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

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

One of the things I learned from the geo-engineering thread I started a little while back is how little we actually understand about our climate and how it changes.

The thing to understand that climate change is global, but its effects aren't equal. Some places are going to get hit harder than others. Bangladesh, for example, is slowly being swallowed by the ocean, while the rest of us might have to deal with some draught or flooding. This will have some serious geo-political repercussions, and thankfully the international community recgonizes that we need a united front when it comes to climate chan--

quote:

The plans for a new global deal on climate change lie broken and abandoned. The usual suspects are meeting again, this time in Durban, but there is even less hope of progress than there was in Cancun last year. The shadow of the disastrous failure in Copenhagen in 2009 still looms over the proceedings like a shroud.

Indeed, even to talk of �progress� is to miss the point. All the effort in Durban is going into preventing further backsliding on the commitments that were made 14 years ago in the Kyoto Protocol to cut the greenhouse gas emissions of the developed countries. The idea of a better, bolder treaty is dead, and even the extension of the modest Kyoto targets for emission reductions beyond 2012 is gravely in doubt.

So the real world of physics and chemistry and global heat balances will just have to wait 10 or 20 years while we human beings sort out our politics and diplomacy. If it won�t wait, then we will pay a very high price indeed. How did we get into this mess?

Every government in Durban, even those of �rogue states� on climate issues like China, Canada, Russia, and the United States, knows perfectly well that the danger of runaway global warming is real and large. Their own scientists tell them so, and their own military forces are drawing up plans to deal the consequences. But they do not act on their knowledge, because the politics around energy issues is poisonous.

Take Barack Obama, for instance. Look at the people he hired to advise him on climate and energy, and it�s clear that he knows exactly how bad the situation is. But he wants to be re-elected next year, and the climate change denial lobby has been so effective in the United States that he can�t afford to say out loud that he takes it very seriously.

Above all, he cannot deviate from the line first taken by George W. Bush, who withdrew from the Kyoto treaty. Bush vowed that he would never sign a treaty mandating emissions cuts by the United States so long as big developing countries like China and India did not have to make similar cuts. Obama says the same, because to do anything else would be political suicide.

His position is fully in tune with public opinion in the West, and especially in the United States, which sees the rapidly developing countries like China, India and Brazil as the heart of the problem. Their emissions are growing very fast because their economies are also growing fast, whereas the �old rich� countries have relatively stable emissions because their economies grow more slowly and they have already built their infrastructure.

It�s true, as far as it goes. The bulk of the astounding six percent increase in global greenhouse gas emissions last year came from China and the other emerging economies. China now emits as much carbon dioxide as the United States (though only a quarter as much per citizen). But that�s only what Western countries see, because it serves their purposes to be blind to the other side of the argument.

The view from China or India is quite different. They stress the fact that 80 percent of the greenhouse gases of human origin that are now in the atmosphere came from the small group of developed countries, which have been burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale for 200 years. They are the real source of the global warming threat, even though they have now more or less stabilised their emissions.

Indeed, if the developed countries had not filled the atmosphere with their emissions for the past 200 years, there would be plenty of room for China and the other developing countries to grow their economies for decades to come, even using fossil fuels on a very large scale, without causing any significant warming. To the developing countries, this is the most important fact of all.

They are right, and the fact that the rich countries ignore their huge historical responsibility for the warming is the reason why a global deal on avoiding large-scale climate change is still close to impossible. You can�t insist that everybody must make equal cuts in their emissions when one group bears much more responsibility for the problem than the other.

Everybody at Durban knows what a climate deal would look like if it ever got signed. It would require deep cuts in emissions from the developed countries (40 percent in 10 years, perhaps), while only asking the emerging economies to cap their emissions where they are now.

Even if they cap their emissions, they would be unwilling to halt their economic growth, so they would need more energy supplies. The new energy would have to come from �clean� power sources like wind, solar, and nuclear, and those are more expensive than just burning fossil fuels. Who would cover the difference in cost? The richer countries, of course, because they bear the burden of historical responsibility.

