Climate Change thread: tl; dr - We are so screwed

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

Tactical Mistake: May 11, 2011; Planning Ahead Strategically

Your Sledgehammer posted:

Climate change is not the only reason why 7 billion may not be viable, though. You've also got to consider resource depletion (we are facing not only peak oil, but also peak soil and peak water) and loss of biodiversity (which puts the balance of all life on Earth in a very fragile state).

If we could even solve one out of the three catastrophic problems (which seems unlikely considering mainstream political thought), the other two would leave us just as hosed. The issue is that most people try to think of what it'd be like to get away from an oil-based economy and they just stop there, without probing the problem any further.

Getting away from oil is not enough. 7 billion people on this planet, as well as civilization itself, is what is not sustainable. Even if climate change were not a threat, we'd still be totally screwed by resource depletion and loss of biodiversity. There is no way that 7 billion people can use resources in such a way that the Earth is able to replenish them; it's just not possible. You end up having to take so many resources that other life forms are forced into extinction, and that loss of biodiversity eventually results in ecological breakdown. The fact that it has taken us 10,000 years to hit that point is irrelevant.

Some have suggested that civilization itself was the result of humans hitting natural population limits in precivilized societies. This makes perfect sense to me, and it set in motion a strategy of trying to work around natural limits rather than live with them as best we can. It doesn't take rocket science to see that this strategy is going to bite us in the rear end hard sooner or later. We are not special snowflakes - we are just as bound by natural limits as any other life form.

Let me say this again just to be totally clear, so that no one can attempt to twist my words:
I believe a collapse is inevitable, and I am deeply saddened by it. Suggesting that a crash is inevitable is not the same as advocating or celebrating a crash. It's the difference between saying the ship is sinking and intentionally running the ship into an iceberg.

I think most people know the ship is sinking. When I bring it up in conversations, I usually get an awkward laugh or a polite joke back, no one wants to talk about it.

# ? May 29, 2012 05:36

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# ? May 9, 2024 21:05

rivetz: Sep 22, 2000; Soiled Meat

Your Sledgehammer posted:

Let me say this again just to be totally clear, so that no one can attempt to twist my words:
I believe a collapse is inevitable, and I am deeply saddened by it. Suggesting that a crash is inevitable is not the same as advocating or celebrating a crash. It's the difference between saying the ship is sinking and intentionally running the ship into an iceberg.

I have to be honest and say that I have been nosing around the same conclusions, though I haven't gone out of my way to voice them too much because it can sound morose at best and psychotic at worst, or implies that I'm somehow tapping my foot and looking at my watch and waiting for Ebola or Marburg or one of the other filovirii to muscle its way out of the tropics and do a number on the global headcount. However it's getting harder and harder for me to avoid the dismaying conclusion that these constraints on resources (and not just energy) will have terrible consequences for a huge swath of the population no matter what we do, and that a drastic and painful realignment is inevitable.

It shouldn't follow that I'm excited about it, or that we shouldn't stop doing everything we can to mitigate it, it's just...gently caress, do the math. Something has to give in a huge, huge way, and it's probably a) population and b) industrialized standard of living.

Tactical Mistake posted:

I think most people know the ship is sinking. When I bring it up in conversations, I usually get an awkward laugh or a polite joke back, no one wants to talk about it.

Yeah, this. Although more and more there's just a lovely silence because the scope of the problem is obvious enough that it doesn't take tons of research and experience to add it up, people just tend to block it out.

EDIT: Ehh that makes it sound like I go around intoning dire prophecies to anyone who will listen or some bullshit. I don't, but when the subject comes up, people know I follow this stuff and have a brain, and when they ask for an honest opinion they more or less get it if the conversation is headed in that direction.

rivetz fucked around with this message at 05:47 on May 29, 2012

# ? May 29, 2012 05:42

Ronald Nixon: Mar 18, 2012

Your Sledgehammer, the points you made earlier are like those Craig Dilworth makes in Too Smart for our Own Good, have you read it?

The thrust of the argument is that our mental capacity is too far advanced for our rate of evolution. Evolution has not endowed us with a set of behaviours that offset the result of our substantial intellect, because evolution works on far too slow a timescale compared to our mental ability to think of solutions to the immediate problems we face.

As we've come up against natural constraints, our intellect has allowed us (via tool use, clothing, planning, complex communication etc etc) to circumvent the constraints and increase our numbers by learning how to extract more from the stock of the planet's resources that is not renewed each year by the sun.

In the presence of this surplus, we've gone ever onward to increasing numbers, far beyond what the land can supply via that renewal from the sun each year. As you allude, it stems as far back as the development of tools.

In this light, the development of technology - 'progress' - can be seen as the signs of a society hitting natural constraints, and the development of the technology is a response to that. Each layer of technology builds on the former, and each layer increases again the rate that we are able to deplete the stock of resources that aren't renewed. Economic growth is an indicator of pressure on a society that threatens its survival.

# ? May 29, 2012 12:57

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

Fuking yikes:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=apocalypse-soon-has-civilization-passed-the-environmental-point-of-no-return

quote:

Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?

