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

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

This forum has been entirely too optimistic lately, covering things like retrenchment of the patriarchy, roll back of human rights, extreme force being used against peaceful protesters, endemic corruption, war, and genocide. So I thought it was time to have a thread that brought it all back down to earth, so that you could be aware of how utterly hosed the human race is.

Here's the latest honest piece I've found, though it still sugar-coats it.

http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-12-05-the-brutal-logic-of-climate-change

quote:

The brutal logic of climate change

The consensus in American politics today is that there's nothing to be gained from talking about climate change. It's divisive, the electorate has more pressing concerns, and very little can be accomplished anyway. In response to this evolving consensus, lots of folks in the climate hawk coalition (broadly speaking) have counseled a new approach that backgrounds climate change and refocuses the discussion on innovation, energy security, and economic competitiveness.

This cannot work. At least it cannot work if we hope to avoid terrible consequences. Why not? It's simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. "Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake" footing. That simply won't be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It's not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

It is unpleasant to talk like this. People don't want to hear it. They don't want to believe it. They bring to bear an enormous range of psychological and behavioral defense mechanisms to avoid it. It sounds "extreme" and our instinctive heuristics conflate "extreme" with "wrong." People display the same kind of avoidance when they find out that they or a loved one are seriously ill. But no doctor would counsel withholding a diagnosis from a patient because it might upset them. If we're in this much trouble, surely we must begin by telling the truth about it.

So let's have some real talk on climate change.

For today's inconvenient truths (ahem), we turn to Kevin Anderson, a professor of energy and climate change who was, until recently, director of the U.K.'s leading climate research institution, the Tyndall Energy Program. Anderson is a publishing researcher himself and, in his capacity as Tyndall director, was responsible for weaving together multiple lines of research and evidence into a coherent story. This year, with his colleague Alice Bows, he published a must-read paper called "Beyond 'dangerous' climate change: emission scenarios for a new world" [PDF]. If reading academic papers isn't your thing, he also delivers a digestible presentation here, or here with slides. (Discovered via Alex Steffen's excellent Twitter feed.)

Let's walk through Anderson's logic.

1. How much can global average temperature rise before we risk "dangerous" changes in climate? The current consensus answer is: 2 degrees C [3.6 degrees F] above pre-industrial levels.

The 2 degrees C number has been around for over a decade and was reaffirmed by the Copenhagen Accord just last year. Deciding on an "acceptable" level of temperature is a political and somewhat arbitrary judgment, of course, since it lets one number stand in for a wide range of heterogeneous considerations. But it's an important marker. And when it was first developed, it was based on the science of the day.

Here's a chart attempting to show, in simplified form, what amount of temperature rise will produce dangerous effects (the red zones) and what the 2 degrees C level means:

Image: Kevin Anderson, "Beyond 'dangerous' climate change"

Seems sensible enough. But there's a hitch: Climate science has not stood still for the last decade. According to the latest research, the level of damages once expected at 2 degrees C is now expected at considerably lower temperatures. Here's a graph that shows science's evolving understanding:

Image: Kevin Anderson, "Beyond 'dangerous' climate change"

As you can see, the 2 degrees C "guardrail" that separated acceptable from dangerous in 2001 is, in 2009, squarely inside several red zones. Today, the exact same social and political considerations that settled on 2 degrees C as the threshold of safety by all rights ought to settle on 1 degree C [1.8 degrees F]. After all, we now know 2 degrees C is extremely dangerous.

At this point, however, stopping at 1 degree C is physically impossible (we can thank our past inaction for that). Indeed, as we'll see, stopping at 2 degrees C is getting close to impossible as well. There is no longer any reasonable chance of avoiding "dangerous" climate change, so 1 degree C vs. 2 degrees C is a somewhat academic debate. At this point we're just shooting to avoid super-duper-dangerous. Regardless, the numbers that follow are based on 2 degrees C.

2. For the purposes of limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees C, what matters is the total accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere -- our "carbon budget."

Anderson is adamant that the familiar targets almost all politicians and many scientists use in public -- e.g., "80 percent reduction in the rate of emissions by 2050" -- are deeply misleading. As far as the climate is concerned, the rate of emissions in 2050 relative to the rate of emissions today is meaningless. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for over a century; the atmosphere doesn't care what year it arrives. (Though targets in the distant future are comforting to politicians, for obvious reasons.)

The only thing that matters in limiting temperature rise is cumulative emissions, the total amount we dump into the atmosphere this century. When the total concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere rises, temperature rises. That is the correlation that matters.

If we want to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees C or less, then there's only so much carbon we can dump in the atmosphere. That is our "carbon budget" for the century, the amount we have to "spend" before we're in the danger zone. As best we know, the global carbon budget for this century is between 1,320 and 2,200 gigatons (There are too many uncertainties in the science to be more precise than that.)

3. With a carbon budget, it's possible to develop a carbon reduction pathway.

Once the global carbon budget has been determined (and divvied up among countries -- more on that in subsequent posts), it's possible to conceptualize a way reduce carbon fast enough to stay under that budget. Here's a generic example of a carbon reduction pathway:

mage: Kevin Anderson, "Beyond 'dangerous' climate change"

A key fact to remember: For a given carbon reduction pathway, the later emissions peak, the faster they have to fall to stay under budget.

4. Any carbon reduction pathway that limits temperature rise to 2 degrees C shows global emissions peaking extremely soon and declining extremely quickly.

Right now, global emissions are rising, faster and faster. Between 2000 and 2007, they rose at around 3.5 percent a year; by 2009 it was up to 5.6 percent. In 2010, we hit 5.9 percent growth, a record. We aren't just going in the wrong direction -- we're accelerating in the wrong direction.

(Most climate modeling scenarios, e.g. the Stern Report, underplay the current rate of emissions growth, leading to sunnier-than-justified results.)

The growth of emissions is making the task ahead more and more difficult. The longer we wait to start shrinking emissions, the faster we'll have to shrink them to stay under budget. Here's a visualization of what that means -- some sample reduction curves with varying peak years (the four different lines are based on the four main IPCC scenarios):

Image: Kevin Anderson, "Beyond 'dangerous' climate change"

As you can see, if we delay the global emissions peak until 2025, we pretty much have to drop off a cliff afterwards to avoid 2 degrees C. Short of a meteor strike that shuts down industrial civilization, that's unlikely.

How about 2020? Of the available scenarios for peaking in 2020, says Anderson, 13 of 18 show hitting 2 degrees C to be technically impossible. (D'oh!) The others involve on the order of 10 percent reductions a year after 2020, leading to total decarbonization by 2035-45.

Just to give you a sense of scale: The only thing that's ever pushed emissions reductions above 1 percent a year is, in the words of the Stern Report, "recession or upheaval." The total collapse of the USSR knocked 5 percent off its emissions. So 10 percent a year is like ... well, it's not like anything in the history of human civilization.