People care a lot about fairness, and only a fair deal that recognises the importance of this history will ever get signed. Since most people in the West don�t even know the history, and their governments show no sign of wanting to enlighten them, the deal is not going to get signed any time soon.

http://www.straight.com/article-554816/vancouver/gywnne-dyer-rearguard-action-durban-climate-conference

# ¿ Dec 7, 2011 00:28

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 02:57

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The worst part is that the shifts in water supply are only part of the food production problem. We're starting to lose arable land because wheat, corn, rice, etc. only germinate at certain temperatures, and even if you're able to water the warming arable areas, yields are going to start dropping.

The band of arable land in northern and southern hemispheres is starting shrink.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2011 00:33

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

ts12 posted:

I don't know if this falls under the purview of this thread, but it's actually something I'm interested in. Why do people claim scientists are all degenerate liars about this? The only real response I've heard on this is that they're afraid to challenge the consensus or something because all scientists are literally squirrelly children or something, but there has to be more dumb poo poo floating around than that.

Because for some reason in North America it's become a politicized left/right issue. That hasn't really happened anywhere else.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2011 00:51

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Konstantin posted:

There are positive feedback effects that keep this from happening. Once we cross a certain threshold, we are hosed, even if we reduce carbon emissions to zero afterwards. The Earth will probably recover on a time scale of thousands of years, but there is no recovery on a shorter time scale.

The fun thing is we may be past the point of no return already, we just don't know it yet because of not knowing how much feedback effects affect our climate. There's a general C02 PPM level that we're not supposed to go past as a general rule and we're nearly there.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2011 05:21

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Morose Man posted:

Let's talk for a moment about what we can do.

I think we need to start with our own personal choices, eg:

- can you walk instead of driving?

- if you feel cold at home put more clothing on before you put the heating on.

- can you use public transport instead of driving

- turn the lights out and machines off when you exit a room.

- talk to other people about why you are doing these things.

Essentially the issue is that when we use electricity, when we drive, when we heat our homes we very gradually destroy the atmosphere. And it's not fair on future generations.

This kind of thinking is fine, but the changes we need to make are institutional, not individual. You will never be able to convince all people, everywhere - individually - that they should give up their cars, and we should embrace better environmental practices. Although that being said, it is useful if you're trying to build environmentally responsible communities at a small level.

But the change we need to make are institutional and structural. They require that we completely change the way we think about producing, transporting and consuming goods, as well as the production and distribution of energy we need to maintain what we consider a pretty decent quality of life. It might require a new kind of economy or a new kind of political system. Or they may be forced onto us by disasters, wars and circumstance. It's hard to say.

edit: I should add my go-to guy (that I post a lot) on these issues in terms of talking about long-term (cutting carbon emissions) and short-term (the dreaded geo-engineering) solutions is Gwynne Dyer. Here is a good talk by him on the subejct: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY

He talks about various predictions from various sources that tend to vary on how optimistic they are. What I get from him is that there are a lot of different models on the scale and timeline of potential environmental disasters, but most of them predict that things are going to happen a lot faster than we tend to think they will.

The talk is based on a book he wrote. Most of the interviews for that book are available on his website if you want to listen to a particular person: http://gwynnedyer.com/interviews/

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Dec 9, 2011

# ¿ Dec 9, 2011 21:19

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Morose Man posted:

I think this is a cop-out. It has to be both. If as an individual you feel it should be institutional what do you say to an institution that feels it should be individual?

The time to start is now, with what we can do, and then push on to influence institutions. The more people behave in an environmentally conscientious way the easier it becomes to affect institutions. If it's normal in your country to separate recyclables in your rubbish it's a lot easier to persuade the management of a chemical company to stop polluting a river - the people you're talking to already act to preserve the environment at home.

There's no real difference between the attitude that I don't have to improve my behavour because it's up to individuals and the attitude that our country doesn't need to improve its behaviour because China is worse.

I don't disagree. What I posted was that the more important changes are institutional, not individual. But yes, some individuals on board is important in creating a broader movement. Ultimately that movement has to change our institutions because that is where most of our waste and pollution comes from.