Although there is an urban legend that the world will end this year based on a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, some researchers think a 40-year-old computer program that predicts a collapse of socioeconomic order and massive drop in human population in this century may be on target

By Madhusree Mukerjee | May 23, 2012 | 74

Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust. Splat! Four decades ago, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer model called World3 warned of such a possible course for human civilization in the 21st century. In Limits to Growth, a bitterly disputed 1972 book that explicated these findings, researchers argued that the global industrial system has so much inertia that it cannot readily correct course in response to signals of planetary stress. But unless economic growth skidded to a halt before reaching the edge, they warned, society was headed for overshoot�and a splat that could kill billions.

Don't look now but we are running in midair, a new book asserts. In 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (Chelsea Green Publishing), Jorgen Randers of the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, and one of the original World3 modelers, argues that the second half of the 21st century will bring us near apocalypse in the form of severe global warming. Dennis Meadows, professor emeritus of systems policy at the University of New Hampshire who headed the original M.I.T. team and revisited World3 in 1994 and 2004, has an even darker view. The 1970s program had yielded a variety of scenarios, in some of which humanity manages to control production and population to live within planetary limits (described as Limits to Growth). Meadows contends that the model's sustainable pathways are no longer within reach because humanity has failed to act accordingly.

Instead, the latest global data are tracking one of the most alarming scenarios, in which these variables increase steadily to reach a peak and then suddenly drop in a process called collapse. In fact, "I see collapse happening already," he says. "Food per capita is going down, energy is becoming more scarce, groundwater is being depleted." Most worrisome, Randers notes, greenhouse gases are being emitted twice as fast as oceans and forests can absorb them. Whereas in 1972 humans were using 85 percent of the regenerative capacity of the biosphere to support economic activities such as growing food, producing goods and assimilating pollutants, the figure is now at 150 percent�and growing.

Randers's ideas most closely resemble a World3 scenario in which energy efficiency and renewable energy stave off the worst effects of climate change until after 2050. For the coming few decades, Randers predicts, life on Earth will carry on more or less as before. Wealthy economies will continue to grow, albeit more slowly as investment will need to be diverted to deal with resource constraints and environmental problems, which thereby will leave less capital for creating goods for consumption. Food production will improve: increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause plants to grow faster, and warming will open up new areas such as Siberia to cultivation. Population will increase, albeit slowly, to a maximum of about eight billion near 2040. Eventually, however, floods and desertification will start reducing farmland and therefore the availability of grain. Despite humanity's efforts to ameliorate climate change, Randers predicts that its effects will become devastating sometime after mid-century, when global warming will reinforce itself by, for instance, igniting fires that turn forests into net emitters rather than absorbers of carbon. "Very likely, we will have war long before we get there," Randers adds grimly. He expects that mass migration from lands rendered unlivable will lead to localized armed conflicts.

Graham Turner of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization fears that collapse could come even earlier, but due to peak oil rather than climate change. After comparing the various scenarios generated by World3 against recent data on population, industrial output and other variables, Turner and, separately, the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, conclude that the global system is closely following a business-as-usual output curve. In this model run the economy continues to grow as expected until about 2015, but then falters because nonrenewable resources such as oil become ever more expensive to extract. "Not that we're running out of any of these resources," Turner explains. "It's that as you try to get to unconventional sources such as under deep oceans, it takes a lot more energy to extract each unit of energy." To keep up oil supply, the model predicts that society will divert investment from agriculture, causing a drop in food production. In this scenario, population peaks around 2030 at between seven and eight billion and then decreases sharply, evening out at about four billion in 2100.

Meadows holds that collapse is now all but inevitable, but that its actual form will be too complex for any model to predict. "Collapse will not be driven by a single, identifiable cause simultaneously acting in all countries," he observes. "It will come through a self-reinforcing complex of issues"�including climate change, resource constraints and socioeconomic inequality. When economies slow down, Meadows explains, fewer products are created relative to demand, and "when the rich can't get more by producing real wealth they start to use their power to take from lower segments." As scarcities mount and inequality increases, revolutions and socioeconomic movements like the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street will become more widespread�as will their repression.

Many observers protest that such apocalyptic scenarios discount human ingenuity. Technology and markets will solve problems as they show up, they argue. But for that to happen, contends economist Partha Dasgupta of the University of Cambridge in the U.K., policymakers must guide technology with the right incentives. As long as natural resources are underpriced compared with their true environmental and social cost�as long as, for instance, automobile consumers do not pay for lives lost from extreme climatic conditions caused by warming from their vehicles' carbon emissions�technology will continue to produce resource-intensive goods and worsen the burden on the ecosystem, Dasgupta argues. "You can't expect markets to solve the problem," he says. Randers goes further, asserting that the short-term focus of capitalism and of extant democratic systems makes it impossible not only for markets but also for most governments to deal effectively with long-term problems such as climate change.

"We're in for a period of sustained chaos whose magnitude we are unable to foresee," Meadows warns. He no longer spends time trying to persuade humanity of the limits to growth. Instead, he says, "I'm trying to understand how communities and cities can buffer themselves" against the inevitable hard landing.

