Climate Change thread: tl; dr - We are so screwed

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change thread: tl; dr - We are so screwed

Your Sledgehammer: May 10, 2010; Don`t fall asleep, you gotta write for THUNDERDOME

Clipperton posted:

I don't know what post you were replying to but it's not the one you quoted. Read it again. Space colonisation isn't a "utopian dream", it's a necessity if humanity is going to survive in the long term, capitalism or no capitalism, climate change or no climate change.

What exactly are we talking about when we say "long term" here? Because I think it's both incredibly arrogant and moronic to think that humanity will or should survive to the heat death of the universe, for a few different reasons. For one, despite what we've been telling ourselves for the last few millennia, we aren't really special snowflakes, just another creature on this planet doing its thing. Secondly, I'd much rather see us evolve into something different (maybe even be the start of a whole new branch of the evolutionary tree?) than stay as we are for untold millions of years. Finally, most germane to this discussion is the fact that our actions over the last century may well lead to our extinction or at least significant marginalization as a species over the next few thousand years. It doesn't have to be that way and may end up not being that way, but in order to have a levelheaded discussion here, I think we at least need to accept it as a possibility.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 13:42

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# ? May 31, 2024 23:50

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

deptstoremook posted:

Thread gets bad again, so I post my thing about how dumb space colonization is again. I watched First Contact too, man. "Space colonization" as an argument around climate change is the ultimate fantasy of avoiding our problems. In the space colonization argument are always three implications:

"Let it burn." Welp, we hosed this one up, so let's just run this gay earth into the ground until we can run away from it. Space colonists are so smitten with science fiction fantasies that they demonstrate a shocking disregard for the significance of the only planet we know that supports life, and one with a staggering amount of biodiversity at that.

"Endless growth is possible." Clearly we are approaching certain physical limits of capitalism, the system is beginning to show strain. We all realize (with bitterness or bitter relief) that a system predicated on continual growth will eventually metastasize and outgrow any practical or theoretical constraints. But the starry-eyed space colonists refuse to acknowledge this, they can't give up the dream of infinite growth.

"We are worthy of continuing." So what's the end game here? Find another planet, terraform (if we're entertaining escapist fantasies, why not?) and reconstruct this same culture elsewhere? Who ever decided that this was a good idea? Thousands or millions of years later, find another planet with life on it and gently caress that one up, too? The problem with space colonists--as you might have gathered--is their total unwillingness to understand the social element of either their own fantasies of colonization or the problems we face now, in real life.

It looks like your two issues are maybe that you can't differentiate between threats to the long term survival of the human species and current issues or you just don't agree with our long term survival. Either way, I said in my original post that it assumes that you agree that the long term survival of the human race is a good thing. If you disagree with that, which it sounds like you do, well there you go. If you do agree with that, then calling "space colonization" "avoiding our problems" is simply false on the face of it since it is the only thing that will keep humanity around for more than the blink of an eye. The whole point of my post was that "running this gay earth into the ground" may permanently prevent us from ever being able to do it.

deptstoremook posted:

In short, space colonization advocates are offensively oblivious to the human and non-human lives on this planet right now.
Welcome to the first world.

Yeah, I think you just saw "space", made a bunch of assumptions about what the post said, and mashed reply since that's the opposite of what I said. To use your own hyperbole, why are you offensively oblivious to the survival of life and the whole of humanity?

Also, to reply to the other thread going here, violence isn't the solution. Violence just leads to more war, instability, death, suffering, and an even worse position for the planet.

edit:

Your Sledgehammer posted:

What exactly are we talking about when we say "long term" here? Because I think it's both incredibly arrogant and moronic to think that humanity will or should survive to the heat death of the universe, for a few different reasons. For one, despite what we've been telling ourselves for the last few millennia, we aren't really special snowflakes, just another creature on this planet doing its thing. Secondly, I'd much rather see us evolve into something different (maybe even be the start of a whole new branch of the evolutionary tree?) than stay as we are for untold millions of years. Finally, most germane to this discussion is the fact that our actions over the last century may well lead to our extinction or at least significant marginalization as a species over the next few thousand years. It doesn't have to be that way and may end up not being that way, but in order to have a levelheaded discussion here, I think we at least need to accept it as a possibility.

Long term just means beyond the next planet wide extinction event. Beyond the one that's obviously going on right now, that could be tomorrow or 10,000 years from now, there's no way to know. But those things won't just knock out humanity, they'll extinguish all life on earth. So while I 100% agree that we should work to stop the damage that we're doing to Earth's biodiversity, heck I'm arguing it's essential, I think that biodiversity's chances of lasting for longer than a flash in the pan on longer timescales greatly diminishes if it doesn't make the jump off of Earth. Which, we're at least endangering and possibly forever preventing by screwing up our climate.

