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

FADEtoBLACK: Jan 26, 2007

So now that fusion power is starting to produce more power than it needs and we're starting to figure out how to manufacture food instead of growing it, does this mean that basically we will have to live in enclosed or underground areas eventually? The long term effects on the poor will be terrifying but we as a species will adapt and probably find better reasons for branching out into space for survival. The species that emerges from all of this will be more responsible and changed probably because the effects of not giving a poo poo will be felt at every level and clearly documented whether we want it to or not.

The truly scary thing to worry about is the idea that competition of the species must continue as liveable space diminishes, like a big thing I hear from my republican friends who agree about climate change is that it's a 'thing' to get the edge in like it's okay for the U.S. to be positioned well and have another country completely starve and we're somehow not responsible.

# ? Mar 10, 2014 15:26

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# ? May 30, 2024 00:26

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

FADEtoBLACK posted:

So now that fusion power is starting to produce more power than it needs

In the same way that the US was totally not having a deficit as long as you don't count the Iraq War.

(This never happened)

quote:

and we're starting to figure out how to manufacture food instead of growing it

This never happened either.

quote:

does this mean that basically we will have to live in enclosed or underground areas eventually?

No.

# ? Mar 10, 2014 15:28

FADEtoBLACK: Jan 26, 2007

So this http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v506/n7488/full/nature13008.html science journal is just hype or what?

# ? Mar 11, 2014 07:19

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

FADEtoBLACK posted:

So this http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v506/n7488/full/nature13008.html science journal is just hype or what?

Technically energy output exceeded energy input. However, energy input is defined as "energy absorbed by our fuel" and not "energy we used". If you look at the latter (less relevant for a physicist, but more relevant if you want to build a power plant), then energy out is like 1% of energy in.

suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Mar 11, 2014

# ? Mar 11, 2014 10:09

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

FADEtoBLACK posted:

So now that fusion power is starting to produce more power than it needs and we're starting to figure out how to manufacture food instead of growing it, does this mean that basically we will have to live in enclosed or underground areas eventually? The long term effects on the poor will be terrifying but we as a species will adapt and probably find better reasons for branching out into space for survival.

Well, if we really do discover an essentially limitless energy source, we also need to maintain a firm cap on population and per-capita energy consumption. Greenhouse gasses are one limit to the growth of our civilization, but virtually all the energy we generate ends up as waste heat and that will eventually threaten us as well. The waste heat is an order of mangnitude less impact than the greenhouse gasses themselves (~10% of the greenhouse impact of generating the energy), but if we allow another century (say) of growth then it will be a world-scale problem too.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Mar 11, 2014

# ? Mar 11, 2014 18:53

FADEtoBLACK: Jan 26, 2007

I find it more important and accessible to push for colonization of space or other planets than population control. It's not only necessary to control growth but to ensure the long term survivability of our species.

I understand the technologies I listed aren't complete, but they are possible and promising. While a lot of people would view what I've talked about as a way to say we shouldn't do anything about Climate Change, the ultimate point with all of this is that we are now paying for how we've decided to grow as a species, we need to know how climate works and how it can be altered in order to not only fix our problems on this planet, but help us to build new habitats on other planets. I know we've set ourselves up for a possible extinction event on this planet, but it's only a matter of time before something from the long list of things the cosmos can destroy this planet with happens, and most of them aren't a rock or comet that can be moved.

I'd rather be a part of the generation that decided these things were important enough to work on because of the possible maybes, not a part of the generation that decided to only gently caress with the maybe nots because we ruined our environment enough to not have the resources to do anything but rebuild our original habitat.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 19:36

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

FADEtoBLACK posted:

I find it more important and accessible to push for colonization of space or other planets than population control. It's not only necessary to control growth but to ensure the long term survivability of our species.