This, then, is the brutal logic of climate change: With immediate, concerted action at global scale, we have a slim chance to halt climate change at the extremely dangerous level of 2 degrees C. If we delay even a decade -- waiting for better technology or a more amenable political situation or whatever -- we will have no chance.

6. Jeez, 2 degrees C looks hard. Can we just do 4 degrees C [7.2 degrees F] instead?

It might seem that, given the extraordinary difficulty of hitting 2 degrees C, we ought to lower our sights a bit and accept that we're going to hit 4 degrees C. It won't be ideal, but hitting anything lower than that is just too difficult and expensive.

It's seductive logic. After all, to hit 4 degrees C we would "only" have to peak global emissions in 2020 and decline thereafter at the relatively leisurely rate (ha ha) of around 3.5 percent per year.

Sadly, even that cold comfort is not available to us. The thing is, if 2 degrees C is extremely dangerous, 4 degrees C is absolutely catastrophic. In fact, according to the latest science, says Anderson, "a 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond 'adaptation', is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable."

Yeeeah. You'll want to read that sentence again. Then you'll probably want to pour yourself a stiff drink.

Obviously, "incompatible with an organized global community" is what jumps out, but the last bit, "high probability of not being stable," is equally if not more important. One of the most uncertain areas of climate science today has to do with feedbacks -- processes caused by climate change that in turn accelerate (or decelerate) climate change. For instance, heat can melt the Arctic permafrost, which releases methane, which accelerates climate change, which melts more permafrost, etc.

Based on current scientific understanding, positive climate feedbacks -- the ones that accelerate the process -- considerably outweigh negative feedbacks. At some level of temperature rise, some of those positive feedbacks are likely to become self-reinforcing and effectively unstoppable, no matter how much emissions are cut. These are the "tipping points" you hear so much about.

But at what level? Will hitting 2 degrees C trigger runaway positive feedbacks? It's difficult to know; this is one of the most uncertain areas of climate science. James Hansen thinks 2 degrees C will do it. Others disagree.

But the situation becomes considerably clearer around 4 degrees C. At that level, there's good reason to believe that some positive feedbacks will become self-reinforcing. In other words, 4 degrees C would very likely be a way station on the road to much higher temperatures.

That makes the notion of "adapting" to 4 degrees C a bit of a farce. Infrastructure decisions involve big money and long time horizons. By the time we've built (or rebuilt) infrastructure suited to 4 degrees C, it will be 5 degrees C [9 degrees F]. And so on. A climate in which conditions are changing that fast just isn't suitable for stable human civilization (or for the continued existence of a majority of the planet's species).

Oh, and by the way: According to the International Energy Agency, we're currently on course for 6 degrees C [10.8 degrees F]. That is, beyond any reasonable doubt, game over.

So this is where we're at: stuck between temperatures we can't possibly accommodate and carbon reduction pathways we can't possibly achieve. A rock and a hard place. Scylla and Charybdis.

What does it mean for the way we think about climate policy? I'll address that in my next post.

I said it sugar-coats it, and it does. It doesn't talk about acidification of the ocean, what that does to fish stocks, and what that does to the global food supply.

Here is a nice article on that impact from NASA back in 06 - you know, when they were deliberately understating how bad things are. They are talking about the warming here, since that is easier to manipulate than the pH changes

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/warm_marine.html

quote:

Climate Warming Reduces Ocean Food Supply
12.06.06

In a NASA study, scientists have concluded that when Earth's climate warms, there is a reduction in the ocean's primary food supply. This poses a potential threat to fisheries and ecosystems.

Image right: Satellite data reveals the ebb and flow of microscopic plant life in the world's ocean. In this image of the Pacific from the late 1990s, robust plant growth is represented in green; areas of low "productivity" are in blue. NASA research has now shown how these marine plants are linked to changes in climate. Credit: NASA

By comparing nearly a decade of global ocean satellite data with several records of Earth's changing climate, scientists found that whenever climate temperatures warmed, marine plant life in the form of microscopic phytoplankton declined. Whenever climate temperatures cooled, marine plant life became more vigorous or productive.

The results provide a preview of what could happen to ocean biology in the future if Earth's climate warms as the result of increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Image left: A close-up view of phytoplankton, the tiny plants that live in the sunlit upper layer of the ocean. Changes in phytoplankton growth influence fishery yields and marine bird populations. Credit: NASA

"The evidence is pretty clear that the Earth's climate is changing dramatically, and in this NASA research we see a specific consequence of that change," said oceanographer Gene Carl Feldman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt. Md. "It is only by understanding how climate and life on Earth are linked that we can realistically hope to predict how the Earth will be able to support life in the future." Feldman is a co-author on the study, which was published this week in Nature.

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants living in the upper sunlit layer of the ocean. They are responsible for approximately the same amount of photosynthesis each year as all land plants combined. Changes in phytoplankton growth and photosynthesis influence fishery yields, marine bird populations and the amount of carbon dioxide the oceans remove from the atmosphere.

Image right: The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor launched in 1997 supports pioneering global environmental research. By providing a regular picture of plant activity on land and in the ocean, researchers are able to learn about the world's interconnected ecosystems. Credit: NASA

"Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere play a big part in global warming," said lead author Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University, Corvallis. "This study shows that as the climate warms, phytoplankton growth rates go down and along with them the amount of carbon dioxide these ocean plants consume. That allows carbon dioxide to accumulate more rapidly in the atmosphere, which would produce more warming."

The findings are from a NASA-funded analysis of data from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) instrument on the OrbView-2 spacecraft, launched in 1997.

Image left: Changes in phytoplankton change how much carbon dioxide the oceans remove from the atmosphere. The life cycle of phytoplankton in the ocean involves absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and nutrient-rich waters. That carbon is then passed on to higher life forms that feed on the plants. Some also sinks to the ocean floor. Click image to play movie. Credit: NASA

The uninterrupted nine-year record shows in great detail the ups and downs of marine biological activity or productivity from month to month and year to year. Captured at the start of this data record was a major, rapid rebound in ocean biological activity after a major El Ni�o event. El Ni�o and La Ni�a are major warming or cooling events, respectively, that occur approximately every 3-7 years in the eastern Pacific Ocean and are known to change weather patterns around the world.

Ocean plant growth increased from 1997 to 1999 as the climate cooled during one of the strongest El Ni�o to La Ni�a transitions on record. Since 1999, the climate has been in a period of warming that has seen the health of ocean plants diminish.

Here is a National Geographic article (and plenty of links) about ocean acidification

http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/

quote:

For tens of millions of years, Earth's oceans have maintained a relatively stable acidity level. It's within this steady environment that the rich and varied web of life in today's seas has arisen and flourished. But research shows that this ancient balance is being undone by a recent and rapid drop in surface pH that could have devastating global consequences.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early 1800s, fossil fuel-powered machines have driven an unprecedented burst of human industry and advancement. The unfortunate consequence, however, has been the emission of billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere.

