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Weird BIAS
Jul 5, 2007

so... guess that's it, huh? just... don't say i didn't warn you.
https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2973.html

So I tried to search for this paper through my University's database access but failed to find anything. I'm seeing one person use it as a sign that climate change is based on lies. From what I can tell from the abstract it's just saying that external forcings caused the actual recorded temperature to be lower than models predicted, which doesn't necessarily mean that climate models were wrong because they were being alarmist or anything, but that external factors made temperature raise less than it was predicted. I am not a sciences major.

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Lightning Lord
Feb 21, 2013

$200 a day, plus expenses

ChairMaster posted:

just re-read the thread if you really think Earth's gonna look like Venus in a few hundred years.

Yes but Venus used to be inhabited by reptiloids until they killed themselves by turning their planet into what it is now, that's all :freep:

SSJ_naruto_2003
Oct 12, 2012



So why are so few people alarmed about climate change? Our 'leaders' treat it as a small issue, the media rarely covers it, people in general may say they think it's a huge issue but then they just continue business as usual, consuming and polluting. Is it because most of them think they're old enough they won't feel the full effects? Do a lot of people actually think it's a hoax and all of the scientists are lying to them? I am honestly unsure. Even my (soon to be ex) wife says that the world will be poo poo to live on in 30 years if we don't change things and she still wants kids

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

So why are so few people alarmed about climate change? Our 'leaders' treat it as a small issue, the media rarely covers it, people in general may say they think it's a huge issue but then they just continue business as usual, consuming and polluting. Is it because most of them think they're old enough they won't feel the full effects? Do a lot of people actually think it's a hoax and all of the scientists are lying to them? I am honestly unsure. Even my (soon to be ex) wife says that the world will be poo poo to live on in 30 years if we don't change things and she still wants kids

The imminent collapse of global civilization isn't something that one easily wraps their head around without incurring a little bit of severe psychological damage.

People are used to dealing with problems closest to them and nothing else.

Gareth Gobulcoque
Jan 10, 2008



SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

So why are so few people alarmed about climate change? Our 'leaders' treat it as a small issue, the media rarely covers it, people in general may say they think it's a huge issue but then they just continue business as usual, consuming and polluting. Is it because most of them think they're old enough they won't feel the full effects? Do a lot of people actually think it's a hoax and all of the scientists are lying to them? I am honestly unsure. Even my (soon to be ex) wife says that the world will be poo poo to live on in 30 years if we don't change things and she still wants kids

My feeling is that this is multifaceted. First, modern industrial life has afforded the west a level of security that naturally repels deeply cynical outlooks. A collapse of civilization/ a restructuring of society is something that crazy people rant about. In the real world there's always some boogeyman with nukes or ozone or aids or terrorists or whatever. They don't see a fundamental distinction between this problem and the ones that have come before it. Sure stuff may get a little bad, but we'll figure it out eventually and everything will go on more or less like it has before. This line of reasoning also applies to some extent within the scientific community and pop-sci. Look at Bill Nye's recent climate show on Netflix. This is the one I struggle the most with.

Second, it's not a local problem. For whatever reason people seem to feel that global warming will be bad and affect their country, but don't think it will have a large impact on them personally. The diffuse and gradual nature of the problem blunts the response.

Third, no one can tell anyone what's going to happen cause it's abundantly clear we don't know. Consequences are vague and lack specific locality. People don't know what action they're supposed to take because they are unclear of the consequences of taking any action. So, you rationalize doing your part. You recycle, you reuse, you reduce. You're not sure what you should be doing, but you're doing something, so that's good.

I'm sure others have more.

Paradoxish
Dec 19, 2003

Will you stop going crazy in there?

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

So why are so few people alarmed about climate change? Our 'leaders' treat it as a small issue, the media rarely covers it, people in general may say they think it's a huge issue but then they just continue business as usual, consuming and polluting.

Most people just assume everything will be fine. I don't think there's anything else to it, honestly. They acknowledge it's bad, acknowledge that we're hosed if nothing changes, but deep down nobody really thinks that we'll continue to act too late and too slowly, even though it's what we've been doing for decades. People are fundamentally pretty optimistic. It can't be that bad, right? Only crazy people think the world is ending.

