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Did anyone order some positive feedback loops with a side order of "oh gently caress"?quote:The Cambridge research, led by Dr Andrew Friend from the University’s Department of Geography, is part of the ‘Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project’ (ISI-MIP) - a unique community-driven effort to bring research on climate change impacts to a new level, with the first wave of research published today in a special issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. e: beaten
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Dec 17, 2013 22:50
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:Did anyone order some positive feedback loops with a side order of "oh gently caress"? No, I ordered the exact opposite of that. Thanks for nothing! Great. Another fun news story for me to cry myself to sleep with.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:52
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Even if a worst-case scenario eventuates, there are realistic geo-engineering schemes that could be deployed to mitigate it, obviously with pretty severe side effects. There's still no reason to think that the humans of 2100 will be worse off than those alive today, it's pretty certain the opposite will be the case.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:52
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I don't know man. The current global capitalist economy has already shown a pretty poor track record of dealing with large scale externalities, I'm not sure how you can be so certain that humanity as a whole will be better off ~85 years from now when the double whammy of climate change and peak fossil fuel based energy is coming down the pipeline.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:57
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rscott posted:I don't know man. The current global capitalist economy has already shown a pretty poor track record of dealing with large scale externalities, I'm not sure how you can be so certain that humanity as a whole will be better off ~85 years from now when the double whammy of climate change and peak fossil fuel based energy is coming down the pipeline. See, the funny thing is that during the section of my Economics class on negative externalities, our teacher gave us an essay saying "Capitalism doesn't fail to deal with negative externalities. Governments just don't assign property rights correctly." How the gently caress are you supposed to assign property rights to the loving air!?
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Dec 17, 2013 23:01
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Arkane posted:Not as simple as that. The Arctic has clouds that are found to warm the surface during most of the year, but summer clouds (when sea ice melts) cool the surface I'm not an atmospheric scientist. However, this statement is a bit broad in the context of the paper, which measured cloud forcing over the course of 1 year, 15 years ago: Article posted:The results show that, over the course of the year, the net effect of Arctic clouds is to warm the surface with a slight cooling effect present for a short period during summer.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:04
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satan!!! posted:There's still no reason to think that the humans of 2100 will be worse off than those alive today, it's pretty certain the opposite will be the case. Yeah, no, it's not at all certain, which is kind of why scientists are raising the alarm about this stuff.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:08
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I think our capacity for poor decision is exceeded by our capacity for creativity and finding solutions when things are really serious. I'm also pretty skeptical of peak energy concerns - I was pretty hardcore into peak oil back in 2006, when it supposedly peaked and apocalypse was just around the corner. History has shown the Malthusians to be wrong over and over again, and there are vast energy sources still to be tapped if we set our minds to it.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:09
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Apparently you didn't understand peak oil, either?
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Dec 17, 2013 23:11
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satan!!! posted:Even if a worst-case scenario eventuates, there are realistic geo-engineering schemes that could be deployed to mitigate it, obviously with pretty severe side effects. There's still no reason to think that the humans of 2100 will be worse off than those alive today, it's pretty certain the opposite will be the case. Except geoengineering costs money which could be spent on better things, right now, before the world economy shits a brick.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:14
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satan!!! posted:I think our capacity for poor decision is exceeded by our capacity for creativity and finding solutions when things are really serious. I'm also pretty skeptical of peak energy concerns - I was pretty hardcore into peak oil back in 2006, when it supposedly peaked and apocalypse was just around the corner. History has shown the Malthusians to be wrong over and over again, and there are vast energy sources still to be tapped if we set our minds to it. Watched the scientists throw up their hands conceding, "progress will resolve it all" Saw the manufacturers of earth's debris ignore another green peace call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jW5BA060Kg
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Dec 17, 2013 23:18
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Paper Mac posted:Apparently you didn't understand peak oil, either? I'm not an expert but I think I have a basic understanding. I'm referring to the hysteria on theoildrum.com and in other circles around that time when people were seriously predicting $250+/barrel, which obviously never eventuated. Obviously oil production will eventually peak, but I'm no longer convinced that will be accompanied by as many negative consequences as some people claim.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:24