I understand the technologies I listed aren't complete, but they are possible and promising. While a lot of people would view what I've talked about as a way to say we shouldn't do anything about Climate Change, the ultimate point with all of this is that we are now paying for how we've decided to grow as a species, we need to know how climate works and how it can be altered in order to not only fix our problems on this planet, but help us to build new habitats on other planets. I know we've set ourselves up for a possible extinction event on this planet, but it's only a matter of time before something from the long list of things the cosmos can destroy this planet with happens, and most of them aren't a rock or comet that can be moved.

I'd rather be a part of the generation that decided these things were important enough to work on because of the possible maybes, not a part of the generation that decided to only gently caress with the maybe nots because we ruined our environment enough to not have the resources to do anything but rebuild our original habitat.

This is just "Well why don't we just live off the land and in a sustainable manner! :downs:

" writ large. It offers little to no solutions, is an option reserved only for the privileged elite (of which the vast majority of the world is not and will not ever be a part of) and doesn't really offer any solutions other than "Technology will save us".

I mean, really - it costs a metric fuckton to get even an unmanned space flight, to the point where NASA, one of the world leaders of space exploration, literally have to hire ships to keep costs down now that they've retired the space shuttle. That humanity is going to all pile into a spaceship and colonize another planet (which is going to be 200000x more difficult than anything we've ever had to do up until this point - we're having enough trouble keeping our own planet which is capable of sustaining life able to remain to do that, without essentially creating the perfect conditions we'd need to thrive on another planet) is ludicrous. We can't even organize efficient and less harmful energy solutions when we already have the technology to do so.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 19:52

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Ddraig posted:

This is just "Well why don't we just live off the land and in a sustainable manner! " writ large. It offers little to no solutions, is an option reserved only for the privileged elite (of which the vast majority of the world is not and will not ever be a part of) and doesn't really offer any solutions other than "Technology will save us".

Yeah, it's just starry-eyed space millenarianism/transhumanism. But hey once we've uploaded our brains into a computer ship wandering in space a hot planet will be irrelevant.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 20:35

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

FADEtoBLACK posted:

I find it more important and accessible to push for colonization of space or other planets than population control. It's not only necessary to control growth but to ensure the long term survivability of our species.

I understand the technologies I listed aren't complete, but they are possible and promising. While a lot of people would view what I've talked about as a way to say we shouldn't do anything about Climate Change, the ultimate point with all of this is that we are now paying for how we've decided to grow as a species, we need to know how climate works and how it can be altered in order to not only fix our problems on this planet, but help us to build new habitats on other planets. I know we've set ourselves up for a possible extinction event on this planet, but it's only a matter of time before something from the long list of things the cosmos can destroy this planet with happens, and most of them aren't a rock or comet that can be moved.

I'd rather be a part of the generation that decided these things were important enough to work on because of the possible maybes, not a part of the generation that decided to only gently caress with the maybe nots because we ruined our environment enough to not have the resources to do anything but rebuild our original habitat.

This sounds pretty crazy to me.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 20:46

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

If we had the technology, resources, and ability to colonise and terraform other planets, climate change wouldn't be a problem.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 20:48

Pimpmust: Oct 1, 2008

Sogol posted:

Peak oil and EREOI are quite different in my understanding which admittedly may be fuzzy. Peak oil (peak anything) occurs when half the defined resource has been extracted from a finite pool. There is an algorithm for predicting that for a particular well or basin. This is not exactly the same as production in the way the market would value production. It best not to simply conflate the two. EROEI is even more difficult. It is pretty straightforward in a laboratory setting, but much more difficult when the bounds of the system and systemic effect are a bit more complicated to define. In both cases relationship to market values and measures such as GDP is not some well understood or fixed thing. Shifts to less energy intensive sectors, efficiency gains (artificially bounded or not) and changes in demand all effect that. Demand for crude is predicted to drop, which will drive a bunch of interesting behaviors from the oil majors if it turns out to be reliably true over time. Efficiency gains kick in Jevon's paradox in some form or other, depending on how you interpret that.

