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Kurnugia posted:Actually, I'm a scientist. Not a climate scientist though, biology. Great, there's one. Anyone else? Arkane?
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Sep 23, 2014 19:07
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I guess we should  the thread since it evidently doesn't satisfy Radbots posting quality standards.
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Sep 23, 2014 19:12
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Radbot posted:Great, there's one. Anyone else? Arkane? I'm a weed scientist
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Sep 23, 2014 19:14
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:I'm a weed scientist Our botany department has a certain distinct odour if you know what I mean they have a major aphid infestation
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Sep 23, 2014 19:18
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Kurnugia posted:I guess we should Why would we do that? Who doesn't enjoy laypeople slapfighting over the axis of a graph they don't remotely understand?
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Sep 23, 2014 19:35
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Radbot posted:Great, there's one. Anyone else? Arkane? Also a scientist (Materials science i.e. solid state physics/physical chemistry stuff), though I rarely post in here.
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Sep 23, 2014 19:55
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I'm an Atmospheric Scientist & Physicist, this is a good thread, and Arkane is hilarious.
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Sep 23, 2014 20:15
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Radbot posted:Great, there's one. Anyone else? Arkane? I'm also a scientist, but again not climate-related (solar cell design).
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Sep 23, 2014 20:18
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pwnyXpress posted:I'm an Atmospheric Scientist & Physicist, this is a good thread, and Arkane is hilarious. I don't know if it means that I'm a moron, but I find Arkane's posts completely incomprehensible.
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Sep 23, 2014 20:22
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[quote="Arkane" post=""43529"] Because it dovetails with their politics! As Naomi Klein so succinctly put in her new book, "I have long been greatly concerned about the science of global warming – but I was propelled into a deeper engagement with it partly because I realized it could be a catalyst for forms of social and economic justice in which I already believed." [/quote] I really do love when people say thing like this. It shows how strong a role politics plays a role on their own opposition to climate change. And yes, I do understand what Klein wrote. I think it is just a little hypocritical to say "it dovetails with their politics" while pretending you're just some standing up for sound science. Nucleic Acids fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 20:25
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Klein literally sounds like an honest, anti-Arkane in that quote.
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Sep 23, 2014 21:01
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Radbot posted:Then you run into the other problem, there being a finite amount of oil in the Earth. You can't handwave the problem away with technology. We can make hydrocarbons out of seawater. This is an energy intensive process but it puts an upper bound on the price of oil, and guarantees we will never run out.
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Sep 23, 2014 22:02
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JeffersonClay posted:We can make hydrocarbons out of seawater. This is an energy intensive process but it puts an upper bound on the price of oil, and guarantees we will never run out. "Running out of oil" in this thread's context means running out of (cheap) oil that is an energy source.
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Sep 23, 2014 22:15
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JeffersonClay posted:We can make hydrocarbons out of seawater. This is an energy intensive process but it puts an upper bound on the price of oil, and guarantees we will never run out. Fame Douglas posted:"Running out of oil" in this thread's context means running out of (cheap) oil that is an energy source. The discussion of running out of economical oil is moot compared to our current impacts on the carbon cycle. The timescales are different. Proven reserves of oil have been rising dramatically in the US, for example, because of the tight oil boom (a technological shift in the supply curve). Meanwhile, carbon-equivilent emissions abatement is far below our target. We don't have time to wait for oil to become to expensive to use due to resource constraints (however, a carbon tax on the other hand....).  Because we've survived worse. The prospects for everyone dying are slim, it just will suck perhaps lethally so for wide swaths of humanity depending on how long we wait for true systemic action. \/ Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 22:22
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So the question I keep asking myself is, do I have reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of humanity to survive this century on Earth?
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Sep 23, 2014 22:31
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Kurnugia posted:So the question I keep asking myself is, do I have reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of humanity to survive this century on Earth? This is an absurd sentiment, imo. Imagine how the prospects of human survival looked to survivors of the Black Death, or the white house staffers during the cuban missile crisis who told their relatives to flee to the countryside. The reality is we don't really know what the future holds, as has always been the case.
