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Minge Binge posted:Things are going to get really bad a lot quicker than people think That's what I thought about peak oil in 2008, but I suppose the global financial crisis helped with that.
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Nov 29, 2016 02:11
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Grouchio posted:Could we begin seeing acts of environmental terrorism against fossil fuel companies, projects, and magnates? Or is this just fantasy? Major population displacements are about the only thing that will cause violent terrorism vs private industries within the US. It's been mentioned over and over in the threads, but you need an exceptional amount of anger boiling across a large swath of demographics, with grievances that can be pinned to a target, in order to trigger that kind of response. And even then, it's almost as likely the anger will be directed towards the government for not taking necessary steps or warning people enough about this, than against corporations themselves. Thread also tends to make a big deal about how on the ball US intelligence agencies are on domestic terrorism, but all you need is 1-3 sufficiently insane/motivated people and that's a mass shooting or bombing, multiplied by whatever level of civil unrest is happening at the time.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:09
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My particular interest lies more in Mexico and countries north of the Darien Gap, since I imagine there'll be a trend to emigrate northwards across Central America (and Mexico under pressure will in turn look towards the US). The expansion of the Sonoran will naturally drive people close to the border across it, that much is expected, but the economic/ecological situation for the rest of Mexico will affect its government's response to both that and how it deals with the US in general, and social unrest could result in an expansion of the drug cartels' power that could in turn shift their attention to their northern neighbor. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 01:20
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double nine posted:I donno, maybe the fact that Dubai has done it and apparently succeeded? Where would you move the largest coral reef in the world so that it'd be safe from both temperature changes and ocean acidification?
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Dec 2, 2016 18:59
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Tree Bucket posted:Well, the reef itself is sort of doing that already, with some corals starting to appear a bit further south each year. The problem is... well, the GBR is big; you could comfortably stretch it from New York to Cuba or from Scotland to Morocco. And that's not 2000+km of one ecosystem, but rather many tiny overlapping systems with their own set of obscure sub-species. Depends on your ability to comprehend the unprecedented, utterly irrecoverable catastrophe that global warming will bring over the next 20 years and beyond. poo poo in the ME is happening right now and can give you plethora of personal accounts so it's easier to relate to for primitive monkey brains.
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Dec 2, 2016 22:20
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Descar posted:This will always be a minor problem compared to economy to most people, just saying The irony is that it's an economic problem. Though to be fair, being wealthy is, and has always been, the best way to survive social/natural/economic upheavals. It isn't rich people who will starve when the fish run out.
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Dec 7, 2016 23:13
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FourLeaf posted:Obviously predicting specific events in the future is impossible, but what would be considered an optimistic projection vs. a pessimistic projection? If even the most optimistic projection has half of Southern Florida underwater along with the massive refugee crisis that implies by ~2060, then I'm going to need to make very different life plans starting right now. Optimistic has the oceans somehow not dying by 2060 and wealthy governments releasing aerosols to stave off global warming, with no serious adverse effects beyond the costs. What you'd expect by then is gradual migrations across the US southwest as the Sonoran has expanded, increased foodstuff costs from changes in climate and water depletion impacting production, a lot of dead Africans and Muslims, and possibly a limited nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Pessimistic is that the Western Antartic Ice Sheet breaks off between 2020-2040, raising sea levels by 10 inches over the course of months and flooding major cities across the world and prompting large migrations and humanitarian crises on a scale your little primate brain can't imagine, and then when we're releasing aerosols like 80s hair is back and looks like we've got a handle on things, in 2060 we realize the sea is about to loving die and there's absolutely not a thing we can do about it. And that's when things will get fun. EDIT: Oh and the thermohaline circulation could also just shut down, at which point nobody even loving knows. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Dec 8, 2016 |
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Dec 8, 2016 05:38
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Telephones posted:So it seems like stopping climate change or really even controlling the effects is no longer possible unless we were to almost entirely stop emissions within the next few years - right? If the governments kick into gear quickly enough (ie before the western antartic ice shelf breaks apart), R&D could be done to get aerosols deployed before the coasts are all flooded. But assuming no adverse effects from that, it still wouldn't reduce emissions so ocean acidification will continue unabated.