Graphs and poo poo on the link.

I hope he's wrong

Still I stand by my long held conviction that in 50 years time if we're looking across a burning and ruined world , and our kids ask us "How the gently caress did this happen?", we owe it to them to present a list of names and addresses of the climate denialists, conservative politicians and billionaires who threw a spanner into our survival attempts, such that our children might drag them from their homes in the dead of the night and hang them by the neck from bridges. It would seem the least consolation we could leave the impending generations we've betrayed.

duck monster fucked around with this message at 15:33 on May 29, 2012

# ? May 29, 2012 15:29

fast cars loose anus: Mar 2, 2007; Pillbug

duck monster posted:

Still I stand by my long held conviction that in 50 years time if we're looking across a burning and ruined world , and our kids ask us "How the gently caress did this happen?", we owe it to them to present a list of names and addresses of the climate denialists, conservative politicians and billionaires who threw a spanner into our survival attempts, such that our children might drag them from their homes in the dead of the night and hang them by the neck from bridges. It would seem the least consolation we could leave the impending generations we've betrayed.

Don't fool yourself; if the climate denialists didn't exist we still wouldn't do anything about it because the kind of changes necessary will never, ever, ever happen. It's a tragedy of the commons on a global scale.

You can hope the denialists are right or prepare for the disaster but thinking that anything will happen to stop it is a pipe dream.

# ? May 29, 2012 16:03

Sylink: Apr 17, 2004

For the people who think end times be coming:

Civilization won't end. The 3rd world will because they are the ones who are most likely to completely die in a worst case scenario.

Developed/industrialized nations will have the resources to re-orient themselves and bootstrap technologies they need as well as drastic cultural/social changes for a new era of resource availability.

EDIT:
And if you want to do something about it,change your lifestyle.

My family has switched to being vegetarian/vegan (which while not perfect, reduces the massive resource cost of meat production). We recycle what we can. We avoid buying inanely wrapped bullshit. Stop buying disposable cheap crap. Buy things that last for decades.

If you have the means, set up renewable sources to do things, windmills, whatever. I'm sure there is more even.

Sylink fucked around with this message at 16:41 on May 29, 2012

# ? May 29, 2012 16:38

rivetz: Sep 22, 2000; Soiled Meat

duck monster posted:

Collapse poo poo

I assume that many here have seen Michael Ruppert's "Collapse". I was not even five minutes ago paging through his book, "Confronting Collapse", which is basically the text version of the same themes. Had to put it down. Even if large sections seem tinged with vague tinfoilhattery, there is enough truth to his conclusions that I had to put it down, too depressing. I guess the most alarming part is that even if his numbers are skewed all over the place (and I have no evidence that they are), it seems clear that a) these are very real problems that will impact us in the relative short-term, and b) nobody in a position to do anything about them is likely to do jackshit.

ugh somebody post something about an exciting breakthrough in alternative energy or something :smith:

# ? May 29, 2012 16:44

rivetz: Sep 22, 2000; Soiled Meat

Erp, double post, sorry

Sylink posted:

Developed/industrialized nations will have the resources to re-orient themselves and bootstrap technologies they need as well as drastic cultural/social changes for a new era of resource availability.

I don't fear the destruction of the human race, I'm wincing at the difficulty and hardship that will certainly accompany a sudden and imperative transition to a sustainable civilization.

quote:

EDIT:
And if you want to do something about it,change your lifestyle.

My family has switched to being vegetarian/vegan (which while not perfect, reduces the massive resource cost of meat production). We recycle what we can. We avoid buying inanely wrapped bullshit. Stop buying disposable cheap crap. Buy things that last for decades.

If you have the means, set up renewable sources to do things, windmills, whatever. I'm sure there is more even.

I do all this poo poo, and so do lots of people around me. I live in Portland which features bikers all over the place, recycling bins in every establishment, vegan poo poo, home gardens, etc etc. I'm sure Portland is considered one of the more eco-friendly metro markets in the U.S. The problem is that for every Portland there are a dozen Fresnos and Omahas. My sales team and I went to Houston a few months back for a training and it was comical how we were milling around in the break room looking for a recycling bin. The Houston folks laughed.

# ? May 29, 2012 16:51

Sylink: Apr 17, 2004

Texas is a wasteful shithole. The amount of sprawl and generally retarded poo poo I've seen there is hilarious.

# ? May 29, 2012 16:51

Siphan: Jul 2, 2007; To the Cheneymobile!

The thing that bothers me most isn't the slow death of the planet but the callousness with which our american compatriots disregard the evidence. I think it has a lot to do with the separation of production from consumption in capitalism. Slajov Zizek has a metaphor for this sort of alienation where he discusses how we can go outside smell the air, see the nicely tended gardens, and ignore the massive landfill that is over the mountain to our left.

That is why i'm going to start a non profit that deals with organic gardening. Because I know gun toting americans and their individualism are going to gently caress up any hope we have for a more sustainable future. Anyone else worry about this sort of scenario? like trying to build a community and then having random assholes from down the street kick down the door and shoot you because they are too alienated to ask for your help?