Sorry this got a bit derailed, I figured this would start a discussion about how climate change is endangering the longer term survival of life, not arguing if life should be saved (not directed at Your Sledgehammer).

funkatron3000 fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Jul 3, 2013

# ? Jul 3, 2013 13:49

Mutant Headcrab: May 14, 2007

I know that we, as a species, have damned ourselves with our inaction towards climate change. Bad news just keeps rolling in painting a picture that, best case, society as we know it will collapse or, worst case, drive us to extinction. Just about everything we thought could be bad has proven to be worse.

Has there been any good news relating to climate or our impact on it? Or is it all universally terrible?

Mutant Headcrab fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Jul 3, 2013

# ? Jul 3, 2013 14:00

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

There are multiple efforts to colonize Mars underway, and they aren't pretend or fairy tales. The man most equipped to get us there (Elon Musk) wants to retire on Mars, and he isn't joking around. I'd say 2040 at the latest for a permanent colony on Mars, and maybe even as soon as 2030. If I had to guess, the Earth will be approximately .4 degrees warmer, and the sea levels will be 3.5 inches higher than today in 2040. Virtually indiscernible changes by the time we become a multi-planet species.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 14:12

Inglonias: Mar 7, 2013; I WILL PUT THIS FLAG ON FREAKING EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT IS SYMBOLIC AS HELL SOMEHOW

Mutant Headcrab posted:

I know that we, as a species, have damned ourselves with our inaction towards climate change. Bad news just keeps rolling in painting a picture that, best case, society as we know it will collapse or, worst case, drive us to extinction. Just about everything we thought could be bad has proven to be worse.

Has there been any good news relating to climate or our impact on it? Or is it all universally terrible?

The good news is that somebody is doing something about it.

Australia's cap-and-trade market has apparently been quite successful.

Is this enough to save us? Hell no. But it means that we may actually start trying soon, as late as we are.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 14:21

Quantum Mechanic: Apr 25, 2010; Just another fuckwit who thrives on fake moral outrage.
Waaaah the Christians are out to get me

lol abbottsgonnawin

Inglonias posted:

The good news is that somebody is doing something about it.

Australia's cap-and-trade market has apparently been quite successful.

Is this enough to save us? Hell no. But it means that we may actually start trying soon, as late as we are.

And watch us roll it back into a lovely ETS as soon as a few months from now because GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON EVERYTHING.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 15:39

Pendragon: Jun 18, 2003; HE'S WATCHING YOU

Mutant Headcrab posted:

I know that we, as a species, have damned ourselves with our inaction towards climate change. Bad news just keeps rolling in painting a picture that, best case, society as we know it will collapse or, worst case, drive us to extinction. Just about everything we thought could be bad has proven to be worse.

Has there been any good news relating to climate or our impact on it? Or is it all universally terrible?

If you're looking on a national level (especially in the US), there isn't much good news.

If you're looking on a local level, there's a lot more good news, especially in urban areas. You're much more likely to see a mayor or city council caring about climate change than a congressperson who cares more about posturing and winning the next primary. I personally know many die-hard conservatives in local politics that are excited to do whatever they can to make their city more green, whether it's spending extra money to make a new fire station extra-efficient, or educating their constituents on how to use less fertilizer. These are small ideas, but they can add up.

Don't get me wrong, we are still in "We are so screwed" territory. However, local government actions give me hope that we get out of "We are so screwed", and move into "This will be bad".

# ? Jul 3, 2013 16:33

Inglonias: Mar 7, 2013; I WILL PUT THIS FLAG ON FREAKING EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT IS SYMBOLIC AS HELL SOMEHOW

Pendragon posted:

If you're looking on a national level (especially in the US), there isn't much good news.

If you're looking on a local level, there's a lot more good news, especially in urban areas. You're much more likely to see a mayor or city council caring about climate change than a congressperson who cares more about posturing and winning the next primary. I personally know many die-hard conservatives in local politics that are excited to do whatever they can to make their city more green, whether it's spending extra money to make a new fire station extra-efficient, or educating their constituents on how to use less fertilizer. These are small ideas, but they can add up.

Don't get me wrong, we are still in "We are so screwed" territory. However, local government actions give me hope that we get out of "We are so screwed", and move into "This will be bad".

This is evidenced by the fact that while there are more and more natural disasters, we're prepared enough that less people are dying as a direct result of them (Source - See the end of the article).

# ? Jul 3, 2013 20:26

Spiritus Nox: Sep 2, 2011

Arkane posted:

There are multiple efforts to colonize Mars underway, and they aren't pretend or fairy tales. The man most equipped to get us there (Elon Musk) wants to retire on Mars, and he isn't joking around. I'd say 2040 at the latest for a permanent colony on Mars, and maybe even as soon as 2030. If I had to guess, the Earth will be approximately .4 degrees warmer, and the sea levels will be 3.5 inches higher than today in 2040. Virtually indiscernible changes by the time we become a multi-planet species.