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satan!!! posted:I'm not an expert but I think I have a basic understanding. I'm referring to the hysteria on theoildrum.com and in other circles around that time when people were seriously predicting $250+/barrel, which obviously never eventuated. Obviously oil production will eventually peak, but I'm no longer convinced that will be accompanied by as many negative consequences as some people claim. See: http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp
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Dec 17, 2013 23:30
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satan!!! posted:I'm not an expert but I think I have a basic understanding. I'm referring to the hysteria on theoildrum.com and in other circles around that time when people were seriously predicting $250+/barrel, which obviously never eventuated. Obviously oil production will eventually peak, but I'm no longer convinced that will be accompanied by as many negative consequences as some people claim. That's great, but there's still no reason to be "certain" that people will be materially unaffected by increasing ecological dysfunction or the erosion of the resource base used to support that material standard of living, which is why people who study this stuff for a living are concerned about these issues.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:32
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satan!!! posted:I'm not an expert but I think I have a basic understanding. I'm referring to the hysteria on theoildrum.com and in other circles around that time when people were seriously predicting $250+/barrel, which obviously never eventuated. Obviously oil production will eventually peak, but I'm no longer convinced that will be accompanied by as many negative consequences as some people claim. Peak oil is kind of hard to determine because oil production is based on what the price of oil will be - obviously stuff that costs more to extract wouldn't be viable unless oil is more expensive. There will be a point (and arguably we've hit it already) where people can't feasibly buy the oil, however, and when that happens then society either has to adapt or a lot of bad things will happen. Basically, peak oil is kind of a misnomer because it assumes that the supply of oil will be the limiting factor, instead of the demand of the oil at the current price.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:32
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Arkane posted:I think "no big deal" is not really what I am saying, although it may seem like that contrasted to this thread in particular. The Earth is going to change, albeit very slowly. I think we do not have evidence of any cataclysmic effects coming anytime soon and a lot of observational evidence that the risk is being over-predicted. I think as a species adaptation will not be all that difficult, considering how fast we are moving in terms of technology. TehSaurus posted:That makes sense. I would like to see the articles, but honestly I don't think I will have time for them. Maybe over the holiday. Suffice it to say that there are some areas of unsettled science with respect to the details of what sea ice loss will mean, and the rate at which it will occur. I am skeptical about the limitations on the speed of glacier melt being compelling given the accelerating and consistently underestimated rate of (land) glacier loss. Alright so here is the study I was thinking of from Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7448/full/nature12068.html Here's two more from PNAS and Science: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/09/1017313108 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6081/576.abstract They use different methods, but the three studies each show that Greenland's future contributions to sea level rise has been over-predicted at least as far as the IPCC and sea level models are concerned. The largest ice sheet mass on the planet, Antarctica, is gaining ice. Either way, the largest source of sea level rise in the future is going to be thermal expansion (H2O expands as it gets warmer) which itself will be dependent upon temperature increases of the surface & ocean. As to the subglacial melt, the paper isn't really as conclusive as I thought, but basically there are various papers & teams that are studying the physical process by which the water that melts get from the inner ice sheet of Greenland to the ocean. People have used dyes and boreholes to test whether the drainage systems are "efficient." Contrast Greenland's ice to a mountain glacier where gravity is doing most of the work. Just because the glacial ice is melting doesn't mean the water can make it to the ocean.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:33
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Evil_Greven posted:I'm not sure if you've noticed, but oil prices now (when adjusted for inflation) are as higher than any point since the American Civil War, save for the peak of the oil crisis. Even then, in the last decade, that peak has been surpassed at times. True, but prices are set to decline over the next few years, which nobody was predicting in the last decade. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/business/international/global-coal-use-predicted-to-keep-growing.html?hpw&rref=business quote:The report predicted that the increase in United States production would contribute to a decline in the world oil benchmark price over the next few years to $92 a barrel in 2017 from a 2012 average of $112 a barrel, which should translate into lower prices at the pump for consumers. IEA report here http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/pdf/0383er%282014%29.pdf which makes a mostly positive case.