When the market values an oil company they look at production and one of the key measures is at what percentage they are able to replenish reserves. That's not just oil in the ground. It is how much oil they are able to get out of the ground in their upstream operations. All their downstream is typically necessary, but not a key measure in valuation. Most of that is known and finite. The major basins are considered discovered. That replenishment figure dropped steadily for oil majors over the last decade, specifically in relationship to crude. From last decade the oil majors have been replenishing about half their reserves at a lower rate mostly from gas measured in BOE. The other half is still actually oil. The finite nature of the known exploitable basins and production values is what drives the majors to exploit tar sands, deep water and frack, none of which are as profitable as the existing basins many of which have peaked. This has upped replenishment rates in terms of BOE. That is, the high EROEI basins are peaking or peaked driving the exploration into lower EROEI areas most of which constitute considerably more risk and environmental degradation even before we start counting emissions (methane in fracking, etc.). Because the economic measures and baselines were created based on infinite oil with no global ramifications all the economic measures are highly suspect.

For an interesting picture Google "Dakota boom satellite". You will see a night image with similar illumination of a city somewhere around the size of Denver where no such city exists. Some of that is rig lighting, but the majority is from flaring.

The interesting part is just how long the current fracking boom is going to last, as much as several parties likes to push boundless fracking from "new" technologies narrative (including most news media) the last couple of years my understanding from reading around a little is that A) Drilling companies are not really making that much money from it (oil companies down the line might still be rolling in the dough but there's a lot of expensive reinvestment going on too) & lots of debt is building up as a result and B) The rate of increase in production is dropping off /rate of depletion is increasing rather quickly for existing (fracking) wells.
Now if anyone can accurately predict that the boom is going to cough up a lung within 5, 10 or 30 years at this point is probably moot, just that it's a little worrying how much expensive infrastructure is being built up around the current fracking system (fossil gas infrastructure/LNG and the like for example) which might not prove to be the wisest thing to spend that money on once the cards are down. The likes of EIA always have linear growth built into their systems, which makes for optimistic reading but not really something to bet the house on.

So uh, not sure if I had any point here but we sure are living in interesting times :wotwot:

Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Mar 11, 2014

# ? Mar 11, 2014 20:56

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

Not that it has anything to do with climate change, but we'll have a colony on Mars within 20 years. Bank on it. There's a non-profit working on it (Mars One) and there's a for-profit working on it (SpaceX). I have no clue about Mars One, but SpaceX will definitely do it come hell or high water. Elon Musk is obsessed with it. He'll be able to raise billions of dollars taking SpaceX public and use it fund the research necessary to get there. Plus I imagine NASA would chip in.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:05

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

That's nice but I rather prefer the nice and decent planet we're living on to the lovely small and unpleasant planet millions of miles away.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:11

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

Arkane posted:

Not that it has anything to do with climate change, but we'll have a colony on Mars within 20 years. Bank on it. There's a non-profit working on it (Mars One) and there's a for-profit working on it (SpaceX). I have no clue about Mars One, but SpaceX will definitely do it come hell or high water. Elon Musk is obsessed with it. He'll be able to raise billions of dollars taking SpaceX public and use it fund the research necessary to get there. Plus I imagine NASA would chip in.

NASA's been saying they have no way to get astronauts to Mars that doesn't involve catastrophic bone loss for a long time. It doesn't matter if you can get people there if every bone in their body breaks on landing. A successful Mars mission would require in-orbit construction of a vessel large enough to produce centrifugal gravity without making people puke. There's no way we're going to get orbital shipyards and martian colonies inside 20 years.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:13

cafel: Mar 29, 2010; This post is hurting the economy!

Arkane posted:

Not that it has anything to do with climate change, but we'll have a colony on Mars within 20 years. Bank on it. There's a non-profit working on it (Mars One) and there's a for-profit working on it (SpaceX). I have no clue about Mars One, but SpaceX will definitely do it come hell or high water. Elon Musk is obsessed with it. He'll be able to raise billions of dollars taking SpaceX public and use it fund the research necessary to get there. Plus I imagine NASA would chip in.