Don't count on Mars colonies to save us from climate change. We'd just be moving from one fairly inhospitable climate to another really inhospitable climate - reversing the climate change that's already happened would be orders of magnitude easier than trying to make comfortable, sizable Martian settlements, and that's even before you start worrying about the effect of low gravity.

Orbital space colonies ala Gundam, however, are much more viable than you'd think. Google Zorak's old A/T thread for a lot of interesting info on space development.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 20:50

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

Placid Marmot posted:

Few of the research discoveries that have been made on the ISS could not have been made on an unmanned station, at considerably lower cost.

As TACD said, this is not really the place to discuss space exploration and research, but the relevant things that could have been paid for by $150 billion include:
*Researching and implementing new reactor designs such as LFTR, pebble bed, standing wave and advanced breeders.
*Some geoengineering projects could be implemented at this cost though, of course, the money to research them would be needed first...
*Everyone in the world could be provided with potable water, vaccinations, assistance to grow their own food (where relevant) and family planning education, all factors that would increase stability and decrease or mitigate the effects of climate change.
*Research on deflecting or destroying incoming asteroids and comets, a system or satellites to detect them, and guided nuke-tipped rockets in interplanetary orbits to deflect incoming objects as early as possible (should the research show that this is an effective technique).

I'm not sure whether to find it hilarious or naive that you think we can do anything for $500mil/year. The NIF cost about $500mil/year to build for example and that's tiny compared to anything you're proposing. We could also buy 2 F-35s for that kind of money or half a B-2 (maintenance not included).

The Marshall plan was $33 billion per year in 2013 dollars and that was "merely" rebuilding one tiny section of the world.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 20:52

muike: Mar 16, 2011; ガチムチ　セブン

Beyond the CANDU reactors, what is Canada doing along the lines of alternative energy implementation and incentivization? How about the UK?

# ? Jul 3, 2013 20:58

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

Inglonias posted:

This is evidenced by the fact that while there are more and more natural disasters, we're prepared enough that less people are dying as a direct result of them (Source - See the end of the article).

This is false. This is the WMO report that your story describes: http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1119_en.pdf

Go to page 10 of the PDF, and it explains that the data does not demonstrate that there are more natural disasters. Edit: page 19 says it as well.

We also know that the IPCC AR5 report will say the exact same thing.

Alarmists like to scare people about flooding and hurricanes, etc., but there does not appear to be any link or scientific basis in that conclusion (in fact, hurricane strength is still at or near multi-decade lows).

Arkane fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jul 3, 2013

# ? Jul 3, 2013 21:24

shrike82: Jun 11, 2005

Spiritus Nox posted:

Don't count on Mars colonies to save us from climate change. We'd just be moving from one fairly inhospitable climate to another really inhospitable climate - reversing the climate change that's already happened would be orders of magnitude easier than trying to make comfortable, sizable Martian settlements, and that's even before you start worrying about the effect of low gravity.

Orbital space colonies ala Gundam, however, are much more viable than you'd think. Google Zorak's old A/T thread for a lot of interesting info on space development.

The funny thing is that Earth even after an environmental cataclysm is likely to be significantly more hospitable to human life than Mars.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 21:28

evilbastard: Mar 6, 2003; Hair Elf

shrike82 posted:

The funny thing is that Earth even after an environmental cataclysm is likely to be significantly more hospitable to human life than Mars.

It has often been pointed out that it is far easier to colonise the middle of the Gobi Desert then it is to colonise Mars.

code:

                          Mars              Gobi Desert
Min Temperature          -140�C               -40�C
Max Temperature            35�C                50�C
Rainfall                    0                 194mm / year
Atmospheric Pressure        0.6 kPa            89 kPa
Oxygen partial pressure Trace                 144mmHg
Radiation Flux             22 millirads /day    1 millirad / day

# ? Jul 3, 2013 22:36

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Yeah, but the point of colonizing mars isn't to escape climate change or establish an off world utopia. Hell, I think living in space would be really really terrible. Give me green open spaces. The reason is to simply to get multiple populations of people/life physically far away from each other so that cataclysmic events that are guaranteed to happen given enough time have less of a chance of wiping out everything.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:01

Spiritus Nox: Sep 2, 2011

funkatron3000 posted:

Yeah, but the point of colonizing mars isn't to escape climate change or establish an off world utopia. Hell, I think living in space would be really really terrible. Give me green open spaces. The reason is to simply to get multiple populations of people/life physically far away from each other so that cataclysmic events that are guaranteed to happen given enough time have less of a chance of wiping out everything.