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Sep 23, 2014 22:43
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Kurnugia posted:So the question I keep asking myself is, do I have reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of humanity to survive this century on Earth? Don't worry, there's no chance of us going extinct this century or the next solely on account of climate change. Don't forget, even stripped of all our technology, we're still the most badass predators on the block, and survived poo poo like the Toba catastrophe at a time before we were firmly entrenched in every corner of the globe. Humanity will live on. (But dehumanize yourself and face to bloodshed  )
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Sep 23, 2014 22:47
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Another (non-climate) scientist checking in. I've read the Chen and Tung paper, and I'm just going to quote their conclusion since the article itself is not publicly available:quote:Conclusion No-one here is arguing that the relative stasis of global mean surface temperatures in any way casts doubt on anthropogenic global warming; the main contention of the authors is that the Atlantic Ocean may be playing a larger role in storing heat than previously thought, where the majority of opinion had previously regarded the influence of the Pacific as being the major player. It would appear from some follow-up papers that not all climate scientists agree with Chen and Tung's contention, but I'll leave that argument for the scientists who are actually qualified to make it. The big take home here is that last sentence. No-one, aside from this thread's resident village idiot, thinks that this phenomenon of heat storage in the ocean is "nice", and none of this buys us any time. Radbot posted:Klein literally sounds like an honest, anti-Arkane in that quote. There's an obvious, huge difference here, right? Klein started from a leftist position, interested in dismantling global capitalism. As she became familiar with with the science behind the study of climate change, she took the position that climate change was a real crisis that required immediate address, and that global capitalism is both a major contributing factor to AGW and an impediment to the implementation of any viable solutions. Arkane, on the other hand, subscribes to a socio-economic philosophy that is inconsistent with the scientific consensus, and so spends his time trying to sow doubt and discredit scientists by flinging poo poo around like a toddler. There's an ever-so-slight difference between the two.
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Sep 23, 2014 22:52
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Ok so maybe I like hyperbole, sue me. To rephrase, do I have any reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of technological civilization surviving this century?SKELETONS posted:This is an absurd sentiment, imo. Imagine how the prospects of human survival looked to survivors of the Black Death, or the white house staffers during the cuban missile crisis who told their relatives to flee to the countryside. The reality is we don't really know what the future holds, as has always been the case. An imminent existential crisis is I think a bit different from the prospect of running out of planet to live on. You can just not launch the nukes, a decision which people have had to take on an occasion, but the possibility of the global amount of arable land shrinking by however many percentages due to rapidly changing weather patterns and causing worldwide famine isn't really something you can do anything about.
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Sep 23, 2014 22:53
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Kurnugia posted:Ok so maybe I like hyperbole, sue me. To rephrase, do I have any reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of technological civilization surviving this century? This too is pretty absurd. Why would we have to give up on technological civilization? Canada and Russia will at the very least be doing quite well for the foreseeable future. Kurnugia posted:the possibility of the global amount of arable land shrinking by however many percentages due to rapidly changing weather patterns and causing worldwide famine isn't really something you can do anything about. Except make new farm land, grow different crops, build greenhouses, have a few million/billion people starve while the rich eat grapes, etc etc etc
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Sep 23, 2014 22:56
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When does it stop beingTrabisnikof posted:Except make new farm land, grow different crops, build greenhouses, have a few million/billion people starve while the rich eat grapes, etc etc etc Exactly. Humanity as a thing isn't going anywhere. Bangladesh on the other hand.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:02
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Trabisnikof posted:This too is pretty absurd. Why would we have to give up on technological civilization? Canada and Russia will at the very least be doing quite well for the foreseeable future. Would they? You look at the weight the current crisis' of migrations of people out of Africa and the Middle-East put on places like the EU and then multiply that by however much worse that poo poo is going to get when those places really start experiencing drought and famine, do you think there'd be a nation on Earth that wouldn't be dearly tested by that?