Scientists now know that about half of this anthropogenic, or man-made, CO2 has been absorbed over time by the oceans. This has benefited us by slowing the climate change these emissions would have instigated if they had remained in the air. But relatively new research is finding that the introduction of massive amounts of CO2 into the seas is altering water chemistry and affecting the life cycles of many marine organisms, particularly those at the lower end of the food chain.

Carbonic Acid

When carbon dioxide dissolves in this ocean, carbonic acid is formed. This leads to higher acidity, mainly near the surface, which has been proven to inhibit shell growth in marine animals and is suspected as a cause of reproductive disorders in some fish.

On the pH scale, which runs from 0 to 14, solutions with low numbers are considered acidic and those with higher numbers are basic. Seven is neutral. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has been slightly basic, averaging about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.

Carbon Storehouse

The oceans currently absorb about a third of human-created CO2 emissions, roughly 22 million tons a day. Projections based on these numbers show that by the end of this century, continued emissions could reduce ocean pH by another 0.5 units. Shell-forming animals including corals, oysters, shrimp, lobster, many planktonic organisms, and even some fish species could be gravely affected.

Equally worrisome is the fact that as the oceans continue to absorb more CO2, their capacity as a carbon storehouse could diminish. That means more of the carbon dioxide we emit will remain in the atmosphere, further aggravating global climate change.

Scientific awareness of ocean acidification is relatively recent, and researchers are just beginning to study its effects on marine ecosystems. But all signs indicate that unless humans are able to control and eventually eliminate our fossil fuel emissions, ocean organisms will find themselves under increasing pressure to adapt to their habitat's changing chemistry or perish.

There is really no positives here. The best case is about we go to global tyranny to muddle through with the most people surviving. Or individual freedom to keep making GBS threads up the cradle, but only the top few % have the resources to make it through the resulting mass die off when the food & water supplies go bye-bye. Assuming that in the resulting shitstorm of insufficient food and water, we don't all kill each other. More likely we keep trying to have our cake and eat it too, and we join most of the rest of the fossil record in extinction.

Let's share more detailed descriptions of how the environment is hosed and so are we! :eng99:

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:02

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 08:38

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

One of the things I learned from the geo-engineering thread I started a little while back is how little we actually understand about our climate and how it changes.

The thing to understand that climate change is global, but its effects aren't equal. Some places are going to get hit harder than others. Bangladesh, for example, is slowly being swallowed by the ocean, while the rest of us might have to deal with some draught or flooding. This will have some serious geo-political repercussions, and thankfully the international community recgonizes that we need a united front when it comes to climate chan--

quote:

The plans for a new global deal on climate change lie broken and abandoned. The usual suspects are meeting again, this time in Durban, but there is even less hope of progress than there was in Cancun last year. The shadow of the disastrous failure in Copenhagen in 2009 still looms over the proceedings like a shroud.

Indeed, even to talk of �progress� is to miss the point. All the effort in Durban is going into preventing further backsliding on the commitments that were made 14 years ago in the Kyoto Protocol to cut the greenhouse gas emissions of the developed countries. The idea of a better, bolder treaty is dead, and even the extension of the modest Kyoto targets for emission reductions beyond 2012 is gravely in doubt.

So the real world of physics and chemistry and global heat balances will just have to wait 10 or 20 years while we human beings sort out our politics and diplomacy. If it won�t wait, then we will pay a very high price indeed. How did we get into this mess?

Every government in Durban, even those of �rogue states� on climate issues like China, Canada, Russia, and the United States, knows perfectly well that the danger of runaway global warming is real and large. Their own scientists tell them so, and their own military forces are drawing up plans to deal the consequences. But they do not act on their knowledge, because the politics around energy issues is poisonous.

Take Barack Obama, for instance. Look at the people he hired to advise him on climate and energy, and it�s clear that he knows exactly how bad the situation is. But he wants to be re-elected next year, and the climate change denial lobby has been so effective in the United States that he can�t afford to say out loud that he takes it very seriously.

Above all, he cannot deviate from the line first taken by George W. Bush, who withdrew from the Kyoto treaty. Bush vowed that he would never sign a treaty mandating emissions cuts by the United States so long as big developing countries like China and India did not have to make similar cuts. Obama says the same, because to do anything else would be political suicide.

His position is fully in tune with public opinion in the West, and especially in the United States, which sees the rapidly developing countries like China, India and Brazil as the heart of the problem. Their emissions are growing very fast because their economies are also growing fast, whereas the �old rich� countries have relatively stable emissions because their economies grow more slowly and they have already built their infrastructure.

It�s true, as far as it goes. The bulk of the astounding six percent increase in global greenhouse gas emissions last year came from China and the other emerging economies. China now emits as much carbon dioxide as the United States (though only a quarter as much per citizen). But that�s only what Western countries see, because it serves their purposes to be blind to the other side of the argument.

The view from China or India is quite different. They stress the fact that 80 percent of the greenhouse gases of human origin that are now in the atmosphere came from the small group of developed countries, which have been burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale for 200 years. They are the real source of the global warming threat, even though they have now more or less stabilised their emissions.

Indeed, if the developed countries had not filled the atmosphere with their emissions for the past 200 years, there would be plenty of room for China and the other developing countries to grow their economies for decades to come, even using fossil fuels on a very large scale, without causing any significant warming. To the developing countries, this is the most important fact of all.

They are right, and the fact that the rich countries ignore their huge historical responsibility for the warming is the reason why a global deal on avoiding large-scale climate change is still close to impossible. You can�t insist that everybody must make equal cuts in their emissions when one group bears much more responsibility for the problem than the other.

Everybody at Durban knows what a climate deal would look like if it ever got signed. It would require deep cuts in emissions from the developed countries (40 percent in 10 years, perhaps), while only asking the emerging economies to cap their emissions where they are now.

Even if they cap their emissions, they would be unwilling to halt their economic growth, so they would need more energy supplies. The new energy would have to come from �clean� power sources like wind, solar, and nuclear, and those are more expensive than just burning fossil fuels. Who would cover the difference in cost? The richer countries, of course, because they bear the burden of historical responsibility.

People care a lot about fairness, and only a fair deal that recognises the importance of this history will ever get signed. Since most people in the West don�t even know the history, and their governments show no sign of wanting to enlighten them, the deal is not going to get signed any time soon.

http://www.straight.com/article-554816/vancouver/gywnne-dyer-rearguard-action-durban-climate-conference

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:28

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Here is a nice article from NASA yesterday about how climate change related droughts have already started and are going to screw us over

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ancient-dry.html

quote:

Ancient Dry Spells Offer Clues About the Future of Drought

As parts of Central America and the U.S. Southwest endure some of the worst droughts to hit those areas in decades, scientists have unearthed new evidence about ancient dry spells that suggest the future could bring even more serious water shortages. Three researchers speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2011, presented new findings about the past and future of drought.

Video at link

Pre-Columbian Collapse

Ben Cook, a climatologist affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City, highlighted new research that indicates the ancient Meso-American civilizations of the Mayans and Aztecs likely amplified droughts in the Yucat�n Peninsula and southern and central Mexico by clearing rainforests to make room for pastures and farmland.