However, I don't think recycling and environmental stewardship go hand-in-hand. Industry and individuals are often at odds because recycling doesn't get in the way of manufacturing, extraction or production. I have no doubt, for example, that plenty of Albertans in Canada reuse and recycle, but many of them will then drive up to their job at the oil sands and continue to extract an incredibly energy and water intensive carbon fuel.

I don't really see how demanding for institutional changes is a cop-out because it still requires individual participation, at least in democratic countries. And of course China isn't even remotely as worse as any western industrial nation -- anyone who insists China, Brazil, or India is as bad as the rest of us is ignoring the history of carbon emissions.

Dogcow posted:

The thing I don't understand about the feasibility of making better environmental choices that are even close to the level of being large enough to impact climate change is the basic economic aspect. In theory it would be great if everyone walked or took public transit but what happens to the global auto industry in that case? You could make the argument that public transportation would be tremendously bolstered in such a scenario but obviously far, far fewer people would be employed even by a massively enlarged public transportation industry than the current global auto industry. That's not even to go into the impact that removing the economies of scale around producing the parts and equipment that go into private cars might have on the cost of building public transit capacity. On top of all that there are the millions of related ancillary jobs in manufacturing and marketing car parts, accessories, services, infrastructural maintenance and construction, public administration, research, etc.

...

People generally don't care (because again, they just can't) about environmental degradation when they are struggling. The growing environmentalist movement in China is the perfect example as it coincides with the rise of the middle class. People have to have the time and money to care about climate change before you can even start to make meaningful change on the carbon reduction side of climate change and I just don't see how that will ever happen in time.

Well here's the thing: it may not be feasible. The transition may be very painful. There may be massive unemployment, and the creation of huge rust belts and all those terrible things, but ultimately something's gotta give. I will always allow for the possibility of someone or some group coming up with a new paradigm or socio-economic framework that allows us to shift to a sustainable civilization while maintaining our current quality of life. But for every degree of average global temperature we gain we lose about 10% of our current food production, so the rule goes. I doubt that rule would last for long if we get bumped up about 3-4 degrees average global temperature, but at that point no one will really care.

If you want some specifics (that are still a fair amount of guess-work) I recommend checking out the youtube link I posted earlier.

The most important Dyer makes in his book, that I think we all have to come to grips with is that through our last 150 years of geo-engineering we've broken a number of ecological self-regulating systems that even if we damaged, would often recover and adjust. Now we may have to do the work ourselves, which requires a lot more scientific study, and the understand that we're going to have to grow up as a species and start trying to figure out how to keep things from falling apart. If we get through this crisis.

duck monster posted:

On the other hand I don't quite know what sort of timeframe the run-away CO2 scenario operates on, but perhaps THAT might actually be a pretty alarming thing to witness.

We're at 392 ppm of C02 in the atmosphere at 2011, with about 2 ppm/year. We were at about 280 ppm at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Runaway* C02/global warming would be around 450 ppm (2 degrees higher average global temperature), and most estimates have us hitting about 500-550 ppm before we get C02 emissions under control.

*Point of no return in the sense that we lose control, and the warming triggers positive feedback from natural sources that drives further warming. Up to that point if we shut off all our carbon emissions, then the warming stops... in about 20 years after the fact.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Dec 10, 2011

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 09:29

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

BaronVonOwn posted:

It seems to me, that scientists need to stop trying to prove climate change and start investing their efforts into climate modification now. That discovery of huge amounts of methane rising up from the sea might as well be like discovering Cthulu it's so horrifying.

There is absolutely no way this issue is going to be solved politically. There are at least a half-dozen HUGE political forces working against a solution and now that there are substantial feedback effects in play it's probably too late anyway. The only hope is the creation of technologies that could cool the planet.

