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Pizza Segregationist
Jul 18, 2006

SickZip posted:

we could all die tomorrow and our no longer existant great grandchildren would still experience a warming climate. a climatic "return to normal" would take centuries to millennia

and of course, climate is only meta-stable so the normal it returns to would not necessarily be the same as what it was

there would still be a difference in the extent though right? I mean I don't really have much in depth knowledge on the subject but I'm assuming the whole reason climate scientists want to curb emissions is that we can at least mitigate the damage

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90s Rememberer
Nov 30, 2017

by R. Guyovich

MrWilderheap posted:

there would still be a difference in the extent though right? I mean I don't really have much in depth knowledge on the subject but I'm assuming the whole reason climate scientists want to curb emissions is that we can at least mitigate the damage

all of the plans that involve us staying below catastraphic warming(ie consequences so bad it's not worth worry about because they'll completely change the reality we live in) over the next millennia involve negative emissions technologies that simply don't exist, we're at 402 PPM right now, go check out what temperature the earth was the last time that happened

spoiler alert: 3-4 degrees celsius warming and 5-40 meters of sea level rise

90s Rememberer has issued a correction as of 03:06 on Jan 26, 2018

SickZip
Jul 29, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

MrWilderheap posted:

there would still be a difference in the extent though right? I mean I don't really have much in depth knowledge on the subject but I'm assuming the whole reason climate scientists want to curb emissions is that we can at least mitigate the damage

Mitigation is possible, mitigation that keeps it within the "things get lovely" range as opposed to the "things get catastrophic range" is not. We are long past the point of no return on that.

The kind of steps we're prepared to take, needed to have occurred decades before you were born.

edit: i went back through my texts to look up the numbers. death to all humans tomorrow and centuries of rising temps still. 30,000 estimated years for a return to normal, assuming we didn't break anything with what we've done.

SickZip has issued a correction as of 04:30 on Jan 26, 2018

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators
Practical climate change guide you can apply to political / economic collapse in your region of choice:

2018-2030:
- Shifting atmospheric circulation regimes create more periods of extreme weather throughout the midlatitudes as the jet stream collapses.
- Increased aridization along tropical regions as the hadley cell expands results in extreme lower midlatitude drought (lookin at u SoCal)
- Increased crop loss due to rapid thaw / freeze cycles

2030-2060:
- Sea Level Rise from West Antarctic Ice Sheet loss starts materializing. More coastal communities become inundated and widespread human migrations begin in earnest
- Extreme wet bulb limits become a problem, heat waves start resulting in fatalities that increase by orders of magnitude as heat stress worsens
- Regions that depend on snowpack runoff or glacial ablation begin having extreme droughts that result in mass death or permanent migrations
- Seasonal loss of Arctic Sea Ice creates extreme baroclinic instability around Greenland resulting in unprecedented windstorms in Europe

2060-2100:
- Sea Level Rise on the order of 2-3 meters, changes in precipitation regime, and heat stress results in human migrations on the order of 1 billion+
- Ocean acidification stress causes trophic cascades in the ocean resulting in unknown behaviors that will likely dramatically increase jellyfish concentration and lower the amount of carbon sinks such as foraminifera and coccolithophores.
- Soil degradation in tandem with ocean biome shifts result in wide spread famine
- Extreme heat stress becomes even more common resulting in heat stress events that result in thousands of fatalities at a time
- CO2 concentrations may start approaching limits that affect human health both mentally and physically

2100-?:
- Jet stream collapse, loss of Arctic Sea Ice flux to drive ocean currents, and Walker circulation weakening results in weakening of the global thermohaline circulation that results in a stratified water column
- Stratified water column results in anoxic subsurface zones growing and expanding
- The anoxic chemocline reaches the photic zone in more regions which results in photic zone euxinia as hydrogen-sulfide producing bacteria that depend on photolysis bloom (see: purple sulfur bacteria).
- Eukaryotes begin dying en masse as atmospheric hydrogen sulfide concentrations reach fatal levels
- Atmospheric H2S destroys hydroxyl radicals which prevents methane from being removed from the atmosphere
- Increased atmospheric methane concentration destroys stratospheric ozone resulting in enhanced mutation rates and skin cancers due to UV-B radiation
- Loss of methane sink drastically increases the global warming potential of methane resulting in further increases to global mean surface temperatures

????:
- Most eukaryotes die as the Earth reverts to a state resembling something between the end-Permian extinction and the Proterozoic eon with a Canfield ocean.