Mars One is a complete farce and it undermines your point to bring it up.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:23

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

I too have a plan to get to Mars.

Give me all your money, and I'll invest it in enough drugs to trip balls and get so high I'll literally be on Mars.

This is about as well reasoned and thought-through as Mars One.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:28

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

Whether its a joke or not, and I have no idea, it raises awareness. SpaceX is the company that I know a lot about, and Elon Musk has made it quite clear that Mars is the destination. An attempt will definitely be made within the next two decades, and he has billions upon billions to make it happen.

Paper Mac posted:

NASA's been saying they have no way to get astronauts to Mars that doesn't involve catastrophic bone loss for a long time. It doesn't matter if you can get people there if every bone in their body breaks on landing. A successful Mars mission would require in-orbit construction of a vessel large enough to produce centrifugal gravity without making people puke. There's no way we're going to get orbital shipyards and martian colonies inside 20 years.

Mars colonization is a one-way trip, so any muscle atrophy or bone loss would be mitigated by an environment where gravity is much less than Earth. Plus, you can prevent ill-effects by exercise.

The next generation of vehicles (i.e. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy) also go faster than past assumptions or whatever NASA sound byte you are basing that on. I don't doubt that it will be hard and the mission may be unsuccessful, but it's definitely happening.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:35

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

FADEtoBLACK posted:

I find it more important and accessible to push for colonization of space or other planets than population control. It's not only necessary to control growth but to ensure the long term survivability of our species.

I understand the technologies I listed aren't complete, but they are possible and promising. While a lot of people would view what I've talked about as a way to say we shouldn't do anything about Climate Change, the ultimate point with all of this is that we are now paying for how we've decided to grow as a species, we need to know how climate works and how it can be altered in order to not only fix our problems on this planet, but help us to build new habitats on other planets. I know we've set ourselves up for a possible extinction event on this planet, but it's only a matter of time before something from the long list of things the cosmos can destroy this planet with happens, and most of them aren't a rock or comet that can be moved.

I'd rather be a part of the generation that decided these things were important enough to work on because of the possible maybes, not a part of the generation that decided to only gently caress with the maybe nots because we ruined our environment enough to not have the resources to do anything but rebuild our original habitat.

Unfortunately you're going to find that this thread will always equate space to star trek, any non-made made risks to humanity as sci-fi tinfoil hat hand waving, and that any off-earth colonization is impossible without full scale terraforming. A while back I lamented that anthropogenic climate change was going to harm our long term chances at getting off the planet and got blasted for it. Some stop reading at anything space related an assume you're only either talking about terraforming Mars and sending the whole population of earth or starting a private resort on Neptune for the rich while the earth turns into an oven.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:38

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Ddraig posted:

I too have a plan to get to Mars.

Give me all your money, and I'll invest it in enough drugs to trip balls and get so high I'll literally be on Mars.

This is about as well reasoned and thought-through as Mars One.

Yeah, if we wanted to do a Mars mission with the budget constraint of "whatever it takes", we could get people on Mars in 20 years. Then again, if we had an unlimited budget to mitigate climate change the whole CO2 emissions thing would be moot in 20 years as well. Too bad we don't have an unlimited budget :shrug:

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:40

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

Arkane posted:

Mars colonization is a one-way trip, so any muscle atrophy or bone loss would be mitigated by an environment where gravity is much less than Earth. Plus, you can prevent ill-effects by exercise.

The next generation of vehicles (i.e. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy) also go faster than past assumptions or whatever NASA sound byte you are basing that on. I don't doubt that it will be hard and the mission may be unsuccessful, but it's definitely happening.