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Sep 23, 2014 23:02
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Kurnugia posted:Ok so maybe I like hyperbole, sue me. To rephrase, do I have any reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of technological civilization surviving this century? What makes you think that all of our technology and knowledge will evaporate, even if growth trends reverse and we suffer massive global depopulation? We've stored and copied all the knowledge of the industrial revolution millions of times over, it's not going anywhere. As long as humans survive and can access that knowledge, civilization will continue to exist.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:05
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Kurnugia posted:Would they? You look at the weight the current crisis' of migrations of people out of Africa and the Middle-East put on places like the EU and then multiply that by however much worse that poo poo is going to get when those places really start experiencing drought and famine, do you think there'd be a nation on Earth that wouldn't be dearly tested by that? Russia is probably going to be shooting a lot of people (hell, Canada might too). They're quite good at it. Civilization will keep going, and god drat will it be hideous.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:09
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Kurnugia posted:Ok so maybe I like hyperbole, sue me. To rephrase, do I have any reason not to be utterly pessimistic about the prospects of technological civilization surviving this century? I don't think this is absurd at all -- it's perhaps not a done deal, but I do think there's a decent chance that technological human civilization won't make it out of the century. A +2°C stabilization, which we're not on target to hit, is pretty bad already from the perspective of agriculture as well as poorer countries. I think there's fairly compelling evidence to suggest that the global power structure is going to shift in a rather major way as the current American empire falls, and assuming the world goes through the usual post-empire power grab routine, it seems unlikely that climate change will be a top priority (which is basically has to be at this point). All this crap about us being top predators is basically irrelevant. The fossil record is littered with now-extinct top predators.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:12
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Kurnugia posted:Would they? You look at the weight the current crisis' of migrations of people out of Africa and the Middle-East put on places like the EU and then multiply that by however much worse that poo poo is going to get when those places really start experiencing drought and famine, do you think there'd be a nation on Earth that wouldn't be dearly tested by that? But why are you working from the assumption that immigration policies wouldn't change in response to migration pressure? Like they did in Australia. At the end of the day I think you need to define dearly tested. I think that adaptation and geo-engineering will both be costs and destabilizing factors that might contribute to a few nation-states collapse (sorry Micronesia), but there are many other pressures and I don't see adaptation even being the biggest. Nations have done crazy poo poo before and they'll do it again. Survival is likely, its just not likely fun. Humanity is choosing to activate hard mode on Earth because those with power believe they can profit (not just in money) more from doing so than not. The implication of this is that those in power are also betting their power structures will remain. Davos will still be nice even if you can't ski. Benny Profane posted:I don't think this is absurd at all -- it's perhaps not a done deal, but I do think there's a decent chance that technological human civilization won't make it out of the century. A +2°C stabilization, which we're not on target to hit, is pretty bad already from the perspective of agriculture as well as poorer countries. I think there's fairly compelling evidence to suggest that the global power structure is going to shift in a rather major way as the current American empire falls, and assuming the world goes through the usual post-empire power grab routine, it seems unlikely that climate change will be a top priority (which is basically has to be at this point). I think the leaps from +2C to collapse of American Hegemony to collapse of global order to collapse of technological society are a little under supported. Complications from adaptation will lead towards a further need for technology and we might see the collapse of non-technological societies if soil amendments become mandatory as we shift away from the best soil areas due to rainfall changes. If we increase resource costs it is those without a technological advantage who will find it more difficult to survive. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 23:15