Anyone else grow their own food? I've been thinking that this is essentially a problem with alienation and capitol so the best way to deal with it is to teach people to separate themselves from the process. Even if they cannot entirely.

# ? May 29, 2012 17:04

Konstantin: Jun 20, 2005; And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

There are all sorts of reasons to grow your own food, but it doesn't help the environment, nor will it prepare you for a breakdown of civilization. The way to make food production environmentally friendly is to have large scale farms use sustainable practices, and have that food distributed to people in high density areas. Having a bunch of people live in low-density areas where they are reliant on cars to get anywhere doesn't help matters, even if they grow food extremely inefficiently, using more of almost every environmental resource per unit of food than the "factory farmer" due to economies of scale and a less than ideal environment.

# ? May 29, 2012 19:28

Paper Mac: Mar 2, 2007; lives in a paper shack

Konstantin posted:

There are all sorts of reasons to grow your own food, but it doesn't help the environment, nor will it prepare you for a breakdown of civilization. The way to make food production environmentally friendly is to have large scale farms use sustainable practices, and have that food distributed to people in high density areas. Having a bunch of people live in low-density areas where they are reliant on cars to get anywhere doesn't help matters, even if they grow food extremely inefficiently, using more of almost every environmental resource per unit of food than the "factory farmer" due to economies of scale and a less than ideal environment.

Thanks for the truthy Econ 101 bullshit, guy who knows nothing about agriculture! As for those of us who actually care about data:

http://mulr.law.unimelb.edu.au/go/34_3_2

Peter Burdon posted:

He notes that while industrial farming may produce more corn per hectare than a small farm, the latter grows corn �as part of a polyculture that also includes beans, squash, potato, and �weeds� that serve as fodder.�135 Under the care of a knowledgeable farmer, who understands the land and the network of relationships that exist therein, the polycrop produces much more food. This holds true �whether you measure in tonnes, calories, or dollars.�136 This final point was supported by the 2002 United States Agricultural Census, which noted that the smallest category of farm �produced $15,104 per hectare and netted about $2,902 per acre.�137 The largest farms, �averaging 15,581 hectares, yielded $249 per hectare and netted about $52 per hectare.�138 Consistent findings have been observed in every farm-size category. Halweil concludes that:

The inverse relationship between farm size and output can be attributed to the
more efficient use of land, water, and other agricultural resources that small op-
erations afford, including the efficiencies of intercropping various plants in the
same field, planting multiple times during the year, targeting irrigation, and in-
tegrating crops and livestock. So in terms of converting inputs into outputs, so-
ciety would be better off with small-scale farmers. And as population continues
to grow in many nations, and the amount of farmland and water available to
each person continues to shrink, a small farm structure may become central to
feeding the planet.139

# ? May 29, 2012 20:35

Konstantin: Jun 20, 2005; And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

Your data includes the qualifer: "Under the care of a knowledgeable farmer, who understands the land and the network of relationships that exist therein...". That's a whole lot different then having a garden of a few square yards. That data about small farms being more efficient is interesting though, although the dollar value figures are probably inflated due to the fact that a lot of small farms are organic, which means they can charge a premium.

# ? May 29, 2012 21:36

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

Sylink posted:

And if you want to do something about it,change your lifestyle.

My family has switched to being vegetarian/vegan (which while not perfect, reduces the massive resource cost of meat production). We recycle what we can. We avoid buying inanely wrapped bullshit. Stop buying disposable cheap crap. Buy things that last for decades.

If you have the means, set up renewable sources to do things, windmills, whatever. I'm sure there is more even.

While doing these things is better than not doing them, it's also important to acknowledge that, ultimately, what people choose to do individually is unlikely to have a significant impact. One reason is industrial and/or necessary use >>> use that can be reasonable curtailed on an individual basis. The other is the same flaw that exists with any solution that consists of "people should choose individually to do X" - virtually all people predictably respond to media messaging and do not think about things independently (though some to greater degrees than others). This is why it's always pretty inane when people say "people should do X" as a solution to problems. Because media messaging is absolutely necessary to cause any large behavioral shift, the focus should mainly be on that.

While this has always been true to an extent, I think that, with the sheer media inundation of the last couple decades, it's more or less a fact of life now. Because people are constantly given information from mainstream media sources (due to the internet, smart phones, etc), what (and how) they discuss is dictated by what the media discusses. This wasn't as much the case in the years before television media became "sophisticated" (and to an even lesser extent back when there was just radio). Because there wasn't a constant influx of information, there was some room for people/groups to have their own reactions to events and issues. Today, the vast majority of discussion is centered around something being discussed in the media, and usually with people taking one of the common, mainstream views as their own (it should be self-explanatory why this is the case).

I personally believe that it is impossible for views that don't benefit wealthy organizations/individuals to achieve any significant, long-term media presence (and thus make progress in any way). Everything we know about the relationship between media and the way people form their views points towards there being no solution to this sort of problem. We see progress in some social issues primarily because there isn't some giant financial incentive to, say, prevent gay marriage. But we will likely never see progress towards alleviating problems like global warming or income inequality.