Yeah, geo-engineering is starting to get some serious consideration from some scientific circles. The problem is that people are freaking out because it can lead to unforeseen consequences. Never mind we've already been geo-engineering for the last 150 years. But, there point does still stand. Ideally we'd get our emissions down before we enter the point where we lose control over the global temperature and natural systems start to kick in and create a positive feedback loop. But it may already be too late. So we need to cheat, and get the temperature down artificially until we can our emissions under control.

There are lots of ideas out there, imitating what a volcano on a global scale could work, but as was posted in the geo-engineering thread this can lead to catastrophic climatic change in its own right, and whenever we turn it "off" it could end up exacerbating the heating very quickly and hit us with intense heating over a few years rather than a few decades.

Iron fertilization I think also has similar issues, not to mention loving with the oceans isn't a good idea right now anyway. There are other possibilities that are easier to control and easier to turn off with low environmental repercussions, but we need to figure out a system quickly so people cooperate on a global scale. If Bangladesh starts sinking into the ocean they aren't gonna give a poo poo if the western scientific community wants time to prepare a better solution, they're going to do whatever the hell they can to change the climate immediately, which could have disastrous consequences for other people.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2011 00:05

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Pipe Dreamer posted:

This seems awfully speculative, what are you basing this on?

Well the fish-free oceans are already happening. The desertification of the tropics and sub-tropics are already happening, and that's where we have the majority of our agriculture.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2011 00:16

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Fatkraken posted:

That's largely from 100 years of straining the entire ocean with a fine sieve and eating everything that moves, no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

# ¿ Dec 14, 2011 00:33

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Fatkraken posted:

Oh I'm well aware of that, just saying it's not right to blame the difficulty of catching fish right now on it; that's due mainly to decades of industrialized fishing.

Honestly, overfishing isn't to blame. Fish stocks come back remarkably quickly if you ease off or shut down fisheries and try to help the environment recover. The acidification of the oceans is far more long-term and, uh, permanent.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2011 00:44

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

OK, climate change isn't going to wipe out humanity let's not get too crazy. Unless we fail to adapt to whatever new climate we end up with, we'll end up at about half a billion people living in the Arctic circles subsisting on whatever's left. Maybe we'll have some form of civilization! That'd be nice.

Of course it means the death of six and half billion people at least, which is atrocious. We wont die out from this though, but we have to survive through the severe climate change without nuclear war. So there's that too.

Whatever debates about climate change you want to have, we need to get beyond the "is climate change real or not." Those are conservations for people who believe whatever they feel like believing. Even if you maintain that there is some infinitesimal possibility that the sceptics are right and everybody else is wrong, the potential cost of not doing enough when we need to do something is much greater than the cost of doing more than is necessary to fight global warming. The conservations we need to be having are a) how do we get our emissions down and b) what do we do when we pass 450 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Dec 15, 2011

# ¿ Dec 15, 2011 01:20

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

McDowell posted:

Can we just talk about space please?

http://youtu.be/7SECSxUbXTA

We pretty much have to choice but to expand to other planets to consume/trash them, for better or for worse.

We're going to lose most of our infrastructure long before we get into space if that's all we focus on.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2011 06:46

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Radd McCool posted:

Can anyone speak to the viability of geoengineering?

Some of what I'm seeing on the subject seems incredibly pie-in-the-sky, but I also can't help but wonder how many might be one or two breakthroughs away from actually working, just as the Wright brother sat on the first viable flying machine until an engine powerful enough became light enough.

Also, what's the viability of just planting a trillion trees? I've read that Freemon Dyson, the legendary physicist and mathematician, calcualted that about a trillion trees would solve our problem for some time. And as trees are wonderful, I'm heavily biased in favor of this.

Geo-engineering is a last ditch effort to control cooling and stop things like methane pockets in the Arctic from melting and sending the heating spiralling out of control. But we'll probably have to use it at some point until we get our emissions down. What kind of geo-engineering we use is dependent on how much time scientists have to figure out the best solution, and whether or not there's an international accord not to use any kind of geo-engineering unless there's an agreed need and solution. This will be very tricky.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2011 16:59

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Kilted Canuck posted:

The problem is, as Dyer has mentioned, it is likely that it will be a last ditch effort of the first victims of major climatic shifts. It only takes some relatively basic technology to put particles high enough in the atmosphere to affect a 1-2 degree cooling. That's the problem: it is actually so easy to do that the decision to do it won't be after global discussions, it will be as a knee-jerk reaction to immediate crisis.

