy. In my opinion we should heed the warning regardless. What if it all turns out to be true and we did nothing? We shouldn't take the risk. The smart move is to fix the environment before it potentially becomes unfixable. It is better to take the precaution than to take the risk of killing billions of humans and even more plants and animals.
But regardless.. reducing overconsumption is the only way to plateau the increasingly uneven wage gap and to ensure that companies properly mitigate resources rather than making huge stockpiles of things we dont need, advertising to our psychology as to why we need them, and selling them to us for more than they are worth.
We are addicted to stuff and in my opinion it not only ruins the ecosystem, but it is also just a misuse of resources that could turn out to be much more valuable in the future, and it destabilizes the economy because the resources are finite and the current consumption is unsustainable and inefficient.
I mean that is common sense across the board!
Dont make a bet you cant guarantee you will win, especially when the bet is all of life as we know it!
It's really fine either way. Whether we are causing it or not shouldn't we still take precautions as if we are causing it in the event that it could potentially mitigate the scenario rather than doing absolutely nothing? I mean I am sure you follow the risk vs reward line of thinking that I propose right? Does it make sense or not?
Yes, I agree with everything you say here. I think that not only is there inertia in many of the areas which do require rapid change. But there is also an insurmountable problem in large populations. In cities for example with many millions of inhabitants, the resources individuals require are transported en mass into that city continually. It is like a finely tuned watch, all it needs is a spanner thrown in the works for it to descend into chaos. Such populations are heavily exposed to disruption, or catastrophes of numerous kinds. Many of which are being considered likely should further impacts of climate change develop.
Large populations are also vulnerable to sea level rise, as many are at sea level. Problems will arise from large numbers of people having to move out of cities which are becoming uninhabitable due to sea level rise. Inhabitants of the areas they wish to move to will not want to let them in because their resources will already be stretched etc etc.
Some people say that these things won't be a problem because large numbers of people will die due to famine or disease. These will bring further problems of disease and unrest, destabilising adjascent populations causing famine and disease and conflict to spread in unknown ways.
So we have to try. Try for my children. Your friend's and family's children. Try because life is an amazing thing and it's worth continuing.
Yes, we are very much in agreement. Whereas most of the environmental movement has embraced an even more urban vision of the future, I am working to de-urbanize and create technology that is simpler, more resilient, detached from dependence on large integrated infrastructure, and so allowing living close to food (and so, even if transport and trade increases efficiency, a breakdown of these systems don't result in short term starvation based on 2 weeks of stored foods).
Quoting Punshhh
Yes, I also don't get this argument. The idea that "to solve the ecological crisis by letting the ecological crisis unfold so as to kill all the people that caused the ecological crisis" doesn't pass even a cursory critical scrutiny.
Also, of the Impact = People x Technology x Affluence, it is clearly the technology and affluence terms that have large potential variation through government policy, entrepreneur initiative and political and habit change movements of people. It is only people who want to hold on to their affluence without even being willing to consider how a lower impact life can be just as "affluent" (just different pros and cons if social chaos is avoided), that think simply lowering the People variable is the "obvious solution"; although obviously a solution to the equation to lower I; people tending not wanting to be killed, there is no policy mechanism to carry out this depopulation plan other than ecological collapse ... which obviously doesn't solve ecological collapse.
So yes, we are pretty much in agreement on the various aspects of this issue.
This is as we know against the backdrop of the global crisis and I don't think we can in the UK anticipate just how our climate is going to change. This is due to the unpredictability of what will happen to the Gulf Stream, whether it will switch off, when and what would be the consequences. Will we have longer colder winters, will they be dry, or have significant snow fall. Will we have long dry summers, or changeable wet summers. We seem to be getting all these conditions in what feels like a rollercoaster at the moment, with them getting gradually more extreme. The record highest December temperature was recorded a few weeks ago at 18 degrees Celsius. I expect a cold spell with close to record low temperatures in a few weeks.
The moon was created by a very cataclysmic collision of a small planet with earth, but no one was here to be inconvenienced, since the earth was still too hot, hadn't formed oceans yet, and so on. The event was a good thing, however, since satellites like the moon help stabilize the movement of a planet, and later on produce tidal forces which are helpful to life.
The problem with the current constant of change, global warming, is that we seem to have a rather large role in it, and it is turning out to be highly inconvenient for ourselves and our co-evolved environment. Change will remain the only constant, no matter what, and big things are yet to come. For instance, the sun will eventually enlarge, envelop Mercury, Venus and earth (at least) in its much enlarged but cooler sphere, and we will be reduced to a cinder. Once that happens, a cinder we will stay for eternity, continuing to orbit the dwarfed sun. That assumes, of course, that another star, ejected from its region, doesn't come sailing through our solar system and send the lifeless planet off on a solo trip to nowhere.