# ? May 29, 2012 21:40

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

To take the conversation in a slightly different direction I do have a question: what is it about the US/Australian lifestyle that makes their carbon footprint so much larger per capita than in a lot of other similarly developed countries? Is it just a lot of individual lifestyle factors adding up (larger cars, bigger distances to travel, larger homes, poor insulation, more goods consumed) or is there some major systemic reason to do with how energy is generated and used on a macro scale?

# ? May 29, 2012 22:43

Mc Do Well: Aug 2, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Fatkraken posted:

To take the conversation in a slightly different direction I do have a question: what is it about the US/Australian lifestyle that makes their carbon footprint so much larger per capita than in a lot of other similarly developed countries? Is it just a lot of individual lifestyle factors adding up (larger cars, bigger distances to travel, larger homes, poor insulation, more goods consumed) or is there some major systemic reason to do with how energy is generated and used on a macro scale?

I think cars have alot to do with it. France actually has surplus nuclear power and sells it to their neighbors (when the Germans realize you can't run an industrial economy solely on solar and wind they will be ponying up). Most electricity in the US (and I'm guessing Australia) is from fossil fuels.

I think the local climate plays a role too, though I'm not sure exactly how Europeans use air conditioning compared to the US/Australia.

Tactical Mistake posted:

I think most people know the ship is sinking. When I bring it up in conversations, I usually get an awkward laugh or a polite joke back, no one wants to talk about it.

Acknowledging the problem requires major changes in lifestyle and political mass action. Neoliberal globalization has made both seem like impossible propositions.

Geraden posted:

Jesus Christ man, get therapy.

And people try to call conservatism a mental illness.

See the study I posted earlier. Those who think it's an issue actually think of themselves in relation to other people, denialists say "gently caress it I'm not changing poo poo". (or as Fox News put it, favoring either Equality or Individuality)

But you know, humans have no effect on their environment, civilizations have never exceeded their carrying capacity, science will fix it, and there's enough oil to last us a thousand years (if we exploit every square inch of the Earth).

Mc Do Well fucked around with this message at 23:26 on May 29, 2012

# ? May 29, 2012 23:06

Siphan: Jul 2, 2007; To the Cheneymobile!

Well we certainly can't expect change from the top down in our system. too much profit to be made from exploitation of the land. I was just considering the level of investment most people put into their communities. I am under the impression that if you want to see a better world you have to build it yourself.

And fatkraken it has to do with the way our infrastructure is set up as well as the fact that we import our goods from around the world. Most energy use is in the transportation process

# ? May 29, 2012 23:24

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Siphan posted:

And fatkraken it has to do with the way our infrastructure is set up as well as the fact that we import our goods from around the world. Most energy use is in the transportation process

Britain does that too though, we import pretty much everything. And most of our electricity is from fossil fuels too. I guess what I'm interested in is a kinda breakdown of where the differences come in: is it spread over the whole of peoples' existence or concentrated in one sphere? Is it a case of bigger homes AND cars AND driving further and more often AND using air conditioning AND buying more electronics AND transporting goods further AND inefficient farming, or are there a couple of things that are just done in a completely different way in the States versus Europe and make up the bulk of the difference?

# ? May 30, 2012 00:03

Siphan: Jul 2, 2007; To the Cheneymobile!

Yes to all of the above, the primary difference in the american system as far as I know has to do with the distances traveled by the commodities. In America the commodity is driven much farther to get to its destination then in Britain or Europe. There is much much less reliance on alternative forms of transportation here. A lot of cities actually remove public transportation to keep out poors.

# ? May 30, 2012 00:30

Siphan: Jul 2, 2007; To the Cheneymobile!

I mean they are both similar in that they are capitalist modes of production which means they both suffer from similar inefficiencies to be sure. But everyone here owns a car, there are some 60million registered vehicles in California alone but only 37million people. We really hosed ourselves with the freeways and highways as now we can't get rid of them or else oil profit fall and thats no good for the politicians over here.

# ? May 30, 2012 00:33

Maluco Marinero: Jan 18, 2001; Damn that's a
fine elephant.

Fatkraken posted:

To take the conversation in a slightly different direction I do have a question: what is it about the US/Australian lifestyle that makes their carbon footprint so much larger per capita than in a lot of other similarly developed countries? Is it just a lot of individual lifestyle factors adding up (larger cars, bigger distances to travel, larger homes, poor insulation, more goods consumed) or is there some major systemic reason to do with how energy is generated and used on a macro scale?

It's the American Dream / Australian Quarter Acre Home. We (by we I mean Australia in general) have an issue with middle class entitlement. We've had it so good that the middle and upper class is typically obsessed with home ownership and accumulation a long way from city central. We buy gas guzzling 4WDs, commute for hours a day, have more than 1 car per person in a lot of instances, and set our Air Cons to 16 degrees on 40 degree days.

We want to have the cake and eat it too, and our economic fortune has allowed us to do it. When our economy slows, Australians genuinely believe they're doing it tough in a family with a combined income of over $100,000, conveniently ignoring the fact that they take an overseas holiday every year, are heavy on the mortgage, and likely have more cars than they need.

