Arstechnica - Plastic rain is the new acid rain posted:

Hoof it through the national parks of the western United States—Joshua Tree, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon—and breathe deep the pristine air. These are unspoiled lands, collectively a great American conservation story. Yet an invisible menace is actually blowing through the air and falling via raindrops: Microplastic particles, tiny chunks (by definition, less than 5 millimeters long) of fragmented plastic bottles and microfibers that fray from clothes, all pollutants that get caught up in Earth’s atmospheric systems and deposited in the wilderness.

Writing today in the journal Science, researchers report a startling discovery: After collecting rainwater and air samples for 14 months, they calculated that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall into 11 protected areas in the western US each year. That’s the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles. “We just did that for the area of protected areas in the West, which is only 6 percent of the total US area,” says lead author Janice Brahney, an environmental scientist at Utah State University. “The number was just so large, it's shocking.”

It further confirms an increasingly hellish scenario: Microplastics are blowing all over the world, landing in supposedly pure habitats, like the Arctic and the remote French Pyrenees. They’re flowing into the oceans via wastewater and tainting deep-sea ecosystems, and they’re even ejecting out of the water and blowing onto land in sea breezes. And now in the American West, and presumably across the rest of the world given that these are fundamental atmospheric processes, they are falling in the form of plastic rain—the new acid rain.

Plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain, which is a consequence of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. By deploying scrubbers in power plants to control the former, and catalytic converters in cars to control the latter, the US and other countries have over the last several decades cut down on the acidification problem. But microplastic has already corrupted even the most remote environments, and there’s no way to scrub water or land or air of the particles—the stuff is absolutely everywhere, and it’s not like there’s a plastic magnet we can drag through the oceans. What makes plastic so useful—its hardiness—is what also makes it an alarming pollutant: Plastic never really goes away, instead breaking into ever smaller bits that infiltrate ever smaller corners of the planet. Even worse, plastic waste is expected to skyrocket from 260 million tons a year to 460 million tons by 2030, according to the consultancy McKinsey. More people joining the middle class in economically-developing countries means more consumerism and more plastic packaging.

To quantify just how bad the problem has become across the American West, the researchers used collectors in 11 national parks and protected areas, sampling both rain and air. Each had a “wet” bucket to collect rainwater, and a “dry” bucket to collect air. A sensor would detect rainfall and open up the “wet” bucket while closing the dry one. And vice versa when it’s sunny out, so the dry bucket would collect microplastic particles carried on the wind while the wet bucket stayed shut. The researchers also modeled where each particular storm they collected rain from had originated, looking at the size of the cities it traveled through before dumping water, and microplastics, into the wet bucket.

Overall, they found that a stunning 98 percent of samples collected over a year contained microplastic particles. On average, 4 percent of captured atmospheric particulates were actually synthetic polymers. The particles that fell in rain were larger than those deposited by wind—lighter particles are more easily caught up in air currents. Microfibers, from sources like polyester clothing, made up 66 percent of the synthetic material in wet samples and 70 percent in dry samples. “I was just completely floored to see little brightly-colored pieces of plastic in nearly every single sample,” says Brahney. Plus, the team wasn't able to count clear or white particles and fibers with their equipment, so their tally is likely conservative.

Looking at the path of the storms that deposited the wet microplastic samples, Brahney and her colleagues were able to map how weather systems transport the particles. Winds, for instance, might kick up microplastic particles off the ground in an urban area and carry them downwind before forcing them to the surface once more. “Rain is very effective at scrubbing the atmosphere of everything that's in it,” says Brahney. “And so there could be a fair amount of dust and plastics in the atmosphere and a rainstorm will wash those out.” Microplastic particles could even be acting as condensation nuclei, bits of debris that attract water vapor to form a cloud.

The dry fallout, on the other hand, appears to be traveling longer distances. These particles’ smaller size indicates they’re more easily carried on winds for hundreds, maybe thousands of miles—consider that dust from the Sahara readily blows across the Atlantic and falls in the Amazon rainforest—instead of getting caught up in storms, a more regional phenomenon. And microplastics are probably traveling even farther than soil particles because they're far less dense.