There's also this idea that eventually the people in charge will swoop in and save us which, I mean, yeah, that'll probably happen. If nothing at all changes then we'll build seawalls in areas that we refuse to abandon, migrate away from regions that are wrecked by drought, etc. Wealthy nations can absorb a whole ton of economic hardship at the cost of greater inequality and suffering for everyone who isn't rich enough to be insulated from it. Climate change is more of an existential threat to our way of life than it is an existential threat to civilization itself or the human race.

SSJ_naruto_2003
Oct 12, 2012



What if people started killing climate deniers :getin:

anyways yeah all that you guys have said is pretty much true, it's just depressing that no one really cares to change it. There's like 10 of us who try to protest our local congresscritter for being a denier, but he just cancelled his town halls and stopped holding public meetings since he is in such a Republican area that he can't be challenged.

ZakAce
May 15, 2007

GF

ChairMaster posted:

If you're actually worried about the future then get working on moving to New Zealand...

Speaking of New Zealand, have a wild guess as to how much effort our lazy, lovely right-wing government is putting in to lower our emissions. Here's a hint: it's between zip and zilch. With our "clean, green" "100% Pure" image you'd think National would be trying to protect that, but nope. I hate living here sometimes.

smoke sumthin bitch
Dec 14, 2009

by FactsAreUseless

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

What if people started killing climate deniers :getin:

The fascist eco-authoritarian discourse in this thread is reaching disturbing new levels.

Trainee PornStar posted:

You joke.. but check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection_(climate_engineering)

& especially this bit:
"Airliners could use lower-quality sulfur-rich fuels on higher altitudes. That approach would utilize regular flights and enable airlines to use cheaper fuels on long-distance flights. It would require using separate fuel tanks for takeoff and landing in populated areas, due to toxicity and olfactory sensations of sulfur oxides. This can be achieved in many airliners without difficulty, since they already have separate and selectable wing and fuselage fuel tanks."

Looks like those 'chemtrail' nutters might not be so far off the mark.

well no poo poo, this stuff already been going on for decades

smoke sumthin bitch fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Jun 30, 2017

syscall girl
Nov 7, 2009

by FactsAreUseless
Fun Shoe

smoke sumthin bitch posted:

The fascist eco-authoritarian discourse in this thread is reaching disturbing new levels

urine over your head m8

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

ChairMaster posted:

It still seems pretty unlikely to me that the ocean's oxygen generating life will all die and the planet will run out of oxygen, considering their very short lifespan and generation time. Bacteria become immune to antibacterial drugs because the .1% or so of them that don't die just reproduce and make up an entire new generation of bacteria that will not die to the drug that killed most of the previous generation. The generation time of phytoplankton is longer than that of bacteria, but the acidification of the ocean is significantly longer than the introduction of an antibacterial drug to a population of bacteria.

Nobody should really be worrying about the extinction of humanity, because global human civilization could be ending in our life time. It's a more realistic thing to worry about that we have absolutely no chance of doing anything about anyways.

Anoxia from acidification killing oxygen generators is a long shot low probability event that still has a nonzero chance of happening. Comparing adaptation time scales to something like antibacterial resistance is stupid as poo poo especially when tons of studies are actually done on testing the adaptation of different seawater organisms to different pH and temperature environments throughout many-hundred generations of the organisms. For a meta-analysis, see:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12179/full

quote:

The results reveal decreased survival, calcification, growth, development and abundance in response to acidification when the broad range of marine organisms is pooled together.

quote:

Last, the results highlight a trend towards enhanced sensitivity to acidification when taxa are concurrently exposed to elevated seawater temperature.

AceOfFlames
Oct 9, 2012

Burt Buckle posted:

Is the transformation of our atmosphere into an unbreathable gas a real possibility? I can live with the idea of a massive reduction in the number of humans and even the collapse of modern civilization as we know it, but the complete extinction of our species bums me out.

Maybe I'm crazy, but extinction to me is better than the collapse of civilization. Just the thought of people living and dying their entire lives in ignorance, killing, oppressing and promoting hatred and bigotry like barely evolved animals instead of pushing the boundaries of science and expanding outwards into the universe sickens me.

call to action
Jun 10, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

spf3million posted:

I agree with the sentiment of your post but this part is wrong. The CA peak electricity price is between 5-10 pm, precisely when the sun is going down and people are getting home and turning in lights/ovens/etc. PV won't fix the duck curve, it's either peakers or batteries.