Our economic success allows us to gobble up far more resources per capita, and our cognitive dissonance / unawareness of how good we've got it means we feel it's our RIGHT.

I'm afraid I don't have statistics, but the writing is on the wall if you knew what our culture is like. It encourages consumption heavily, and that's all you need to make the entire cycle work in overdrive.

# ? May 30, 2012 00:40

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

Sylink posted:

Texas is a wasteful shithole. The amount of sprawl and generally retarded poo poo I've seen there is hilarious.

Come see perth australia for real depressing. Our soil is about 1 inch deep, half our useable farm land is already gone from salinity and climate change, and we're running out of fresh water. The major reason my climate/groundwater science sister left the state was pure depression at the inertia and resistance to change.

So will we do anything about it? gently caress no, its the most successful economy on the planet (literally), its all about dig dig build build lets get the kids SUVs. At least until the chinese stop buying steel and then we're suddenly post-collapse dubai

We're loving doomed.

# ? May 30, 2012 02:59

Maluco Marinero: Jan 18, 2001; Damn that's a
fine elephant.

Yep, my home town until about three months ago. Just keep expanding that freeway boys!

# ? May 30, 2012 03:08

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

rebel1608 posted:

Don't fool yourself; if the climate denialists didn't exist we still wouldn't do anything about it because the kind of changes necessary will never, ever, ever happen. It's a tragedy of the commons on a global scale.

You can hope the denialists are right or prepare for the disaster but thinking that anything will happen to stop it is a pipe dream.

Without really touching on the whole socialist ranting direction this thread has taken, please realize that there is a massive, massive, massive flaw in your worrying, and it is a failure to account for technological advancement.

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? May 30, 2012 09:08

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

duck monster posted:

Still I stand by my long held conviction that in 50 years time if we're looking across a burning and ruined world , and our kids ask us "How the gently caress did this happen?", we owe it to them to present a list of names and addresses of the climate denialists, conservative politicians and billionaires who threw a spanner into our survival attempts, such that our children might drag them from their homes in the dead of the night and hang them by the neck from bridges. It would seem the least consolation we could leave the impending generations we've betrayed.

First of all, this post is pretty drat deranged. I'm not sure if you're self-reflective about what you just typed, but you probably should be. This reads like a murder fantasy.

But I am wondering...what is going to happen in 50 years? You seem to have these visions of doom, almost as if you want them to occur just to be proved right or something.

Climate changes are FAR too slow for anything on that type of time scale to lead to some sort of apocalypse.

# ? May 30, 2012 09:18

gay picnic defence: Oct 5, 2009; I'M CONCERNED ABOUT A NUMBER OF THINGS

Arkane posted:

Without really touching on the whole socialist ranting direction this thread has taken, please realize that there is a massive, massive, massive flaw in your worrying, and it is a failure to account for technological advancement.

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

Just as you can't assume that some new piece of technology will come and save our collective asses. You only have to look at depictions of the 21st century made in the 80s to see how optimistic people have been in the past. The green revolution was mostly dumb luck in that there had just been a huge war and as a result there were a bunch of factories making explosives that could also be used as fertiliser.

# ? May 30, 2012 09:22

froglet: Nov 12, 2009; You see, the best way to Stop the Boats is a massive swarm of autonomous armed dogs. Strafing a few boats will stop the rest and save many lives in the long term.

You can't make an Omelet without breaking a few eggs. Vote Greens.

Arkane posted:

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

We're equipped to deal with it now. The problem isn't lack of technology, it's that the nations that are in a position to do something about it have been delaying on doing anything because it's politically unpopular.

# ? May 30, 2012 09:59

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

froglet posted:

We're equipped to deal with it now. The problem isn't lack of technology, it's that the nations that are in a position to do something about it have been delaying on doing anything because it's politically unpopular.

It's like being trapped behind a wall of soundproof glass watching a toddler sticking a fork in a plug socket. YOU know what's going to happen, it would be easy to stop it from happening, but instead you just have to watch the inevitable disaster unfold.

We have the technology. We have the manpower. We could do it with somewhat of a hit to our standard of living in the west but nothing like having to go back to the dark ages. But the way our society and politics are set up, it seems that we won't.

# ? May 30, 2012 11:16

Ronald Nixon: Mar 18, 2012

Fatkraken posted:

To take the conversation in a slightly different direction I do have a question: what is it about the US/Australian lifestyle that makes their carbon footprint so much larger per capita than in a lot of other similarly developed countries? Is it just a lot of individual lifestyle factors adding up (larger cars, bigger distances to travel, larger homes, poor insulation, more goods consumed) or is there some major systemic reason to do with how energy is generated and used on a macro scale?

Assuming you're Australian, your own government can tell you:

http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2011/report/atmosphere/2-2-pressures-on-australias-climate.html#ss2-2-1

Figure 3.11

Arkane posted:

Without really touching on the whole socialist ranting direction this thread has taken, please realize that there is a massive, massive, massive flaw in your worrying, and it is a failure to account for technological advancement.