“We saw relationships to the location of the jet stream, which implies that the air masses that are controlling deposition are really high in the atmosphere,” says Brahney. (In the US, the fast-moving jet stream runs from west to east across the continent.) This jibes with what other scientists are starting to see elsewhere around the world: Tiny pieces of plastic—largely synthetic fibers from clothes—are getting caught in the wind and spread far and wide, tainting formerly pristine habitats. For example, the cities of Europe seem to be seeding the Arctic with microplastic.

This new research comes with another troubling surprise: 30 percent of the sample particles were microbeads, tiny synthetic spheres that the United States banned from beauty products in 2015. The microbeads in the samples, though, were generally smaller than the ones you’d find in those products. “We did see a lot of brightly-colored microbeads, in all colors of the rainbow, and some of those we identified as acrylic,” says Brahney.

That leads the researchers to speculate that the microbeads are coming from industrial paints and coatings. If these are sprayed, they could easily spew the microbeads into the atmosphere, where they’d be picked up by winds and carried afar. If that’s indeed the case, the paint industry may be in for the same kind of microbead reckoning that sullied the beauty industry. Still, if one country bans microbeads in paints, the stuff could well blow in from a neighboring country.

More troubling still, microplastics eventually break into nanoplastics, bits so small that researchers may not be able to detect them without the right equipment. “I couldn't see anything smaller than four microns, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there,” says Brahney. “Just because we can't see them in front of us, doesn't mean we're not breathing them in.”

Scientists don't yet know what inhaling microbeads might mean for human health, but it’s reasonable to assume it’s not beneficial. Bits of plastic tend to leach their component chemicals over time, and have been known to transport microbes like viruses and bacteria. Researchers are just beginning to explore what this means for other organisms: One study published earlier this year found that hermit crabs exposed to microplastics have difficulties choosing new shells as they grow, a particular problem since they need those shells to survive.

In the soils of America’s national parks, the arrival of plastics could have cascading effects. “These can not just block up the digestive tract of small animals, like worms,” says University of Strathclyde microplastic researcher Steve Allen, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “But it's also the chemicals that are on these plastics and in these plastics that can have an effect on the soil. A lot of that is still theoretical—we're still trying to work it out.”

Brahney and her colleagues note that microplastics may be changing the thermal properties of soil, for instance, altering how it absorbs and stores heat. They may also lead to the growth of more or less of the microbes that normally live there, rearranging communities and altering the way the dirt cycles nutrients. Microplastics may also change how water moves through these soils.

But setting these many remaining unknowns aside, this research puts in place a critical piece of the puzzle regarding the microplastic life cycle, which grows increasingly complex with each new study. Scientists have been trying to figure out what happens to the world’s plastic pollution, nearly all of which seems to “disappear” in the environment. But studies like this one are showing that the stuff never truly goes away, it just gets shredded into smaller bits that disperse all over the world, perhaps spending many years cycling through different systems—air, land, and sea.

Scientists have discovered, for instance, that currents are carrying microplastic particles into deep-sea ecosystems—when the currents slow, the suspended particles fall out and settle on the seafloor. “Deep sea currents basically behave in the same way as atmospheric currents do,” says University of Manchester earth scientist Ian Kane, who was lead author on that study, but wasn’t involved in this new work. “They're part of a global recirculation pattern, and the particles are transported according to the shape and the density. And so it's the same process. What these authors found is that the heavier particles tended to fall out in the wet conditions.”

Other research published last month by Steve Allen and his spouse Deonie Allen, also a microplastic researcher University of Strathclyde, found that the oceans are burping up microplastic particles, which then float onshore on sea breezes. Previously, it was believed that when microplastics flowed into the sea via wastewater, they’d stay there. So it may also turn out that microplastics landing on soil are also not staying put. “It may not be static,” says Deonie Allen. “It's not going to just sit. Some of it ends up going down through our water table, some of it moves because of erosion, or gets rereleased back into the atmosphere.”

There’s still much that science has to learn about this microplastic cycle, but this much is clear: There’ll be no putting the plastic back in the bottle.