Yeah, I noticed that after I posted - Colorado is very different than CA because of the insane amount of solar resources that contribute to that weird duck-shaped graph. More solar in CA at this point may be past the point of diminishing returns, but we're certainly nowhere near there in CO. My electricity is most expensive 2-6p weekdays.

pacmania90
May 31, 2010

AceOfFlames posted:

Maybe I'm crazy, but extinction to me is better than the collapse of civilization. Just the thought of people living and dying their entire lives in ignorance, killing, oppressing and promoting hatred and bigotry like barely evolved animals instead of pushing the boundaries of science and expanding outwards into the universe sickens me.

Get therapy. Seriously.

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:

So why are so few people alarmed about climate change? Our 'leaders' treat it as a small issue, the media rarely covers it, people in general may say they think it's a huge issue but then they just continue business as usual, consuming and polluting. Is it because most of them think they're old enough they won't feel the full effects? Do a lot of people actually think it's a hoax and all of the scientists are lying to them? I am honestly unsure. Even my (soon to be ex) wife says that the world will be poo poo to live on in 30 years if we don't change things and she still wants kids

I'd add that a good fraction of people who understand the issue end up getting discouraged because it's such a large problem and end up ignoring it. The "logic" is that climate change is essentially like an asteroid headed towards earth at this point; there's nothing anyone can do about it so why even discuss it? People aren't going to just stand around talking about how bad it will get, that would be a pretty bad party.

There's an element of truth too, the US could unilaterally decarbonize overnight and it wouldn't really change the timeline for climate change. It would make the future marginally better (which would be good!) but even such a huge, politically impossible effort wouldn't really change the overall situation.

call to action
Jun 10, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Gareth Gobulcoque posted:

everything will go on more or less like it has before

"As it has before", as in, a modern Western lifestyle? We only have to go back to my great grandparents to find a radically, radically different world. Seems like a lot of people are just incredibly ignorant of history and how bad things can get - even when civilization isn't facing an existential threat.

smoke sumthin bitch posted:

The fascist eco-authoritarian discourse in this thread is reaching disturbing new levels.

Eh, the kind of fascism that is going to be imposed in the face of climate change will make the most radical stuff discussed here look like kids' stuff

pacmania90 posted:

Get therapy. Seriously.

gently caress off, dick. If the choices are a "Threads" like world or extinction, there's a convincing case to be made for extinction.

Nocturtle posted:

I'd add that a good fraction of people who understand the issue end up getting discouraged because it's such a large problem and end up ignoring it. The "logic" is that climate change is essentially like an asteroid headed towards earth at this point; there's nothing anyone can do about it so why even discuss it? People aren't going to just stand around talking about how bad it will get, that would be a pretty bad party.

There's an element of truth too, the US could unilaterally decarbonize overnight and it wouldn't really change the timeline for climate change. It would make the future marginally better (which would be good!) but even such a huge, politically impossible effort wouldn't really change the overall situation.

This isn't true. I'm the most pessimistic person in here (among maybe one or two others) and if we instantly decarbonized it would make a difference. Especially if we also spent money to decarbonize other countries that were colonized/destabilized by us.

call to action fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Jun 30, 2017

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day
Pray tell, what is your case for human extinction being the better outcome?

call to action
Jun 10, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Conspiratiorist posted:

Pray tell, what is your case for human extinction being the better outcome?

My opinion: what makes humans great isn't our ape-like forms or our weird dangly penises, it's our ability to create great things, great art, to provide for those others than ourselves, etc. If we can't do any of that I don't really see the point of being alive. Ethically I also think it's warranted if we really did Holocaust the rest of the Earth's life just so we can get cheap hamburgers.

Let me guess, you'd prefer life imprisonment to a death sentence?

Car Hater
May 7, 2007

wolf. bike.
Wolf. Bike.
Wolf! Bike!
WolfBike!
WolfBike!
ARROOOOOO!