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

What you should also acknowledge is that it is technology that has created the problems, directly or indirectly. At what point do you think technology will turn from a net problem creator to a net problem solver?

# ? May 30, 2012 12:34

duck monster: Dec 15, 2004

Arkane posted:

First of all, this post is pretty drat deranged. I'm not sure if you're self-reflective about what you just typed, but you probably should be. This reads like a murder fantasy.

But I am wondering...what is going to happen in 50 years? You seem to have these visions of doom, almost as if you want them to occur just to be proved right or something.

Climate changes are FAR too slow for anything on that type of time scale to lead to some sort of apocalypse.

We kill other types of murderers, why not climate denialists?

Well Denialists and the politicians and companies that run their PR via them are potentially going to cause a death toll in the billions at some of the higher end plausible projections.

We need to stop mincing words about the game these people are in, specifically crimes against humanity.

The reality is, it has been extensively documented and proven that the climate denialism campain was concieved and has been coordinated by a group of public relations firms , previously notable for an earlier failed attempt at casting doubt on the tobacco-cancer link, and in some american cases, biology education too, and funded by a number of oil manufacturers, namely BP, Exxon and a few others, along with a network of likewise funded pseudoacademic "thinktanks" to prey on the lack of science training in the community to create the perception of a vast left wing conspiracy to somehow make scientists lie about the climate for some reason nobody has seemed to work out.

The campaign then got viscious with a campaign of defamation and harassment against a number of key researchers, including in some cases even involving death threats, vandalism, attempts to defund researchers and so on.

And whats most galling is many of these denialists know full well they are lying and thus potentially gambling with the life of present and future generations. This is unconscionably irresponsible, and in other contexts, other variants of this behavior such as drink driving and so on, would lead to severe repercussions.

So I reitterate my claim. We owe it to future generations to note the identities of those behind all this poo poo because I strongly believe what is happening is in effect a crime against humanity.

I accept some of these people are acting out of stupidity and thus a moral case might be made that stupidity isnt a crime, but many of the think tanks are acting out of malice, and frankly it needs to be stopped, by force if needs be.

quote:

Climate changes are FAR too slow for anything on that type of time scale to lead to some sort of apocalypse.

Dude, you've been wrong about almost everything you've posted in thee threads so far, and whoops, your wrong again. We are already experiencing famines in places. We are already getting changes in malaria distributions.

Nobody is talking about the bad times as some sort of near vs far future thing anymore. Shits already started.

duck monster fucked around with this message at 13:16 on May 30, 2012

# ? May 30, 2012 13:01

ANIME AKBAR: Jan 25, 2007; afu~

Arkane posted:

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

Arkane posted:

But I am wondering...what is going to happen in 50 years? You seem to have these visions of doom, almost as if you want them to occur just to be proved right or something.

Climate changes are FAR too slow for anything on that type of time scale to lead to some sort of apocalypse.

I don't see how you could possibly expect technology to exist in 50 years which is capable of reversing climate change. Every suggestion I've heard is sci-fi level nonsense (giant space mirrors, etc), which can't happen on that time scale. Unless you actually have some specific technology in mind, you're totally unconvincing.

On the other hand, preventing (or at least mitigating) climate change before it gets too bad is much more feasible (still a great challenge). But you'd have to be a moron to actually suggest we just wait for the consequences to full emerge, and try to deal with them then.

# ? May 30, 2012 13:19

rivetz: Sep 22, 2000; Soiled Meat

Arkane posted:

Without really touching on the whole socialist ranting direction this thread has taken, please realize that there is a massive, massive, massive flaw in your worrying, and it is a failure to account for technological advancement.

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

Virtually all of our current problems are unintended negative consequences of our existing technology.

Arkane posted:

But I am wondering...what is going to happen in 50 years?

Huh? There are plenty of trends peripheral to climate change that are comparatively easy to map out over a 50-year scale. Salinization of soil, pH trends, air pollution, biodiversity, human population. Evidently the best path forward is to not acknowledge these and actively seek to implement a solution, but to instead wait for the outer space robots to save the day or something, or for some geek to invent a bad-poo poo-sucker-upper.

rivetz fucked around with this message at 15:55 on May 30, 2012

# ? May 30, 2012 15:46

froglet: Nov 12, 2009; You see, the best way to Stop the Boats is a massive swarm of autonomous armed dogs. Strafing a few boats will stop the rest and save many lives in the long term.

You can't make an Omelet without breaking a few eggs. Vote Greens.

rivetz posted:

or for some geek to invent a bad-poo poo-sucker-upper.

This is the thing that people seem to not understand. These have been invented. Several times over. The reason why nobody really hears about them is because they usually get crushed in the bottleneck between 'research and development' and 'deployment'. It's considerably cheaper and easier to plant and maintain a forest than it is to operate a device that sucks tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Edit: At least with a forest the average person can see the intrinsic value of having one around (e.g. value as wildlife habitat, shade, aesthetically pleasing, etc). With carbon scrubbers, many people may not understand the worth of having a machine that does the work of a forest if it's just a big ugly machine out in the middle of nowhere removing CO2 from the atmosphere because they don't really understand what 'climate change' is.

froglet fucked around with this message at 16:24 on May 30, 2012

# ? May 30, 2012 16:09

Siphan: Jul 2, 2007; To the Cheneymobile!