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Trabisnikof posted:But why are you working from the assumption that immigration policies wouldn't change in response to migration pressure? Like they did in Australia. As an Australian citizen, I shudder to think that Australia's immigration policies are being held up as exemplary. What Australia has done, and continues to do, to refugees fleeing genuine horror, is really nothing short of a complete failure of human compassion and good will. Trabisnikof posted:At the end of the day I think you need to define dearly tested. I think that adaptation and geo-engineering will both be costs and destabilizing factors that might contribute to a few nation-states collapse (sorry Micronesia), but there are many other pressures and I don't see adaptation even being the biggest. Nations have done crazy poo poo before and they'll do it again. Survival is likely, its just not likely fun. Sure, but the thing being argued here was whether or not or technological civilization was going to make it -- look how many human societies have risen and fallen throughout the relatively short period of time within which humans have been wandering around. What exactly gives you confidence that this society that we currently belong to is somehow, unlike the empires that have preceded it, immune to collapse? Trabisnikof posted:Humanity is choosing to activate hard mode on Earth because those with power believe they can profit (not just in money) more from doing so than not. The implication of this is that those in power are also betting their power structures will remain. Davos will still be nice even if you can't ski. I would argue a number of points here, including (01) humanity is making a conscious choice here, (02) it's a "hard mode" that's being activated, rather than creating a set of conditions that make winning impossible, and (03) that there are actually people that hold power in the current global societal structure that are actually able but unwilling to make changes that would avert a climate catastrophe. Trabisnikof posted:I think the leaps from +2C to collapse of American Hegemony to collapse of global order to collapse of technological society are a little under supported. Complications from adaptation will lead towards a further need for technology and we might see the collapse of non-technological societies if soil amendments become mandatory as we shift away from the best soil areas due to rainfall changes. If we increase resource costs it is those without a technological advantage who will find it more difficult to survive. Oh, I didn't mean to say that +2C means that the American Empire will collapse, I think those are two separate things. I do think the timing is unfortunate, though. As for technological solutions, I'm personally pessimistic about their long term viability for keeping humans around and dominant on Earth, but I suppose time will tell.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:32
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Benny Profane posted:As an Australian citizen, I shudder to think that Australia's immigration policies are being held up as exemplary. What Australia has done, and continues to do, to refugees fleeing genuine horror, is really nothing short of a complete failure of human compassion and good will. And I would agree that ignoring climate change is a complete failure of human compassion and good will. Benny Profane posted:Sure, but the thing being argued here was whether or not or technological civilization was going to make it -- look how many human societies have risen and fallen throughout the relatively short period of time within which humans have been wandering around. What exactly gives you confidence that this society that we currently belong to is somehow, unlike the empires that have preceded it, immune to collapse? Ah, see I'm not arguing that any specific society or empire will survive, just that humans with technological society will. When I say Canada and Russia will be fine, I'm not really contending that the states and societies that occupy that land today will continue, just that human society with technology will continue there, from a GCC perspective. Benny Profane posted:I would argue a number of points here, including (01) humanity is making a conscious choice here, (02) it's a "hard mode" that's being activated, rather than creating a set of conditions that make winning impossible, and (03) that there are actually people that hold power in the current global societal structure that are actually able but unwilling to make changes that would avert a climate catastrophe. I agree that's a complicated argument, but I really use "choice" here as a proxy for the complex decision-making super-structure that is the complex of all human decision-making. Through our societies, institutions, and individuals we are collectively making a bunch of choices all to some degree of consciousness which is having the impact of ignoring global warming. If you're arguing GCC will make human technological society impossible, I'd like to know what exactly makes you so sure of that. Likewise, from the perspective of the construct of society, any change is possible even if within that construct there is no willingness. I'm being vague because I'm completely unsure about the future path of these constructs. Who knows what society will look like in even 20 years? Benny Profane posted:Oh, I didn't mean to say that +2C means that the American Empire will collapse, I think those are two separate things. I do think the timing is unfortunate, though. As for technological solutions, I'm personally pessimistic about their long term viability for keeping humans around and dominant on Earth, but I suppose time will tell. But where does the pessimism come from? Malthusian resource arguments? Technological obliteration? A race condition over resources that we'll fail to escape in time (e.g. we don't invest in space enough)? Really, pessimism about the long-term survival of humanity is the best argument against mitigation, adaptation, and geo-engineering. Why fix the climate if we're all going to die anyway....
