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Honj Steak posted:How badly will central Europe be hit? Any parts of Europe that are not rendered unlivable by climate change will be quickly swarmed with refugees to a point at which they must either collapse or elect a government ruthless enough to close the borders and shoot anyone who approaches. Don't forget that Europe is ultimately connected by land to the parts of the world that will be most affected by climate change.
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Dec 10, 2016 19:15
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Paradoxish posted:I think you're drastically underestimating how quickly people will begin to view the situation as the new normal and geoengineering as a risky move away from the status quo. People will migrate away from flooded coastal areas and farmland will move as old areas become less arable. Trying to revert the climate back to a state that it hasn't existed in for decades is going to have real effects on the people who have already been forced to adapt to the new situation. I know it's not a winning bet to gamble on the collective intellect of humanity at this point but I don't think a billion people will die without people noticing. No I don't think it'll be viewed as the new normal.
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Dec 10, 2016 19:37
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Rap Record Hoarder posted:I'm working in environmental justice organizing at the moment while I save money and get my ducks in a row for grad school. There are some fairly big climate-centric, anti-Trump events being planned right now by various groups that will start actively recruiting folks after the new year, both for decentralized local action and for large coordinated events like a protest in DC. I'll share info as I get it. blowfish posted:Note: while the Sierra Club is good for local conservation, but it's poo poo when it comes to larger scale sustainability issues due to its rabid opposition to anything nuclear or genetically modified, i.e. two important tools to save the environment. Either join with the express intention to make it less poo poo by changing these counterproductive stances or join another group that has more sensible stances on these issues. Ah yes thank you. Will look into. New Years resolutions: #1. save the world #2. work out and get six pack Rastor posted:The world isn't going to end, just be lovely compared to the past. Maybe even really really lovely. You should still try to pair up with a SO, just don't have kids. Get a dog instead. Life is full of lovely things and lovely people. poo poo happens. gently caress, my coworker's kid and a bunch of his friends just died in a car accident. But you keep on living for all the good things and people you care about. And if you really have some big balls, you actually try to have a positive impact on the world. ChairMaster posted:Any parts of Europe that are not rendered unlivable by climate change will be quickly swarmed with refugees to a point at which they must either collapse or elect a government ruthless enough to close the borders and shoot anyone who approaches. Don't forget that Europe is ultimately connected by land to the parts of the world that will be most affected by climate change. Joy.
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Dec 10, 2016 20:05
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Fangz posted:I know it's not a winning bet to gamble on the collective intellect of humanity at this point but I don't think a billion people will die without people noticing. No I don't think it'll be viewed as the new normal. It's not about people noticing, it's about people connecting the dots and then moving themselves to some form of large scale collective action. You're talking as if a billion people are going to die to some specific climate change event, but that's not going to happen. How many of those deaths are going to be to extreme weather events? How many to migrations as areas become less livable? How many to conflict that comes from the first two? How many of those deaths are people going to attribute to a warming world when even climate scientists can only talk in increased probabilities? I'm honestly skeptical that this problem will ever reach the kind of tipping point in the public consciousness that you're expecting, because even a billion deaths attributable to climate change aren't going to happen in a year or a decade or two decades. Those deaths will take place over the rest of this century and the bulk of them will be in poor, developing nations.
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Dec 10, 2016 20:45
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Paradoxish posted:11th hour geoengineering isn't going to be meaningfully impactful. Does megacity one count as geoengineering?
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Dec 10, 2016 22:56
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hobbesmaster posted:Does megacity one count as geoengineering? I suppose that is a combination of regular engineering and social engineering. Got to convince those poors that living in a mile high ghetto is the best thing for them. Paradoxish posted:I'm honestly skeptical that this problem will ever reach the kind of tipping point in the public consciousness that you're expecting, because even a billion deaths attributable to climate change aren't going to happen in a year or a decade or two decades. Those deaths will take place over the rest of this century and the bulk of them will be in poor, developing nations. Hell, most Americans didn't notice the Iraq war killed over a million civilians or its contributions to creating ISIS. I fully expect a 20%-30% of Americans will continue denying climate change exists even when the last person leaves the flooded ruins of Miami.