Again, though, you can achieve basically the same thing with artificial colonies - and you can even get the green open spaces. An O'Neill cylinder, the largest vaguely realistic space colony design I've heard of, can be scaled up to the size of switzerland. Power from bigass solar panels, oxygen and food from onboard farms, raw materials from relatively easy-to-reach asteroids. Scalable 'gravity' by spinning the colony, radiation shielding on the colony walls.. Like I said, go find Zorak's old thread. Space Colonies aren't exactly a day away, but to the best of my knowledge we could feasibly start building one today if we had trillions of dollars and a lot of willpower to burn.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:04

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Oh agreed, it definitely doesn't have to be Mars, just self sustaining and (at least frequently) on the opposite side of the solar system.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:16

Placid Marmot: Apr 28, 2013

hobbesmaster posted:

I'm not sure whether to find it hilarious or naive that you think we can do anything for $500mil/year. The NIF cost about $500mil/year to build for example and that's tiny compared to anything you're proposing. We could also buy 2 F-35s for that kind of money or half a B-2 (maintenance not included).

The Marshall plan was $33 billion per year in 2013 dollars and that was "merely" rebuilding one tiny section of the world.

I'm trying to work out where you got "$500mil/year" from. As stated in my quote, from the start of budgeting in 1985, until 2015, the ISS will have cost about $150 billion, which is $5 billion per year, a mere ten times "$500mil/year".
We could build ten NIFs or buy 20 F35s or five B2s (maintenance not included) for that kind of money.
Jeff Sachs estimated in his book "The End of Poverty" that to end extreme poverty over 20 years would cost $175 billion - only 1.75 times the cost of just the ISS.
Which would be/have been a better investment?
There are estimates that bringing LFTRs to commercial standards would cost under $15 billion, and this alone could eliminate the need for both new fossil-fuelled power stations and renewables, at least in the mid-term.
And so on.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:23

Amarkov: Jun 21, 2010

Placid Marmot posted:

Jeff Sachs estimated in his book "The End of Poverty" that to end extreme poverty over 20 years would cost $175 billion - only 1.75 times the cost of just the ISS.
Which would be/have been a better investment?

I guarantee you, if there were an obvious way to end extreme poverty that cost only $175 billion over 20 years, it would have happened. It may not be the Cold War any more, but the US would love to have this under their belt; "POVERTY IS GONE AND WE KILLED IT" would basically make us immune to criticism.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:26

Kafka Esq.: Jan 1, 2005; "If you ever even think about calling me anything but 'The Crab' I will go so fucking crab on your ass you won't even see what crab'd your crab" -The Crab(TM)

muike posted:

Beyond the CANDU reactors, what is Canada doing along the lines of alternative energy implementation and incentivization? How about the UK?

We actually have a pretty exciting solar program modeled on Germany's in Ontario, with feed-in tariffs doing most of the work - our ex-premiere even thumbed his nose at the WTO by trying to create an homegrown solar industry. As the 25th largest economy and heavily based on industry, it's kind of nice that we have a mass amount of hydro at Niagara paired with nuclear power at Bruce and Pickering. Gas, oil and coal together make up only 23% of the supply, and that is shrinking. We're probably bringing on two more nuclear plants from the newly privatized CANDU Ltd.

Elsewhere in Canada is a bit of a mess. Alberta is obviously loving us all with almost 90% of their electricity being created by fossil fuels and putting up new gas plants. However, the government is (unevenly) putting money into renewables across the country. There are innovation funds and so on. We are expected to go about 80% non-fossil fuel (60% renewable including hydro) by 2035. Most of the fossil fuels will be natural gas, as coal plants are closing.

It's not enough, mostly because of the tar sands being exploited. There's also a land-use change pattern in Canada that is not exactly our fault - the taiga is dying.

Kafka Esq. fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jul 3, 2013

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:36

Placid Marmot: Apr 28, 2013

Amarkov posted:

I guarantee you, if there were an obvious way to end extreme poverty that cost only $175 billion over 20 years, it would have happened. It may not be the Cold War any more, but the US would love to have this under their belt; "POVERTY IS GONE AND WE KILLED IT" would basically make us immune to criticism.

Oops, I messed up the numbers.. it was $175 billion per year, over 20 years (which the US could still well afford).
I still stand by my other points regarding alternative power sources etc.

# ? Jul 3, 2013 23:39

pwnyXpress: Mar 28, 2007

Placid Marmot posted:

I'm trying to work out where you got "$500mil/year" from. As stated in my quote, from the start of budgeting in 1985, until 2015, the ISS will have cost about $150 billion, which is $5 billion per year, a mere ten times "$500mil/year".
We could build ten NIFs or buy 20 F35s or five B2s (maintenance not included) for that kind of money.
Jeff Sachs estimated in his book "The End of Poverty" that to end extreme poverty over 20 years would cost $175 billion - only 1.75 times the cost of just the ISS.
Which would be/have been a better investment?
There are estimates that bringing LFTRs to commercial standards would cost under $15 billion, and this alone could eliminate the need for both new fossil-fuelled power stations and renewables, at least in the mid-term.
And so on.