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Sep 24, 2014 00:01
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Trabisnikof posted:If you're arguing GCC will make human technological society impossible, I'd like to know what exactly makes you so sure of that. I'm definitely not arguing that that GCC will make human technological society impossible. Kurnugia asked whether s/he had any reason not to be utterly pessimistic, and this was called absurd. I disagree; while I don't know that we are absolutely doomed (i.e. giving reason to be utterly pessimistic), I certainly think there's a decent chance that if humans fail to address GCC in a meaningful way that our current society could well collapse. I think the perspective that "no matter what, humans will survive in some way with their technology intact" is dangerous, in that it doesn't stress the absolute need for immediate and significant action. Trabisnikof posted:But where does the pessimism come from? Malthusian resource arguments? Technological obliteration? A race condition over resources that we'll fail to escape in time (e.g. we don't invest in space enough)? Well, let me preface what I'm about to say by noting that I'm a biologist; I work with insects (arguably the dominant terrestrial animal group, and they have been for a while) and I occasionally dabble in evolutionary ecology. I tend not to take a human-centric view of the world ecosystem, but my human curiosity makes me fascinated with biodiversity, and I think it's a little tragic that the legacy of our species, so far, is a mass extinction event. Ecological interactions are inherently driven by a scarcity of resources, and while technology, throughout human history, has vastly increased the holding capacity of the Earth for our population, we just keep growing our population to fill that holding capacity every time -- that is, our technological solutions have tended to be short-term. Malthus gets poo poo on a lot, but I think it's dangerous to assume that technological solutions will always be on hand to bail us out of resource scarcity issues. And the idea of space exploration and extra-planetary colonization is tantalizing, but as far as I'm aware no-one has ever demonstrated a truly long-term, sustainable, engineered habitat suitable for humans. If it were really a viable option, we would be creating "terraformed" self-sustaining (self-sustaining being the key factor here) habitats in deserts on Earth. That's a super-hard problem, and the idea of doing it on another planet is harder still. So no, I don't really think that space exploration is, or ever has been, our big ticket for survival. I think we might still have a chance to save the spaceship that we've already got, assuming we don't keep loving up. As for the question of "why bother?", I mean, what's the alternative? Die horribly? Sit around and watch while other humans, unfortunate by sheer virtue of the arbitrary lines in the dirt denoting the country where they happened to have been born, die horribly around us? That sounds like a total shithead move, and yet it's pretty much the unconscious choice that we, as a population of humans on this planet, are making. I might harbor some doubts about our chances, but even if we don't make it I'd at least like to go down swimming against the current.
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Sep 24, 2014 00:38
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Benny Profane posted:I'm definitely not arguing that that GCC will make human technological society impossible. Kurnugia asked whether s/he had any reason not to be utterly pessimistic, and this was called absurd. I disagree; while I don't know that we are absolutely doomed (i.e. giving reason to be utterly pessimistic), I certainly think there's a decent chance that if humans fail to address GCC in a meaningful way that our current society could well collapse. I think the perspective that "no matter what, humans will survive in some way with their technology intact" is dangerous, in that it doesn't stress the absolute need for immediate and significant action. I mean a lot of that makes sense at a macro-level, but I personally believe humanity has shown its power to complete epic tasks when it chooses to do so. We just won't do so unless our backs are against the wall and unfortunately many people will suffer because of that delay. I do think you're right that as we wreck our world the technology to fix other plants will be the same to fix our own. Already China has a massive and mostly ineffective forestation campaign where they've planted 2+ Billion trees. Multination companies are already looking into atmospheric engineering and geo-engineering. I'm sure we'll test and improve these technologies on earth (where the money is) long before we use them in space. But I think its short sighted, less than 50 years since the first human visited another celestial body to declare the entire endeavor a dead end. Also, the "why bother" is really the third step in the: 1. Its not happening, 2. We can't do anything, 3. We could have done something, but its too late now. The last argument that the "denialists" will make will be the strongest because it is a self-fullfilling prophecy. Nihilism is a powerful tool of the status quo and Apocalyptic talk is already used as an excuse to ignore climate change.