Abstract - Differentially charged nanoplastics demonstrate distinct accumulation in Arabidopsis thaliana posted:

Although the fates of microplastics (0.1–5 mm in size) and nanoplastics (<100 nm) in marine environments are being increasingly well studied1,2, little is known about the behaviour of nanoplastics in terrestrial environments3,4,5,6, especially agricultural soils7.

Previous studies have evaluated the consequences of nanoplastic accumulation in aquatic plants, but there is no direct evidence for the internalization of nanoplastics in terrestrial plants. Here, we show that both positively and negatively charged nanoplastics can accumulate in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The aggregation promoted by the growth medium and root exudates limited the uptake of amino-modified polystyrene nanoplastics with positive surface charges.

Thus, positively charged nanoplastics accumulated at relatively low levels in the root tips, but these nanoplastics induced a higher accumulation of reactive oxygen species and inhibited plant growth and seedling development more strongly than negatively charged sulfonic-acid-modified nanoplastics.

By contrast, the negatively charged nanoplastics were observed frequently in the apoplast and xylem.

Our findings provide direct evidence that nanoplastics can accumulate in plants, depending on their surface charge.

Plant accumulation of nanoplastics can have both direct ecological effects and implications for agricultural sustainability and food safety.

petit choux posted:

So how does everybody feel now about us having till the end of the century or another 50 years before things get bad?

IAMKOREA posted:

Yeah that's what I thought thanks guys, still gonna do the carbon farming thing once I quit...

Rime posted:

Limits To Growth once again being proven correct, despite the wailing and gnashing of natalist / human supremacist teeth.

Wakko posted:

urban planning would be a big deal for the left im sure if it held any power anywhere

JeremoudCorbynejad posted:

can't believe i spent 15 minutes on this but i've done it now, what do you want me to do, not post it?

Raine posted:

Accretionist posted:

Climate Change: The Greatest Show On Earth

Koirhor posted:

also cycling 40 miles a week

Wakko posted:

isn't a faustian bargain where you take a big short term win in exchange for a terrible loss long term?

this seems like the opposite of that. in the short term we have a planet with more humans on it than ever before. but in the long term we get a planet with no humans.

John Michael Greer posted:

What makes Marlowe’s retelling of the story one of Elizabethan England’s great dramas, though, is his insight into the psychology of Faustus’ damnation. Faustus spends nearly the entire play a heartbeat away from escaping the devil’s pact that ultimately drags him to his doom. All he has to do is renounce the pact and all the powers and pleasures it brings him, and salvation is his — but this is exactly what he cannot do. He becomes so focused on his sorcerer’s powers, so used to getting what he wants by ordering Mephistopheles around, that the possibility of getting anything any other way slips out of his grasp. Even at the very end, as the devils drag him away, the last words that burst from his lips are a cry for Mephistopheles to save him.

Wakko posted:

oh i see, thanks. then its definitely not that because we made sure of human extinction at least 20 years ago.

New insight into the Great Dying - https://phys.org/news/2020-06-insight-great-dying.html posted:

A new study shows for the first time that the collapse of terrestrial ecosystems during Earth's most deadly mass extinction event was directly responsible for disrupting ocean chemistry.

The international study, led by the University of Leeds, highlights the importance of understanding the inter-connectedness of ecosystems as our modern environment struggles with the devastating effects of a rapidly warming planet.

The Permian-Triassic extinction, also known as the Great Dying, took place roughly 252 million years ago. It saw the loss of an estimated 90% of marine species, 70% of land species, widespread loss of plant diversity and extreme soil erosion.

While the exact cause of the terrestrial mass extinction is still debated, it is becoming apparent that the terrestrial ecosystems were wiped out prior to the marine ecosystems. However, until now it was unclear if or how the terrestrial extinction consequently impacted the chemistry of Earth's ancient oceans.

The team built a computer model that mapped chemical changes in Earth's oceans during the period of the Permian-Triassic extinction. The model tracks the cycling of the poisonous element mercury, which is emitted from volcanoes but also gets incorporated into living organisms. By tracing both the mercury and carbon cycles, and comparing to measurements in ancient rocks, the team were able to separate out biological and volcanic events.