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Dec 9, 2016 08:00
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TheBalor posted:I'm going into nursing. What are the chances of me ending up as a mad-max style Organic Mechanic before I die? Africa and the Middle East will be right there waiting after you finish school.
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Dec 9, 2016 11:59
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ghostwritingduck posted:With enough time, evolution will bring more intelligent life. It looks increasingly likely that the reason for fermi's paradox is that intelligent life that reaches tech levels approximate to our own is either A) Fantastically unlikely B) Always burns itself out C) Physically exploring or communicating past one's own star system is simply unfeasible And B poisons the well for further A from the same source, as they consume available fossil fuels and rare earths.
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Dec 12, 2016 02:47
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The argument boils down to "the invisible hand can't deal with abrupt condition changes." Historically it's always sucked when this happen, and it's been the responsibility of government and power brokers to prop things up by sidestepping the system as necessary. But it's never been something like this. Global scale, permanent rather than temporary (ie compare OPEC playing games with the world's oil supply), and with a political system that is so deeply intermingled with the economic capitalist system as it is now.
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Dec 16, 2016 05:47
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SpaceCadetBob posted:Alternatively, have kids. They will not only give your life a sense of purpose and happiness, but you can also raise them to be good stewards of their surrounding and maybe, just maybe they will help the next civilization not make the same mistakes we did. Having kids to give your life purpose is the worst loving reason to have them. Also, if you want kids, adopt.
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Dec 18, 2016 19:51
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AceOfFlames posted:I don't care about vengeance. I don't care about fighting. I don't care about doing anything with minimal impact just for the "at least I did SOMETHING" value. I don't get involved in fights I am not 100% sure I can win. I care about results. I care about is the life I was promised: That of doing what I am told in a safe environment and be compensated progressively more for it, hopefully with someone I can care for and have meaningful cultural discussions with. None of that is possible in the world that is coming. Go gently caress yourself with a cactus. Tiax Rules All posted:If it's any consolation, I think there's a pretty good chance that geoengineering will push the point of complete societal collapse to out beyond the lifespans of most people alive today. There wouldn't be a "complete societal collapse", because humans are inherently social creatures; no kind of (realistic) catastrophic economic upheavals, mass migrations or depopulation through famine, war and disease have the power to turn humanity into scattered bands of survivors with no knowledge of the world beyond their immediate surroundings. Not possible. That said, no amount of geoengineering will prevent the world 40 years in the future to be as if not more different than the world 40 years ago as compared to now. The age of a comfortable job letting you own and drive your own car, and buy anything you want from across the world through amazon, is going to end. Our society works on borrowed energy, and creature comforts will plummet along with the ocean ecology. And the disasters that will serve as a wake up call to maybe begin geoengineering efforts are going to happen within our lifetime.
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Dec 18, 2016 23:44
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:For anyone under ~40 or so posting in this thread, "retirement" as a concept will probably not exist. I can't knock people for foregoing a 401k or any sort of other retirement plan in the context of what will most certainly be a very unpleasant future, especially after watching what the financial crisis did to most of them in 2009. It's just more money taken from you and put in the pockets of rich assholes. This is halfway decent advise. Manage your finances, invest smartly, don't rely on long-term investment/retirement plans that can crash when a bubble pops.
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Dec 19, 2016 04:32
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The Arctic is gonna melt during the next 5-10 years, though. And if the next summer breaks pattern to be hotter, it could very well happen next year.
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Dec 19, 2016 04:48
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You will learn a lot through a hands-on approach. As someone who has helped set up emergency makeshift levees, distributed rations and looked for people trapped in flooded areas, I can tell you that dealing with that poo poo while it's not yet happening to you is easier to cope with and helps you prepare for and deal with personal emergencies. Getting involved enough also gives you a hotline to the right people to get in touch with.