You also can't assume that humans dying results in greenhouse gases stabilizing. El Niño, loss of carbon sinks, enhanced methane upwelling in the Arctic, etc... can do more than enough to counterbalance that.

Notorious R.I.M. has issued a correction as of 06:10 on Jan 26, 2018

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
- the jet streams aren't going to collapse fool, they're a product of the coriolis effect.
- atmospheric co2 isn't going to hit human lethal or noticeable levels, that's absurd and it's not the main problem here
- the vast majority of fossil fuels reserves were placed won during the carboniferous period, you're not going to get archaen temperatures, which was a result of the early formation of the earth, ie, rocks smashing into each other, not strictly solar radiation
- it's possible that thermal ocean currents will move or be disrupted, which will have major localized effects in the regions that depend on them, but they won't stop entirely, because the engine of those currents is temperature change itself - more likely that other currents will appear, perhaps in other locations, or maybe they become more or less intense in different areas. climate instability, but not collapse

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

rudatron posted:

- the jet streams aren't going to collapse fool, they're a product of the coriolis effect.

The zonal direction of the jet stream is driven by the coriolis effect. The strength of the jet stream is driven by the baroclinic instability between the ferrel cell and the polar cell. Arctic amplification results in the temperature gradient between these cells reducing which results in increased meridional flow along the jet stream boundary which further weakens the jet stream. You literally have no idea what you're talking about.

quote:

atmospheric co2 isn't going to hit human lethal or noticeable levels, that's absurd and it's not the main problem here
Humans notice CO2 at around 600ppm based on research.

quote:

- the vast majority of fossil fuels reserves were placed won during the carboniferous period, you're not going to get archaen temperatures, which was a result of the early formation of the earth, ie, rocks smashing into each other, not strictly solar radiation
Lol

quote:

- it's possible that thermal ocean currents will move or be disrupted, which will have major localized effects in the regions that depend on them, but they won't stop entirely, because the engine of those currents is temperature change itself - more likely that other currents will appear, perhaps in other locations, or maybe they become more or less intense in different areas. climate instability, but not collapse

That's weird I thought it was called the thermohaline circulation not the thermal circulation. Almost like the pycnocline is determined by temperature and salinity, not just temperature. Do you understand how accretion and ablation of sea ice affects not just temperature but salinity???


You really have no clue what you're talking about and should post less.

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
- drowsiness starts at 10,000ppm, death is at 70,000ppm or above, hypercapnia is not the main issue here, that's just absurd
- i haven't seen anything that suggests a jet stream collapse - predictions have been made for a weakening or a changing of course, but is your idea of a collapse, actually backed up by peer review science, or is it just something you made up? because arguing that the loss of sea ice means that you don't get the polar cell, is absurd on its face. you don't need ice albedo for convection currents to exist, you also get jet streams other planets in our solar system without such differentials (ie jupiter, which is driven by internal heating)
- where do you think that sea ice originally comes from genius? you're not going to get a massive loss in total fresh water entering the system, because it's not like water evaporating is going to disappear, ergo, you're still going to have salinity differentials, ergo you're still going to have thermohaline currents - they might not be in the same places though

Lastgirl
Sep 7, 1997


Good Morning!
Sunday Morning!
america is going to collapse to rudatron's posts like right now

i say swears online
Mar 4, 2005

rudatron posted:


- it's possible that thermal ocean currents will move or be disrupted, which will have major localized effects in the regions that depend on them, but they won't stop entirely, because the engine of those currents is temperature change itself - more likely that other currents will appear, perhaps in other locations, or maybe they become more or less intense in different areas. climate instability, but not collapse

lmao please explain climate instability that is not collapse

i say swears online has issued a correction as of 07:09 on Jan 26, 2018

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
treating climate change like one of those cheap disaster movies is both missing the point and totally wrong - if it were the case that the earth was a fundamentally unstable system, it would have already have entered hell world and stayed there over it's billion years history of life on earth.

the truth is more mundane, but still has the potential to be very deadly: a heightening of problems we already face, and the inability of social systems today to adapt to those changes quickly enough. the earth isn't going to implode or fall over or whatever, that's just tricking yourself into personifying a complex system. it'll just change into something that we may not like as much, and may not live as easily in, as we did before.

