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How are u posted:If y'all are ever feeling deeply, darkly depressed about this stuff then just remember that in 10 million years (a tiny blip in Earth's geologic history) humanity will be extinct and the planet will once again be thriving with multitudes of life. Everything has a time to go, but the Earth itself and Life on it will continue A-OK.
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Feb 23, 2018 21:45
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Cingulate posted:What about those of us who think earth doesn't really matter but for being home to humans? That humans are what matters? well then you're a fool, obviously a dunce, a complete poltroon
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Feb 23, 2018 21:47
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How are u posted:If y'all are ever feeling deeply, darkly depressed about this stuff then just remember that in 10 million years (a tiny blip in Earth's geologic history) humanity will be extinct and the planet will once again be thriving with multitudes of life. Everything has a time to go, but the Earth itself and Life on it will continue A-OK. It took a lot more than 10 million years to recover from the end-Permian extinction and we can easily outdo that. Things can be way better and way worse than a lot of people in this thread want to think, and it's up to us to figure out where we want to turn that knob.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:02
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VideoGameVet posted:Article on using "weathering basalt" to sequester carbon: It was posted earlier in this thread, but this EASAC report on negative emissions technologies provides an accessible overview of current CO2 sequestration options. I'm not an expert, but weathering doesn't seem like a great option due to additional energy use when scaling up to large-scale implementation removing a large amount of the benefit (the article you linked mentions this). However it's not like any of the other technologies are particularly great at present, so maybe the poltician's syllogism applies. The Jim White talk is good, although that arctic sea ice over time video started getting pretty scary past 2005. Oops.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:19
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:It took a lot more than 10 million years to recover from the end-Permian extinction and we can easily outdo that. Well even if we put an end to all animal and plant life on the planet, there's still at least like 400 million years before nothing much can live on the planet anymore. I think that's plenty of time for a new cambrian explosion or whatever to get some kinda biodiversity going on around here. Not that I think it matters much either way what happens a million years after we're all dead, much less a hundred million.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:37
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Would it help people to know that somewhere in the universe there's other sentient life that DIDN'T gently caress over their own eco system and in fact continued living and growing and expanding to other planets in their galaxy? Just pretend the universe is Star Trek from one of the other species' perspective and there doesn't happen to be any humans in their episodes.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:35
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davebo posted:Would it help people to know that somewhere in the universe there's other sentient life that DIDN'T gently caress over their own eco system and in fact continued living and growing and expanding to other planets in their galaxy? Just pretend the universe is Star Trek from one of the other species' perspective and there doesn't happen to be any humans in their episodes. Alternatively: We're finding out the answer to the Fermi Paradox / Great Filter right now.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:36
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Nocturtle posted:It was posted earlier in this thread, but this EASAC report on negative emissions technologies provides an accessible overview of current CO2 sequestration options. I'm not an expert, but weathering doesn't seem like a great option due to additional energy use when scaling up to large-scale implementation removing a large amount of the benefit (the article you linked mentions this). However it's not like any of the other technologies are particularly great at present, so maybe the poltician's syllogism applies. Yeah, weathering is in a shaky spot to scale although it's a very important natural reaction to maintain the pH balance of the oceans. Any geoengineering that talks ocean acidification will need some sort of weathering strategy in place. It of course has the standard caveat with any geoengineering in that overdoing it can have unintended consequences. You need to keep in mind how you're affecting the nutrient balance when sediment is weathered into water, in the oceans this can cause algal / dinoflagellate / etc... blooms if not handled properly.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:39
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 More than 20°C abnormality. Kindest Forums User fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 00:34
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Minge Binge posted:https://imgur.com/a/ZVBRI love my hot gay equable climate
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Feb 24, 2018 00:35
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Oh, and it's supposed to get a lot hotter this weekend.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:47
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I have come to the conclusion that the Near Term Human Extinction theory (by 2030) is hyperbolic bullshit.
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Feb 24, 2018 01:57
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Grouchio posted:I have come to the conclusion that the Near Term Human Extinction theory (by 2030) is hyperbolic bullshit. Nihilist trap #1 avoided.
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Feb 24, 2018 02:12
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Nobody thinks humans are going extinct by 2030, in this thread or anywhere? Some people think that global human civilization isn't likely to be peaceful or stable or even still around by 2040 or 2050, and some people think that they'll probably still be alive by then. That's camp nihilist, as we've been branded in this thread.
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Feb 24, 2018 02:23
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People seem like they are very confused about "locked in for results X (eventually) by Y date" and "X happens at Y date" which are incredibly different things.
