[Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

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Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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reposting now (optimistic) Paolo Bacigalupi's A Full Life https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/24/135741/a-full-life/

edit: apparently paywalled now, someone quote it tia

# ¿ Sep 16, 2021 18:23

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 05:52

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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vyelkin posted:

good vibes only itt

I'm going to plant a tree, i suggest we all do the same.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2021 18:35

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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update: i drove my truck 50 miles out to the tree farm and had a fork lift to load it into my bed. I drove it back here and I planted it in my backyard. I dumped some water on it but it died. will try again later

# ¿ Sep 16, 2021 18:37

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The Protagonist posted:

i'm still 4.3k posts behind in the last thread what'd i miss

we're going to hunt + gather a potato. it's all going to be fine

# ¿ Sep 16, 2021 18:54

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JohnnySavs posted:

Given that weather is not climate and humans are natural pattern sellers etc. But does this year's artic ice pattern seem kind of suspicions? Suddenly levels out to a highest-in-a-decade linear trajectory after being on track for the lowest in recorded history.

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Mostly already beaten but I should add that half the atmosphere has been filled with intense smoke this year so that has certainly "helped" as an overall cooling mechanism

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 04:08

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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yep.

though I would say a substantial wildfire season should also be expected in 2022 so... lol

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 04:34

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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we should officially reach a 420 average end of the year :toot:

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 04:35

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Perry Mason Jar posted:

"You don't even notice them cause they're invisible to the naked eye! They are everywhere! Everywhere! They're in everything! You're breathing them in right now, probably. You're drinking them whenever you sip that water you have in your hand there! They're everywhere and they're invisible and they're making you fat and sterile and your kids autistic!!"
"It's been a long day for you huh, sport? Come on let's get you to bed. That's right, come with me. That's right. It's okay."

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 18:18

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Rime posted:

E: I'm not being snarky, it really was a nice time. It's really hard for me to enjoy hiking or anything anymore.

Even if you didn't, it's very noticeable for even the most innocent rube. like forests and hills are just completely dead and silent now, and dry as a bone. maybe you'll hear a bird or two, and probably some ants. actually leaving the 'burbs/city and going out into nature is the most starkest contrast to how bad things are.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 20:41

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Spergin Morlock posted:

i remember we used to have to wash the car after driving more than 10 minutes outside of town because so many bugs would be splattered on it. i think it's been years since I heard a large bug SPLAT on the windshield.

i havent cleaned a single bug off my windshield in like 6+ years lol

now tree sperm on the other hand... gently caress trees.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2021 21:03

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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toggle posted:

lmao (lol)

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 01:20

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Conspiratiorist posted:

The best part is we don't know what's causing it.

actually we do, we just dont care

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 02:19

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Conspiratiorist posted:

We know it's a consequence of human activity, but just like with the thiamine deficiency across the trophic chain, we have no idea by what mechanisms is it that insect biomass is collapsing, because it's exceeding what would be expected from shifting temperature bands or ecosystem loss due to land-use changes.

We could cease all carbon emissions tomorrow and poo poo would still keep dying because we aren't even sure what is it we're doing that's killing the planet.

On that note, our future biodiversity loss estimates are invariably hosed because we just don't know what the gently caress we're doing that's so deadly to the biosphere.

There's going to be slight differences and the exact contribution is moot, but it's the culmination of literally every industrial-society activity. We're not going to stop genociding all of the biosphere; even if we can stop using X pesticide (we won't) there's about another hundred angles completely decimating something.

zillion tons of plastics (and growing!) are killing animals/plants and will persist for hundreds of years; illion tons of pesticides/herbicides are killing animals/plants; massive industrial pollution and routine oil spills near-permanently destroying every body of water; forest fires resulting in massive choking clouds of ash going global are killing animals; and massive climate-change induced droughts and floods are wiping out entire habitable ground surfaces and just having birds drop dead from it being too hot, and insects just burning away because even they can't tolerate it. acidic oceans are basically extinguishing most sealife; especially crustaceans and the like.

we can't stop, and the scale of cleanup required is literally impossible.

and a break here-and-there in the food chain destroy others ontop of the massive piles of poo poo we're throwing at them. there's really no magic bullet even if we can change out one pesticide (we won't) that wipes out say crickets for something that does less damage to them isn't sufficient.