that itself is a threat to humanity today, because even in this time of plenty, people are still starving and social problems abound everywhere. but by playing up the Literal Armageddon angle, you're consigning people to fatalism.

i say swears online
Mar 4, 2005

rudatron posted:



the truth is more mundane, but still has the potential to be very deadly: a heightening of problems we already face, and the inability of social systems today to adapt to those changes quickly enough. the earth isn't going to implode or fall over or whatever, that's just tricking yourself into personifying a complex system. it'll just change into something that we may not like as much, and may not live as easily in, as we did before.

holy mother of gently caress this is what is already established

why do you pretend you're saying something novel

i say swears online
Mar 4, 2005

also "personifying a complex system" is not only disingenuous and ignorant but handwaving billions in migrations as well as mass death

zen death robot
May 27, 2001
nuclear winter ftw

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

rudatron posted:

- drowsiness starts at 10,000ppm, death is at 70,000ppm or above, hypercapnia is not the main issue here, that's just absurd

[furiously googling CO2 8-hour TWA]

quote:

- i haven't seen anything that suggests a jet stream collapse - predictions have been made for a weakening or a changing of course, but is your idea of a collapse, actually backed up by peer review science, or is it just something you made up? because arguing that the loss of sea ice means that you don't get the polar cell, is absurd on its face. you don't need ice albedo for convection currents to exist, you also get jet streams other planets in our solar system without such differentials (ie jupiter, which is driven by internal heating)

Research indicates a significant weakening of the mean 250mb zonal wind flow which results in Rossby wavebreaks and increased meridional transport of heat and moisture. There has been substantial research of this phenomenon coming out recently due to extreme weather and stagnant synoptic-scale patterns related to this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366916/ posted:

Persistent episodes of extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere summer have been shown to be associated with the presence of high-amplitude quasi-stationary atmospheric Rossby waves within a particular wavelength range (zonal wavenumber 6–8). The underlying mechanistic relationship involves the phenomenon of quasi-resonant amplification (QRA) of synoptic-scale waves with that wavenumber range becoming trapped within an effective mid-latitude atmospheric waveguide. Recent work suggests an increase in recent decades in the occurrence of QRA-favorable conditions and associated extreme weather, possibly linked to amplified Arctic warming and thus a climate change influence.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014005/meta posted:

New metrics and evidence are presented that support a linkage between rapid Arctic warming, relative to Northern hemisphere mid-latitudes, and more frequent high-amplitude (wavy) jet-stream configurations that favor persistent weather patterns. We find robust relationships among seasonal and regional patterns of weaker poleward thickness gradients, weaker zonal upper-level winds, and a more meridional flow direction. These results suggest that as the Arctic continues to warm faster than elsewhere in response to rising greenhouse-gas concentrations, the frequency of extreme weather events caused by persistent jet-stream patterns will increase.

I don't think it should be surprising that equable climate regimes are so common in our paleoclimate record. You still may see Eurasian jet streaks, but these patterns indicate that you are much more likely to see subsequent -EPO or +NAO wavebreaks.

quote:

- where do you think that sea ice originally comes from genius? you're not going to get a massive loss in total fresh water entering the system, because it's not like water evaporating is going to disappear, ergo, you're still going to have salinity differentials, ergo you're still going to have thermohaline currents - they might not be in the same places though

Then in this case you model the total current strength in Sverdrups and see how strong they are under different circulation regimes. The Beaufort Gyre in the Arctic has substantially weakened recently and there will be research over the following year based on the large freshwater release from it. Similarly, Freshwater hosing from land ice has been modeled in the following paper which shows substantial weakening of the AMOC for both Arctic and Southern ocean events: https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf

Weaker ocean currents and increased ocean heat content create environments that are more favorable for photic zone euxinia, which is the part that actually matters for humans in this thread about how our societies are going to collapse.

Notorious R.I.M. has issued a correction as of 08:09 on Jan 26, 2018

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

rudatron posted:

that itself is a threat to humanity today, because even in this time of plenty, people are still starving and social problems abound everywhere. but by playing up the Literal Armageddon angle, you're consigning people to fatalism.