Unormal fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 02:25
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You can't lock in for the political implications of what climate change is bringing us more and more quickly every day. The problem is not that we cannot physically survive the effects of climate change, it's that we politically cannot. Our entire system of being is based on never-ending growth and amplification of consumption. We're not even close to interested in changing that, there's no brakes on this fuckin car, it's gonna hit a brick wall when it turns out the system doesn't work anymore.
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Feb 24, 2018 02:30
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froglet posted:I feel like throwing up listening to this. Oh, so you heard the bits about 10°C mean annual temperature swings within a few years (not from now, but time period such a swing can occur) and the amount of heat accumulated from 1955-2010 being equivalent to ~36°C mean increase in the lower 10km of the atmosphere if it wasn't mostly going into the oceans, too? Evil_Greven fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 03:36
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Evil_Greven posted:Oh, so you heard the bits about 10°C mean annual temperature swings within a few years and the amount of heat accumulated from 1955-2010 being equivalent to ~36°C increase in the lower 10km of the atmosphere if it wasn't mostly going into the oceans, too? fwiw those 10C swings are going to have to be regional and you better believe that atmospheric patterns can shift regimes on a dime. At least it's not 10C global mean surface temperature increase. Hell, look at what is happening to Alaska right now. Everyone should take good note of the changes in ocean heat content and vertically stratified circulation regimes, though.
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Feb 24, 2018 03:40
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Fair enough. Speaking of the oceans - on the plus side, global sea ice extent and area has increased substantially over the last couple of days. Although it remains in first place as the lowest in the record, it is much closer to the horrific second place.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:01
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:Things can be way better and way worse than a lot of people in this thread want to think, and it's up to us to figure out where we want to turn that knob. 
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Feb 24, 2018 05:02
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Feb 24, 2018 09:20
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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ChairMaster posted:Nobody thinks humans are going extinct by 2030, in this thread or anywhere? There definitely is that one guy, he went on a bunch of talk shows and stuff, saying with a straight face that we all had 10 years to live. Here he is, Guy McPherson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqIt93dDG1M So yeah, that guy. That one guy. But won't we he be chuffed if we all choke to death exactly as he predicts. We'll all be singing his praises then.
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Feb 24, 2018 12:53
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Oxxidation posted:well then you're a fool, obviously Please elaborate. As I mentioned earlier I honestly do not understand why we should be happy that living things devoid of sentience live while we do not. Animals kill, rape and destroy their environment just as much if not more so than humans yet because they do not understand what they are doing that makes them superior to us? Don’t get me wrong, we should live in harmony with the Earth because otherwise we get our current situation but what value does it have besides allowing us to live here? AceOfFlames fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Feb 25, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 23:47
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AceOfFlames posted:Please elaborate. As I mentioned earlier I honestly do not understand why we should be happy that living things devoid of sentience live while we do not. Animals kill, rape and destroy their environment just as much if not more so than humans yet because they do not understand what they are doing that makes them superior to us? There's no right answer to that, some people give a poo poo about things outside humanity to different degrees. Some people care about the suffering of animals but think it's okay to kill and eat them humanely, some people think it's wrong in any form, some people don't care at all. It's not a question of science, it's philosophical. It's up to you to give a poo poo or not what happens to the planet when we're all dead.
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Feb 25, 2018 00:20
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ChairMaster posted:There's no right answer to that, some people give a poo poo about things outside humanity to different degrees. Some people care about the suffering of animals but think it's okay to kill and eat them humanely, some people think it's wrong in any form, some people don't care at all. It's not a question of science, it's philosophical. It's up to you to give a poo poo or not what happens to the planet when we're all dead. Well, even if you care about the existence of terrestrial biota more than you care about the wellbeing of humans, the existence of the human race should still be an instrumental goal in your value system, if not an ultimate goal. The reason for that is because Earthly life, barring the existence of humans, only has another 400 million - 1 billion years before the planet is cooked. But if humanity does exist and can thrive, prosper, invent superintelligent AI to colonize other planets, or whatever, we could secure the existence of Earthly life in the cosmos for billions or even trillions of years. It seems rather pointless to me to care about life without having some form of continuity plan (in the form of sentient life that can further our values and goals) in place.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:12
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Elon musk just needs to shoot a bunch of spores and tardagrades in random directions so the human race can say it did something in the end
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Feb 25, 2018 01:14
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Elon musk just needs to shoot a bunch of spores and tardagrades in random directions so the human race can say it did something in the end This almost certainly got done already by asteroid ejecta. We already shot nudes, so job completed.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:16
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Chadzok posted:There definitely is that one guy, he went on a bunch of talk shows and stuff, saying with a straight face that we all had 10 years to live. Guy McPherson was a legit researcher in disaster processes, once upon a time. Or at least seemed to be. He wrote a pretty decent book about how we need to change how we live in wildfire-prone areas. He went off the "Dark Mountain" deep end shortly thereafter, though. Now he mostly corrals the doomsday crowd.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:27
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Grouchio posted:I have come to the conclusion that the Near Term Human Extinction theory (by 2030) is hyperbolic bullshit. Unless it's the bow shock that does us in (climate change -> food/water supply instability -> conflicts -> GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR). Want to play a game?