Converting forest to farmland can increase the reflectivity, or albedo, of the land surface in ways that affect precipitation patterns. "Farmland and pastures absorb slightly less energy from the sun than the rainforest because their surfaces tend to be lighter and more reflective," explained Cook. "This means that there�s less energy available for convection and precipitation."

click me for big map

New climate modeling shows that widespread deforestation in pre-Columbian Central America corresponded with decreased levels of precipitation. This image shows how much precipitation declined from normal across the region between 800 C.E. and 950 C.E. It was during this period of time that the Mayan civilization reached its peak population and abruptly collapsed. (Credit: Ben Cook, NASA�s Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
� Larger image

Cook and colleagues used a high-resolution climate model developed at GISS to run simulations that compared how patterns of vegetation cover during pre-Columbian (before 1492 C.E.) and post-Columbian periods affected precipitation and drought in Central America. The pre-Columbian era saw widespread deforestation on the Yucat�n Peninsula and throughout southern and central Mexico. During the post-Columbian period, forests regenerated as native populations declined and farmlands and pastures were abandoned.

Cook's simulations include input from a newly published land-cover reconstruction that is one of the most complete and accurate records of human vegetation changes available. The results are unmistakable: Precipitation levels declined by a considerable amount -- generally 10 to 20 percent -- when deforestation was widespread. Precipitation records from stalagmites, a type of cave formation affected by moisture levels that paleoclimatologists use to deduce past climate trends, in the Yucat�n agree well with Cook's model results.

The effect is most noticeable over the Yucat�n Peninsula and southern Mexico, areas that overlapped with the centers of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and had high levels of deforestation and the most densely concentrated populations. Rainfall levels declined, for example, by as much as 20 percent over parts of the Yucat�n Peninsula between 800 C.E. and 950 C.E.

Cook's study supports previous research that suggests drought, amplified by deforestation, was a key factor in the rapid collapse of the Mayan empire around 950 C.E. In 2010, Robert Oglesby, a climate modeler based at the University of Nebraska, published a study in the Journal of Geophysical Research that showed that deforestation likely contributed to the Mayan collapse. Though Oglesby and Cook's modeling reached similar conclusions, Cook had access to a more accurate and reliable record of vegetation changes.

During the peak of Mayan civilization between 800 C.E. and 950 C.E., the land cover reconstruction Cook based his modeling on indicates that the Maya had left only a tiny percentage of the forests on the Yucat�n Peninsula intact. By the period between 1500 C.E. and 1650 C.E., in contrast, after the arrival of Europeans had decimated native populations, natural vegetation covered nearly all of the Yucat�n. In modern times, deforestation has altered some areas near the coast, but a large majority of the peninsula�s forests remain intact.

"I wouldn't argue that deforestation causes drought or that it's entirely responsible for the decline of the Maya, but our results do show that deforestation can bias the climate toward drought and that about half of the dryness in the pre-Colonial period was the result of deforestation," Cook said.

Northeastern Megadroughts

The last major drought to affect the Northeast occurred in the 1960s, persisted for about three years and took a major toll on the region. Dorothy Peteet, a paleoclimatologist also affiliated with NASA GISS and Columbia University, has uncovered evidence that shows far more severe droughts have occurred in the Northeast.

By analyzing sediment cores collected from several tidal marshes in the Hudson River Valley, Peteet and her colleagues at Lamont-Doherty have found evidence that at least three major dry spells have occurred in the Northeast within the last 6,000 years. The longest, which corresponds with a span of time known as the Medieval Warm Period, lasted some 500 years and began around 850 C.E. The other two took place more than 5,000 years ago. They were shorter, only about 20 to 40 years, but likely more severe.

"People don't generally think about the Northeast as an area that can experience drought, but there's geologic evidence that shows major droughts can and do occur," Peteet said. "It's something scientists can't ignore. What we�re finding in these sediment cores has big implications for the region."

Peteet's team detected all three droughts using a method called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. They used the technique on a core collected at Piermont Marsh in New York to search for characteristic elements -- such as bromine and calcium -- that are more likely to occur at the marsh during droughts.

Fresh water from the Hudson River and salty water from the Atlantic Ocean were both predominant in Piermont Marsh at different time periods, but saltwater moves upriver during dry periods as the amount of fresh water entering the marsh declines. Peteet's team detected extremely high levels of both bromine and calcium, both of them indicators of the presence of saltwater and the existence of drought, in sections of the sediment cores corresponding to 5,745 and 5,480 years ago.

During the Medieval Warm Period, the researchers also found striking increases in the abundance of certain types of pollen species, especially pine and hickory, that indicate a dry climate. Before the Medieval Warm Period, in contrast, there were more oaks, which prefer wetter conditions. They also found a thick layer of charcoal demonstrating that wildfires, which are more frequent during droughts, were common during the Medieval Warm Period.

"We still need to do more research before we can say with confidence how widespread or frequent droughts in the Northeast have been," Peteet said. There are certain gaps in the cores Peteet's team studied, for example, that she plans to investigate in greater detail. She also expects to expand the scope of the project to other marshes and estuaries in the Northeast and to collaborate with climate modelers to begin teasing out the factors that cause droughts to occur in the region.

The Future of Food

Climate change, with its potential to redistribute water availability around the globe by increasing rainfall in some areas while worsening drought in others, might negatively impact crop yields in certain regions of the world.

New research conducted by Princeton University hydrologist Justin Sheffield shows that areas of the developing world that are drought-prone and have growing population and limited capabilities to store water, such as sub-Saharan Africa, will be the ones most at risk of seeing their crops decrease their yields in the future.

Sheffield and his team ran hydrological model simulations for the 20th and 21st centuries and looked at how drought might change in the future according to different climate change scenarios. They found that the total area affected by drought has not changed significantly over the past 50 years globally.

However, the model shows reductions in precipitation and increases in evaporative demand are projected to increase the frequency of short-term droughts. They also found that the area across sub-Saharan Africa experiencing drought will rise by as much as twofold by mid-21st century and threefold by the end of the century.

When the team analyzed what these changes would mean for future agricultural productivity around the globe, they found that the impact on sub-Saharan Africa would be especially strong.

Agricultural productivity depends on a number of factors beyond water availability including soil conditions, available technologies and crop varieties. For some regions of sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers found that agricultural productivity will likely decline by over 20 percent by mid-century due to drying and warming.

Basically, droughts end the food supply, are becoming more common, and over larger areas, including places that haven't seen them with this frequency in thousands of years. Aces.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:30

ts12: Jul 24, 2007

Ah yes, but how can I be sure that these scientists aren't all part of some global conspiracy to invent climate change because they need grant money in order to live????

These threads are loving depressing

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:32

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The worst part is that the shifts in water supply are only part of the food production problem. We're starting to lose arable land because wheat, corn, rice, etc. only germinate at certain temperatures, and even if you're able to water the warming arable areas, yields are going to start dropping.