And it's not like this poo poo isn't and hasn't been studied -- it has. But the problem is so multi-faceted and so many built-up and interlinked connections that it's not like there's a panacea to find regarding any particular collapse.

edit: A good edification is round-up: we already know that poo poo is bad and yet we keep using it massively. We know fracking brine is radioactive and yet we keep dumping it on streets and rivers. We know burning coal and oil is bad. We know producing gobs of plastics that turn into microplastics and dumping it everywhere for funsies is bad. We know logging is bad. We know all those mining operations for Li/Ca/Mn/Ag/ec are bad and dumping byproducts into water is bad.

We can have all the studies and papers we want. I think there's a liberal mindset that if we just Silent Spring, or we do a Watergate Commission, that we can hold them accountable -- just another study here, and another one there, and voila!

Silent Spring can't happen today, and it was a miracle it even happened then (and barely didn't), and it has sadly polluted the liberal brain.

Xaris has issued a correction as of 07:20 on Sep 21, 2021

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 05:51

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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EvilJoven posted:

FYI 'A Full Life' is a story that should be thrown into the dumpster because it paints the 'Lets travel the world' hippie as the villain for not curbing her individual actions while the investment banker uncle is the hero despite participating in the industry that lead the planet around by the nose and destroyed the world.

you missed the point for the most part if you think Paolo is saying do individual action. it�s a slice of life of what someone could experience and think in the not far future. is it nonfic or a manifesto, no

Xaris has issued a correction as of 16:30 on Sep 21, 2021

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 16:26

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Xeom posted:

wanna be there during that first date where car hater just goes off like a madman. keep shining you bright star.

same

i'd love to be a fly on the window, but well, they're all dead

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 18:18

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Car Hater posted:

Critical mass imo, habitats are too fractured and monoculture is too pervasive to maintain breeding populations in the face of all the chemicals etc, and so we've hit the Seneca cliff for bugs.

It's this. Much like a lot of life growth is exponential and non-linear, extinction is likewise similar. At first you'll have small impacts at slow decline, only marginally noticeble, and then building up faster. there's no panacea to find like oh it turns out computers end up emitting ultrasonic waves that fry brains (only in humans). there's no linear relationship in it. as breeding gets harder when population collapses, that further collapses, which furthers desperation for others to eat what they can until preys also implode, with some oscillations. And it applies and affects the entire chain.

and there's not really anywhere to go anymore when a habitat here-and-there get obliterated.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 18:35

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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kater posted:

wait how much polyester is in adult poop

people eat 21g a week from teh most recent study -- although i wouldnt be surprised to see that significantly higher in some populations and less so in others. famously titled "credit card a week". a good portion of that is probably just going to pass through, the other portion absorbed into your cells like lipids, liver, who knows.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 22:54

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500 good dogs posted:

also who cares if there's microplastic in poop doesn't that mean it's just passing through us nbd? not like they're finding it in our blood

uh no because some percentage gets permanently absorbed into tissue; which they do find. throwing a bunch of hormonal/endocrine disruptors in a developing mushy fetus to infant is loving horrible; and even so for an adult

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 03:56

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SKULL.GIF posted:

this might seem kind of out of nowhere but tonight after getting home from work I was watching this video about re-shoeing a horse and at about 9:30 into this video you can see him smoothing off the edges of the horseshoe using a rotary sanding tool and like it just very suddenly struck me

we've known for CENTURIES, even MILLENNIA that sanding down iron/steel creates micro-shavings of the metal that gets everywhere, including into your skin and your eyeballs

and somehow, somehow no one went "what if the same thing happens to this much, much softer substance that we ubiquitously use everywhere??"

It was largely considered "inert". aka completely harmless being said of: "if you eat it you just poop it straight out". "it lasts forever and is non-reactive, and therefore it's good and safe."

# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 04:13

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Chard posted:

i would amend that only to say that we the public were told, repeatedly and very loudly, that it was inert. im bone certain there were researchers inside the oil n gas suck and gently caress fiesta that knew it was Real Bad but that got buried under a mountain of us dollars

eh. It's one of those things that didn't really ramp up until the 1980s and it's still a tricky thing to study. certainly they were pushing messaging saying "its inert! no reason to worry, the Perfect Material! buy buy buy" since it's inception to sell it as the Ultimate Science Material, and probably discouraged looking into it. But it's still murky, unlike say gas, coal, radioactive fracking brine, etc, were those things were and all very very clearly bad from the very beginning just from simple stoichiometry and material composition that even the most dipshit Chem101 flunk-out could probably piece it together. even see articles from like loving 1920

that they would worm into plant cellular structures, insects, fish, birds, and humans and act as a endocrine disruptor loving up fauna and flora (re)production, and probably giving poo poo cancer, might have been a little bit of a stretch when they were invented and being used industrially and en-mass at the start. never the less, it was probably known inside the circle that they were likely bad and going to be a major problem at least by 2000 though.

most of the environmental side was deflected to macro things like: oh no birds n turtles are getting stuck inside 6-pack plastics and dying, and seals are eating water bottles and choking, how horrible. we need to recycle it better!

# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 05:53

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Mola Yam posted:

i'm not vegetarian (and def not vegan, hmu with vegan butter/cheese recommendations though)

They sell Miyoko's vegan butter here even at Trader Joes and local grocers, which is pretty good. https://miyokos.com/collections/vegan-butter

the best vegan cheeses I've had have been from local vegan butcher/deli shops that make it inhouse. Costco sells a giant bag of vegan moz for a good price which works alright; it had kinda a vaguely strange aftertaste so I wasn't a super fan but it was fine on homemade pizzas with enough toppings. I preferred Trader Joes cashew cheese.

there was a vegan pizza shop that opened during early in the pandemic but sadly closed up earlier this year. it was really really loving good pizza though god drat, i actually preferred it over dairy-pizza. I wish I could get that 'moz.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 11:34

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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StratGoatCom posted:

https://twitter.com/antonioregalado/status/1438920582331047948

One of the few upsides to the death of civilization is that this ideology will die with it.

FdB has spent a lot of time writing about this very predictable problem. the thing is, white liberals love upholding a neoliberal meritocracy and refuse to do social action that would mitigate inequality by pretending inequality doesn't exist; it's opportunity. they scream that genes actually don't matter. but they do. yet libs say they don't which taken to it's logical liberal conclusion means, so why does it matter if rich people do this if it doesn't matter?

quote:

The rude thing is� I just don�t believe people, on this issue. When they say that they think all people have the same innate ability to perform well in school or on other cognitive tasks, that any difference is environmental, what I think inside is, I don�t believe that you believe that. When researchers in genetics and evolution who believe that the genome influences every aspect of our physiological selves say that they don�t believe that the genome has any influence on our behavioral selves, what I think inside is, I don�t believe you. I think people feel compelled to say this stuff because the idea of intrinsic differences in academic ability offend their sense of justice, and because the social and professional consequences of appearing to believe that idea are profound. But I think everyone who ever went to school as a kid knew in their heart back then that some kids were just smarter than others, and I think most people quietly believe that now. Like I said, it�s rude. But I can�t shake it.

What liberals don�t like, they mock. What they cannot refute, they ridicule.

Within 50 years, perhaps within 30, rich parents will routinely pay to have children whose genomes have been manipulated or selected for higher intelligence and other attractive qualities. I do not know what specific technologies will enable this to happen, but I do know that it will happen. And when the monetary elite uses genetic science to further strengthen the unearned dynastic advantages of their progeny, locking in the privileges that they already enjoy and pass down through inheritance, DNA, and our rotten system � what will the people attacking Paige have to say about it? What arguments will they be able to muster, against genetic engineering for those who can afford it, after decades of denying that genes matter in human behavior at all? What smarmy little jokes will the liberal gene denialists tell then? Saying �eugenics� won�t ward off that future. Saying �Gattaca� won�t ward off that future. Saying �Charles Murray� won�t ward off that future. Nothing can prevent a future in which our technological capacity to manipulate the genome has ever-increasing social consequences, almost certainly very bad ones.

The only thing you can do is to have an honest conversation about the fundamental fact of our species, that life is not fair, and a corollary of that fact, that we are not all equal in our abilities. You can then hope that the conversation sparks social action that mitigates, in whatever way possible, that ubiquitous unfairness.

Xaris has issued a correction as of 20:54 on Sep 24, 2021

# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 20:52

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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StratGoatCom posted:

Eh, the genes don't really matter that much for behavior.