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Sep 24, 2014 01:06
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I think it would have been pretty great to have been a survivor of the Black Death. I can move anywhere and get paid ridiculous sums of money and have beer festivals that take up most of the year? Sign me up.
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Sep 24, 2014 01:17
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Kafka Esq. posted:I can move anywhere and get paid ridiculous sums of money and have beer festivals that take up most of the year? Sign me up. I actually used this example because I just finished Dan Carlin's podcast about it - he said there were laws passed in the aftermath of the Black death to prevent higher wages being paid to labourers, and also to forbid employers from offering higher wages even though there was a labour shortage. Gotta keep those poors in their place.
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Sep 24, 2014 07:57
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Reminder that Tight Booty Shorts is a literal insane person. Folks who don't frequent the Monsanto thread might not realize that.
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Sep 24, 2014 15:40
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SKELETONS posted:I actually used this example because I just finished Dan Carlin's podcast about it - he said there were laws passed in the aftermath of the Black death to prevent higher wages being paid to labourers, and also to forbid employers from offering higher wages even though there was a labour shortage. Gotta keep those poors in their place. The 19th century and the reversal of feudalism was simultaneously the best and worst thing to ever happen to this planet.
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Sep 24, 2014 16:39
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Petr posted:Reminder that Tight Booty Shorts is a literal insane person. Folks who don't frequent the Monsanto thread might not realize that.  I just think we have to change some things about our food system
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Sep 24, 2014 18:46
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I found this. It seems rather ambitious to say the least and I'm hoping it really happens. The bolded part makes me confused though. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/23/un-climate-summit-pledge-forests-new-york-declaration quote:A declaration announced as part of a UN summit on climate change being held in New York also pledges to halve the rate of deforestation by the end of this decade and to restore hundreds of millions of acres of degraded land. Taking all of the world's cars off the road sounds good, but what does it actually mean? The equivalent of taking all cars off the road for how long? Forever? Where did they get that analogy? Can someone who is good at this sort of thing explain?
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Sep 24, 2014 18:51
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It's like those other pledges that everyone has ignored / done the total opposite.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:02
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^ Yeah, if they would actually meet thees goals is another question entirely. The US is one of few countries that hasn't failed to meet its Kyoto obligations  Inglonias posted:I found this. It seems rather ambitious to say the least and I'm hoping it really happens. The bolded part makes me confused though. They're saying that they are going to stop X acres of forests from being destroyed every year. The amount of forests now saved each year have a net-carbon (equivalent) impact equivalent to the size of the emissions of the global car emissions. The issue with preventing land use changes as a method of emissions controls is say, unlike replacing all the world's cars, as soon as institutional controls stop the emissions start again. Future emissions reductions are contingent on future budgets for the prevention of land use change.
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Sep 24, 2014 19:09
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I just don't understand the faith people are placing in "technology will save us and we won't technically go extinct in the next 100 years due to +4C", while it's pretty clear the world economy teeters on a knife's edge as it is. To me, it's not about us being physically capable of surviving climate change, it's about it not being an insanely destabilizing influence on everything humans do.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:57
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Radbot posted:I just don't understand the faith people are placing in "technology will save us and we won't technically go extinct in the next 100 years due to +4C", while it's pretty clear the world economy teeters on a knife's edge as it is. To me, it's not about us being physically capable of surviving climate change, it's about it not being an insanely destabilizing influence on everything humans do. Literally only the super-wealthy will have awesome lives
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Sep 25, 2014 18:08
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