The band of arable land in northern and southern hemispheres is starting shrink.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:33

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

ts12 posted:

Ah yes, but how can I be sure that these scientists aren't all part of some global conspiracy to invent climate change because they need grant money in order to live????

These threads are loving depressing

Whenever your will to live becomes too strong, read one of my posts. I'll either be talking about something horrible or being a terrible poster, so both will drive you to despair.

Here is about the most optimistic http://news.opb.org/article/osu-study-casts-doubt-worst-case-climate-change/

quote:

A new study led by Oregon State University scientists casts doubt on a climate change worst-case scenario. The new study helps narrow down what the greenhouse effect might mean for the earth�s climate.

"Climate sensitivity" is the measure of how much earth's climate is affected by atmospheric changes, such as increasing carbon dioxide. Previous studies have suggested temperatures could rise as much as ten degrees, if carbon dioxide doubles. OSU professor Andreas Schmittner has now published a study in the journal Science that tested whether such a profound temperature change is at all possible.

"Our study now shows that's not the case, that we can exclude those very high climate sensitivities, and therefore it is feasible to avoid drastic impacts of CO2 emissions, Schmittner explained.

Schmittner's study uses Ice Age data from 20-thousand years ago -- the last time carbon dioxide levels changed dramatically.

Schmittner says avoiding ten-degree increases is good news. But, he says even if global temperatures only go up by a few degrees, it can mean major changes to the world's climate.

A single study says we won't get more than 10 C increase. Of course, there are plenty that contradict this, and less than 10 appears to still be more than enough to wipe us out completely, but hey, ray of sunshine where you can get it, you know?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:37

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

I swear to god I will ban anyone who tries to derail this thread by saying climate change doesn't exist.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:39

zeroprime: Mar 25, 2006; Words go here.; Fun Shoe

ts12 posted:

Ah yes, but how can I be sure that these scientists aren't all part of some global conspiracy to invent climate change because they need grant money in order to live????

These threads are loving depressing

What? No, that's the best part. All of the crazy global conspiracies and shadow machinations that are posited for why scientists are clearly faking reams and reams of data and lying to us in order to stop ?progress? ?capitalism? ?freedom?

At least my parents are starting to think there might be something to this whole "global warming" thing since they live at the boundary of two different vegetative zones and the droughts and unprecedented fires are pushing them from one zone into another. My mom actually recognizes that the forests full of tall water and live oak that she loves around here may be nothing but scraggly black and post oak another 100 years down the line. :smith:

zeroprime fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Dec 7, 2011

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:39

ts12: Jul 24, 2007

zeroprime posted:

What? No, that's the best part. All of the crazy global conspiracies and shadow machinations that are posited for why scientists are clearly faking reams and reams of data and lying to us in order to stop ?progress? ?capitalism? ?freedom?

I don't know if this falls under the purview of this thread, but it's actually something I'm interested in. Why do people claim scientists are all degenerate liars about this? The only real response I've heard on this is that they're afraid to challenge the consensus or something because all scientists are literally squirrelly children or something, but there has to be more dumb poo poo floating around than that.

Xandu posted:

I swear to god I will ban anyone who tries to derail this thread by saying climate change doesn't exist.

Now for what arcane reason would you stifle debate like this :haw:

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:47

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

ts12 posted:

I don't know if this falls under the purview of this thread, but it's actually something I'm interested in. Why do people claim scientists are all degenerate liars about this? The only real response I've heard on this is that they're afraid to challenge the consensus or something because all scientists are literally squirrelly children or something, but there has to be more dumb poo poo floating around than that.

Because for some reason in North America it's become a politicized left/right issue. That hasn't really happened anywhere else.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:51

Fuckt Tupp: Apr 19, 2007; Science

Dreylad posted:

Because for some reason in North America it's become a politicized left/right issue. That hasn't really happened anywhere else.

The Bible never says nothing about no global warming.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:53

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

I'm a chemical oceanographer working on my PhD. My thesis involves some stuff indirectly related to climate change, but I'm very familiar with ocean acidification, warming of the oceans, and other interactions between the atmosphere and oceans. I'm more than happy to (try and) answer any questions on those topics as well as give a little perspective as a scientist.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:54

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Pellisworth posted:

I'm a chemical oceanographer working on my PhD. My thesis involves some stuff indirectly related to climate change, but I'm very familiar with ocean acidification, warming of the oceans, and other interactions between the atmosphere and oceans. I'm more than happy to (try and) answer any questions on those topics as well as give a little perspective as a scientist.

Ok, short version: How bad is it? I used a good chunk of hyperbole there in the OP, but from my extreme layperson understanding, we should basically be in triage mode to save as many lives as possible, rather than adapting. Am I overstating the probable case and impacts? Is there any source for optimism?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 00:56

Pipe Dreamer: Sep 2, 2011; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Dreylad posted:

Because for some reason in North America it's become a politicized left/right issue. That hasn't really happened anywhere else.

It is in Australia as well, where our centre-left government has just passed a tax on carbon/emissions trading scheme amidst one of the most raucous and bitter political debates in years.

It�s a left right issue because it present a way for the left to hold capitalism to account for the damage it does and because the right see action on climate change as being government interference against the free market and the right of individuals to enjoy cheap energy.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 01:04

Execu-speak: Jun 2, 2011; Welcome to the real world hippies!

Dreylad posted:

Because for some reason in North America it's become a politicized left/right issue. That hasn't really happened anywhere else.

No, no, it is exactly the same here in Australia, left wants action on climate change, right wants to bury it's head in the ground. I actually work in the emissions reduction industry and deal with the public a lot, the amount of ignorance and outright denial that it's even an issue leaves me with absolutely no hope that we are going to successfully do anything about this problem.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 01:12

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Dreylad posted:

This will have some serious geo-political repercussions, and thankfully the international community recgonizes that we need a united front when it comes to climate chan--

I thought there was actually a fragment of hope this time around in that China actually seemed prepared to accept a binding resolution on the condition that "others" accepted one as well?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 01:12

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

Fried Chicken posted:

Ok, short version: How bad is it? I used a good chunk of hyperbole there in the OP, but from my extreme layperson understanding, we should basically be in triage mode to save as many lives as possible, rather than adapting. Am I overstating the probable case and impacts? Is there any source for optimism?

In an oceanic context it's pretty damned bad already. Coral reef bleaching events (caused by increase sea surface temperature and lowered pH) have been far more frequent in the last couple decades. There's not likely to be much in the way of coral reefs left by mid-century. And that's just one of the more obvious effects. The ocean itself is very "layered." There's a narrow, warm surface layer of water (typically 30-50m deep) and a deep, cold layer that extends to the bottom (average depth of the ocean is 3.8km). Most of the biological activity of the oceans occurs in that top narrow slice where all the light and heat are. With rising SST, the mixed layer at the surface is expected to shrink even smaller, and the oceans will likely become more intensely stratified. What that means is likely lower productivity which will have huge impacts on the entire marine food web. Less marine "plants" to soak up CO2, less economically important fish that depend on those phytoplankton and algae for food.

