- Hobo
- Dec 12, 2007
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Forum bum
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So basically we have an agreement that we need to be even more ambitious with limiting temperature increases, but with no enforcement, minimal funds to developing countries, and a vague promise to look at the insufficient pledges years from now, when we're already pretty much out of time.
Ok.
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Dec 13, 2015 23:37
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May 4, 2024 14:40
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- Hobo
- Dec 12, 2007
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Forum bum
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The problem is that dealing with climate change in a way that doesn't have a negative effect on living standards would have required us to start on it decades ago. Right now we have a choice between two extremes of "maintain living standards now, have poo poo living standards in the future" or "have lowered standards in the short to medium term, and have a better time in the future". Humans are pretty bad at estimating future value, so it's not surprising that we're going with the former option, but it does lead us to the risk of those future poo poo living standards being so bad that they mean the collapse of civilisation as we know it. But that's ok because we can use all the money we make until then to build ourselves a nice tomb.
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Dec 14, 2015 18:08
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- Hobo
- Dec 12, 2007
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Forum bum
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The Guardian posted:
All hell breaks loose as the tundra thaws
A recent heatwave in Siberia’s frozen wastes has resulted in outbreaks of deadly anthrax and a series of violent explosions
Strange things have been happening in the frozen tundra of northern Siberia. Last August a boy died of anthrax in the remote Yamal Peninsula, and 20 other infected people were treated and survived. Anthrax hadn’t been seen in the region for 75 years, and it’s thought the recent outbreak followed an intense heatwave in Siberia, temperatures reaching over 30C that melted the frozen permafrost.
Long dormant spores of the highly infectious anthrax bacteria frozen in the carcass of an infected reindeer rejuvenated themselves and infected herds of reindeer and eventually local people.
More recently, a huge explosion was heard in June in the Yamal Peninsula. Reindeer herders camped nearby saw flames shooting up with pillars of smoke and found a large crater left in the ground. Melting permafrost was again suspected, thawing out dead vegetation and erupting in a blowout of highly flammable methane gas.
Over the past three years, 14 other giant craters have been found in the region, some of them truly massive – the first one discovered was around 50m (160ft) wide and about 70m (230ft) deep, with steep sides and debris spread all around.
There have also been cases of the ground trembling in Siberia as bubbles of methane trapped below the surface set the ground wobbling like an airbed. Even more dramatic, setting fire to methane released from frozen lakes in both Siberia and Alaska causes some impressive flames to erupt.
Methane is of huge concern. It is more than 20 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and a massive release of methane in the Arctic could pose a significant threat to the global climate, driving worldwide temperatures even higher.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/20/hell-breaks-loose-tundra-thaws-weatherwatch?CMP=fb_gu
Reassuring.
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Jul 22, 2017 14:12
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