This revealed that a massive collapse of terrestrial ecosystems cascaded organic matter, nutrients, and other biologically-important elements into the marine system.

While further research is needed to understand the exact effect this had on marine life, the fact that many marine species rely on chemical stability in their environment means that it is unlikely it was without consequence.

Study co-author Dr. Jacopo Dal Corso, who conceived the study during a research placement at Leeds said: "In this study we show that during the Permian-Triassic transition, roughly. 252 million years ago, the widespread collapse of the terrestrial ecosystems caused sudden changes in marine chemistry.

"This likely played a central role in triggering the most severe known marine extinction in Earth's history. This deep-time example shows how important the terrestrial reservoir is in regulating global biogeochemical cycles and calls for the greater conservation of these ecosystems."

Study co-author Dr. Benjamin Mills, from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds said: "252 million years ago the effects of mass plant death and soil oxidation appear to have seriously altered the chemistry of the oceans. This is an uncomfortable parallel with our own human-driven land use change, and we too are transferring large quantities of nutrients and other chemicals to the oceans.

"As we look to re-start the world's economies in the wake of the current pandemic, protecting our life-sustaining ecosystems should be a priority."

Driver of the largest mass extinction in the history of the Earth identified - https://phys.org/news/2020-10-driver-largest-mass-extinction-history.html posted:

As a next step, the team fed their data from the boron and additional carbon isotope-based investigations into a computer-based geochemical model that simulated the Earth's processes at that time. Results showed that warming and ocean acidification associated with the immense volcanic CO2 injection to the atmosphere was already fatal and led to the extinction of marine calcifying organisms right at the onset of the extinction. However, the CO2 release also brought further consequences; with increased global temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect, chemical weathering on land also increased.

Over thousands of years, increasing amounts of nutrients reached the oceans via rivers and coasts, which then became over-fertilized. The result was a large-scale oxygen depletion and the alteration of entire elemental cycles. "This domino-like collapse of the inter-connected life-sustaining cycles and processes ultimately led to the observed catastrophic extent of mass extinction at the Permian-Triassic boundary," summarizes Dr. Jurikova.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

Sort of tempting to embrace boomer selfishness now. "Sure, the planet is hosed in 100 years, but there's no way I'd live that long anyway. Just don't have kids and enjoy civilization's twilight years, then punch my card and check out before things get really dire!"

Craig Dilworth, Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind, page 393 posted:

The fundamental problem as regards the continuing existence of the human species is that, while we are ‘smarter’ than other species in our ability to develop technology, we, like them, follow the reaction, pioneering and overshoot principles when it comes to dealing with situations of sudden, continuous or great surplus. In keeping with this, and also like other animals, we are not built so as to care about coming generations, other than those with which we have direct contact. As Georgescu-Roegen says, the (rat) race of economic development that is the hallmark of modern civilisation leaves no doubt about humans’ lack of foresight.

Even if made aware of the entropic problem of the human species, humankind would not be willing to give up its present luxuries in order to ease the life of future generations. When problems arise we turn to the nearest solution to hand, and do not take into account the long-term consequences of our actions. In this regard we act irrationally. We humans, in whatever situation, will gladly use irreplaceable resources to produce a technological fix if it fills an immediate need. The longest we are prepared to put off gratification is perhaps a year, where in certain societies, though people may be dying of starvation, seeds are saved for the next year’s planting.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

The thing is, giving up my present luxuries isn't even an option. I'd be happy to prioritize coming generations over my own, but it's not happening. There's absolutely nothing I can do, so why care?

In short,

Hairy Marionette posted:

Speaking of mindfulness helping us deal with the horrors we have wrought. I found “The Happiness Trap” to be immensely helpful. It’s about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which is more broadly about learning to live a meaningful life amidst all the horror. It makes heavy use of mindfulness.

Hodgepodge posted:

you underestimate how slowly civilizations die

Banana Man posted:

I still vaguely remember a guy that predicted the end of civilization by 2025?