It's also worth putting the pH changes in perspective. Remember that the pH scale is logarithmic. Current average ocean pH is about 8.3, and a modest decrease of 0.3 units means the oceans will be fully twice as acidic as they currently are. Not to mention that the warmer and more acidic the water becomes, the less it is able to absorb new CO2.

Here's a good (and exact) analogy: a bottle of soda. The "fizz" or carbonation in soda is dissolved CO2. Sodas are pressurized with more CO2 than they could normally hold (they're supersaturated) so when you open one, you get bubbles of CO2 escaping. What happens when you leave a soda out to warm to room temperature? It goes flat, all the CO2 leaves. Gases are more soluble at cooler temperatures, right now the ocean is responsible for soaking up a lot of the extra CO2 we're producing, but poo poo's gonna get ugly eventually when the oceans are no longer able to absorb as much as they currently are. It's a nasty feedback loop.

That's the science. Here's my opinion in response to your question: I think we're pretty hosed. Money for basic research is being cut with all of this economic trouble, so a lot of scientific research that could increase our understanding of this incredibly complex system isn't being done. I'll freely admit there's a ton we don't understand (give us more money plz). That's not even touching the political issues. I'm not implying the science behind anthropogenic climate change is unsound. The Earth is warming, humans are mostly at fault, end of story. How bad is it going to get? What should be our policy responses? Which regions are going to be wetter/drier/colder/hotter/stormier/underwater? How will ecosystems, agriculture, and economies be affected? We simply don't have the knowledge to be able to accurately predict most of that. And even if we did, I have very little faith in governments to take the necessary and appropriate actions needed to mitigate or prevent the impacts.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 01:13

cerror: Feb 11, 2008; I have a bad feeling about this...

So, staying up here in the subarctic is a good idea, then? Or is it likely to turn this into some crazy wasteland as well?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 01:25

Amoxicilina: Oct 21, 2008

comaerror posted:

So, staying up here in the subarctic is a good idea, then? Or is it likely to turn this into some crazy wasteland as well?

I would say yes, to both questions, if you currently live your life hunting beluga whales for subsistence.

One thing I hate, about even people that accept climate change as an ongoing problem is their reliance on trying to say, "well, once poo poo hits the fan, canada and siberia will become more livable" is lunatic. These areas of the world exist as they are and have been, and the organisms that live there thrive in the current environment that they have. Climate change will effect them just as well as it does us. Polar bears, walrus and elk aren't longing for caribbean beaches after all.

And we have the audacity to think that climate change will make certain parts of the world more hospitable or manageable to us is ok. Once we all move up there, are we going to slash and burn the gigantic untouched boreal forests that exist in these places to grow corn and soybeans? Despite the fact that they provide a great quantity of the oxygen we need to breathe?

Amoxicilina fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Dec 7, 2011

# ? Dec 7, 2011 02:42

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.

It seems like we are at the point where mitigation strategies are useless. It getting clearer that the window for doing something about climate change is closing, and unless something absolutely fundamental changes in the political environment, there is no we we can get where we need to be to hold this problem off. Given that this is the case, it might be time to shift the focus from prevention to management. Instead of saying "We need to prevent climate change." we will soon need to say "How can we deal with climate change so that fewer people die and civilization as a whole does not collapse?" Instead of funding green energy, we need to fund mass relocation plans to move millions of people out of areas that will be flooded in a few decades. We've made our bed, now we have to lie in it, and the sooner we start planning for the coming catastrophe the better chance we have of coming out of it alive.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 02:51

Wolfy: Jul 13, 2009

Konstantin posted:

It seems like we are at the point where mitigation strategies are useless. It getting clearer that the window for doing something about climate change is closing, and unless something absolutely fundamental changes in the political environment, there is no we we can get where we need to be to hold this problem off. Given that this is the case, it might be time to shift the focus from prevention to management. Instead of saying "We need to prevent climate change." we will soon need to say "How can we deal with climate change so that fewer people die and civilization as a whole does not collapse?" Instead of funding green energy, we need to fund mass relocation plans to move millions of people out of areas that will be flooded in a few decades. We've made our bed, now we have to lie in it, and the sooner we start planning for the coming catastrophe the better chance we have of coming out of it alive.

If people won't recognize the pressing and immediate need to change the way we treat our environment, how are you possibly going to think society as a whole is going to recognize the need to relocate because were going to destroy our planet within 30 years?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 02:53

Mc Do Well: Aug 2, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Space and Nuclear Power are the only things that can save us.

The US has been running modular nuclear reactors for the past 50 years, with our nuclear navy. But this kind of tech is very had to develop for civilian uses because of general apathy about nuclear, and the fear of losing a national secret.

Sorry environmentalists, we've really screwed up the planet at this point, and Nuclear is the most immediate solution we have. If we put our best minds to it we can make it safer, cheaper, and better in a few years (Moon shot anyone?)

:negative:

B.b.b.but McDowell! Uranium is a scarce resource too!

This leads to part two:

SPACE EXPLOITATION

With a new "cheap modular nuclear" bubble we can build cheap modular nuclear energy modules for stations and spacecraft. China, the EU, and Russia are all digging space, too. We open source our life support, docking systems; anything that is peaceful and should be cross compatible. Space tech is a great place to establish diplomatic ties and stabilize the global system (as the economy expands its resource base outwards)

I consider this to be a continuation of Atoms for Peace; gently caress the haters, I'm an Eisenhower Conservative :smug:

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:09

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

I find it hard to believe that people will willingly give up their luxuries, even in the face of disaster. At any point in time, they will always say that the cost is too much, and that their changes wouldn't make any difference. Any changes we make in the short term will make life significantly more unpleasant, and any benefit will be long off. You have to give cars, planes, cheap and reliable power, cheap products, most foods, and lots of other things we associate with a high quality of life. Things might get better in the long run as we learn to cope, but thats a maybe vs a certainty of a lowered standard of living now. The people who will most affected by climate change are the poorest, and thus those with the least power to change anything (since they have have the least to give up).

If we are posting our favorite depression inducing links
http://energybulletin.net/
http://www.postcarbon.org/
http://fateoftheworld.net/
http://transitionus.org/

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:21

Craptacular!: Jul 9, 2001; Fuck the DH

This is the new, hip version of worrying about the hole in the ozone layer. Fix enough of these problems over enough generations and we'll just have to face the heat death of the planet via an expanding Sun.

zeroprime posted:

What? No, that's the best part. All of the crazy global conspiracies and shadow machinations that are posited for why scientists are clearly faking reams and reams of data and lying to us in order to stop ?progress? ?capitalism? ?freedom?

Industrialization. It's going to be harder for the dense, arguably overpopulated corners of Asia to put up smokestacks and work their way to living like 20th century Americans (usually the old, unsafe, die-in-a-factory-fire half of the century) when the big mean advanced nations come around and tell them that any further modern industrialism will gently caress up the planet for everyone.