Cool guess you agree with the socioeconomic impact parts you just want to whine about the other parts. Does it make you feel better if I say my outline is the BAU scenario and every bit we do to seriously mitigate our emissions makes a huge difference? Because we can save ourselves from the mass extinction events and drastically lower human suffering by actually trying to adapt, but it's completely naive to think that anoxia-driven extinctions from GHG forcing are unlikely when they show up repeatedly in our paleoclimate record. We are forcing carbon into the ocean at similar rates as the worst of them, see: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1700906

zen death robot
May 27, 2001
ww3 would solve a lot of problems

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

rudatron posted:

treating climate change like one of those cheap disaster movies is both missing the point and totally wrong - if it were the case that the earth was a fundamentally unstable system, it would have already have entered hell world and stayed there over it's billion years history of life on earth.

Fortunately it only took 50 million years or so to recover from the end-Permian extinction. Stable after all!

Shear Modulus
Jun 9, 2010



rudatron posted:

- the jet streams aren't going to collapse fool, they're a product of the coriolis effect.
- atmospheric co2 isn't going to hit human lethal or noticeable levels, that's absurd and it's not the main problem here
- the vast majority of fossil fuels reserves were placed won during the carboniferous period, you're not going to get archaen temperatures, which was a result of the early formation of the earth, ie, rocks smashing into each other, not strictly solar radiation
- it's possible that thermal ocean currents will move or be disrupted, which will have major localized effects in the regions that depend on them, but they won't stop entirely, because the engine of those currents is temperature change itself - more likely that other currents will appear, perhaps in other locations, or maybe they become more or less intense in different areas. climate instability, but not collapse

rudratron i thought people were being unfairly mean to you and was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt before i saw this post

gucci bane
Oct 27, 2008



no point of replying to a conservative

gucci bane has issued a correction as of 08:18 on Jan 26, 2018

Shear Modulus
Jun 9, 2010



even at 1000 ppm of co2 which is often reached in poorly-ventilated indoor settings you have significant detrimental cognitibe effects (Fisk et al, Is CO2 an indoor pollutant? LBNL, 2013, cited in: Romm, Climate Change, what Everyone Needs to Know, OUP 2016

Shear Modulus
Jun 9, 2010



im thinking new zealand is probably one of the better places to emigrate to from the us if you can get in it after canada which is still probably the number one

gucci bane
Oct 27, 2008



Shear Modulus posted:

in thinking new zealand is probably one of the better places to emigrate to from the us if you can manage it after canada which is still probably the number one

if you want poo poo job prospects maybe, Australia is still the best English speaking country by miles

zen death robot
May 27, 2001
let's capture an asteroid and hurl it at earth

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

Shear Modulus posted:

im thinking new zealand is probably one of the better places to emigrate to from the us if you can get in it after canada which is still probably the number one

Wish I disrupted the housing market in New Zealand before all the tech bros ruined it.

I still think the PNW is the place to be for Americans to ride things out. All of Europe is megafucked due to climate refugees.

Metal Cat
Dec 25, 2017
I'm curious about how the migration patterns would look like elsewhere, such as in South America and Oceania. I live in São Paulo, and one of the reasons my great-grandparents left the northeast is because Caatinga is often a harsh region for subsistence farming, and that was 80 years ago. It's probably gonna look hellish 50 years down the line.

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
- no one knows what caused the pt extinction event, its just as likely to be by an asteroid hit as anything else. Its not relevant to climatic change by carbon emissions, so its absurd to use it as a comparison.
- none of the research you're citing suggest a jet stream collapse, which was the specific claim you made, and the one i took issue with. Are you reneging on that claim yet?
- the paper your citing themselves admit the model they're using is too coarse to make bold predictions, and 'photozone die off' counts as bold. You have to prove 'weaker currents globally', and not just for a specific regime, like amoc. You're reaching too far. Ocean biomes will undergo changes, but the only thing that matters for our purposes is biomass of phytoplankton.

Shear Modulus posted:

rudratron i thought people were being unfairly mean to you and was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt before i saw this post
Whats wrong with it

Shear Modulus posted:

even at 1000 ppm of co2 which is often reached in poorly-ventilated indoor settings you have significant detrimental cognitibe effects (Fisk et al, Is CO2 an indoor pollutant? LBNL, 2013, cited in: Romm, Climate Change, what Everyone Needs to Know, OUP 2016
1000ppm is already at the the upper bounds point of what human emissions are likely to achieve, breathable air is not a tenable risk factor we face. Its being exaggerated by rim.

