A Buttery Pastry posted:

While I don't deny that climate change involves a dramatic transition period, have people considered the fact that we could end up in a far superior climate on the other side? Much like a revolution is a time of turmoil, whose intensity might seem scary in the moment but which stops the constant normalized oppression by the ruling class, climate change might be be a shock but eventually place us in a world where we're no longer oppressed by smothering blankets of snow in the winter. The Earth has been much warmer and wetter in the past, where the polar regions had nice and temperate climates and desert regions gave way to scrub and grasslands, or even monsoon and rain forests. Conversely, we see that a colder globe leads to a drier world, one dominated by cold tundra, frigid steppes, and bone dry deserts, none of which support much in the way of life, human or otherwise.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

While I don't deny that climate change involves a dramatic transition period, have people considered the fact that we could end up in a far superior climate on the other side? Much like a revolution is a time of turmoil, whose intensity might seem scary in the moment but which stops the constant normalized oppression by the ruling class, climate change might be be a shock but eventually place us in a world where we're no longer oppressed by smothering blankets of snow in the winter. The Earth has been much warmer and wetter in the past, where the polar regions had nice and temperate climates and desert regions gave way to scrub and grasslands, or even monsoon and rain forests. Conversely, we see that a colder globe leads to a drier world, one dominated by cold tundra, frigid steppes, and bone dry deserts, none of which support much in the way of life, human or otherwise.

Change can be scary, but imagine going to the year 2300 and explaining to the Uzbek fishermen that the world was much better off when the Aral Sea was called the Aralkum Desert, the farmers of Niger, Chad, and Libya that the Sahara desert was a much better home than the fertile Saharan Corridor, or the people of the Arabian Peninsula that living in a giant sandbox was preferable to living in a lush tropical paradise nourished by a multitude of fertile rivers.



Obviously we're going to need decisive action to carry us through this period of transition as painlessly as possible, because the road to the new equilibrium passes through a much less hospitable world, but on the other side awaits a veritable paradise.

daydrinking is fun posted:

Are you guys excited for the desperate, half-assed geoengineering we're 100% going to have to do?

Ol Standard Retard posted:

There's a lot of quarter-assed "geoengineering" that people are only starting to incorporate into agricultural and land management techniques, there is a legitimate desire to promote and preserve terrestrial ecosystems across a broad swathe of industries. But that's only really prevalent in the developed world and wow guess what it's all hilariously energy-intensive and fossil-fuel dependent so we're damned if we do, damned if we don't!

Conspiratiorist posted:

The rapid melting of Greenland and Antarctica are going to cause the Atlantic Conveyor to shut down, the effect of which will be a temperature drop in northern NA and Europe, while equatorial latitudes broil.

Conspiratiorist posted:

And deserts, which are currently expanding due to the warming temperatures, aren't going to get fertile even if they get wetter, as previously mentioned. No topsoil means no topsoil.

cosmicprank posted:

How much weed did you smoke for this post.

daydrinking is fun posted:

I'm curious, what's the absolute lowest-tech carbon sequestration method that could conceivably work? Could you theoretically get it done by just growing forests, cutting them down, and burying the trunks in huge landfills?

Fasdar posted:

As long as that was all undertaken with zero emissions technology and the dead trees were kept in a moisture and oxygen free landfill. Also, your plantations never undergo drought, disease, or fire.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

While I don't deny that climate change involves a dramatic transition period, have people considered the fact that we could end up in a far superior climate on the other side? Much like a revolution is a time of turmoil, whose intensity might seem scary in the moment but which stops the constant normalized oppression by the ruling class, climate change might be be a shock but eventually place us in a world where we're no longer oppressed by smothering blankets of snow in the winter. The Earth has been much warmer and wetter in the past, where the polar regions had nice and temperate climates and desert regions gave way to scrub and grasslands, or even monsoon and rain forests. Conversely, we see that a colder globe leads to a drier world, one dominated by cold tundra, frigid steppes, and bone dry deserts, none of which support much in the way of life, human or otherwise.

Change can be scary, but imagine going to the year 2300 and explaining to the Uzbek fishermen that the world was much better off when the Aral Sea was called the Aralkum Desert, the farmers of Niger, Chad, and Libya that the Sahara desert was a much better home than the fertile Saharan Corridor, or the people of the Arabian Peninsula that living in a giant sandbox was preferable to living in a lush tropical paradise nourished by a multitude of fertile rivers.



Obviously we're going to need decisive action to carry us through this period of transition as painlessly as possible, because the road to the new equilibrium passes through a much less hospitable world, but on the other side awaits a veritable paradise.

Paradoxish posted:

It's not like a warmer world would be an objectively good thing, even if you could somehow magically avoid all the incredibly damaging effects of actually getting there. Humans don't have a universal preference for warmer weather and neither do crops.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

daydrinking is fun posted:

I'm curious, what's the absolute lowest-tech carbon sequestration method that could conceivably work? Could you theoretically get it done by just growing forests, cutting them down, and burying the trunks in huge landfills?

The Globe and Mail posted:

Ontario set to tackle climate change with cap-and-trade launch on Jan. 1

On the first day of the new year, Ontario will launch its cap-and-trade system on carbon in a bid to vault the province to the front lines of the battle against climate change.

It is the centrepiece of the Wynne government’s Climate Change Action Plan, meant not only to meet tough targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions but to spark a sweeping transition to a low-carbon society by changing the way Ontarians get around, heat their homes and run their businesses.

The cap-and-trade system is getting high marks from environmental experts, who say it will achieve its central aim of driving down emissions. But critics caution that the plan contains financial pitfalls: A lack of checks means there could be few restrictions on how the government spends revenue raised from the system, while volatility in other carbon markets suggests the amount of revenue will fluctuate wildly.