Hey, if you're killing the space program temporarily to bring LFTRs up to par, I'm in. THAT'S a better investment by orders of magnitude, and we could just boot the program up again once those are being constructed around the globe.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 00:38

deptstoremook: Jan 12, 2004; my mom got scared and said "you're moving with your Aunt and Uncle in Bel-Air!"

Clipperton posted:

I don't know what post you were replying to but it's not the one you quoted. Read it again. Space colonisation isn't a "utopian dream", it's a necessity if humanity is going to survive in the long term, capitalism or no capitalism, climate change or no climate change.

I was responding to try and stem the space colonization advocacy in a climate change context, where it is harmful and worse than useless. Space colonies solve no problems, they just satisfy that strange and unjustified imperative to continue (growing). In other words, space colonies are a way to ignore the key issue in climate change and ecological discourse, i.e., the uncritical acceptance of growth as a desired state. You don't even need to say it, we know what you mean, "to survive" is "to grow" without limit. Until we can have a serious discussion about these assumptions and the harm they cause without resorting to the fantasy of that always-convenient "future technology," space colonization is very much putting the cart before the horse.

funkatron3000 posted:

It looks like your two issues are maybe that you can't differentiate between threats to the long term survival of the human species and current issues or you just don't agree with our long term survival. Either way, I said in my original post that it assumes that you agree that the long term survival of the human race is a good thing. If you disagree with that, which it sounds like you do, well there you go. If you do agree with that, then calling "space colonization" "avoiding our problems" is simply false on the face of it since it is the only thing that will keep humanity around for more than the blink of an eye. The whole point of my post was that "running this gay earth into the ground" may permanently prevent us from ever being able to do it.

Of the list of things that could make our species go extinct or at least do serious damage to our culture and existence, which of these things is not like the others: climate change, meteors, plague, gamma ray burst. The answer is "climate change," because it's the only thing that's actually, certainly happening right now. While the probability of the others, like all things, approaches a certainty over time, and from a cosmic perspective they'll all happen "in the blink of an eye," climate change has already begun to have real, measurable impacts on this planet, impacts which will escalate in most of our lifetimes. So it's immature and maybe dishonest to be egalitarian about catastrophes, because you group the one that's actually happening now with the ones that might happen in the future. Do you see what that does rhetorically, or should I explain more?

The long and the short of it is that space colonization rhetoric bypasses and shuts down the conversation about climate change and strategies to combat it today, and on the ground, by introducing a literal deus ex machina in the form of a space ship, terraformed colony, or orbital station that will insulate us from the fires we've started. It's an even more dreamy and naive version of "I don't care about climate change because I'll be dead" (which is at least a guaranteed truth): "I don't care about climate change because we can build spaceships."

quote:

Also, to reply to the other thread going here, violence isn't the solution. Violence just leads to more war, instability, death, suffering, and an even worse position for the planet.

Again, consider the status quo, which is at best a constant state of low-intensity violence, war, instability, death, suffering, and ecological decline. We are just inoculated from it, for now. It's always the people with the most to lose who end up arguing against violence with platitudes like these, funny how that works out.

quote:

Long term just means beyond the next planet wide extinction event. Beyond the one that's obviously going on right now, that could be tomorrow or 10,000 years from now, there's no way to know. But those things won't just knock out humanity, they'll extinguish all life on earth. So while I 100% agree that we should work to stop the damage that we're doing to Earth's biodiversity, heck I'm arguing it's essential, I think that biodiversity's chances of lasting for longer than a flash in the pan on longer timescales greatly diminishes if it doesn't make the jump off of Earth. Which, we're at least endangering and possibly forever preventing by screwing up our climate.

Here you seem to realize that climate change is the one happening right now, but you're still advocating for a 10,000 year solution when a 30 year solution is the one we need right now. It's admirable to think long term and certainly in the distant future, if we live, space colonization will be an appropriate subject of discussion. But for now, it's escapist in every sense of the word.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 03:03

new phone who dis: May 24, 2007; by VideoGames; Morbid Hound

evilbastard posted:

It has often been pointed out that it is far easier to colonise the middle of the Gobi Desert then it is to colonise Mars.

code:

                          Mars              Gobi Desert
Min Temperature          -140�C               -40�C
Max Temperature            35�C                50�C
Rainfall                    0                 194mm / year
Atmospheric Pressure        0.6 kPa            89 kPa
Oxygen partial pressure Trace                 144mmHg
Radiation Flux             22 millirads /day    1 millirad / day

Wouldn't mars have More potential from soil quality and ample carbon dioxide for plants, though? I'm nowhere close to an expert, but I always thought the idea with mars was that it could be much more malleable with our efforts than somewhere like the Gobi desert.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 03:07

Placid Marmot: Apr 28, 2013

natetimm posted:

Wouldn't mars have More potential from soil quality and ample carbon dioxide for plants, though? I'm nowhere close to an expert, but I always thought the idea with mars was that it could be much more malleable with our efforts than somewhere like the Gobi desert.