Notorious R.I.M. posted:

Cool guess you agree with the socioeconomic impact parts you just want to whine about the other parts. Does it make you feel better if I say my outline is the BAU scenario and every bit we do to seriously mitigate our emissions makes a huge difference?
i think that by fantasizing these The Rivers Will Run Red With The Blood Of Virgins scenarios, your both obfuscating the actual risk factors, and turning a serious crisis into some kind of crude joke, that no one takes seriously. If human beings fail to adapt, it wont be some sort of punishment for the original sin of environmental destruction, but because the social systems we have aren't structured to adequately respond to a crisis of the commons.

rudatron has issued a correction as of 09:39 on Jan 26, 2018

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

rudatron posted:

- no one knows what caused the pt extinction event, its just as likely to be by an asteroid hit as anything else. Its not relevant to climatic change by carbon emissions, so its absurd to use it as a comparison.

Gonna post this for education for anyone else that is interested in the PT extinction. You're clearly illiterate though so sorry for your loss

1. The trigger was GHG emissions from gas-rich sediments exposed to contact metamorphism

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170731090834.htm posted:

"Heat from sills exposed untapped, gas-rich sediments to contact metamorphism [the process in which rock minerals and texture are changed by exposure to heat and pressure], thus liberating the massive greenhouse gas volumes needed to drive extinction," Muirhead says. "Our model links the onset of extinction with the initial pulse of sill emplacement. It represents a critical juncture in the evolution of life on Earth."

2. The release was sufficient to push through an alkaline buffered ocean and caused an excursion of sedimentary carbon indicating preferential loss of shell builders

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6231/229 posted:

Ocean acidification triggered by Siberian Trap volcanism was a possible kill mechanism for the Permo-Triassic Boundary mass extinction, but direct evidence for an acidification event is lacking. We present a high-resolution seawater pH record across this interval, using boron isotope data combined with a quantitative modeling approach. In the latest Permian, increased ocean alkalinity primed the Earth system with a low level of atmospheric CO2 and a high ocean buffering capacity. The first phase of extinction was coincident with a slow injection of carbon into the atmosphere, and ocean pH remained stable. During the second extinction pulse, however, a rapid and large injection of carbon caused an abrupt acidification event that drove the preferential loss of heavily calcified marine biota.

3. Ocean acidification subsequently caused euxinic zones to expand

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/307/5710/706 posted:

Carbon and sulfur isotopic data, together with biomarker and iron speciation analyses of the Hovea-3 core that was drilled in the Perth Basin, Western Australia, indicate that euxinic conditions prevailed in the paleowater column during the Permian-Triassic superanoxic event. Biomarkers diagnostic for anoxygenic photosynthesis by Chlorobiaceae are particularly abundant at the boundary and into the Early Triassic. Similar conditions prevailed in the contemporaneous seas off South China. Our evidence for widespread photiczone euxinic conditions suggests that sulfide toxicity was a driver of the extinction and a factor in the protracted recovery.

4. Chronic environmental mutagenesis was ongoing during the extinction event with enhanced UV stress proposed as a mechanism of action

http://www.pnas.org/content/101/35/12952.short posted:

During the end-Permian ecological crisis, terrestrial ecosystems experienced preferential dieback of woody vegetation. Across the world, surviving herbaceous lycopsids played a pioneering role in repopulating deforested terrain. We document that the microspores of these lycopsids were regularly released in unseparated tetrads indicative of failure to complete the normal process of spore development. Although involvement of mutation has long been hinted at or proposed in theory, this finding provides concrete evidence for chronic environmental mutagenesis at the time of global ecological crisis. Prolonged exposure to enhanced UV radiation could account satisfactorily for a worldwide increase in land plant mutation. At the end of the Permian, a period of raised UV stress may have been the consequence of severe disruption of the stratospheric ozone balance by excessive emission of hydrothermal organohalogens in the vast area of Siberian Traps volcanism.

5. Large atmospheric H2S injection from euxinic ocean conditions increases the efficacy of atmospheric methane in destroying ozone, which would increase UV stress

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006GL028384/full posted:

Using a three-dimensional chemistry-climate model of the troposphere and stratosphere, we find that hydrogen sulfide alone is unlikely to directly affect stratospheric ozone, even for hydrogen sulfide emission rates as large as 5000 Tg(S) per year. However, we also find that large quantities of hydrogen sulfide create a significant decrease in tropospheric hydroxyl radical, leading to a commensurate increase in atmospheric methane. Therefore a large methane flux (possibly from methane clathrate destabilization, Siberian traps or hydrothermal vent complexes) combined with a large hydrogen sulfide oceanic flux is much more likely to lead to an ozone collapse than methane or hydrogen sulfide alone with implications to the Permian-Triassic boundary extinction 250 million years ago.