Cap-and-trade also contains a major trade-off. It will link up with similar systems already in place in California and Quebec, creating a carbon market covering more than 60 million people and making the cost of cap-and-trade cheaper than it would otherwise be. This link, however, will likely mean that, in the short term, Ontario companies will subsidize emissions cuts by firms in California and Quebec more than they will cut their own emissions – helping those other jurisdictions switch to a low-carbon economy before Ontario does.

...

The government plans to use cap-and-trade revenues, estimated at $1.9-billion annually, to fund Climate Change Action Plan programs to help Ontarians buy electric cars, give buildings energy retrofits and switch factories to more energy-efficient machinery, among other things.

Linking the market to California and Quebec, starting in 2018, will mean companies from all three jurisdictions can buy and sell allocations to one another. This is meant to make cap-and-trade less expensive by spreading the costs out – the larger the market, the more options there are for cutting emissions.

An Ontario government-commissioned study from consultants EnviroEconomics estimates the price of carbon will be about $19 a tonne in the early years of the program, which would translate to an extra $13 for the average household in higher home heating and gasoline costs. By comparison, a straight carbon tax of the kind advocated by provincial Opposition Leader Patrick Brown would have to be roughly $72 a tonne to achieve the emissions reductions Ontario is seeking.

...

What’s more, California is in the middle of a court battle with a business group trying to shut down cap-and-trade. And the state has not yet passed legislation to make sure the program continues after 2020.

“Too much reliance on California allowances would slow Ontario’s transition to the low carbon economy that’s essential for our future prosperity,” Ms. Saxe warned last month. “There are also legal uncertainties that could undermine the California program or prevent international transfers of emission reductions.”

And the California-Quebec experience has shown that cap-and-trade revenues careen up and down: An auction of allowances by the California-Quebec governments in February, 2016, sold 95 per cent of the permits on offer, but in May, that figure crashed to 11 per cent; in August, it was 35 per cent and in November, it shot up to 80 per cent. This sort of volatility could make it hard for the government to implement the Climate Change Action Plan when it is unsure if it can count on having the money to pay for it.

...

smoke sumthin bitch posted:

we don't know what will happen, it could go both ways really. the thing is, a lot more people die from cold weather than from extreme heat. Considering this, coupled with the fact that global warming would greatly increase our food production potential, climate change could in fact save millions of lives.

ChairMaster posted:

This entire discussion is asinine, the end game of the Anthropocene extinction event taking place all over the world will take literally millions of years to get back to a diverse functional ecosystem, evolution is a slow loving process. And this entire discussion is assuming that we won't end up with a nuclear winter that blocks out the sun entirely for years and years. Or that human civilisation survives the various non-nuclear wars that are guaranteed to happen between countries all over the world when we start running out of food and water for reals.

Stop trying to find an upside to climate change, it's a bad scene.

Evil_Greven posted:

What is the source of chart?

I can't even reverse GIS it, so where's it from?

BattleMoose posted:

Obvious bullshit is obvious. No citation even after asked. All the deserts in the midlatitudes will intensify and expand poleward, Mexico, Sharara, Namib, South Australia. (About 25 degrees N and S) These areas (and many others) will experience massive species loss as well and get less water. This is very consistent across the global climate change models.

Salt Fish posted:

10 gigatonnes of carbon emissions per year, divided by 1000kg of carbon per tree = 10 billion trees per year right?

Arglebargle III posted:

Maybe we could paint everything white. Like even the whales. Then they would capsize and sink all of our ships, causing a global economic collapse and thereby fixing climate change.

Nice piece of fish posted:

We're in actual real life likely to cause a runaway warming effect, shutting down the thermohaline cirulation of the oceans, suffer an anoxic ocean event that kills 99.99% of all life on the planet.

Evil_Greven posted:

The Arctic sea ice is growing again after a few days of pause, and it's up 104,870 sq km.

However, it's still several hundred thousand sq km below the previous lowest record.

Consequently, this is what things are looking like as we near the end of the year for area:

A Buttery Pastry posted:

The Gulf Stream's effect on the climate of Europe is not near as great as the difference in temperature between it and the north-eastern parts of North America might make it seem, as those parts are kept extra cold by the Rockies diverting warm air south. In a scenario where Greenland melts, it will at worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) counteract the general warming trend in most of Europe.

Conspiratiorist posted:

This is what happened last time.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

I'm not sure that really contradicts what I said? At most I should have added the caveat that it has a stronger effect on the more northerly parts of Europe, around the Norwegian Sea, which would need the non-uniform distribution of temperature increases to heat that region up more than average to counteract the loss.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

You make a good point. White people are better for the environment, because they reflect the most energy back into space.

Conspiratiorist posted:

The thermohaline circulation shutting down, which could come as a result of the fresh water intake of the melting greenland glacier + the collapse west antarctic ice sheet + the melting totten glacier (all events that could very well happen in our lifetime and will have a devastating effect on sea levels) would plunge temperatures at northern latitudes before the rest of the world simply being too hot eventually normalizes them back to current levels or whatever.

gently caress You And Diebold posted:

You have to look at the overall emission level profile though, white people have a history of being pretty bad for the environment.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Sure, but we've had thousands of years of reflecting heat back into space, so I think it evens out in the long term.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

You seem to be kinda going against the conventional wisdom in this thread by claiming that global warming won't result in major temperature increases across the world (and especially at higher latitudes) over the same period.

Sure, but we've had thousands of years of reflecting heat back into space, so I think it evens out in the long term.