What the problem is, is a repeat of what we have done to the natural world, but our already shallow gene pool.

They absolutely do. Many neurosis/behaviors are inheritable even when isolated from being raised by biological parents. alcoholism/addiction, anxiety, depression, autism, whatever you name it. the basic drive for most of our brain functions arises out of various dopamine/serotonin/size of adrenal glands/etc and the brain is just another organ; just like anything like maculate degeneration is inheritable. it's never a for sure thing but it's a strong statistical predictor. that is not a bad thing that it is such -- infact, it's fine. there's also other factors like pollution that also matter (boomer lead brains), but generally been proven that a lot of the human genome and outcomes carry some predictability. that's precisely the problem with genetic engineering is that it does matter and we live in a society where inequality is used for exploitation and only further entrenching the elite power. absent destruction of the biosphere, it isn't that far-fetched that rich people could one day turn into a lite-form of peter watt's vampires.

gene pools isn't a real problem: its only going to be gatekept for the wealthy 1% anyways and they will need many slaves in the future to work their dystopia neofeudal plot. and human race has been substantially smaller many times over (and will be small again sometime in the future).

fortunately the biosphere is collapsing so we don't have to worry

# ¿ Sep 24, 2021 21:13

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Rime posted:

How when you walked in nature, you could feel it buzzing around you with vibrancy, but that even then it was the death throes of an ecosystem compared to a century prior.

when i was in south island of NZ for work OP. dense jungle forest buzzing with a deafening overbearing sound of cicadas, bugs, and sand fleas

other than that, no. especially not here in california. the forests up in the mountains are just dead even with some increasingly pale-ing greenery. i think ive heard a fraction of the birds i used to hear even just 6 years ago.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 04:27

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Popoto posted:

I don�t know how some people lived through 1980 to 2000 and 2000 to 2020, and still think both these gaps represent ever growing tech progress. The last twenty years feels like such stagnation. Maybe it�s just my anecdotal observation, I Dunno.

yepo. 2000-2020 was almost perfect stagnation -- perhaps one of the most stagnated periods in recent history. someone could be transplanted from 2000 to 2021 and it would feel nigh exactly the same. the only major difference is phones can do internet instead of just calls/text, but it's mostly there to sling ads n track, and not really any different. just further declining material conditions is about all that's happened

# ¿ Oct 2, 2021 22:25

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SKULL.GIF posted:

is there even any realistic way to clean up all the microplastics? like put the climate collapse aside for a moment, the only way you'd be able to get everything that needed to be gotten would be plastic-eating bacteria I guess

it's significantly less realistic than carbon capture

# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 18:21

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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

anyone who owns a tesla needs to be shot into the sun in the next spacex rocket

you have come a long way young padawan, i'm very proud of you o7

# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 19:49

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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plastics are funny and would be an unprecedented disaster many decades ago but at this point it's just another notch on a long list to lol at. very bad but overall not even the worst thing we're doing

https://i.imgur.com/7eompDi.mp4

# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 21:03

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Rime posted:

I was shower thinking last night and I legitimately couldn't envision our food supply chains surviving sans-plastic without causing a nightmarish degree of environmental degradation in the process - due to the demand for paper and glass it would cause and the knock-on effects of those supply chains exploding in output.

Unlike plastic, glass is really well re-usable and sanitizing is easy. infact, we used to have milk systems where people would leave out egg-crates of milk bottles, they'd pick them up and drop off newly filled ones. now granted you do rely on fossil fuels for driving around but well, yknow.

paper is actually something that lovely fast growing trees can be reliably mulched and grown again quickly without needing to cut down og forests

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 01:57

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Cloks posted:

this is why i have a milk door in my house

i used to live in an old apartment building by campus that had these, but i think it was for ice delivery? not sure

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 04:27

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1445511616091541504?s=20

only 14%??? idk seems like theres been way more coral bleaching and death than that these days

# ¿ Oct 6, 2021 01:40

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Rime posted:

I sigh, punching out hour 36 of this week tonight.

i thought you were quitting your wind job?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2021 03:14

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Rime posted:

Since everyone is quitting I negotiated concessions to come back and do this last chill job up in Canada, and go home once a month to see my partner instead of once every eleven. I'll negotiate more extreme concessions next week, what are they gonna do, say no when we need to hire 800 field techs next year to build this poo poo on schedule? In this job market? Ok, LOL.

hey that's good. leverage that poo poo all you can. at the least get that sweet 4 on / 4 off which sounds like you're doing. still rough though. also a good opportunity to unionize the gently caress out of everyone in your field since they can't say no.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2021 05:07

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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i'm working on like 20 miles of shoreline protection seawalls for various airports for 42" of sea level rise by 2050 and all i can do is lol

# ¿ Oct 7, 2021 05:08

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Basic Poster posted:

Hey I thought we had a decade before large scale crop infertility WTF

https://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/2021-10-06/strange-harvest-weird-shaped-potatoes-melons-that-wont-keep-and-no-moisture-to-plant-wheat

there's a massive wheat shortage leading to pasta shortages and major price increase right now too lol

anyways earth can grow enough food to support 30 billion people, it's just a matter of distribution and planting more.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2021 20:10

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SKULL.GIF posted:

Once you take the Plasticpill you never go back

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/12/health/plastic-chemical-early-death-wellness/index.html

We are collectively poisoning ourselves to insane degrees because of mass addiction to fossil fuels.

yeah its bad but at this point it's like the white rabbit reading the list of alice crimes just unfolding infinitely. just another tick on the chalk board on a long line of poo poo we've hosed up permanently.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 11:03

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Lostconfused posted:

That's because people just cut them down again. Planting trees would have to be a massive global and long term effort to show any results.

Edit: Arguing if it would work or not is entirely academic and it doesn't matter which side is right. It's never going to happen in the first place so it doesn't even matter if it would work or not.

i agree its moot and we are on the same page.

but for funsies we've dug up hundreds of millions of years-worth of 100000 petragiga tons of carbon that was nicely sequestered. tree's kinda have a somewhat net-zero cycle overall in that at best it'd be taking out carbon from previous burnt trees and poo poo but when they die they mostly decay back into co2. also we've destroyed and used up almost every acre of land for human habitat and farming. and then climate conditions leading to increasingly worse prospects for tree growth and actually turns out photosynth cycle is getting way worse.

like yeah maybe we could 'engineer' (lol) some new trees that grow faster in harsher and more extreme-tolerant conditions and plant it writ large and it would drop co2 a little bit, but then they mature and eventually stall or die and decay back. assuming we razed all our cul-de-sac tract houses + mega ag farmland and gave back all the land to nature (lol)

still should be done to provide some semblance of habitat for whatever meager critters are remaining.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 11:10

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Spergin Morlock posted:

its only a matter of time before some bacteria figures out how to metabolize plastic and once that happens the problem fixes itself

there are but it's more forced in a lab environment and not something that's happy to reproduce and spread in the wide. also the byproduct of eating plastic is also toxic lol

the thing is, the organic molecular breakdown of polymers and such isn't very energy-friendly

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 22:08

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mediaphage posted:

irl though it�s usually the case that there�s plenty of other stuff for them to digest and so they�ll generally be outcompeted by microbes that don�t end up with these mutations. so while we�ll see limited examples popping up they�re mostly only going to be useful for industrial biodigesters and never imo as a sort of general widespread bug that eats all the plastic.

yep

also a key underlining point thus far is this poo poo only works when you put it into an industrial vat and heat it up to 65c+ (using fossil fuels) to significantly soften it first because at normal temps it's just too chained up to be viable to eat. lol

# ¿ Oct 14, 2021 20:24

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 05:52

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SKULL.GIF posted:

I really want to find the fucker who engineered "paper is wasteful!" and assault him like the Achewood cats went after the Comic Sans guy

probably useful idiots like the greenpeace types who are just easily puppeted by big petrochem; much like idpol is weaponized by dc liberals you use something feelgoody soundsgoody like oh no we gotta save the trees and whamo, tax credits for rich people.

but plastic is far cheaper for storing containers of salsa, guacs, milk, bag of cheeze nips, and keeps it fresher. can't really have our grotesque atomized americana consumption culture without plastic

Xaris has issued a correction as of 04:52 on Oct 15, 2021

# ¿ Oct 15, 2021 04:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Biosphere Collapse] 420 days of blazin' it

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