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Dec 17, 2013 23:38
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satan!!! posted:I think our capacity for poor decision is exceeded by our capacity for creativity and finding solutions when things are really serious. This is the Get Kony of climate change. Humans are smart, we did it everyone! Things have already been 'really serious' for much of the global population for a long time now. Poverty and starvation, and preventable disease, and resource conflicts, and environmental disasters happen and continue to happen - and this is in the good times. Funnily enough solutions to these problems have not been pursued, and we haven't put the sum of human ingenuity and productive power to use in building a global society that protects and provides for all, and that can deal with any disaster the planet throws at us. What you're basically saying is that in far less ideal times, with everyone competing for even scarcer resources as large scale changes sweep across the planet, everyone's going to put aside all geopolitical concerns, join hands and find the productive and material means to reconfigure things on a planetary scale. And the magic beans that will make this possible are in the form of Geoengineering™ (a product of Human Ingenuity®), a kind of wishful thinking that involves taking the entire climate system we've managed to gently caress up through human interference - and only just recently begun to understand - and fixing the entire thing by loving with it some more. It's hubristic and glib as gently caress, and it's just an excuse to ignore the entire issue. Someone will sort it out, right guys? We're pretty smart
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Dec 18, 2013 00:17
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Don't worry guys, that tsunami should settle out into a peaceful wave any moment now. Any moment. Any - where did everyone go? They just don't understand. Any mome
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Dec 18, 2013 01:08
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Negative Entropy posted:Don't worry guys, that tsunami should settle out into a peaceful wave any moment now. Any moment. Any - where did everyone go? They just don't understand. Any mome Right, but aside from what I'm doing already (I go to rallies and donate to groups like 350.org) what else is there to do? I've got a mop, and the tsunami's coming in.
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Dec 18, 2013 02:37
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Inglonias posted:Right, but aside from what I'm doing already (I go to rallies and donate to groups like 350.org) what else is there to do? I've got a mop, and the tsunami's coming in.
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Dec 18, 2013 02:59
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Everything I've read these last few years makes it sound like I'll be lucky if I make it to 60 (I'm 29 now), and I've done as much as I can with regards to my lifestyle short of cutting myself off from society and living in a cave. I guess really the only option available when facing the future is to make the best of things in the present since what's ahead is mostly out of our hands.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:07
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tmfool posted:Everything I've read these last few years makes it sound like I'll be lucky if I make it to 60 (I'm 29 now), and I've done as much as I can with regards to my lifestyle short of cutting myself off from society and living in a cave. I guess really the only option available when facing the future is to make the best of things in the present since what's ahead is mostly out of our hands.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:08
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tmfool posted:Everything I've read these last few years makes it sound like I'll be lucky if I make it to 60 (I'm 29 now), and I've done as much as I can with regards to my lifestyle short of cutting myself off from society and living in a cave. I guess really the only option available when facing the future is to make the best of things in the present since what's ahead is mostly out of our hands. rivetz posted:You are overreacting horribly, in my opinion. I'm sort of in the same emotional boat right now, actually. Hence why I've been posting.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:13
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Sup Inglonias and tmfool. It's nice to know I'm not the only one that feels so crushingly depressed over AGW. So I guess we can take solace in that.  
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Dec 18, 2013 03:13
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rivetz posted:You are overreacting horribly, in my opinion. Ha, I hope so. I don't see it as a negative, at least. If I'm overreacting, it at least got me to actually become successful in my work/life rather than remaining stuck in front of the TV, playing video games all day.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:17
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Inglonias posted:Right, but aside from what I'm doing already (I go to rallies and donate to groups like 350.org) what else is there to do? I've got a mop, and the tsunami's coming in. I'm going back to school to major in environmental engineering.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:25
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tmfool posted:Everything I've read these last few years makes it sound like I'll be lucky if I make it to 60 (I'm 29 now), and I've done as much as I can with regards to my lifestyle short of cutting myself off from society and living in a cave. I guess really the only option available when facing the future is to make the best of things in the present since what's ahead is mostly out of our hands. Depends, are you fairly impoverished in a developing world country? If not then you'll probably make it to sixty. The first couple decades of the worst case scenarios will still mostly kill the folks currently on the edge, barring global thermonuclear war.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:49
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Environmental catastrophe has been a reasonably common way to go out pretty much since civilisation got going, kind of goes with the territory. I generally get the feeling that people are less depressed about their own personal mortality than they are about the threat climate change poses to Western civilisational narratives that pretty much everyone is invested in one way or the other. To the extent that those narratives provide context and meaning for your life, it's natural to be depressed and even grieve, but at the same time there's the opportunity to come to terms with, say, Kierkegaard's question of "what endures" in a much deeper fashion than most humans ever get a chance to.
Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 04:37
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Paper Mac posted:Environmental catastrophe has been a reasonably common way to go out pretty much since civilisation got going, kind of goes with the territory. I generally get the feeling that people are less depressed about their own personal mortality than they are about the threat climate change poses to Western civilisational narratives that pretty much everyone is invested in one way or the other. To the extent that those narratives provide context and meaning for your life, it's natural to be depressed and even grieve, but at the same time there's the opportunity to come to terms with, say, Kierkegaard's question of "what endures" in a much deeper fashion than most humans ever get a chance to. Oh, so I lose the technology and society I know and love, but hey, I get better context to a philosophical conundrum!