Conspiratiorist posted:

Pray tell, what is your case for human extinction being the better outcome?

Better to burn out than fade away *sniff sniff*

Gareth Gobulcoque
Jan 10, 2008



That's the most common response I get when talking about it with people. I agree that we have a short memory for the level of poo poo show society can spiral into, and I'd argue that is becoming more common as we've become relatively insulated from our environment in the post industrial western world.

What's more telling for me is how relatively minor climatic shifts have decimated human civilizations in the past, from the Mississipians to south American civilizations to the fertile crescent.

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

call to action posted:

This isn't true. I'm the most pessimistic person in here (among maybe one or two others) and if we instantly decarbonized it would make a difference. Especially if we also spent money to decarbonize other countries that were colonized/destabilized by us.

The US decarbonizing instantly would make a marginal difference. It would delay the globe reaching the "2C threshold" in terms of carbon emissions by about 2-3 years (we'll reach it in about ~20 years given current known emissions). However that's not enough, as you say China and India (and others) would also need to be decarbonized as well pretty soon to avoid some of the worse case global warming scenarios. This is not just a detail, it is a crucial requirement to seriously address climate change. An international framework is slooooowly emerging where rich countries will help the rest decarbonize (the Paris agreement are part of this), but the fact is it's coming too late to prevent serious warming. It's also currently being undermined by an orange idiot, and frankly I don't see the US public supporting the construction of Indian nuclear plants with American taxes any time soon.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day

call to action posted:

My opinion: what makes humans great isn't our ape-like forms or our weird dangly penises, it's our ability to create great things, great art, to provide for those others than ourselves, etc. If we can't do any of that I don't really see the point of being alive. Ethically I also think it's warranted if we really did Holocaust the rest of the Earth's life just so we can get cheap hamburgers.

Let me guess, you'd prefer life imprisonment to a death sentence?

Answer your question: yeah. Plenty of time to write a few books before I expire naturally, were I so inclined.

See, the problem here is that your argument is flawed due to a fundamental association you're making: that anything less than the current capitalist-consumerist western standard and style of living is below the dignity of the human race.

And that's just wrong. Why is it wrong? Because you're a loving moron and are ignoring that every single thing you mentioned in your post we were doing thousands of years ago and we will continue to do thousands of years in the future. So what if civilization collapses? So what if there's a massive die-off? The human species is no stranger to civilization collapse. It is no stranger to die offs. Short of extinction we adapt and bounce back. And sure, some things are irrevocably lost when this happens, but you know? Humanity has a little known superpower called the capacity to make new poo poo.

As long as humanity exists and possesses intelligence, it'll keep on creating culture, civilization, producing art. That's never going away. The planet becoming a much more hostile place is only a limit on carrying capacity, not the impetus to create.

Really, you need to recognize what you're saying for what it is: that you are being aggressively dismissive of any culture that is not your own or your sci-fi envisioning of its evolution.

snoo
Jul 5, 2007




we could've done better but we didn't :shrug: we had the chance to fix this and people didn't want to because there was money to be made. I don't see that changing, before or after some massive die-off or other extremely harmful event because of climate change. people (especially in power) are always going to be selfish and spiteful. I want to believe in the best outcomes for our situation but I really do not have hope and therapy isn't going to fix that because it's the fault of people I, and everyone else in this thread, can't control.

life will go on but it's gonna be bad lol

I've recycled my whole life. composted. grown foods. I don't have a car and I walk or take the bus. I probably generate a lot of trash though. I vote for people who don't actively want to kill us all. what else can I do as a poor gently caress with brain problems? nothing matters.

snoo fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jun 30, 2017

Polio Vax Scene
Apr 5, 2009



The difference between previous civilization collapses and die-offs and now is that now we have the arms to glass the entire planets surface

snoo
Jul 5, 2007




Polio Vax Scene posted:

The difference between previous civilization collapses and die-offs and now is that now we have the arms to glass the entire planets surface

:yeah:

I keep telling myself that governments and leaders wouldn't be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons because it would pretty much be the end of everything, but deep down I know they would.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day
We do not, in fact, actually have enough nuclear weapons to glass the planet. We do not even have enough to hit every town and city in the world.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Conspiratiorist posted:

We do not, in fact, actually have enough nuclear weapons to glass the planet. We do not even have enough to hit every town and city in the world.