The "NASA sound byte" is one of NASA's bone biologists, who I talked to a couple of years back about this when I still worked on osteoblasts. Falcon Heavy is a rocket, not an interplanetary vehicle, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. To reiterate: in order for astronauts to land on Mars and not have every single bone in their body broken by the force of landing, you need to apply centrifugal gravity, excercise alone is insufficient to maintain bone density above osteopenic/osteoporotic levels in zero gravity for months. Unless you can get there an order of magnitude faster than current NASA proposals for interplanetary vehicles (which implies lifting a shitload of chemical propellant into orbit or a totally novel propulsion technology), it's extremely challenging to get astronauts to Mars and have them be able to stand up afterwards, which is a big part of why NASA has no credible plan to put anyone on Mars. It's not going to happen anytime soon, if at all.

funkatron3000 posted:

Some stop reading at anything space related an assume you're only either talking about terraforming Mars and sending the whole population of earth or starting a private resort on Neptune for the rich while the earth turns into an oven.

If you're not talking about something that has an effect on a meaningful proportion of the Earth's population exposed to the negative effects of climate change, is it really surprising that people are uninterested in discussing it in a climate change thread?

Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Mar 11, 2014

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:44

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

funkatron3000 posted:

Unfortunately you're going to find that this thread will always equate space to star trek, any non-made made risks to humanity as sci-fi tinfoil hat hand waving, and that any off-earth colonization is impossible without full scale terraforming. A while back I lamented that anthropogenic climate change was going to harm our long term chances at getting off the planet and got blasted for it. Some stop reading at anything space related an assume you're only either talking about terraforming Mars and sending the whole population of earth or starting a private resort on Neptune for the rich while the earth turns into an oven.

It's really silly because these statements you two make are vague and have the priorities all messed up. Just as one example - seems kind of strange to worry at all about meteors and other strange calamities destroying the planet when there's a more looming threat right around the corner. It's like worrying about being struck by lightning while being on the battlefront in a war.

Not to mention the technofuturist approach is all messed up to start with. Coming from a guy who thinks science is the crowning achievement of everything humans have ever done, technology isn't some kind of self-executing process that fixes problems automatically. Technology has to be applied the right way for it to fix anything.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:52

cafel: Mar 29, 2010; This post is hurting the economy!

Arkane posted:

Whether its a joke or not, and I have no idea, it raises awareness. SpaceX is the company that I know a lot about, and Elon Musk has made it quite clear that Mars is the destination. An attempt will definitely be made within the next two decades, and he has billions upon billions to make it happen.

Mars colonization is a one-way trip, so any muscle atrophy or bone loss would be mitigated by an environment where gravity is much less than Earth. Plus, you can prevent ill-effects by exercise.

The next generation of vehicles (i.e. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy) also go faster than past assumptions or whatever NASA sound byte you are basing that on. I don't doubt that it will be hard and the mission may be unsuccessful, but it's definitely happening.

Having conmen talking about how they're going to send a bunch of freakshows to Mars to die for our entertainment using this sweet rocket plan drawn in crayon does not raise the right type of awareness. If that type of thing raised good awareness everyone would be super interested in Nigerian princes.

And while I could see some sort of manned mission to Mars in the next 20 years, long term colonies are a completely different beast. We don't have the life support technology to keep a closed system viable for a few months let alone years. Even disregarding long term viability, the initial logistics would require investment of more than a few billion dollars. While I appreciate Elon Musk's enthusiasm, this type of thing is probably beyond the fundraising efforts of anyone but large nation states.

And this all ignores why would we want to colonize Mars in particular? Why not orbital colonies? And on what timescale could we expect to see significant results? It took hundreds of years for Europe to establish substantial colonies in the New World and they could travel back and forth more easily and the locations they were colonizing had oxygen and liquid water. What incentive would there be for people to migrate and who would pay for it?