It's a little something I like to call trickle down technomics, you see the rich and scientifically minded spend their days crafting wonderful devices which will drop poo poo onto to the heads of the lower classes in elaborate ways. Victory is determined when one coincidentally cures the world's ills as a byproduct of the fancy gizmo's they have constructed. This never happens fyi, even in cancer research today more money goes into drugs that treat but not cure because it is profitable to treat and not cure.

That is the issue with advanced technology solving all our problems. I went to a union of concerned scientists seminar the other day and their solution to bring climate change down and reduce energy dependence was purchase electric vehicles and more personal responsibility. I had to explain that half of america is poor or low income and you can't ask them to purchase a new vehicle just because it is good for the environment and saves them money, choices are limited by knowledge. Uneducated people are unlikely to make educated choices about their impact in society, uneducated and poor people are likely to be doing whatever is necessary to survive.

# ? May 30, 2012 16:15

Evil_Greven: Feb 20, 2007; Whadda I got to,
whadda I got to do
to wake ya up?

To shake ya up,
to break the structure up!?

Arkane posted:

Without really touching on the whole socialist ranting direction this thread has taken, please realize that there is a massive, massive, massive flaw in your worrying, and it is a failure to account for technological advancement.

You cannot just assume the status quo when our technological horizons are being expanded at an incredibly rapid pace. There are decades before any of these adverse effects will take hold, if they ever do. The world will be UNRECOGNIZABLY and UNFATHOMABLY more advanced and better equipped to deal with problems that may arise.

So, essentially, you're putting your faith in the future of humankind in wizards?

They won't save you or us. Only we can save ourselves. It's just that nobody can be arsed to do so.

# ? May 30, 2012 16:17

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Siphan posted:

This never happens fyi, even in cancer research today more money goes into drugs that treat but not cure because it is profitable to treat and not cure.

Curing various forms of cancer would be SPECTACULARLY profitable. The reason most drugs treat rather than cure is curing cancer is really really hard, not some grand conspiracy.

# ? May 30, 2012 16:23

Paper Mac: Mar 2, 2007; lives in a paper shack

Siphan posted:

This never happens fyi, even in cancer research today more money goes into drugs that treat but not cure because it is profitable to treat and not cure.

Uh, there's no cure for cancer, so it doesn't really have anything to do with profitability, unless you're suggesting that basic researchers are deliberately suppressing a cancer cure in order to get more grants or something.

# ? May 30, 2012 16:30

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Paper Mac posted:

Uh, there's no cure for cancer, so it doesn't really have anything to do with profitability, unless you're suggesting that basic researchers are deliberately suppressing a cancer cure in order to get more grants or something.

Well, there are some cancers where the treatment can lead to permanent remission with no need for long term follow up treatment past monitoring, so you could see those cancers as somewhat curable.

There might be some truth in saying pharmaceutical companies are more interested in creating products derivative of existing treatments rather than entirely novel cures, but this is not because there's more money in treatment than cure. It's because the structure of big companies makes them risk averse and the structure of patents means a novel molecule with an effect similar to an existing molecule gets a new patent. Looking for a new drug that is completely unlike any existing drugs is very risky, you might put in billions in R&D and end up with nothing. This, by the way, is why publicly funded pharmaceutical and medical research is absolutely essential, companies are OK at bringing promising research to market but VERY bad at the basic groundwork

# ? May 30, 2012 16:38

Wolfsheim: Dec 23, 2003; "Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste."

Eh, the way you guys are presenting it what's the point of doing anything other than waiting for a 'magic bullet' that fixes climate change? Pushing for advocacy as some random person on the internet with twenty bucks to my name is meaningless, and sure, we could all start living like luddites, but (1) everyone else will keep on using technology, so small individuals efforts will do little beyond making that person feel slightly better about themselves,and (2)why start now when everyone (who is still alive) would have to get on board with the same lovely subsistence-farming-community lifestyle when society collapses after a series of natural disasters in X number of years anyway?

Seems like hoping for technology to save us is about as worthwhile as talking about how hosed we are on the internet, anyway.

# ? May 30, 2012 16:55

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# ? May 9, 2024 21:05

Siphan: Jul 2, 2007; To the Cheneymobile!

Fatkraken posted:

Curing various forms of cancer would be SPECTACULARLY profitable. The reason most drugs treat rather than cure is curing cancer is really really hard, not some grand conspiracy.

I have worked in cancer labs I know that, I am not saying it is some conspiracy but rather a symptom of a larger issue in healthcare. Firms spend billions in R&D knowing that their drug does not cure cancer but only treats parts of the breakdown of normal cell processes, that money comes back to them after you get cancer and are treated with their theoretical drug for months and months to no avail. They aren't suppressing a cure they are producing them faster than ever.

# ? May 30, 2012 16:55

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

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