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Dec 10, 2016 23:18
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Alternative theory: emissions plateau and continue to drop as CO2 direct capture, sequestration, and storage technologies continue to mature. Diets change as cloned meat becomes economically viable, the regenerative economy begins to make headway, and conservatives the world over quietly begin to pretend this was always the plan and they were always in favor of the shift to renewable/low-carbon energy. "It just makes sense," they say, quietly deleting their Twitter accounts. Somebody funds a "moonshot" plan to combat ocean acidification via olivine dispersal and/or carbon capture through atmospheric conversion to carbon nanotubes. That's assuming everything stays exactly the same and none of a half-dozen potential game-changers pan out. It's also assuming the members of the Illuminati don't quietly pursue a controlled human dieback from their new holiday homes in Christchurch, by releasing that hell-blend of Zika and Ebola they've been working on in those Rothschild-funded private laboratories on those uncharted islands in the Pacific, coordinates to follow;lkajsdf;laksdjf;l-q098019234u09uafNO CARRIER If you're looking for things to do, the Ocean Cleanup project needs office workers in 2017: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/careers/#c172 You could also become a restorative ocean farmer. They have a volunteer program. Failing either of those, pick a problem that resonates with you and try to do something about it. Nothing is set in stone. This is a lot of big problems that reinforce one another, so pick someplace and start making some headway. Plant trees, buy cheap farmland and work to reforest it, pursue a career in the environmental sciences with the knowledge you'll probably end up outside the United States, cut back on red meat, donate to environmental causes, work with your friends and neighbors to pursue progressive causes, run for office yourself. Walling yourself up with ten thousand cans of beans and a hunting rifle is a panic reaction. Deadly Ham Sandwich posted:Hell, most Americans didn't notice the Iraq war killed over a million civilians or its contributions to creating ISIS. I fully expect a 20%-30% of Americans will continue denying climate change exists even when the last person leaves the flooded ruins of Miami. "Stupid liberals. It's just a natural process. Climate changes all the time, and that's why Miami and New Orleans are now sunken hellscapes inhabited only by the desperate and the dead."
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Dec 11, 2016 04:49
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Random driveby questions from someone that has been trying to read climate papers recently (and maybe in a bit over my head): Why isn't ocean acidification stressed near as much as global warming in climate change? It seems like the effects on the ocean are immediate and the similarities to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum are uncanny. The fact that the ocean pH has dropped by .1 since industrialization and is charted to rapidly change should scare a *lot* of people. Even a lot of conservative navelgazers understand what happens when they let pH wander on their pool. I also understand that massive human migrations will at least be inevitable before we can correct our course, but what is the likelihood of some sort of mass extinction and what sort of uncertainties are around it? Like I get that we're emitting about 100 to 10 times as much carbon per year now than as we did in the permian-triassic mass extinction period, but the sustained carbon release there was also over somewhere around 20,000 to 400,000 years. I guess I'm wondering how far off into uncharted territory are we?
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Dec 11, 2016 05:03
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We're already 10,000 years or so into a mass extinction event known as the Holocene extinction (I prefer Anthropocene extinction), and it's just getting started. People probably don't stress the ocean as much as the land because people live on the land and not in the ocean. I mean I don't really care as much about the death of a large amount of sea life when the death of all available arable land is upon us. I can live without food that comes from the ocean a lot easier than I can live without food that comes from the land.