I've really heard it this way; that you basically are advocating for people to live like it's the 1700s after you've already got yours, you selfish pig.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:25

StabbinHobo: Oct 18, 2002; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Don't worry guys, peak oil is going to cut our emissions far faster than we could ever convince people to do voluntarily. Its just we've got another two decades of burning every last thing we can get our hands on to power through first.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:39

Cockmaster: Feb 24, 2002

McDowell posted:

B.b.b.but McDowell! Uranium is a scarce resource too!

This leads to part two:

SPACE EXPLOITATION

With a new "cheap modular nuclear" bubble we can build cheap modular nuclear energy modules for stations and spacecraft. China, the EU, and Russia are all digging space, too. We open source our life support, docking systems; anything that is peaceful and should be cross compatible. Space tech is a great place to establish diplomatic ties and stabilize the global system (as the economy expands its resource base outwards)

I consider this to be a continuation of Atoms for Peace; gently caress the haters, I'm an Eisenhower Conservative

What about thorium-fueled reactors? I had heard that thorium is way more abundant than uranium, and the fuel cycle is utterly worthless for making weapons-grade material.

Though asteroid mining could still come in handy for getting materials for things like solar cells and electric car batteries.

Spazzle posted:

I find it hard to believe that people will willingly give up their luxuries, even in the face of disaster. At any point in time, they will always say that the cost is too much, and that their changes wouldn't make any difference. Any changes we make in the short term will make life significantly more unpleasant, and any benefit will be long off. You have to give cars, planes, cheap and reliable power, cheap products, most foods, and lots of other things we associate with a high quality of life. Things might get better in the long run as we learn to cope, but thats a maybe vs a certainty of a lowered standard of living now. The people who will most affected by climate change are the poorest, and thus those with the least power to change anything (since they have have the least to give up).

And then there's the inverse correlation between standards of living and birth rates. Having people make such drastic cuts wouldn't do much good in the long run if we only end up having to worry about overpopulation again.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:40

The Dipshit: Dec 21, 2005; by FactsAreUseless

McDowell posted:

Space and Nuclear Power are the only things that can save us.

The US has been running modular nuclear reactors for the past 50 years, with our nuclear navy. But this kind of tech is very had to develop for civilian uses because of general apathy about nuclear, and the fear of losing a national secret.

Sorry environmentalists, we've really screwed up the planet at this point, and Nuclear is the most immediate solution we have. If we put our best minds to it we can make it safer, cheaper, and better in a few years (Moon shot anyone?)

B.b.b.but McDowell! Uranium is a scarce resource too!

This leads to part two:

SPACE EXPLOITATION

With a new "cheap modular nuclear" bubble we can build cheap modular nuclear energy modules for stations and spacecraft. China, the EU, and Russia are all digging space, too. We open source our life support, docking systems; anything that is peaceful and should be cross compatible. Space tech is a great place to establish diplomatic ties and stabilize the global system (as the economy expands its resource base outwards)

I consider this to be a continuation of Atoms for Peace; gently caress the haters, I'm an Eisenhower Conservative

Really you don't even need part two, reprocessing and IFRs/LFTR (err... Integral Fast Reactors and Liquid Flourine Thorium Reactors) would be pretty good for quite some time.

But again, effort. it'd be nice to have a nice ~1 GW nuke reactor where we could just raze the coal plants and plug in nuke reactors and go on our merry business. That'd be good start anyway. The odds of this happening are incredibly low, but hey, at the end of the day we are too lazy and cheap to save ourselves. A pity, that. Any of our carbon emission reduction will probably happen by a stumbling and falling economy. Maybe the plutocrats are trying to save the world the only way they know how. :v:

EDIT: I take it back... apparently it'd be less than half of what the U.S. needs to do

So... no more cars, sharply reduced air travel AND no coal plants. Probably sequestration requirements for industrial processing as well too. Huh. That IS difficult looking.

The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Dec 7, 2011

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:45

Krabsworth: Feb 20, 2011; by T. Mascis

So what? Can we hope all the protests around the world turn into civilization destroying revolutions? Factories come to a stand still as we destroy each other in the streets because we have no food, etc.? I realize things are going to get bad, but something comforts me that at least some humans will survive this, we'll just be in smaller numbers, right?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:46

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Krabsworth posted:

So what? Can we hope all the protests around the world turn into civilization destroying revolutions? Factories come to a stand still as we destroy each other in the streets because we have no food, etc.? I realize things are going to get bad, but something comforts me that at least some humans will survive this, we'll just be in smaller numbers, right?

Its probably likely that we'll mostly all survive, just in an increasingly polluted and unstable world.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:50

The Dipshit: Dec 21, 2005; by FactsAreUseless

Spazzle posted:

Its probably likely that we'll mostly all survive, just in an increasingly polluted and unstable world.

We as in "people in the first world", sure, I'll believe that. I'm kind of worried about people in South and S.E. Asia.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:53

Krabsworth: Feb 20, 2011; by T. Mascis

Spazzle posted:

Its probably likely that we'll mostly all survive, just in an increasingly polluted and unstable world.

I guess I'll get to work on my Matrix-esque Yellowstone National Park simulator.

by the way: Yellowstone National Park :smith:

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:54

Deep Hurting: Jan 19, 2006

I feel the last episode of TV's Dinosaurs should be linked to in this thread:

Part 1

Part 2

Spoiler alert: They gently caress up their environment so much it causes a 10,000+ year ice age, driving their entire species to extinction.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 03:56

TyroneGoldstein: Mar 30, 2005

Krabsworth posted:

So what? Can we hope all the protests around the world turn into civilization destroying revolutions? Factories come to a stand still as we destroy each other in the streets because we have no food, etc.? I realize things are going to get bad, but something comforts me that at least some humans will survive this, we'll just be in smaller numbers, right?

There are people that survive today in conditions that would make any first worlder wet themselves.

Someone will survive.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 04:06

a lovely poster: Aug 5, 2011; by Pipski

Spazzle posted:

Its probably likely that we'll mostly all survive, just in an increasingly polluted and unstable world.

Based on what? I realize that the extreme weather events are going to be much more severe in the equatorial regions but that says nothing about the social unrest that will develop in the first world as a result of economic deterioration. Not to mention massive migrations of people (yes, more severe in Asia but there are still quite a few people in the equatorial regions of the Americas as well) who have lost their means to provide for themselves and their families. I also think that the proliferation of firearms within the US will cause quite a few issues when crime rates begin to pick up as poverty becomes more widespread.

I can't seem to envision a scenario in which the issues facing us (dwindling resources, rapid climate change, peak oil) don't trigger some type of major conflict around the world. The drums of war are certainly beating (Iran) and it's becoming more and more clear that the political will necessary to avert these glaring issues is non-existent.

TyroneGoldstein posted:

There are people that survive today in conditions that would make any first worlder wet themselves.

Someone will survive.