THAT is why we should not rely on geoengineering as a panacea and should do everything in our power to stop the runaway effects before they happen. Once those rockets or planes go up to deposit large volumes of stratospheric aerosols, the game is off and we wait for what's next.

I agree completely. That's why I mentioned some sort of geo-engineering accord and the need to do it soon while we still have relative global goodwill. It seems impossible now since we can't even get an emissions agreement either, but something has to be worked out otherwise some country will use some form of geo-engineering to lower the temperature and it probably will cause a war.

As Dyer argues, geo-engineering isn't a permanent solution, it's just something to let us cheat since we will not get our emissions down before we go above 2 degrees average global temperature. Even if we cut our emissions right down this very instant there's no telling how much current C02 emissions will affect the climate in 20 years.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2011 19:03

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

a lovely poster posted:

Again, this is the most realistic scenario given the best information we have at this point. Let's own it and move past it. I know that sounds harsh but we have nothing to gain by mourning the mistakes we've already made.

Which is incredibly easy to say as part of the group of rich countries who will - by virtue of geography, infrastructure, and resources - be insulated from the worst effects of climate change even though we are collectively responsible for most of the C02 emissions to date.

No, we shouldn't just shrug and move on. I don't particularly think it's a good idea to condemn 6 billion poor people or so to death by changing environmental conditions because there's nothing we can do.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2011 18:54

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Paper Mac posted:

For those who genuinely believe that the first world will be relatively unaffected by climate change, I have a couple of maps for you! Here's a map of agricultural production worldwide:

Here's a map showing NCAR's predictions for drought (using some fairly conservative assumptions re: emissions) in 2030-2040:

The Oklahoma dustbowl would have shown up as a change of -3 to -5 on that scale. Have a look at the Mississipi basin, and then the drought map.

Exactly. Thank you for finding this.

This is what happens when the subtropics start getting a little too warm. Crops don't germinate and produce what we eat if it isn't the right temperature.

Also it wont affect us if 4 billion people die? :psyduck:

Where the hell do you think makes most of our consumer goods these days. Grows our food? Makes our clothing?

# ¿ Dec 20, 2011 01:43

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

duck monster posted:

Even a few feet could have brutal effects on drinking water supplies

Yeah, I'm concerned about the North American Great Lakes. Ignoring the fact that Canada has signed away all its fresh water rights to the US, we need those lakes to feed a lot of agriculture, and I can see some crazy scheme where they start tapping into the lakes in order to try to maintain the hilariously unsustainable communities in the American south-west.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2011 05:03

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

duck monster posted:

The boffins really need to hurry the gently caress up and work out a sustainable and cheap way of desalinating water that wont turn a water crisis into an energy crisis.

Actually thats the whole chinese-finger-trap nature of this fucker. A lot of these problems are only solvable by expending more energy, and "more energy" is what got us into this fix in the first place

But in 50 years we will have clean, efficient fusion reactors. Just 50 years from now!!

# ¿ Dec 29, 2011 06:13

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

duck monster posted:

I detest the way governments will allocate loving massive amounts of water to industrial/mining uses while putting water rations on things like watering ones lawn. Well at least they do here.

Some mines here will use staggering amounts of fresh water , enough to supply multiple towns, meanwhile the local towns are being water rationed and people being fined for watering lawns whilst politicians pull their hair out over solutions to drier and drier dams.

Yeah, industry uses tremendous quantities of fresh water. The tar sands in Alberta use huge quantities of glacier melt water to separate the oil from the sand, which of course in turn produce the c02 emissions that contribute to further depleting the glaciers.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2011 22:13

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

theblackw0lf posted:

Thank God

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/keystone-pipeline-state-department_n_1213136.html

For once I'm glad the US is making a decision for Canada.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2012 18:58

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Some of the early environmentalist groups in North America were religious groups, like women's church auxiliaries and Christian peace activists.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2012 22:40

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

We can still get under the emission threshold if we geo-engineer, but that does require global treaties and international scientific and political cooperation. Not an easy thing to do.