In the long run, the universe will continue to expand, continue to cool, continue to thin out, and eventually die -- the energy of the atoms finally dissipated -- somewhere in the trillions of years in the future.
So, stay tuned. More to come.
:rofl:
I was trying to show that global climate has been affected by organisms before although in a natural way and the present man-made global warming may lead to something interesting even if that may involve our extinction. It brings to the fore the debate on what is natural and what is unnatural - is man-made climate change just a natural process or is it not?
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes, I agree. Are we a natural extension of the planet or not? Are our actions as natural as other organisms? Or are we “Space Odyssey” creatures?
Whats wrong with nuclear (fission) power. Fusion is just another type of nuclear power.
overly restrictive zoning laws lead to war and poverty in the short term. War releases more co2 than anything.
Fusion is "thermo-nuclear power". What's 'wrong' with fusion is that we haven't been able to sustain it. Fission reactors can be operated at a temperature low enough that the nuclear fuel (enriched uranium) doesn't melt the reactor as long as the reaction is moderated. When we lose control of a fission reactor, they melt (like they did at 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. It's a horrendous mess to deal with.
Fusion reactions are too hot to come into contact with a physical container. Fusion is what stars do, and a star, as you know, are very, very hot. Instead of being held in metal tubes and covered with water (fission reactors) the fusion reaction has to be contained within a non-physical container composed of powerful magnetic fields. While the theory is sound, the actual achievement of an ongoing sustainable thermonuclear fusion reaction in magnetic suspension has proved very very very difficult.
The good thing about fusion is that if the magnetic sphere fails, the reaction stops abruptly. I should add that there is a container in which the magnetic sphere is produced, because the heat has to be captured to do anything useful with it.
So FUSION power has been a dream for a long time -- 50 or 60 years. Several international projects have been working on the goal, but nobody has scored anything. Like I said, the technology is very, very hard to perfect.
A further difficult problem with fusion is that once the magnetic container is in place, the thermonuclear reaction has to be started by focussing many powerful lasers on a small piece of fusion fuel. The lasers provide the intense heat to trigger fusion. When the fuel is used up, another ball of fuel has to be put in place and triggered. And so on -- every step of the way has been one enormously difficult problem after another.
The Unamerican Activities Committee was itself kind of un-American. In 1954 McCarthy was censured in the US Senate by a vote of 67 for and 22 against censure. McCarthy died young, 57 years of age, just 3 years after being censured. He died of acute hepatitis, maybe aggravated by heavy drinking.
We have had two intense red scares -- the first in 1919 following WWI, and the second starting after WWII. The post WWII 'red scare' was combined with a 'lavender scare' since the people who were death on communism were also death on homosexuality. I suppose one could say that the Cold War was one long third red scare. Too bad we can't get a tax refund from all the money they spent on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
We are, imho, NOT space oddities. As a species engaging in hunting and gathering we did no damage to the planet. The HG regime lasted for most of our history. It was only when we stopped hunting and gathering, and started planting the wheat we found in the fertile crescent (around 12,000 years ago) that we started becoming a problem. Agriculture led to settled existence, and settled existence led to more children which led to more agriculture, more villages, and so on. A few thousand years later we started developing technics, writing, and all that. Philosophy! Finally, after hundreds of thousands of years, we were on our way to becoming a real problem.
It took another 2 thousand years for us to get really good at being the problem we naturally are -- smart apes driven by the emotions of stupid apes, with more power than we know what to do with. Then we discovered industrialism and became hell on wheels, and here we are.
We are engaging in natural, uninhibited, greedy, ugly, bad (and occasionally splendidly beautiful) behavior. We are naturally self-fucking, which is why we may have achieved conditions which will wipe us out. Perfectly natural. For us. Unfortunately.
i agree.
I watched a video on ecology and population growth, the most important problem for the planet as far as humans are concerned. It seems living organisms are divided into two groups based on how their population behaves viz. r-selected or k-selected. r-selected organisms have very rapid reproductive rates and parental investment on offspring is low and you have a large number of offspring, each with a very low probability of surviving but overall the species succeeds because of sheer numbers. k-selected organisms reproduce at lower rates but invest heavily in their offspring and such organism too are successful and populations of k-selected individual remain at around the carrying capacity of the environment defined as the largest population an ecosystem can support indefinitely. Humans, for obvious reasons, are k-selected organisms and should actually be in an equilibrium with the environment. The problem, in my humble opinion, is that humans have removed what are limiting factors like food, disease, etc. that would've prevented the population boom we're experiencing; add to to that our need to construct settlements (villages, towns and cities) and our reliance on large-scale technologies. It's an effective recipe for environmental disaster.
We have now caught up with what we have done intellectually and do now understand it and how to put it right. But we are in the predicament of having to great a population, which means we will be unable to make the necessary changes quickly, or efficiently enough to offset many of the consequences.