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Dec 18, 2013 04:51
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Sorry about your videogames, I guess?
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Dec 18, 2013 05:09
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Here's an idea: if your happiness requires incredibly brutal and exploitative social forms and a technological base that is literally destroying the preconditions for life on earth, maybe it's better you stay depressed
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Dec 18, 2013 05:14
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Paper Mac posted:Here's an idea: if your happiness requires incredibly brutal and exploitative social forms and a technological base that is literally destroying the preconditions for life on earth, maybe it's better you stay depressed
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Dec 18, 2013 05:37
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I'm not a leftist, nor am I predicting any apocalypse. The status quo is a profoundly unjust one which is demonstrably destroying the conditions of its own existence- that's the whole point. Dude came in here casting about for a reason to live and when I suggested that considering what truly constitutes the Good is a way to deal with challenges to particular civilisational narratives his response was literally "But things will be different! gently caress philosophy". If that's your attitude, well, whatever, but I don't have to respect it.
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Dec 18, 2013 05:56
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Inglonias posted:I'm sort of in the same emotional boat right now, actually. Hence why I've been posting. * support nuclear power or whatever else that pops up and seems both largely carbon neutral while not ruinously expensive * don't support "biofuels" as they are now (yay we're chopping down old growth forests that take centuries to regenerate so we can put some oil crops in there - but at least it doesn't involve evil ATOMS or GENES  )* support technological advances in agriculture because healthy ecosystems benefit more from not being converted into/polluted by additional farm land than from self described environmentalists decrying the evils of GMOs or intensive agriculture on principle * try not to waste large amounts of fuel, electricity or meat. This doesn't mean you have to live off the grid or refuse to use any vehicle with an internal combustion engine, it's just that waste is, well, unnecessary. Paper Mac posted:Here's an idea: if your happiness requires incredibly brutal and exploitative social forms and a technological base that is literally destroying the preconditions for life on earth, maybe it's better you stay depressed But it doesn't require that to happen, it's just that burning fossil fuels was more convenient and we haven't bothered to use a better energy source yet. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 10:11
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If you have a decent amount of spare cash, toss it at the Weinberg foundation. Cheap, safe nuclear power will be a godsend in climate reconstruction.
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Dec 18, 2013 11:01
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Inglonias posted:Right, but aside from what I'm doing already (I go to rallies and donate to groups like 350.org) what else is there to do? I've got a mop, and the tsunami's coming in.
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Dec 18, 2013 13:25
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Paper Mac posted:I'm not a leftist, nor am I predicting any apocalypse. The status quo is a profoundly unjust one which is demonstrably destroying the conditions of its own existence- that's the whole point. Dude came in here casting about for a reason to live and when I suggested that considering what truly constitutes the Good is a way to deal with challenges to particular civilisational narratives his response was literally "But things will be different! gently caress philosophy". If that's your attitude, well, whatever, but I don't have to respect it. That was a kneejerk reaction on my part. Yeah, it was a bit of a stupid thing to say. I'd be lying if I said I didn't mean what I said. I really do happen to like my life. I'm studying to be a computer science major, and in order for me to make a living, I need computers to science on. I did Google the thing you talked about (Kierkegaard's question of "what endures") and I didn't find anything immediately relevant, probably because it was pretty late at night for philosophical research. If you could point me at something, that would be interesting. At least I would know what you were talking about. I may not agree with you, but I would like to know what it was you were talking about.
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Dec 18, 2013 13:26
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Strudel Man posted:See this is the kind of thing where AGW gets tightly bound up with people's unique (shall we say) political beliefs, and turns into some kind of apocalyptic morality play. It's apparently not a climactic response to a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but is instead a righteous judgement which is coming to pass upon our exploitative social forms and industry. The Rapture for leftists, more or less, except that the good people just get proven right instead of ascending into heaven. Son, I like the cut of your jib, shall we say. I think we may have a slot opening up at our consortium for folks with skills such as yours. The sky's the limit, son. You could end up with an AM radio program of your own, you could write speeches for congressmen, sky's the limit. Rapture for leftists, I like that. Turnabout's fair play and all that.
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Dec 18, 2013 13:42
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Inglonias posted:That was a kneejerk reaction on my part. Yeah, it was a bit of a stupid thing to say. Spoken like a computer science student. Dude, late at night [I]is[/] the time for philosophical research. :-) I feel ya though. You ain't the only one. Just keep doing what you're doing and have faith.
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Dec 18, 2013 13:55
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