Although the major polluters are the democracies, in the case of total CO2 emissions. China might be really turning up their emissions but they're not really relevant to current C02 emissions so far. That's on the countries who industrialized first.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 11:03

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Strudel Man posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

I mean for the last 200 years. China hasn't caught up, and wont for awhile.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 02:59

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Strudel Man posted:

I don't...know that I really understand what you mean. Are you saying that their cumulative emissions over the past two centuries are substantially less than that of the U.S. over the same period, and that because of that, their current annual emissions are not really a concern?

Because while I suppose I could maybe see an argument from equitability in that, we probably can't afford to let every country get its fair share of cumulative emissions.

Total, cumulative. Whatever word you prefer.

The point is we don't have any right to tell industrializing nations not to industrialize. The problem up to now has been largely caused by the developed world, and really by the time we hit the breaking point it will still have been caused by the developed world's emissions, not China, or India or any other industrializing nation. What they're emitting now wont have any effect on average global temperature until 20-30 years from now.

Now if you could somehow make the industrialization process green, then we might have something to offer. But none of the developing nations are going to be willing to cut their emissions and choke their economy. It's just not going to happen. Any emissions (and geo-engineering) agreement means developed nations will have to take deep cuts.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 23:28

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Part of India's problem is it shares the same water source as Pakistan: glacier melt. Unfortunately, the glaciers are starting to disappear (the floods in Pakistan are another by-product of this). So India's agriculture will be doing just great. Until the glaciers melt and the water starts disappearing, and both countries start taking more than the share of water they've been allocated in their treaties.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2012 23:50

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Sorry it affects Pakistan's agricultural production, because the Indians have been damming the rivers. But the river dries up that has serious consequences for India too.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2012 00:57

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Honestly it seems to me that part of the reason these accidents occur is because there's a reluctance to spend more money on nuclear energy for fear of public backlash, even though this money is necessary to build new plants or maintain the reactors that have been built.

Fukushima was, what, a first generation nuclear power plant? And I recall the news mentioning that it was going to be phased out shortly before the tsunami? Technology has advanced a long ways since then, and modern reactors have the safety features and inability to meltdown in the same that should make them very appealing. But most countries are unable or unwilling to replace their old reactors because of fears of nuclear energy, public outcry etc. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Apr 9, 2012

# ¿ Apr 9, 2012 16:03

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Well, it's not terribly complicated. We cut C02 emissions before we go past the 2 degrees Celsius average global temperature threshold or we get positive feedback and global warming is no longer something we control.

How we cut C02 emissions is controversial, sure, but we either start considering painful cuts now that will hurt economies or we roll the dice and see how much bad global warming can get. Chances are we wont make the right decision until it's too late.

Which leads to geo-engineering -- the only way we're going to stay under that 2 degrees. Again there's a growing and quite severe debate there about whether or not we even engage in further geo-engineering of our planet and its atmosphere but more likely than not some country is going to start loving around with things whether the global community agrees with it or not.

I take the view that we've already stressed or broken a lot of systems that govern how the biosphere operates and we're going to have to learn how to step in and regulate these systems ourselves. It's up to all of us to be the stewards of our planet -- that's the next test for civilization.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2012 07:09

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Corrupt Politician posted:

I've heard the 2 degrees figure before, but is there any real basis for it, or is it just a guess? I thought we really didn't understand the possible feedback loops well enough to know where the threshold is.

It's a best guess. It could be higher, it could be lower. We just don't know.

Of course given that we're now monitoring methane gas release in the Arctic right now...

Dirt5o8 posted:

So basically, the military leadership in many countries seem to have accepted the face that poo poo is borked and are planning on how to take advantage of the situation. It seems pretty strange that while people still hem and haw over the idea of global warming, armies are already planning on how to wage a war over territory opening up due to it. Might be the mindset of army-folk: You see the a presented set of facts and you act accordingly. I dunno, seems interesting though.