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Feb 25, 2018 02:38
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o they're shutting down the factory now just when all the bills are due and the fields are under lock and key though the rain and the sun shine through and springtime starts but then it stops in the name of something new and all the senses rise against this coming back to you
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Feb 25, 2018 02:54
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AceOfFlames posted:As I mentioned earlier I honestly do not understand why we should be happy that living things devoid of sentience live while we do not. Animals kill, rape and destroy their environment just as much if not more so than humans yet because they do not understand what they are doing that makes them superior to us? I like trees and poo poo. They are good for aesthetics and health. Also, that's some crazy poo poo. Whoever taught you that animals aren't sentient is a retarded person. We are peerless in environmental damage. And the way you're connecting non-sentience to animals, ignorance to superiority and valuation to hierarchy is loving peculiar, man
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Feb 25, 2018 03:45
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VideoGameVet posted:Unless it's the bow shock that does us in (climate change -> food/water supply instability -> conflicts -> GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR). Yeah, environmental effects alone won't cut it, but there is a pathway to near term (before century's end) human extinction. It's been there for a while. And with the diminishing Indus water levels the Pakistan-India-China conflict is all but inevitable, and can most assuredly serve as a flashpoint for other conflicts brewing across Eurasia and the Middle East.
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Feb 25, 2018 05:42
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Extinction isn’t just a lot of people dying, it’s literally everyone dying and enough people live in enough places in enough different ways that is pretty much unthinkable at this point.
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Feb 25, 2018 06:06
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Self inflicted human extinction in any kind of short term is basically impossible. We can gently caress up the planet badly enough over a very long time scale that it's no longer habitable for us, but given how long that would take (and how much warning we'd have of the depth of our failure) I suspect that we'd probably manage to build self sustaining habitats or something to save some tiny fraction of the population. It's not even really possible that we do ourselves in with our stupid doomsday weapons. Destroy much of our globally connected modern civilization? Yeah, maybe, but we aren't going to literally extinguish all human life unless we're systematically nuking every corner of the globe. We probably couldn't even completely nuke ourselves out of a technological society unless we really, really tried.
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Feb 25, 2018 06:19
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Extinction isn’t just a lot of people dying, it’s literally everyone dying and enough people live in enough places in enough different ways that is pretty much unthinkable at this point. I mean you can kick off a feedback that dumps a fatal amount of hydrogen sulfide in the air along with acid rain, but it takes some effort. We're trying pretty hard though, maybe we'll keep going for Notorious R.I.M. fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Feb 25, 2018 |
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Feb 25, 2018 06:36
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Peter Ward is a bit idiosyncratic but he gives a really good overview of how you kick off that honest to god mass extinction event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtHlsUDVVy0
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Feb 25, 2018 06:39
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While global nuclear war could pretty cleanly put an end to human civilization, I don't believe for a minute that it'd put an end to human existence. If anything it'd put a pretty fast stop to our extraction and burning of fossil fuels, which would nicely avert the ocean acidification process in a pretty short amount of time. If you care more about the perpetuation of humanity (for some reason) than you do about your own comfort and safety in civilization, nuclear war is not like the worst case scenario?
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Feb 25, 2018 07:43
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I would prefer total extinction of mankind than be reduced to barbarism, if only because the latter would lead to so much more suffering perpetuated for hundreds maybe thousands of years. For all our faults now we are at the most peaceful and (overall) tolerant time in history and for all that progress to be erased is unbearable to me.
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Feb 25, 2018 11:19
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Accretionist posted:I like trees and poo poo. They are good for aesthetics and health. Also, that's some crazy poo poo.  Anyway I'll do you one further: In the end all life is just chemicals (  ) and it's just an accident of evolution that people and everything else currently alive are here. So really, are any arguments about the preservation of either humanity or everything else currently alive possible that aren't either self-serving because we're selected to survive, or based in our vanity/limited perspective? Death is certain.
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Feb 25, 2018 11:35
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ChairMaster posted:While global nuclear war could pretty cleanly put an end to human civilization, I don't believe for a minute that it'd put an end to human existence. If anything it'd put a pretty fast stop to our extraction and burning of fossil fuels, which would nicely avert the ocean acidification process in a pretty short amount of time. Nuclear winter followed by rapid 1~2 degree warming over pre-war baseline would do the planet no favors. It might lead to widespread ecosystem collapse right then and there. And ocean acidification would still keep going.
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Feb 25, 2018 13:38
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