Just those little problems of water, light, heat, an atmosphere and over a hundred million miles in the way...

To be less sarcastic, it should be no surprise that the CO2 level on Earth is about optimal for plants, seeing as they evolved around that level of CO2. There is no respect in which Mars could be better to grow anything apart from whatever life may already be there.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 03:33

Clipperton: Dec 20, 2011; Grimey Drawer

deptstoremook posted:

I was responding to try and stem the space colonization advocacy in a climate change context, where it is harmful and worse than useless. Space colonies solve no problems, they just satisfy that strange and unjustified imperative to continue (growing). In other words, space colonies are a way to ignore the key issue in climate change and ecological discourse, i.e., the uncritical acceptance of growth as a desired state. You don't even need to say it, we know what you mean, "to survive" is "to grow" without limit.

No, "to survive" means exactly that, and it's not going to happen in the long run without getting off Earth.

You've still got it backwards - funkatron3000 wasn't advocating space colonisation as a solution to climate change, he was lamenting that climate change and the resulting shocks to our civilisation will prevent space colonisation from ever happening - and therefore doom not just humanity but every other form of life on Earth, because one of those other threats he mentioned will definitely come along sooner or later.

e: not to put words in funkatron's mouth, that's just how I read it

Clipperton fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 03:48

new phone who dis: May 24, 2007; by VideoGames; Morbid Hound

Placid Marmot posted:

Just those little problems of water, light, heat, an atmosphere and over a hundred million miles in the way...

To be less sarcastic, it should be no surprise that the CO2 level on Earth is about optimal for plants, seeing as they evolved around that level of CO2. There is no respect in which Mars could be better to grow anything apart from whatever life may already be there.

I mean with an actual effort to terraform, though. The new data coming back from NASA lately shows Mars had water on it once in the past at least, so it's not like you would be creating something impossible.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 03:52

muike: Mar 16, 2011; ガチムチ　セブン

Terraforming is the thing that pretty much everyone agrees is in fantansyland. If we could terraform mars, we wouldn't be dealing with catastrophic climate change on Earth. Unless you're Robert Zubrin, in which case, please stop being Robert Zubrin.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 03:54

new phone who dis: May 24, 2007; by VideoGames; Morbid Hound

muike posted:

Terraforming is the thing that pretty much everyone agrees is in fantansyland. If we could terraform mars, we wouldn't be dealing with catastrophic climate change on Earth. Unless you're Robert Zubrin, in which case, please stop being Robert Zubrin.

Well, in big amounts, no. But ideally you would be using a small, controlled group of people with specific resources to terraform a planet. You wouldn't just be plopping factories and power plants down like it was the industrial age.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 04:16

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Clipperton posted:

No, "to survive" means exactly that, and it's not going to happen in the long run without getting off Earth.

You've still got it backwards - funkatron3000 wasn't advocating space colonisation as a solution to climate change, he was lamenting that climate change and the resulting shocks to our civilisation will prevent space colonisation from ever happening - and therefore doom not just humanity but every other form of life on Earth, because one of those other threats he mentioned will definitely come along sooner or later.

e: not to put words in funkatron's mouth, that's just how I read it

Yep, what Clipperton said.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 04:34

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Yiggy posted:

Is it time to examine? Sure, but you're implying that this examination automatically reaches a conclusion that we can be sanguine about, and I don't feel that's the case. There is no good way to organize something like that among a group of individuals that will be effective at achieving the stated goals, without being swiftly and brutally squelched by state actors. Splintered, individual actors will not be effective. And even if so, what are their targets? I get that this is pretty close to that famous philosopy thought experiment, with the train and the switches and the one person vs five people. It's even closer to the variant where you push one guy onto the tracks in order to save another five or ten. I, personally, am not interested in pushing people onto the tracks to stop the train.

The biggest difficulty, in my opinion, is finally then the same difficulty in motivating people to choose even the less violent, cooperative options. If we can't even convince people to sacrifice their standard of living for the sake of generations who will be around long after we're dead and gone, how are we going to expect any appreciable mass of people to sacrifice their lives. I know many of us feel beholden and responsible to future generations, to our loyalty to a planet we love, but they're not going to flog me once I'm dead, and even if they do it doesn't much matter to me now. I don't see the virtue in being one of the pluckier ants trying to slow the boulder rolling downhill.