The good news behind all this is having the American military in on global warming means they can throw a lot of R&D money at the problem. Whether or not this produces anything useful is up in the air, but at least there's certainly no risk of defunding research on climate change, no matter what denialists want.

Still it also means things like Britain renewing its nuclear arsenal for another 40 years in case it becomes Lifeboat Britain to continental refugees.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Apr 16, 2012

# ¿ Apr 16, 2012 18:04

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Dirt5o8 posted:

I can't imagine the DoD spending money on solutions to problems other "how to blow people up betterer". Military R&D might stumble across something that will help but it would probably take a 3rd party using that research.

I don't think they're going to dump research into long-term fixes, but I imagine they'll start focusing on geo-engineering that might be used to control the global average temperature, given that a lot of the current solutions require military support in terms of money, logistics, and equipment.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2012 22:33

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

MaterialConceptual posted:

Even things in Canada aren't exactly sunny. Most of the land that will become "favourable" in terms of climate to agriculture is in the Canadian Shield, where there is no fertile soil. In thousands of years that will be prime growing land, but certainly not in our lifetimes. One area that will actually have good growing conditions from what I've seen is the Peace River Country.

Yeah exactly. The ideal temperature might shift northward, but warmth and sun don't suddenly transform bedrock into arable soil.

Most of Canada's prime farmland is close to the US border. Most of it is already farmed or has been developed into sub-divisions. We aren't suddenly going to see a huge gain in agriculture if the temperature shifts - certainly not big enough to account for the desertification of arable soil in hotter climates.

# ¿ May 2, 2012 16:46

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I'm all for trying not to commit to any more geo-engineering projects until we better understand how our global climate works. I really am.

But the problem is we may very well be approaching the tipping point where we're going to start suffering from serious positive feedback and no amount of social, environmental, or political restructuring is going to stop that from happening.

Remember that the effects of CO2 have a lag time on the climate. We wont feel the effects of what we're pumping into the atmosphere now until 20, 30, 40 years down the road.

It's nice and noble-minded to say that we need to better understand our climate and not gently caress around with it because we've already done enough. That's the responsible and reasonable approach. But may be beyond that point now, and every delay or worry about what we might screw up only pushes us towards the tipping point.

And even then that's not a reason not to discuss geo-engineering. The effects of climate change are going to start hitting some places before they hit others. Any substantial geo-engineering project needs to have a global commitment and be agreed upon by the global community, otherwise desperate, individual countries with a decent amount of GDP might start throwing whatever they can into the air, land, or sea to stop climate change, regardless of the potential risks or consequences.

# ¿ May 22, 2012 02:18

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

V. Illych L. posted:

We'd need basically a full-blown world revolution for this, you realise. I mean, if that's your view that's totally fine by me, but it's not a small thing you're describing here.

It requires deep, concrete systemic change, I agree. The problems we face are systemic and most likely cannot be solved with how we currently live. We can't change ourselves, but we can change our institutions and the way they gather, produce, and exchange resources.

Maybe capital will swoop in and marshal the necessary workforce and change needed to radically alter our society, but I doubt it.

# ¿ May 23, 2012 20:51

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The water vapour idea is probably the most practical and safe method on the table that I've heard of so far. You get some ships out on the ocean and start shooting vapour about 100 feet up. Have a dozen or so going all year, for the low cost of a few %s of some developed country's GDP. And very easy to turn off.

Honestly we need to start thinking about what's costly in terms of a country's GDP, because that's the kind of money that's going to be needed to stabilize the climate, let alone actually address the root problems of climate change. A few percent of some country's GDP for 50 years is a small price to pay.

Of course as some people balk at the costs, it gets progressively more and more expensive to address.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2012 06:35

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Evil_Greven posted:

Uh... I thought water vapor was an important player in global warming? Like, not in preventing it, but rather contributing positively to it.