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Dec 19, 2016 05:01
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Morbus posted:What do you mean by "melt"? Arctic summer ice vanishing (in the sense that you can cross the north pole by ship) in ~5-10 years or less is possible on the very pessimistic end of estimates (which imo is the good side to bet on). That's extremely bad, but it's not in and of itself not some game over point where the trend can't be reversed if you remove the climate forcings causing it. I'm saying that we'll already be having ice-free summers (with whatever effect that'd have on the thermohaline circulation) by the time cutting out black carbon emissions is considered in America. Yes, doing so would be good, and yes, anyone with the chance I fully endorse to go work on it, but it's not going to be some clinch last minute miracle that saves the arctic - because it's not going to happen next year, hell it's not going to happen during the Trump administration, plus currently methane is spiking and the global temperature keeps increasing. At best we are going to get a slowdown of ice loss for the winter->summer transitions, but you'd need a major refreeze to start seeing a year long arctic icecap once it goes down the first time.
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Dec 19, 2016 05:45
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What would be the effect on sea level rise of the therhomaline circulation shutting down? A lot of fresh water would first need to flow into the Atlantic for this to happen, of course, but wouldn't the resulting decreased temperatures in the North Atlantic slow/stop the glacier melts?
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Dec 21, 2016 08:24
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If nothing else, trying to live like a cuban will ease your transition into the new paradigm as consumerism slows down either from rising costs and scarcity or a shift in cultural values.
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Dec 26, 2016 04:18
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A Buttery Pastry posted:While I don't deny that climate change involves a dramatic transition period, have people considered the fact that we could end up in a far superior climate on the other side? Much like a revolution is a time of turmoil, whose intensity might seem scary in the moment but which stops the constant normalized oppression by the ruling class, climate change might be be a shock but eventually place us in a world where we're no longer oppressed by smothering blankets of snow in the winter. The Earth has been much warmer and wetter in the past, where the polar regions had nice and temperate climates and desert regions gave way to scrub and grasslands, or even monsoon and rain forests. Conversely, we see that a colder globe leads to a drier world, one dominated by cold tundra, frigid steppes, and bone dry deserts, none of which support much in the way of life, human or otherwise. We are currently looking at a massive global extinction for which existing biomes will take millenia to adapt or recover, and even longer in the case of the dying oceans. The rapid melting of Greenland and Antarctica are going to cause the Atlantic Conveyor to shut down, the effect of which will be a temperature drop in northern NA and Europe, while equatorial latitudes broil. The unstable polar vortex will likewise cause sudden strong cold fronts across the northern hemisphere. We will have much, much more frequent and stronger tropical storms and hurricanes. And deserts, which are currently expanding due to the warming temperatures, aren't going to get fertile even if they get wetter, as previously mentioned. No topsoil means no topsoil.
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Dec 28, 2016 20:48
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The Gulf Stream's effect on the climate of Europe is not near as great as the difference in temperature between it and the north-eastern parts of North America might make it seem, as those parts are kept extra cold by the Rockies diverting warm air south. In a scenario where Greenland melts, it will at worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) counteract the general warming trend in most of Europe. This is what happened last time.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:12
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A Buttery Pastry posted:I'm not sure that really contradicts what I said? At most I should have added the caveat that it has a stronger effect on the more northerly parts of Europe, around the Norwegian Sea, which would need the non-uniform distribution of temperature increases to heat that region up more than average to counteract the loss. The thermohaline circulation shutting down, which could come as a result of the fresh water intake of the melting greenland glacier + the collapse west antarctic ice sheet + the melting totten glacier (all events that could very well happen in our lifetime and will have a devastating effect on sea levels) would plunge temperatures at northern latitudes before the rest of the world simply being too hot eventually normalizes them back to current levels or whatever. Plus the contribution to warming at lower latitudes, which are already suffering the worse effects. But I guess you're not seeing the problem with this, as you consider sudden temperature changes to just be an "inconvenience" that totally don't devastate ecologies. Just a few hundred years for the world to adapt and people to enjoy the better weather, right? Mass extinctions? What are those?