Now you're just being pedantic.

Car Hater
May 7, 2007

wolf. bike.
Wolf. Bike.
Wolf! Bike!
WolfBike!
WolfBike!
ARROOOOOO!

The Snoo posted:

:yeah:

I keep telling myself that governments and leaders wouldn't be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons because it would pretty much be the end of everything, but deep down I know they would.

I'd use em now, EMP for everyone, let things sort themselves out for a bit.

spf3million
Sep 27, 2007

hit 'em with the rhythm

call to action posted:

Yeah, I noticed that after I posted - Colorado is very different than CA because of the insane amount of solar resources that contribute to that weird duck-shaped graph. More solar in CA at this point may be past the point of diminishing returns, but we're certainly nowhere near there in CO. My electricity is most expensive 2-6p weekdays.
Unfortunately emissions from transportation is becoming a larger and larger portion of total emissions, at least in CA. If we ever get around to switching our motor fleet over to all electric, it'll make the duck curve even worse (everyone plugs in when they get home from work). I think I remember reading that the major utility in northern CA is switching everyone over to time of day pricing sometime in the next year or two. This seems to be a necessity in an all-renewable grid structure, but I can only imagine the bitching that will ensue. And that's the problem: everyone agrees it's a problem but no one wants to pay for the externalities.

Nice piece of fish
Jan 29, 2008

Ultra Carp

Conspiratiorist posted:

Answer your question: yeah. Plenty of time to write a few books before I expire naturally, were I so inclined.

See, the problem here is that your argument is flawed due to a fundamental association you're making: that anything less than the current capitalist-consumerist western standard and style of living is below the dignity of the human race.

And that's just wrong. Why is it wrong? Because you're a loving moron and are ignoring that every single thing you mentioned in your post we were doing thousands of years ago and we will continue to do thousands of years in the future. So what if civilization collapses? So what if there's a massive die-off? The human species is no stranger to civilization collapse. It is no stranger to die offs. Short of extinction we adapt and bounce back. And sure, some things are irrevocably lost when this happens, but you know? Humanity has a little known superpower called the capacity to make new poo poo.

As long as humanity exists and possesses intelligence, it'll keep on creating culture, civilization, producing art. That's never going away. The planet becoming a much more hostile place is only a limit on carrying capacity, not the impetus to create.

Really, you need to recognize what you're saying for what it is: that you are being aggressively dismissive of any culture that is not your own or your sci-fi envisioning of its evolution.

Well, to take his argument further, no piece of art or any book from the last ten thousand years is enough to justify the human race's existence. Anything of worth, humanity has created within the last hundred years.

Why? Because what you two are really discussing, is the concept of progress. Call to action is really talking about the option of humanity existing in a state of no further progress, versus the option of humanity going away to the benefit of the rest of the earth (animals, nature, whatever) because without progress, humanity is pointless.

Of course, this assumes that humanity needs to have a point, but before you all get into esoteric existentialism: He has a valid argument. If humanity as a whole does not progress, we don't get off this rock, we never achieve the fantastic feats of engineering in space, automation, medical advances that see us elminate disease or aging, etc. We become, in the huge picture of the immediate vicinity of our infinite universe, less than a historical footnote (assuming other intelligent species, which for our galaxy alone might be just us for all we know).

Then again, how does extinction help? Even if we were swept aside, the planet's not going to produce another intelligent species like us capable of technology and such any time soon. Certainly not soon enough to avoid some coming threats to even life on earth. It's likely (and it's been extensively argued) that we are it. Our planetary biome's chance to get the hell out. Next intelligent race isn't going to have fossil fuels to burn through an industrial revolution. Might not even be industrially inclined. And I'm inclined to agree.

We're it. Last ticket out. Either we progress, and to hell with the planet no matter what we do, or the rest doesn't matter as far as life on earth is concerned (and that's really just about the responsibility I'd put on our shoulders). The reason I care about the environment and climate change, is that there's no real reason for it to happen now that we know better and can adapt to a carbon-free (or at least low carbon) industry. There's no reason to make the one place we live in ideal conditions a worse place to live, while we progress. Frankly, environmentalism in its ultimate consequence is pure enlightened self-interest.