Which takes us back to the original outline I gave, where we are essentially speedrunning the PT extinction based on current greenhouse gas injection rates:

I posted:

2100-?:
- Jet stream collapse, loss of Arctic Sea Ice flux to drive ocean currents, and Walker circulation weakening results in weakening of the global thermohaline circulation that results in a stratified water column
- Stratified water column results in anoxic subsurface zones growing and expanding
- The anoxic chemocline reaches the photic zone in more regions which results in photic zone euxinia as hydrogen-sulfide producing bacteria that depend on photolysis bloom (see: purple sulfur bacteria).
- Eukaryotes begin dying en masse as atmospheric hydrogen sulfide concentrations reach fatal levels
- Atmospheric H2S destroys hydroxyl radicals which prevents methane from being removed from the atmosphere
- Increased atmospheric methane concentration destroys stratospheric ozone resulting in enhanced mutation rates and skin cancers due to UV-B radiation
- Loss of methane sink drastically increases the global warming potential of methane resulting in further increases to global mean surface temperatures

????:
- Most eukaryotes die as the Earth reverts to a state resembling something between the end-Permian extinction and the Proterozoic eon with a Canfield ocean.

We do have to revert to an equable climate first which will happen pretty quickly from Arctic amplification, but the PT extinction also started with a good alkaline buffer in the ocean so we'll probably kick off anoxic stratification quicker. You win some, you lose some.

Notorious R.I.M. has issued a correction as of 10:06 on Jan 26, 2018

Notorious R.I.M.
Jan 27, 2004

up to my ass in alligators

Metal Cat posted:

I'm curious about how the migration patterns would look like elsewhere, such as in South America and Oceania. I live in São Paulo, and one of the reasons my great-grandparents left the northeast is because Caatinga is often a harsh region for subsistence farming, and that was 80 years ago. It's probably gonna look hellish 50 years down the line.

This is a good question, a lot of the literature I've seen focuses on China and North Africa due to heavy investment in research from China. I'll see what I can dig up across South America.

A lot of the standard hydrological rules apply though. Regions that rely on glacier ablation will deal with both flooding and drought due to the surface mass budget of their glaciers going negative. I know Brazil also has lots of issues with water contamination even though they have an abundant freshwater supply.

Michael Bayleaf
Jun 4, 2006

Tortured By Flan
I think climate change is bad

Communist Bear
Oct 7, 2008

The likelihood of the United States ending in a fiery explosion is slim. It's more likely to be a slow death - the result of exhausted resources, bankruptcy, urban decay and socio-economical decline. Couple that with environmental and ecological concerns and its likely America will choke to death.

Predicting what's going to happen though is as accurate as sticking a finger in the air to check the weather. If current environmental concerns are not thoroughly tackled (which, going by how America is treating climate change, won't be), then its likely a good chunk of America will become wasteland. Threats to the breadbasket states are pronounced even today. Migratory drift to east/west coastal cities is highly likely, which will create friction. Poverty and living standards are unlikely to improve and unless some sort of economic revolution occurs, the rich will continue to get richer.

Climate change will likely be tackled, in some way or another, but not without the deaths of billions of people and the loss of a wide variety of flora and fauna. As mentioned earlier, the psychological impacts of this are likely to be very pronounced, as many people will have to come to terms with living in a first world country that chose to turn their backs on the strife of less well off people.

I'd go as far as to say that a combination of events, coupled with a populace increasingly becoming disinterested in procreation (whether due to cynicism of the world, economic factors, time, or medical reasons), will result in a global population drop down to 4 billion.

America will not collapse overnight, but it's certainly not going to get any better.

Hmm? Oh yes, i'll have a big mac meal please.