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Dec 11, 2016 05:33
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:Random driveby questions from someone that has been trying to read climate papers recently (and maybe in a bit over my head): Basically, there are a myriad of ways our society is unsustainable. Climate change is just the biggest one. That's why I keep point out its a systemic crisis, so the system needs to be changed. I think any solution must eventually address that. However, since the crisis is so imminent, we also need to take every incremental minor action we can too. Notorious R.I.M. posted:I also understand that massive human migrations will at least be inevitable before we can correct our course, but what is the likelihood of some sort of mass extinction and what sort of uncertainties are around it? Like I get that we're emitting about 100 to 10 times as much carbon per year now than as we did in the permian-triassic mass extinction period, but the sustained carbon release there was also over somewhere around 20,000 to 400,000 years. I guess I'm wondering how far off into uncharted territory are we? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161208152136.htm quote:New research, publishing on December 8th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, shows that local extinctions have already occurred in 47% of the 976 plant and animal species studied. Extinctions will continue to occur, and the rate will likely increase.
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Dec 11, 2016 05:35
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ChairMaster posted:We're already 10,000 years or so into a mass extinction event known as the Holocene extinction (I prefer Anthropocene extinction), and it's just getting started. You kind of need the former if you want most of the latter.
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Dec 11, 2016 05:35
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I'll admit that I've not researched it as much as I have climate change but I kinda feel like that even if all the shellfish and normal fish die as long as we have plankton around to produce oxygen and evaporation around to give us rain and fresh water we can still eke out a living in whatever theoretical situation it is where arable land still exists but ocean life doesn't anymore. I mean either way it still comes down to "there's too much CO2 in the air and we're totally hosed and there's nothing we can do to fix it without a giant orbital laser or sudden appearance of a god-emperor of humanity".
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Dec 11, 2016 05:53
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ChairMaster posted:sudden appearance of a god-emperor of humanity". Good news, everybody!  Wait. That isn't good news at all!
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Dec 11, 2016 05:56
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ChairMaster posted:I'll admit that I've not researched it as much as I have climate change but I kinda feel like that even if all the shellfish and normal fish die as long as we have plankton around to produce oxygen and evaporation around to give us rain and fresh water we can still eke out a living in whatever theoretical situation it is where arable land still exists but ocean life doesn't anymore. From what i've been reading, the biggest issue seems to be the rate of acidification. If acidification is done at a slow enough rate, things will be able to cycle through enough generations to adapt. However, if it happens rapidly enough, there is no time for natural selection and everything that isn't extremely resilient to pH-drops dies. Outside of this, there are some more fragile groups, like pteropods, that will simply dissolve under increased acidification. Uranium Phoenix posted:Mass extinction is already occurring: Thanks for this reference.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:07
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KIDS! Let's make the looming threat of utter societal collapse FUN with the funky tunes of Formidable Vegetable Sound System, Australia's first permaculture-jazz-funk ensemble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h__qCy4GhSM I love these guys.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:08
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:From what i've been reading, the biggest issue seems to be the rate of acidification. If acidification is done at a slow enough rate, things will be able to cycle through enough generations to adapt. However, if it happens rapidly enough, there is no time for natural selection and everything that isn't extremely resilient to pH-drops dies. Outside of this, there are some more fragile groups, like pteropods, that will simply dissolve under increased acidification. I'm kinda working under the assumption that there will be an unprecedented rate of extinction of species all over the planet anyways, but I'm fairly confident that that plankton are going to be able to adapt easy enough, considering their generation time is like a few hours to a few days. If the plankton all die then maybe we'll suffocate, but I don't think of it as particularly high on the list of things that are going to kill us.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:17
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Fortunately, artificial reef habitat seems to be okay for a lot of fish species, and artificial reef construction is cheap. I don't think phytoplankton collapse in the next 100 years is reasonable and anyway if it is going to happen soon that means it can't be stopped anyway and we really are dead. Unless we can develop terraforming technology really fast to use on our own planet instead of Mars or whatever. Oxygen the element is really plentiful in the earth's crust, but liberating it industrially on the scale the earth's oceans currently provide for free would be... expensive.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:20
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If global civilisation is still around in a hundred years then that means we'll have found a way to survive without the arctic polar ice cap, without the glaciers of the Himalayas, and likely without the entire western third of Antarctica. If we somehow make it through all of that I feel like we'll have found a fix for the ocean at that point.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:26
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Water conservation has a lot of head room - the world outside desert areas hasn't really even begun to make water conservation a priority. There's a lot of room to reduce water use in industry, residential, and agriculture that hasn't even begun to be implemented in countries like China. These efficiency gains are not very expensive to implement either, and the enforcement mechanism of metering is already in place. It may mean switching to more environmentally damaging ways of washing coal industrially, for example, but when it becomes economical to use less water I expect people will use less water instead of collapsing to sharp shocks.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:41
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Honj Steak posted:How badly will central Europe be hit? You know how central Europe has seen heat waves, flooding and snowstorms? Expect more of that. As an outside case, if the atlantic currents shift Europe could see its climate get much colder, like Canada. Also bigger refugee crises as drought becomes pervasive in the middle east.