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Dec 29, 2016 19:50
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NewForumSoftware posted:I see this posited from time to time, but is there any real science to support this idea? It follows from the idea that more carbon in the atmosphere increases the rate of photosynthesis. While this is true for C3 plants and it can increase the biomass production of such cultivars, it is also true for weeds, which would have a detrimental effect, and it of course completely ignores that while crops enjoy carbon, they are negatively affected by higher temperatures in many ways that either reduce yields or affect the logistics of their management.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:05
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Star Man posted:Saving the planet and destroying De Beers? I love it! They'd never stand for that. Already they have this huge propaganda campaign to paint chemical diamonds as being somehow inferior to mined diamonds for any application.
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Jan 2, 2017 22:44
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AceOfFlames posted:Sorry for the rambling, I am trying to figure out what the hell I am supposed to do with my life that still magically allows me to be an introverted video game and internet afficionado. Even if it's an impossible task. Make a lot of money working a tech field so that you can keep living comfortably even in periods of economic upheaval. Also don't live near the east coast or any other region that will experience mass migrations, and keep an eye on economic and social trends so you can relocate ahead of time if you need to. I'd also tell you to abstain from forming a family or having children for the sake of keeping up your mobility, but you sound like the self-absorbed piece of poo poo nerd that wouldn't do that anyway.
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Jan 3, 2017 01:33
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Would aerosols even stop the WAIS collapsing if released after it already started?
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Jan 4, 2017 19:40
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Star Man posted:Humans are a smart species, but misanthropic statements are loving stupid. The problem is social. We chose to wholeheartedly embrace the capitalist system, which combined with inadequacies inherent in the human psyche is simply inept at dealing with this kind of issue. And so just like the Rapa Nui destroyed themselves building statues for their gods, we sacrifice our future to the altar of consumerism.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:37
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Burt Buckle posted:gently caress all that. We are going to space. Your rear end might be gobbled up by the sun but my ancestors are gonna be partying it up on Mars. Your ancestors are dead and buried. You meant to say descendants. But Mars is going to get swallowed by the Sun too, so...
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Jan 6, 2017 07:43
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The current state of the world is the answer to the Fermi paradox.
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Jan 6, 2017 18:28
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I suppose there's this issue of the most solid shot at stopping climate change through geoengineering would be very bad for China, so they certainly have incentive to try and mitigate it through other means.
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Jan 6, 2017 21:12
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Although clearly something to watch out for regions that scrap by on subsistence farming, I don't think warming will have a significant negative impact on crop yields for industrialized nations within the next 50 or so years - at least not one that isn't offset by a mix of tech advances and the positive effect of higher CO2 concentrations.* The problem is the water. Desertification, shift of rain patterns and general scarcity of freshwater from exploitation will have a much heavier effect, and in the context of global food production, the ocean dying will put higher pressure on food costs. *Assuming 2-4 degrees increase. If we keep on a >10C path for end of century, then all bets are off. call to action posted:I couldn't possibly agree less. If the choice is 99.999% destruction if I fight and become an ascetic monk to reduce my carbon emissions, or 100% destruction if I chill and live a nice Western life, I'm gonna choose number two. Cool username.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:48
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Nice piece of fish posted:The ocean dying will kill every single one of us. It's a worst case scenario, literal 99% extinction event. Lucky for us it's at the extreme end of absolutely no mitigation and in fact vastly increased emissions. It's the last domino and not the first. Why?
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Jan 11, 2017 00:28
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Oxxidation posted:Most of the planet's oxygen is generated by oceanic bacteria. Ocean dies, everything asphyxiates. But oxygen depletion of the atmosphere below what's survivable by plants and animals would take centuries if not millenia even without the ocean's contribution. I mean, yes, besides the unlikely second Venus that's the worst case long-term scenario, but it's beyond the scope of time humans care about.
