Climate Change thread: tl; dr - We are so screwed

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change thread: tl; dr - We are so screwed

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

The whole Holocene comment got me thinking about just what kind of effect will our current emissions have on the next glaciation period.

A quick google search seems to indicate that the prevailing theory is that we've managed to push back the coming of the next ice age by some time, but that it will come nonetheless. The whole of human civilization sprang into existence after the glaciars receded, and our whole agriculture is based off that fleeting climatic sweetspot (this being one of the reasons why dumping huge ammounts of CO2 into the atmosphere where long-term feedback loops rule is a bad idea). Whether a sizeable human populations exists in the planet or not at the point in the future where the next ice age comes is anybody's guess.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2012 01:45

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 14:53

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

I believe fish stocks show better than anything else how we've managed to gently caress up the biosphere good and proper. I mean, yeah, hunting the mammoth and many other ground species to extinction is an achievement of its own, but nearly depleting the ocean has been one of our largest accomplishments.

Edit> Don't really mean to sound pompous, I realize fully that I'm part of the problem. It just saddens me immensely that my hypothetical grandchildren will probably never get to taste salmon, red snapper, etc.

Freezer fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Aug 3, 2012

# ¿ Aug 3, 2012 21:43

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19161799

BBC news posted:

US criticised on 2C climate 'flexibility' call

The EU and small island states have criticised the US for saying the target of keeping global warming below 2C should be removed from climate talks.

At the 2010 UN climate convention meeting, governments agreed to take "urgent action" to meet the target.

But last week the chief US climate negotiator Todd Stern said insisting on the target would lead to "deadlock".

Spokesmen for the EU and the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) said the US should stick to promises made.

"Suddenly abandoning our agreement to keep global warming below 2C is to give up the fight against climate change before it even begins," said Tony de Brum, Minister in Assistance for the Marshall Islands.

"'Flexibility' on our 2C limit would set the world on a path to irreversible, runaway climate change.

"For many low-lying island states, including my own, that is not a solution - it is a death sentence," he told BBC News.

Isaac Valero-Ladron, the EU's climate spokesman, said governments including the US had to live up to prior promises.

"Also, consolidated science continues to remind us of the dire consequences of going beyond such a temperature increase," he said.

The core objective of the UN climate convention (UNFCCC), agreed in 1992, is to prevent "dangerous" climate change.

Scores of governments believe that 2C is a realistic indication of where "dangerous" climate change begins, although a greater number - principally those highly vulnerable to impacts such as sea level rise - say even 2C is too high.
Home front

Mr Stern's speech at Dartmouth College last Thursday was barely reported, but clearly expounded the Obama administration's thinking on climate change issues both international and domestic.

Lamenting the decline in media coverage in the US, he suggested that many regarded it as an issue too hot for them to touch.

"Climate change has long been a partisan issue, but when you see a parade of conservative candidates publicly recanting the apostasy of having acknowledged that global warming is real, you know you've entered Wonderland," he said.

"This is not healthy. We can talk past each other, close our ears, put our heads in the sand, or join the local chapter of the Flat Earth Society, but here's the thing - the atmosphere doesn't care.

"Its temperature will continue its implacable rise, with all the consequences that entails, unless we act to stop it."

It is precisely because of such concerns that the international community established the UNFCCC 20 years ago, and that many governments now want tougher action to constrain carbon emissions.

At the UN climate meeting last year in South Africa, governments agreed to launch a new process (the Durban Platform) that will agree a new deal including every country by 2015, to come into effect by 2020.

While it made sense on paper for those negotiations to aim for a collective emissions cap that would "guarantee" staying below 2C, Mr Stern said, it would not work politically.

"Insisting on a structure that would guarantee such a goal will only lead to deadlock.

"It is more important to start now with a regime that can get us going in the right direction and that is built in a way maximally conducive to raising ambition, spurring innovation, and building political will."

Although governments of many high-emitting countries might favour such a "bottom-up" approach, it is unclear how the US expects the approach to lead to emission cuts of a scale able to meet the ultimate objective of the UN convention - preventing "dangerous" climate change.

It is also unclear whether the US has the support of other governments.

A chief Chinese negotiator to the UNFCCC did not respond to a request for comment.

I hope that the analyst's perception of the U.S. trying to back out on the 2 C target is incorrect, because if that's the case then we can consider the moribund emissions reduction initiatives sponsored by the UNFCCC permanently stalled...

# ¿ Aug 7, 2012 17:37

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Tulip posted:

We're never going to see a nuclear future. Nuclear plants are unpopular and reprocessing never took off in the US so by global standards they're inefficient as hell. The real nail in the coffin, however, is wind is getting much cheaper over time, and according to the EIA is already cheaper than nuclear (and everything else, actually, except for some types of NG plants which are really drat cheap).

I have a few bones to pick with that paper, such as the fact that the it totally ignores the costs associated with dealing with intermittent generation of wind such as backup power stations or storage, and are therefore based on a scenario with relatively low wind penetration.

Another relevant point is that electricity generation currently represents only a portion of the overall primary energy expenditure, with heating , industry and transport representing a huge chunk. Even if we switched generation to renewables overnight and came up with some cheap and efficient method of storage , that would still reduce the US's emissions by less than half.

Don't get me wrong, I think renewables have a role to play if we are to stave off climatological disaster, but are just one of the many actions and tech changes that needs to take place.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 11:50

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Well, most of us have neither the training nor the tools to feed ourselves by our own means at this point, even if the soils weren't degraded, the seas weren't depleted, etc.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2012 00:50

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Pohl posted:

I'm probably naive and stupid, but I can't even remember hearing about a hurricane on this side of Mexico.
Every hurricane I've ever heard about has been in the Gulf or on the East coast.

Edit: I take that back, there was a storm awhile back that brought some crazy weather to San Diego, but that was the first. This is like the second in a few months.

Hurricane Paulina wrecked the state of guerrero several years ago, so yeah it does happen. But this is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the northern hemisphere, and people are rightly scared. The governement is now evacuating some zones and getting peple to shelter in others, activating all emergency protocols along the path.

We're expected to see massive waves, the rainfall equivalent of a a whole year falling in a few hours and, to top it off, a volcano erupting neaby which will contribute a shitload of ash to the rainfall. It will get ugly in the next 24 hours.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 15:17

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

What are the odds that that Paris is a turning point and forces a global compromise on emissions? In pretty pessimistic at this point. Thread title is spot on.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2015 17:34

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 14:53

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Started writing a reply to that, but then saw poster name and relented.

If there's no compromise for urgent and broad action, those huge chinese and indian populations will soon be 'skyrocketing downwards' themselves.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2015 20:55

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