ScrubLeague
Feb 11, 2007

Nap Ghost

gucci bane posted:

no point of replying to a conservative

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
you're presenting one hypothesis for the pt extinction event, it's not as clear cut as you think, eg:

trapped noble gas isotope evidence for asteroid impact for p/t:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/291/5508/1530

here's a good round up of the evidence, with a money-short paragraph that's relevant here:
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/stable/pdf/41352234.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ac956382502b021ba5e39c51d95325543

quote:

The end-Permian extinction has long been
linked to eruption of the massive Siberian flood
basalts through production of large amounts of
sulfates, C02, and possibly thermogenic methane
(8, 9, 13, 14, 29, 33, 37). A previous U-Pb study
of the flood basalts (8) shows that much of them
are slightly younger than our interpreted extinc
tion age. The age discrepancy could be due to
interlaboratory bias related to calibration of the
tracer solutions used in different laboratories.
Mundil et al (18) combined recalculated ^Ar-^Ar
dates for bed 25 from Meishan (252.1 ±1.6 Ma)
with the earlier study showing that 40Ar-39Ar
dates of flood basalts and bed 25 are the same age
(9) to conclude that the flood basalts and extinc
tion are essentially synchronous.
in other words - the atmospheric sulfate was caused by volcanism, not oceanic dead zones.

cargo cult
Aug 28, 2008

by Reene
gobbagool's position is amusing in the sense that he seems to think that anti-racist action is an outsider activist perspective but it seems like more often than not people rallying against "nazi scum off our sreets" is increasingly a populisst position. if this wasnt the case then the week after charlotesville the entire city of boston wouldnt have turned out in an anti-racist demonstrations. far right ideas are insanely unpopular

cargo cult
Aug 28, 2008

by Reene
if right wing ideals held any sway they woudnt get lit tuck up when they showd their faces in cities like athens

gobbagool
Feb 5, 2016

by R. Guyovich
Doctor Rope

cargo cult posted:

gobbagool's position is amusing in the sense that he seems to think that anti-racist action is an outsider activist perspective but it seems like more often than not people rallying against "nazi scum off our sreets" is increasingly a populisst position. if this wasnt the case then the week after charlotesville the entire city of boston wouldnt have turned out in an anti-racist demonstrations. far right ideas are insanely unpopular

FAU brought race into the discussion, not me. I haven’t offered any opinion whatsoever on race issues in this thread or elsewhere, but bigots going to bigot

edit; this isn't really for this thread, but the ongoing attempt by people to declare anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders to be nazis is why the left in the US isn't taken seriously. When everyone's double hitler, nobody's double hitler, but go on and maintain that strategy, it's 100% how you get another 4 years of Donald Trump

gobbagool has issued a correction as of 13:39 on Jan 26, 2018

Dirk Pitt
Sep 14, 2007

haha yes, this feels good

Toilet Rascal

gucci bane posted:

if you want poo poo job prospects maybe, Australia is still the best English speaking country by miles

everyone here in Sweden speaks English and seems to give a poo poo about this problem we are encountering.

gobbagool
Feb 5, 2016

by R. Guyovich
Doctor Rope

Dirk Pitt posted:

everyone here in Sweden speaks English and seems to give a poo poo about this problem we are encountering.

everyone migrate to sweden? capital plan, tophat! what could possibly go wrong?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-immigration-crackdown/sweden-intensifies-crackdown-on-illegal-immigrants-idUSKBN19Y0G8

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-07-10/immigration-forces-sweden-to-re-evaluate-its-welfare-state

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/how-sweden-became-an-example-of-how-not-to-handle-immigration/

zen death robot
May 27, 2001

Notorious R.I.M. posted:

Gonna post this for education for anyone else that is interested in the PT extinction. You're clearly illiterate though so sorry for your loss

1. The trigger was GHG emissions from gas-rich sediments exposed to contact metamorphism


2. The release was sufficient to push through an alkaline buffered ocean and caused an excursion of sedimentary carbon indicating preferential loss of shell builders


3. Ocean acidification subsequently caused euxinic zones to expand


4. Chronic environmental mutagenesis was ongoing during the extinction event with enhanced UV stress proposed as a mechanism of action


5. Large atmospheric H2S injection from euxinic ocean conditions increases the efficacy of atmospheric methane in destroying ozone, which would increase UV stress



Which takes us back to the original outline I gave, where we are essentially speedrunning the PT extinction based on current greenhouse gas injection rates:


We do have to revert to an equable climate first which will happen pretty quickly from Arctic amplification, but the PT extinction also started with a good alkaline buffer in the ocean so we'll probably kick off anoxic stratification quicker. You win some, you lose some.

well we're already hosed might as well go out in style

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

zen death robot posted:

well we're already hosed might as well go out in style
Here Come Dat Boi: Humanity Celebrates Imminent Asteroid Death

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FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

'Roid Rage: Five Reasons We're Pissed Off The Asteroid Hasn't Hit Yet

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