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Dec 11, 2016 06:56
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Why are you all so concerned when more CO2 just means that trees grow faster and make more oxygen and oxygen is good. Problem solves itself, drill baby drill.
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Dec 11, 2016 07:10
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ChairMaster posted:We're already 10,000 years or so into a mass extinction event known as the Holocene extinction (I prefer Anthropocene extinction), and it's just getting started. Well, the sulfate geoengineering thing can potentially stave off surface temperature heating for decades but does nothing for ocean acidification which will kill all the fish, so this is a pretty likely outcome
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Dec 11, 2016 07:12
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In good news, Arctic sea ice extent rose 207,700 sq km yesterday. The Bering Strait finally closed to block the Chukchi Sea. In bad news, it's still over half a million sq km below the previous record low. Still, things are looking a little better from the extent perspective.
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Dec 11, 2016 15:44
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AceOfFlames posted:So I am just supposed to pretend nothing is happening? Form attachments to people who will die horribly or will have to protect? Make a career knowing that it will all turn to dust? I keep hearing about how you're supposed to love the process of what you do but I only ever manage to care about results. Why make something that will not last? Why strive for a brief moment of happiness if it comes with thousands more moments of pain? You sound depressed.
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Dec 11, 2016 15:49
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https://twitter.com/AEDerocher/status/807338629664309248
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Dec 11, 2016 15:59
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The bears are attacking!
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Dec 11, 2016 18:39
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icantfindaname posted:Well, the sulfate geoengineering thing can potentially stave off surface temperature heating for decades but does nothing for ocean acidification which will kill all the fish, so this is a pretty likely outcome Do you have a source for ocean acidification killing all fish?
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Dec 11, 2016 18:40
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Arglebargle III posted:Do you have a source for ocean acidification killing all fish? What do fish eat?
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Dec 11, 2016 18:41
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Arglebargle III posted:The bears are attacking! Made me spit out my drink. Very sad at the same time.
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Dec 11, 2016 18:42
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Nice piece of fish posted:What do fish eat? I don't know, you're using a word that's used to describe at least 5 different classes in the animal kingdom. It's really naive to go "well all fish will die" without some sort of argument about how they won't be able to adapt to pH changes or how immediate food/shelter sources won't be able to adapt to them either. Since that'll need to be done on a fish by fish basis good luck being able to make a blanket statement about all of them.
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Dec 11, 2016 18:56
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Accretionist posted:You sound depressed. On one hand I am sure I am but on the other, isn't that the logical response to our bleak future?
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Dec 11, 2016 18:58
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AceOfFlames posted:On one hand I am sure I am but on the other, isn't that the logical response to our bleak future? Imagine if your parents or grandparents had taken this position given the probability of Thermonuclear war during their life times. You don't have to face every issue logically. Logically there is no need for any attachment, such needs extend from another part of our psyche.
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Dec 11, 2016 19:37
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AceOfFlames posted:On one hand I am sure I am but on the other, isn't that the logical response to our bleak future? Logically we're all gonna die someday, so why bother giving a poo poo about anything?