Humans will survive, the standards of living the first world are accustomed to will not.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 04:06

TyroneGoldstein: Mar 30, 2005

Hell, there are people living in this country in those conditions too. Urban and rural.

Someone will carry the torch.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 04:15

Kafka Esq.: Jan 1, 2005; "If you ever even think about calling me anything but 'The Crab' I will go so fucking crab on your ass you won't even see what crab'd your crab" -The Crab(TM)

I am honestly glad I took those Boreal forest bushcraft survival lessons. All I need is my gear and I'm leaving this place.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 04:18

BobTheFerret: Nov 10, 2003; Angry for coins

Just for anyone who's not up on what modern chemistry/biochemistry is cooking up to solve the problem of excess CO2, it might not be completely unreasonable to say we could have a way to fix massive amounts of CO2 in the next 5-10 years, assuming the powers that be are willing to throw money at the development of what has already been discovered.

On the chemistry end of the spectrum, this is what I believe to be the most promising development in CO2 fixation I have ever seen:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5963/313.full

They do have video of it in action that they showed at a conference, and the results are simply stunning. For those without institutional access, this is a very small molecule that binds copper and forms a bond between 2 CO2 molecules making the compound Oxalate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalate), which can then be turned into any of a number of useful compounds. Only uses electrons, acid, and a very easy to synthesize organic molecule. Performs millions of turnovers with 95+% efficiency, and is stable in air. There are pictures in the supplemental of the oxalate crystals formed. It's pretty amazing, and they stumbled on it completely by accident, and performed no engineering whatsoever to optimize their setup (which would help a lot with efficiency).

On the biochemistry side, you have carbonic anhydrases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_anhydrase), which will catalyze the conversion of CO2 to HCO3 using only water and a metal cofactor. They are already incredibly efficient (they are among the most efficient enzymes around, and will happily truck along at the rate of diffusion until the protein degrades - which takes a very, very long time). All that needs to be done to make them effective for carbon fixation is to optimize the pH and temperature at which they will function, which many powerplants/power companies are already contracting out to biochemistry labs to do. Since you can isolate HCO3 as a solid (baking soda!), you can simply complex it with a counterion that will prevent its re-dissolution or prevent it from coming into contact with water again (bury it underground in a lined container? Preferably both methods). Better yet would be to chemically convert it into something useful (another protein could do this, or we could use it in some sort of chemical reaction).

These are things that are happening right now, and will be effective ways to fix CO2. The problem isn't so much the way as the will at this point - once there is actual urgency about climate change that reaches across political lines, there will be enough funding to solve the problem of excess CO2. You could imagine a dedicated CO2 fixation site being mated up to a power-plant (nuke, solar, wind, etc.), as well as perhaps a chemical production facility of some sort. Oxalate is tremendously useful, as is bicarbonate, in the lifecycle of microorganisms, and many will happily use these molecules as carbon sources. With a little metabolic engineering, we could convert oxalate/bicarbonate to any of a number of biofuels (not saying that organic combustibles should be our goal, but they are what get grant money...)

BobTheFerret fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Dec 7, 2011

# ? Dec 7, 2011 04:45

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

BobTheFerret posted:

On the biochemistry side, you have carbonic anhydrases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_anhydrase), which will catalyze the conversion of CO2 to HCO3 using only water and a metal cofactor. They are already incredibly efficient (they are among the most efficient enzymes around, and will happily truck along at the rate of diffusion until the protein degrades - which takes a very, very long time). All that needs to be done to make them effective for carbon fixation is to optimize the pH and temperature at which they will function, which many powerplants are already contracting out to biochemistry labs to do. Since you can isolate HCO3 as a solid (baking soda!), you can simply complex it with a counterion that will prevent its re-dissolution or prevent it from coming into contact with water again (bury it underground in a lined container? Preferably both methods). Better yet would be to chemically convert it into something useful (another protein could do this, or we could use it in some sort of chemical reaction).

Incoming biochem jargon deluge:

I'm pretty familiar with carbonic anhydrases (CAs from now on) as CO2-concentrating mechanisms in phytoplankton. The rate-limiting step in photosynthesis is usually CO2-fixation by RuBisCO and virtually all (95%+) of CO2 is present as bicarbonate in seawater, so converting a bunch of the HCO3- to CO2 allows algae to "dope" RuBisCO and minimize the undesirable oxygenase reaction. CAs also usually contain Zn as a metal cofactor but Zn tends to be <10nM in open ocean waters and so some phytoplankton can use metals like Cd or Co interchangeably, which is whacky and not really relevant to this topic.

Do you have any references on using CAs as a carbon sequestration? I guess at first glance it doesn't make much sense to me. The vast majority of CO2 equilibrates as HCO3- in water anyway (or carbonate/carbonic acid at lower/higher pH, either way only a tiny proportion is CO2). What would using CAs to enhance the speed of that reaction accomplish? And how would you efficiently get from dissolved bicarbonate to solid salts? I mean, hypothetically you could just use saltwater (loaded with Ca and Na and other counterions, plus it's cheap!) and evaporate off the water to get some carbonate salts. But I can't fathom how the process of going from gaseous CO2 -> dissolved HCO3- -> carbonate salts wouldn't be horribly inefficient. Anyway, getting down to low pH where carbonate is the dominant anion and using Ca as your counterion would be better anyway, baking soda is way more soluble than aragonite or calcite (forms of CaCO3) and we can do useful things with lime!

Edit: and the oxalate stuff is neat but that's gonna be like 4-8 electrons to reduce CO2 to oxalate (I'm guessing the reaction is between H2O and CO2? I don't have journal access at home). Anyway, you can't handwave away "only needing a few electrons and acid" to do that reaction. That's a lot.

Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 7, 2011

# ? Dec 7, 2011 05:04

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

So, I'm 27 years old. I will be dead before most of the Really Bad Stuff hits the fan. Now, I believe global warming is real, and its happening, and things are going to get terrible. But, this is the problem I run into whenever I try to talk to anyone about this in an older generation. They never outright, explicitly say it, but its ultimately the major hang up in the argument. "Ok, so what if you're right? That won't effect me." Its the largest barrier to getting them on our side. If they're religious, maybe you can make an appeal al la E.O. Wilson's The Creation. Or maybe if they have grand children, maaaaybe you can pluck some heart strings and get them to think about the next generation. More often then not, older people I talk to just can't be brought to care. Because its really never going to affect them.

How the hell do we get past that sort of apathy? And rationally, if you're one of those people... why should you suffer if we're going to hell in a handbasket, and you won't experience any of the heat?

# ? Dec 7, 2011 05:11

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 08:38

Cromulent_Chill: Apr 6, 2009

Yiggy posted:

How the hell do we get past that sort of apathy? And rationally, if you're one of those people... why should you suffer if we're going to hell in a handbasket, and you won't experience any of the heat?

How do you get the guy on his last week of work do his share? He's leaving and he knows it, the company be damned. Religion can work against it as Jesus will be here any day now. So in conclusion, I don't know.

# ? Dec 7, 2011 05:15

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

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