So maybe we get together and overcome, or we shut down and die. Right now, the only real course of action is towards the future you'd most like to see, because apathy definitely gets you nowhere - and has been mentioned numerous times itt every goddamned piece of effort matters. For a whole number of reasons.

And yeah, I'd like to prosecute the capitalist fucks that put us where we are as much as the next person, but we're also all complicit to some degree. Does that exculpate anti-environmental idiots? Absolutely not, but it does provide all the incentive needed to validate everyone's personal responsibility and effort to work against climate change.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
Long term space travel is an idiotic fiction and will never, ever happen.

Nice piece of fish
Jan 29, 2008

Ultra Carp

Oxxidation posted:

Long term space travel is an idiotic fiction and will never, ever happen.

Gee, okay professor. If you say so.

Fried Watermelon
Dec 29, 2008


It will happen for our robot children

Salt Fish
Sep 11, 2003

Cybernetic Crumb

Nice piece of fish posted:

Gee, okay professor. If you say so.

He's right though. The space colonization myth is rooted in ignorance. The distances involved, the basic limitations of physics, the frailty of the human body, our inability to plan scientifically, and our rejection or any kind of social organization not based on individualistic consumerism ; these will all prevent us from leaving earth in any meaningful way, and in tandem make it an impossible fiction.

We take the earth for granted ; because of our evolutionary history it's the perfect place for us to live, and there is nothing better than it within any humans lifespan at any fraction of the speed of light.

Conspiratiorist
Nov 12, 2015

17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth sixth some day

Nice piece of fish posted:

Well, to take his argument further, no piece of art or any book from the last ten thousand years is enough to justify the human race's existence. Anything of worth, humanity has created within the last hundred years.

Why? Because what you two are really discussing, is the concept of progress. Call to action is really talking about the option of humanity existing in a state of no further progress, versus the option of humanity going away to the benefit of the rest of the earth (animals, nature, whatever) because without progress, humanity is pointless.

Okay, I'll not even address whether "progress" is the onus of human existence, but what the gently caress? Is no cultural or scientific advancement that doesn't lead to physical exploration beyond our planet pointless? Is that what you're saying? That's what you're saying.

Also, what the hell kind of future are you imagining where advancement just stops happening? Wait, no, I'm wrong here. You're not talking about advancement in general, you're only talking about the poo poo that feeds your sci-fi dreams. The poo poo that makes you, you specifically, go 'wow, this is like sooo cool'. Humanity can keep developing its culture, its legal and ethical systems, its medical technology, information technology - but no, it has to happen at the exponential rate that is the right and proper way of things, the way you were raised on, yes?

gently caress this generation of pseudo-futurists that grew up on dreams of Star Trek.

Nice piece of fish posted:

Gee, okay professor. If you say so.

Sorry to poo poo on your cereal, but the universe has hard physical laws, and some of these mean that things like interstellar travel may very well be simply unfeasible, and exploitation of extraterrestial resources simply unviable.

Hell, following your own logic, it's pointless to even attempt to create the severely limited self-sustaining environments that is an extraterrestial colony. Why? Because sustaining life outside of our planet is simply so harsh that if all life on Earth ended and it became an inhospitable rock, then that'd be it, all human progress would end forever as per your metric. Because space colonies would never amount to anything, being small populations just barely scrapping by in environments utterly inimical to life.

Because even at its loving worst, an Earth suffering mass extinctions and rendered a hellscape by our current standards from climate change, would still be more hospitable than a loving space colony. Think about that. "All your eggs in one basket" is such a poo poo justification for space exploration/colonization.

Paradoxish
Dec 19, 2003

Will you stop going crazy in there?
Here's a fun map of estimated economic damage per county. It's from this Ars Technica article, which is reporting on this paper. For what it's worth, I'm not sure the Ars writer gets that this isn't predicting an overall 1.2% loss of GDP, but an annual loss of 1.2% GDP which is, uh, actually a pretty huge deal. I think this is the same paper we were discussing in this thread a few weeks ago.

Spoiler alert: the places that get hosed are all the places where people actually live.

Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jun 30, 2017

JOHNSON COCKSLAP
Apr 2, 2017

by Lowtax
Is it possible to somehow contain climate change so it all happens exclusively to california?

Nice piece of fish
Jan 29, 2008

Ultra Carp

Salt Fish posted:

He's right though. The space colonization myth is rooted in ignorance. The distances involved, the basic limitations of physics, the frailty of the human body, our inability to plan scientifically, and our rejection or any kind of social organization not based on individualistic consumerism ; these will all prevent us from leaving earth in any meaningful way, and in tandem make it an impossible fiction.

We take the earth for granted ; because of our evolutionary history it's the perfect place for us to live, and there is nothing better than it within any humans lifespan at any fraction of the speed of light.

Well, seeing as you've the ability to predict the entirety of human future based on the laws of physics as we understand them, I guess you should go ahead and embrace nihilism pretty much immediately.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Okay, I'll not even address whether "progress" is the onus of human existence, but what the gently caress? Is no cultural or scientific advancement that doesn't lead to physical exploration beyond our planet pointless? Is that what you're saying? That's what you're saying.

Also, what the hell kind of future are you imagining where advancement just stops happening? Wait, no, I'm wrong here. You're not talking about advancement in general, you're only talking about the poo poo that feeds your sci-fi dreams. The poo poo that makes you, you specifically, go 'wow, this is like sooo cool'. Humanity can keep developing its culture, its legal and ethical systems, its medical technology, information technology - but no, it has to happen at the exponential rate that is the right and proper way of things, the way you were raised on, yes?

gently caress this generation of pseudo-futurists that grew up on dreams of Star Trek.


Sorry to poo poo on your cereal, but the universe has hard physical laws, and some of these mean that things like interstellar travel may very well be simply unfeasible, and exploitation of extraterrestial resources simply unviable.

Hell, following your own logic, it's pointless to even attempt to create the severely limited self-sustaining environments that is an extraterrestial colony. Why? Because sustaining life outside of our planet is simply so harsh that if all life on Earth ended and it became an inhospitable rock, then that'd be it, all human progress would end forever as per your metric. Because space colonies would never amount to anything, being small populations just barely scrapping by in environments utterly inimical to life.

Because even at its loving worst, an Earth suffering mass extinctions and rendered a hellscape by our current standards from climate change, would still be more hospitable than a loving space colony. Think about that. "All your eggs in one basket" is such a poo poo justification for space exploration/colonization.

In what picture are we talking about here? In the grander picture of geological time? Sattelite debris from commercial sattelites will most certainly outlive every single book, piece of art, sculpture and building humanity's ever produced, if civilization were to end within the next thousand years. Outlive them by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. Advancement (cultural, scientific, architectural, social) only matters if there's someone around in a sufficiently advanced society to enjoy and appreciate it. Otherwise, it would quite literally be pointless time-wasting.

It doesn't matter what they mean right now, to you or anyone else. The actual topic is not on that timescale.

And yes, I think it's fair to assume that the threat of climate change might contribute to an actual halt in technological, medical, cultural etc. progress. Progress is artificial, it's not some fundamental fact of humankind. We absolutely can regress as a society. It happens everywhere all the time.

You don't appear to be the type to have a reasonable conversation with regarding ontologigal or philosophical issues regarding the existence or future of the human race though, and this is hardly the thread for it anyway. As you've demonstrated, instead of trying to actually understand the point, you've decided to try and poo poo all over it by denouncing it as sci-fi bullshit that either the human race goes on, or it doesn't. Whether or not some Star Trek future comes to pass, whether or not that's even possible, the fact of it is that climate change brings up - as previously posted - some interesting points about it all when you're staring in the face of an actual credible threat to our technologically complex society.

Unlike you, I don't pretend to know the future, but I do know that any kind of future that humanity exists beyond our planet is the only kind of future where humanity exists.

So what's your point about this relating to climate change?

TheBlackVegetable
Oct 29, 2006
The only thing I hope for is that we build the AI to replace us before we revert back to slightly- greater apes.

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Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Nice piece of fish posted:

Whether or not some Star Trek future comes to pass, whether or not that's even possible

It is not possible. You're an imbecile for even bringing it up.

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