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Dec 11, 2016 19:38
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:I don't know, you're using a word that's used to describe at least 5 different classes in the animal kingdom. The point being that while fish don't die from rapid acidification of oceans, the vast ecosystem supporting fish populations and the fish population the fish population supports is absolutely unequivocally and certainly vulnerable to acidification. If you take out a more or less vital part of the ecosystem, say jellyfish or every calcifying species such as zooplankton or invertebrates with an exoskeleton/shell, that ecosystem collapses. It's how ecosystems work. Or rather fail. But hell, it also directly kills fish populations. Is your point that we can disregard this danger due to the semantics of taxonomy? Because that is something that is actually naive, in the precise meaning of the word.
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Dec 11, 2016 19:41
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AceOfFlames posted:On one hand I am sure I am but on the other, isn't that the logical response to our bleak future? There are responses to bleak situations that aren't just unrealistic optimism or complete despair. poo poo sucks, so what? The world and human civilization are both going to go on. Learning and informing other people is still important, because the range of potential outcomes is pretty wide. All you're doing is convincing yourself that you shouldn't care.
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Dec 11, 2016 19:46
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Arglebargle III posted:The bears are attacking! Canada.txt Theyre predicting that polar vortex to hang over the country for at least this whole week which means every day I wake up to snow squall and severe snowfall warnings. Way too many dumb people looking outside and saying "Wheres your global warming now?".  Also the temperature maps they keep showing on TV look like they pulled them from some Hollywood disaster movie.
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Dec 11, 2016 19:47
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Nice piece of fish posted:The point being that while fish don't die from rapid acidification of oceans, the vast ecosystem supporting fish populations and the fish population the fish population supports is absolutely unequivocally and certainly vulnerable to acidification. If you take out a more or less vital part of the ecosystem, say jellyfish or every calcifying species such as zooplankton or invertebrates with an exoskeleton/shell, that ecosystem collapses. I get that ocean that most species of fish can't live in water at 2100-projected pH levels. I also get that tests on things like coccolithophores show that some varieties can adapt to acidification if allowed to breed over increasingly acidic waters over longer durations (like 12 months). Is the same true for fish? What rates of change can they adapt to? Are there some species that are more resilient to changes in pH than others? Dumping a species in 2100-level pH water ignores the 80 years that happens in between. But I do agree that the rate of acidification is terrifying. The faster pH drops, the fewer generations anything will have to adapt.
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Dec 11, 2016 19:59
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:I get that ocean that most species of fish can't live in water at 2100-projected pH levels. I also get that tests on things like coccolithophores show that some varieties can adapt to acidification if allowed to breed over increasingly acidic waters over longer durations (like 12 months). Is the same true for fish? What rates of change can they adapt to? Are there some species that are more resilient to changes in pH than others? Oh, I get that, and I absolutely hope that the ocean ecosystem as a whole won't experience a cascade failure from acidifcation, warming, altered/reduced thermohaline circulation and increasing levels of pollution combined with significant overfishing from starving human populations. But from what we know today, we had better plan for a world where the fish are gone or reduced to insignificant numbers and hope to be wrong, than anything else.
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Dec 11, 2016 20:05
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Squalid posted:Imagine if your parents or grandparents had taken this position given the probability of Thermonuclear war during their life times. That would have been perfect. Means I wouldn't be here to deal with this crap.
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Dec 11, 2016 20:18
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:Dumping a species in 2100-level pH water ignores the 80 years that happens in between. But I do agree that the rate of acidification is terrifying. The faster pH drops, the fewer generations anything will have to adapt. Also, which is more likely, that ocean systems will have a linear pH increase with increasing levels of carbonic acid or that ocean systems are buffered? Because if it's the latter, as soon as we hit the tipping point, the rate speeds up exponentially.
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Dec 11, 2016 20:24
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