Such hazy solutions as 'ship billions of people into space' shouldn't be ignored per se, but it should be acknowledged that if it ever is possible it will be significantly far off in our future.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 21:53

down with slavery: Dec 23, 2013; STOP QUOTING MY POSTS SO PEOPLE THAT AREN'T IDIOTS DON'T HAVE TO READ MY FUCKING TERRIBLE OPINIONS THANKS

Arkane posted:

he has billions upon billions to make it happen

Elon Musk does not have enough money to build a space base on Mars, sorry bud.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 22:03

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Dusz posted:

It's really silly because these statements you two make are vague and have the priorities all messed up. Just as one example - seems kind of strange to worry at all about meteors and other strange calamities destroying the planet when there's a more looming threat right around the corner. It's like worrying about being struck by lightning while being on the battlefront in a war.

Not to mention the technofuturist approach is all messed up to start with. Coming from a guy who thinks science is the crowning achievement of everything humans have ever done, technology isn't some kind of self-executing process that fixes problems automatically. Technology has to be applied the right way for it to fix anything.

And you've proved my point. How does "I lamented that anthropogenic climate change was going to harm our long term chances at getting off the planet", meaning, we REALLY REALLY need to focus on fixing climate change if we want to survive as a species long term, equate to having the priorities all messed up? What should we worry about besides climate change? To the other point, I've never advocated for "technofuturist" solutions to climate change, although FADEtoBLACK may have been.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 22:11

sitchensis: Mar 4, 2009

Even if the earth turned into a super oven with deserts everywhere, dead oceans, and huge sandstorms that would blast all our man made structures it would still literally be hundreds of times more amenable to human life than Mars.

sitchensis fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Mar 11, 2014

# ? Mar 11, 2014 22:16

Jazu: Jan 1, 2006; Looking for some URANIUM? CLICK HERE

The only way space will help climate change is if they crash the price of rare earths from mining asteroids, which might help, or they can somehow make orbital solar affordable, which would definitely help.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 22:21

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Paper Mac posted:

If you're not talking about something that has an effect on a meaningful proportion of the Earth's population exposed to the negative effects of climate change, is it really surprising that people are uninterested in discussing it in a climate change thread?

Except I was and that wasn't what happened.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 22:47

Hello Sailor: May 3, 2006; we're all mad here

funkatron3000 posted:

Except I was and that wasn't what happened.

You know you posted that poo poo in July of last year, right? The topic right now is the dimwits proposing that abandoning Earth for Mars is somehow a viable response to catastrophic climate change. Stop trying to shift it to regurgitating posts you made over six months ago.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 23:05

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

funkatron3000 posted:

And you've proved my point. How does "I lamented that anthropogenic climate change was going to harm our long term chances at getting off the planet", meaning, we REALLY REALLY need to focus on fixing climate change if we want to survive as a species long term, equate to having the priorities all messed up? What should we worry about besides climate change? To the other point, I've never advocated for "technofuturist" solutions to climate change, although FADEtoBLACK may have been.

Why do you think this is worth complaining about? I don't get what relevant point you're trying to make beyond that which people are already making.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 23:07

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Jazu posted:

The only way space will help climate change is if they crash the price of rare earths from mining asteroids, which might help, or they can somehow make orbital solar affordable, which would definitely help.

Which even optimistically is several decades away at least, so it really only is viable for a post-nuclear (read: post-coal :suicide:

) expansion of renewables, i.e. after we've passed the existing waste stockpile through breeders.

# ? Mar 12, 2014 00:03

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Dusz posted:

Why do you think this is worth complaining about? I don't get what relevant point you're trying to make beyond that which people are already making.

Yeah, mostly just the standard pushing away people who care about climate change "for the wrong reasons" I think. You'd assume having more reasons to be concerned about climate change would help bring even more people together, but it really seems to do the opposite.

# ? Mar 12, 2014 12:43

Hello Sailor: May 3, 2006; we're all mad here

funkatron3000 posted:

Yeah, mostly just the standard pushing away people who care about climate change "for the wrong reasons" I think. You'd assume having more reasons to be concerned about climate change would help bring even more people together, but it really seems to do the opposite.