As for how I feel justified in doing anything about anything, tbh I don't. I'm not really worried about how justified I am. This is borderline quietistic, and I'm alright with that. If I'm ever in any real position to try and effect positive change wrt to climate change, I'll be happy to try, but since I'm not I'm just going to bide my time. I've made the lifestyle changes, I've argued with people about it in my personal life until I find myself either tuned out or surrounded by the already convinced, and in the grand scheme of things none of it matters.

This is exactly the sort of thought I was trying to provoke; I'm not implying that there's anything to be sanguine about in violence. It would be great if we could come to the conclusion that violence would be counterproductive anyway so the best thing to do is to continue to sit and discuss things on an internet forum (haha) or like be activists through traditional means. I just think that, once we've reached the point of "the world as we know it is going to end so that people can get rich" we need to take off the blinders and consider all the options.

I don't think that's an unfair characterization of the situation; there is a lot of support behind carbon controls and there was much more support before wealthy people started a very successful propaganda campaign in the U.S. This is absolutely a struggle between people benefiting from economic externalities on an unprecedented scale and everyone else in the world.

You see it in the thread title: despair. People are in despair over this because they see the world they know ending and all action stalled and blocked by very very obvious interest groups. What I'm saying is that we need to be honest about the situation and the available options because despair is ultimately a lazy response.

I mean: what do we do? The answer that the thread seems to have come to is to do nothing. I don't like that answer and I think that, if the current boundaries of debate yield that answer, it's time to shift the boundaries of the debate. I don't actually expect violence to be something attractive or workable; hell there have been armed militias fighting oil companies in Niger for decades and I don't know that they've made an appreciable dent. Violence is sort of the last thought of a despairing mind trying to approach the problem. The question I want to ask the thread is: if not that, then what?

If you've listened to the This American Life episode that got me thinking about this, you've heard about the disinvestment campaign they started, like the one that crippled the Apartheid regime where American institutions, under pressure, pulled all their investment money from South Africa. But the TAR piece makes it sound like that's going nowhere, and it would take a lot of time anyway, and we don't have a lot of time. I live in China so when I hear "the money is bound up in a complex pooled investment fund so we can't disinvest from a specific thing" what I hear is "we don't want to do this, please go away" and honestly that's what it means. It would be troublesome for some investment vehicles to manage disinvestment so they don't want to bother doing it. You know, burn down the world (like literally oh my god wildfires) so some people can make money without having to do too much work.

The whole situation is just frustrating and full of despair and there has to be something that can be done, right?

Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 06:07

TheBalor: Jun 18, 2001

natetimm posted:

Well, in big amounts, no. But ideally you would be using a small, controlled group of people with specific resources to terraform a planet. You wouldn't just be plopping factories and power plants down like it was the industrial age.

Mars is a poor candidate for terraforming. It hasn't got the mass/gravity well to sustain an atmosphere thick enough for human life, which is why it eventually lost the atmosphere it originally had. Even if you did could thicken the atmosphere and have it stick somehow, the moon Phobos will enter a decaying orbit thanks to drag from the new atmosphere, and eventually crash onto the very planet you're trying to colonize.

Venus has the mass to hold onto a thick atmosphere, but thanks to its proximity to the sun you're dealing with literally hell-like conditions and atmosphere pressures so strong they could crush your skull. The only way to deal with the sun problem would be through gargantuan feats of engineering, like building a giant shade to cool the whole planet down.

The point is, for any planet within reach, the challenges are sufficient that the technologies required are so advanced that if we had them, we wouldn't ever need to leave earth. If we could transport enough mass to deepen Mars' gravity well or build a gigantic lampshade around Venus, we clearly would solved the whole scarcity problem.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 06:45

Rosscifer: Aug 3, 2005; Patience

TheBalor posted:

Mars is a poor candidate for terraforming. It hasn't got the mass/gravity well to sustain an atmosphere thick enough for human life, which is why it eventually lost the atmosphere it originally had. Even if you did could thicken the atmosphere and have it stick somehow, the moon Phobos will enter a decaying orbit thanks to drag from the new atmosphere, and eventually crash onto the very planet you're trying to colonize.

I've seen estimates that Mars might lose it's atomosphere after a couple million years due to it's low gravity, but why does that matter? In millions of years if we're around we'll have the technology to deal with problems like that.

muike posted:

Terraforming is the thing that pretty much everyone agrees is in fantansyland. If we could terraform mars, we wouldn't be dealing with catastrophic climate change on Earth. Unless you're Robert Zubrin, in which case, please stop being Robert Zubrin.

The word has only existed for a few decades. It's fantasyland in the same sense that walking on the moon was a fantasy. But the word actually comes from a peer-reviewed scientific journal not science-fiction.

Rosscifer fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 06:49

TheBalor: Jun 18, 2001

Rosscifer posted:

I've seen estimates that Mars might lose it's atomosphere after a couple million years due to it's low gravity, but why does that matter? In millions of years if we're around we'll have the technology to deal with problems like that.