Well 100 feet up isn't the stratosphere. But if that's applicable even at low altitudes, back to the drawing board.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2012 17:37

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Well we are set to peak at around 8 or 9 billion before the birth rate starts dropping and the global population starts shrinking by the end of this century. The tricky part is trying to get through this century without civilization collapsing.

Not surprisingly most of the estimates from the IPCC have been conservative, since they're always drawing on data that's 5-6 years old and shaped by governments who tend not to want to hear about catastrophic environmental collapse.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2012 01:30

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

MrSmokes posted:

This last page has made me pour a few stiff drinks. What, if anything, can we do at this point? We've started something that can't possibly be stopped even if we magically make all our emissions vanish tomorrow.

Our only hope at this point seems to be geoengineering. Using aerosols to block sunlight, or iron fertilization to stimulate phytoplankton which absorb CO2, or some sort of machinery that pulls CO2 directly out of the air. All of these things come with environmental and engineering challenges of their own though. I'm expecting that we'll attempt these things when the world finally realizes how hosed we are, but by that point it'll be too late, and/or we'll introduce new problems with any geoengineering attempts.

Geoengineering will be a stop-gap we'll use in desperation to buy us some time. It's never going to be a permanent solution; we need to get our emissions down. We may still have broken some of the systems that regulated the planet's environment and climate by the time we get the temperature under control and may have to take a more active role in managing the planet's mechanisms. And we'll probably screw that up before we get it right, too, if we survive the century.

But if the international community fails to develop a global geoengineering strategy to deal with the problems then you can expect small countries that are already under threat - like Bangladesh - to throw its GDP at the problem regardless of the consequences to its neighbours. And that's going to cause wars.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2012 17:20

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Arglebargle III posted:

Something will happen, certainly, but my point is that the dots have not been connected to global collapse of modern civilization. Maybe somebody has and I'd be interested to see that. But the dominant story in the last few pages of the thread of total collapse of civilization and a catastrophic return to primitivism (which is itself an anachronistic concept) hardly seems inevitable to me.

I keep bringing it up and I swear I'm not some fanatic, but Gwynne Dyer's Climate Wars does go into some detail as to what the major problems and threats current day governments are worrying about, and speculates as to what might happen 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now. All of this is based on scientific data and military/policy planning papers.

Essentially he argues that the time for global cooperation and pinning down a treaty concerning things like geo-engineering is now, and as the climate changes, food and drinkable water will become more scarce and lead to war.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Oct 8, 2012

# ¿ Oct 8, 2012 18:30

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Yeah, this is why the international community needs to come to terms with geoengineering and sort out strategies and methods for employing geoengineering (because we are probably going to anyway in the future) otherwise every nutbar with enough money or a country that's being hit hard by climate change will just chuck its GDP at the problem regardless of the large, global, consequences.

I know scientists are weary of geoengineering because a solution for a complex system like the climate is difficult to predict and harder to control but legal treaties and gutted environmental agencies aren't enough to stop people from pulling this poo poo.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 21:25

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 02:57

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Pellisworth posted:

While I agree with Dreylad in general (that geoengineering needs to be more actively pursued by the scientific community), there are a lot better candidates than iron fertilization. Altering ocean alkalinity would be a far smarter option, for example.

Part of me is a little worried that successful/promising geoengineering projects will lull us all into a false sense of having solved the problem such that we don't actually address the root causes (burning fossil fuels, slash and burn agriculture, fertilizers, livestock, etc).

Oh, yeah, I mean I'm not saying we just dive into a geo-engineering project without considering our options and spend as much time as we can coming up with a solution that wont make things worse, or damage other things at the same time. I know one person posted an article (it might have been you?) that showed that iron fertilization was a terrible, terrible idea and could make things worse.

I recognize that what we're dealing with is a very complex system and that there might be no one solution. And yes, absolutely, there is the danger that we treat geoengineering like a permanent fix to our C02 production. Geoengineering should not be treated as anything more as triage for our climate until we can get our emissions under control and let the positive feedback effects from our emissions slow down. I don't think it's a permanent solution at all.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2012 14:41

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

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