"Climate change is keeping us from pursuing [insert thing here]" is effectively one collection of reasons to be concerned about climate change, while not actually having anything to do with climate change. In regards to the discussion of climate change, why do we need to acknowledge your particular [insert thing here], other than that you can't stop posting about it? There's already a thread for Star Trek LARP.

# ? Mar 12, 2014 15:41

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Hello Sailor posted:

"Climate change is keeping us from pursuing [insert thing here]" is effectively one collection of reasons to be concerned about climate change, while not actually having anything to do with climate change. In regards to the discussion of climate change, why do we need to acknowledge your particular [insert thing here], other than that you can't stop posting about it? There's already a thread for Star Trek LARP.

People quoted me and asked questions, I answered... that's how discussion forums work. Sorry that makes you angry!

# ? Mar 12, 2014 17:19

Panzerkin3D: Dec 13, 2011; The mountains have always been here, and in them, the bears.

This will sound like hyper-ventilating panic, but it's really just a serious question predicated on the premise that everything will go to poo poo since no where near enough is being done to stop it.

I've not been following climate change closely, but the doomsday picture presented in the OP is pretty loving bleak. I didn't see any estimates on when things would be terrible. So what's the timeline like for everything falling apart? How much time do I have to give my kids the best chance of surviving the coming civilization apocalypse?

# ? Mar 12, 2014 21:58

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

Panzerkin3D posted:

This will sound like hyper-ventilating panic, but it's really just a serious question predicated on the premise that everything will go to poo poo since no where near enough is being done to stop it.

I've not been following climate change closely, but the doomsday picture presented in the OP is pretty loving bleak. I didn't see any estimates on when things would be terrible. So what's the timeline like for everything falling apart? How much time do I have to give my kids the best chance of surviving the coming civilization apocalypse?

If the "civilization apocalypse" comes you and your children have as much chance of surviving as winning the lottery.

So better concern yourself with preventing it.

# ? Mar 12, 2014 22:54

EightBit: Jan 7, 2006; I spent money on this line of text just to make the "Stupid Newbie" go away.

Panzerkin3D posted:

This will sound like hyper-ventilating panic, but it's really just a serious question predicated on the premise that everything will go to poo poo since no where near enough is being done to stop it.

I've not been following climate change closely, but the doomsday picture presented in the OP is pretty loving bleak. I didn't see any estimates on when things would be terrible. So what's the timeline like for everything falling apart? How much time do I have to give my kids the best chance of surviving the coming civilization apocalypse?

Help fight the problem by having less children?

# ? Mar 12, 2014 22:57

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Panzerkin3D posted:

This will sound like hyper-ventilating panic, but it's really just a serious question predicated on the premise that everything will go to poo poo since no where near enough is being done to stop it.

I've not been following climate change closely, but the doomsday picture presented in the OP is pretty loving bleak. I didn't see any estimates on when things would be terrible. So what's the timeline like for everything falling apart? How much time do I have to give my kids the best chance of surviving the coming civilization apocalypse?

Depends on how you define 'terrible'. You'll have noticed terrible droughts already happening in California and Australia, and terrible floods happening elsewhere. Most things aren't going to suddenly change from 'regular' to 'hellscape' overnight.

Part of the problem is the lack of singular 'newsworthy' events to grab people's attention - at some point in the next decade or two the Arctic will be completely ice-free for part of the year, which will generate some headlines. Some time after that places like the Maldives or Miami will have to be permanently evacuated, which will probably turn some heads. By the time the really impressive headlines start to roll in it'll be far too late to do anything of any significance.

The horrific truth is that if your kids are Western, white and middle-class or better they've already got all the advantages anybody could ask for. I suspect that in 100 years any predictions of how society is going to deal with all this will look laughably na�ve.

# ? Mar 12, 2014 23:20