Because "Phobos crashing into the loving planet" is a much more immediate problem, even if we're talking about a timeline of merely centuries or decades. How exactly is a nascent terraforming movement going to deal with a moon making landfall? How does any remotely realistic level of technology do so? It'd make the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs look like a pop gun. You can't form a civilization with a gun to its head like that.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 07:06

muike: Mar 16, 2011; ガチムチ　セブン

Phobos would probably fall apart since it's basically a pile of rubble, too. In any case, if we have the technology to GIVE another planet an atmosphere, it'd be better spent on a planet where it wouldn't drift away or be ablated into space by solar winds. Earth, namely. Again, terraforming mars is just really unrealistic for a number of reasons, the most relevant to this thread being that we lack the geoengineering proficiency to even make our own planet slightly MORE liveable than a tectonically and likely biologically dead rock. And if you're really dead set on humans venturing forth into terraforming, there's no better practice than learning on Earth. Hell, we can use theoretical research from terraforming and apply what we learn to Earth in whatever capacity works.

On the other hand, we're probably pretty likely to gently caress up Earth with well intentioned but ignorant attempts at geoengineering. Along that line of thought, what are the most prevalent geoengineering proposals currently around? I know there's some kind of aerosol proposal, but is all that would do increase the albedo/reflectivity of our atmosphere? Is that ultimately the best we can muster aside from artificial carbon sequestration devices that work worse than comparable square footage of natural trees?

# ? Jul 4, 2013 07:15

Paper Mac: Mar 2, 2007; lives in a paper shack

muike posted:

On the other hand, we're probably pretty likely to gently caress up Earth with well intentioned but ignorant attempts at geoengineering. Along that line of thought, what are the most prevalent geoengineering proposals currently around? I know there's some kind of aerosol proposal, but is all that would do increase the albedo/reflectivity of our atmosphere? Is that ultimately the best we can muster aside from artificial carbon sequestration devices that work worse than comparable square footage of natural trees?

There was the ocean fertilisation stuff, but I think there's a moratorium on those experiments now and they were kind of dumb to begin with. Biochar/terra preta might be marginally useful, but I don't think it can be done on a large enough scale fast enough to be very significant. So it's pretty much aerosols, I think.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 07:23

xeria: Jul 26, 2004; Ruh roh...

TheBalor posted:

The point is, for any planet within reach, the challenges are sufficient that the technologies required are so advanced that if we had them, we wouldn't ever need to leave earth. If we could transport enough mass to deepen Mars' gravity well or build a gigantic lampshade around Venus, we clearly would solved the whole scarcity problem.

Not that it'll ever happen even remotely in our lifetimes, but I think the point people have been trying to make isn't, "Welp we done hosed up our planet so let's go try Mars out," but rather that it'd be in humanity's theoretical best longterm interests to not be all in the same exact place to where it would take one strike from a hostile universe to render us extinct. And further along funkatron's point, the more we cock up our current planet and have to funnel money/time/resources into adaptation and/or undoing the mess we've created, the further into the future this exploration/colonization idea gets pushed.

Colonization isn't a solution to any current crises we face today, be it climate change or otherwise; it's a solution to the idea that there's an infinite number of things in this universe, beyond our control, that can wipe out humanity in the blink of an eye so it's probably a good idea spread out as much as possible so that the chances of all 7+ billion of us dying instantly are lessened.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 07:25

Rosscifer: Aug 3, 2005; Patience

TheBalor posted:

Because "Phobos crashing into the loving planet" is a much more immediate problem, even if we're talking about a timeline of merely centuries or decades. How exactly is a nascent terraforming movement going to deal with a moon making landfall? How does any remotely realistic level of technology do so? It'd make the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs look like a pop gun. You can't form a civilization with a gun to its head like that.

Immediate? Isn't that like 10-20 million years away? On a long enough timescale a small amount of force from a fusion drive could exert enough force to prop it up for longer. It's not that big. Hell we could adjust the orbit with current technology if we wanted to.

Rosscifer fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jul 4, 2013

# ? Jul 4, 2013 07:26

bjobjoli: Feb 21, 2006; Wrasslin'

The primary value of Mars is in answering the question of whether or not life can spontaneously arise in the right conditions. The answer to this question would have the biggest impact in thinking for this century. Other than that, Mars and space in general serve as a training ground for scientists and engineers, which is also important. Colonization and and terraforming aren't really solutions to anything, just lesser scientific experiments to be conducted in the void.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 07:30

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# ? May 31, 2024 23:50

Dusz: Mar 5, 2005; SORE IN THE ASS that it even exists!

Geez. Friends, we will be reterraforming Earth way before we will waste our time on Mars and Venus. That is if things go well.

# ? Jul 4, 2013 09:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change thread: tl; dr - We are so screwed

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