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Jan 11, 2017 00:36
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Nice piece of fish posted:On the other hand, a massive ocean-wide anoxic event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event) could conceivably happen as a worst case scenario within a few hundred years. And probably on an unprecedented scale, given the multiple stressors on ocean life and biology humans provide, abundant organic material for breakdown... yeah. Better learn to breathe hydrogen sulphate gas. I'm sure once there's the demand, there will be incentives to provide oxygen creation technologies that will fill in the niche left by our moribund biosphere. That's how the free market works.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:56
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Paradoxish posted:I'm not sure how comforting that really is. This storm is looking like it has the potential to absolutely devastate the pack that exists right now and help to drive more ice out of the arctic. Obviously it'd be a lot worse if we were having these storms constantly, but badly timed freak events like this ratchet things down into a new normal. Ice-free summer by 2020 
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Jan 13, 2017 00:27
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RobotDogPolice posted:If I'm close to 30 now, what can I realistically expect by my 80's in terms of ecological/economic fallout? 50 years is a long time and world governments could kick into high gear and undertake- who am i kidding - Ice free summers in the Arctic, with much reduced ice area year-round. This will at the very least coincide with a very destabilized polar vortex that will like roaming down NA and Europe for suddenly very chilly winters. - The thermohaline circulation will have further slowed and possibly shut down. High latitudes in NA and Northern Europe will face severe temperature drops (might be offset by overall warming, but it's likely than when it kicks in it'll be sudden and bad). The tropics will get even warmer. - Ocean fish stocks will have died out. Possibly the majority of the ocean will have died out due to acidification and mass anoxic events plus jellyfish infestations. Aquaculture will continue to provide for some fish stocks for industrialized countries but countries reliant on the sea will starve and there will be pressure on global food production. - Larsen C will have collapsed. Unknowns on the rest of the Antarctic ice shelves and the status of Greenland, but sea level will have risen by at least .8m and possibly as high as 2 or 3 m depending on ice shelves. South Florida and Louisiana will have been abandoned. The East coast might or might not have been able to take preventive measures to deal with the flooding - it all depends on how fast and how high the sea rised. All across the world there will be similar situations, except on poorer countries. Bangladesh will have flooded and died. The Marshall Islands will have flooded and died. My birthplace will have flooded and died. The coastal real state bubble will have popped before this point, though, once the flooding was undeniable. - Speaking of bubbles, the carbon bubble will have popped at some point. Total global economic crisis that combined will all other stressors, there will be no recovery from. - Increased desertification in the american southwest. Climate refuge migrations from there and from Mexico. Remember the coast? Add that to climate refugees. - Water crises. Expect exorbitant water costs and conservation efforts. Only places with reliable access to water will be those in good positions or with money for desalinization plants. Expect climate refugees to flood them, creating sprawling shantytowns that breed drug and antibiotic-resistant diseases. - Global geopolitical instability as fingers are pointed and nations across the world weight options on measures that could be taken, some probably retreating from the global stage and closing borders as a way to deal with refugees. - Wars. Potentially nuclear wars between some of the most affected states. Bunch more other poo poo but the tl;dr is that it will be very, very, very expensive to maintain something resembling the current standards of living. Note that civilization will not collapse, though in the worst case scenarios, we will be dealing with a mass extinction event and a human population die-off.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:28
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Clearly the behavior we'd expect from natural climate oscillation.
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Jan 13, 2017 23:11
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We won't know how bad things really are until August-November.
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Jan 14, 2017 02:07
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cowofwar posted:This is literally what our previous conservative PM in Canada did. Fired all the scientists, muzzled them and then shut down any project that generated data. I remember an article earlier in the thread that talked about the damage that caused to ongoing research, and even after Trudeau assumed office, they only got a fraction of their original funding back. Even if Trump is in office for a single term and the situation swings back to something sane in 4 years, defunding NASA Earth Science et al is going to set climate research back a decade or more.
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Jan 18, 2017 02:09
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:How do I explain to my SO that I don't want to have kids because I'm pretty sure they will live a life much worse than mine, and my life already is poo poo? You can tell them that it's almost unequivocal that the oceans will be dead by 2050, just as your children are entering the prime of their lives, and that combined with the unprecedented human death and suffering that they'll have bear witness to and that will only get worse until the day they die, is simply not the kind of world you wish to inherit to anyone.
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Jan 18, 2017 17:32
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