Koirhor posted:

I see that some of you are still in the bargaining phase

Article Abstract posted:

Achieving ambitious reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) is particularly challenging for transportation due to the technical limitations of replacing oil-based fuels. We apply the integrated assessment model MEDEAS-World to study four global transportation decarbonization strategies for 2050. The results show that a massive replacement of oil-fueled individual vehicles to electric ones alone cannot deliver GHG reductions consistent with climate stabilization and could result in the scarcity of some key minerals, such as lithium and magnesium. In addition, energy-economy feedbacks within an economic growth system create a rebound effect that counters the benefits of substitution. The only strategy that can achieve the objectives globally follows the Degrowth paradigm, combining a quick and radical shift to lighter electric vehicles and non-motorized modes with a drastic reduction in total transportation demand.

edit: they decided to replicate the biophysical economics perspective of nature and the economy and show actual energy consumption in their scenarios very cool

Lostconfused posted:

I am not reading all of that but, lol peak oil really did happen? Hahahaha.

quote:

Adapting to the depletion of oil (and especially that of high quality) is a key motivation to decarbonize transportation, although not so publicly recognized. The estimations of the decline in global peak oil dates and rates vary among authors in the literature [[9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]]. Most global oil extraction forecasts predict stagnation in 2020s decade. Although there are some uncertainties related to the amount of non-conventional oil that can be exploited, there is much consensus on the decline in conventional oil, while the historical data from 2006 onwards show that the production of conventional oil is already stagnated [[18], [19], [20], [21]].

cardiacarrest123 posted:

So I went and had a son before I really was introduced to the full horror of what’s coming. He’s only 5 now and It breaks my heart thinking about what I brought him into. I know that most likely everything is futile at this point, but all I do anyway is research what might be the best skills and knowledge to have in the future . I can teach him some layperson medical skills and gardening but my question to you guys is:

Assuming college is still a thing in 13 years, what studies make the most sense for what’s coming ?

I know this is wishful thinking. Nonetheless.. I was thinking about something water engineering related ? Since potable and clean useable water may be a near term Major issue?

take_it_slow posted:

Jorgen Randers, one of the original authors of Limits to Growth, from his 2012 book 2052, making concrete predictions about that time period based, in part, on the original LTG models.

Spime Wrangler posted:

Going to spend a lot of time thinking about this graph and lollin as we approach the intersection, assuming the trend holds.

Banana Man posted:

i hope someone eats my rear end

Taintrunner posted:

oh good lord we’re seriously doing the zac Snyder is a master satirist actually meltdown again, and somehow in the loving climate change thread

VectorSigma posted:

Shipon posted:

Greta redemption arc incoming

https://twitter.com/BlackLodgeAgent/status/1368759705003253762

Koirhor posted:

2050 is the new 2100

THE FUTURE WE CHOOSE: Surviving the Climate Crisis - Excerpt posted:

It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a world that will be more than 3 degrees warmer by 2100.

The first thing that hits you is the air.

In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy, and depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Your eyes often water. Your cough never seems to disappear. You can no longer simply walk out your front door and breathe fresh air. Instead, before opening doors or windows in the morning, you check your phone to see what the air quality will be. Everything might look fine—sunny and clear—but you know better. When storms and heat waves overlap and cluster, the air pollution and intensified surface ozone levels can make it dangerous to go outside without a specially designed face mask (which only some can afford).

Our world is getting hotter, an irreversible development now utterly beyond our control. We have already passed tipping points, like The Great Melting of the Arctic sea ice, which used to reflect the sun’s heat. Oceans, forests, plants, trees, and soil had for many years absorbed half the carbon dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere.

In five to 10 years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly inhospitable to humans. We don’t know how habitable the regions of Australia, North Africa, and the western United States will be by 2100. No one knows what the future holds for their children and grandchildren.

More moisture in the air and higher sea surface temperatures have caused a surge in extreme hurricanes and tropical storms. Coastal cities in Bangladesh, Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere have suffered brutal infrastructure destruction and extreme flooding, killing many thousands and displacing millions. This happens with increasing frequency now.

Because multiple disasters are often happening simultaneously, it can take weeks or even months for basic food and water relief to reach areas pummeled by extreme floods. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera, respiratory illnesses, and malnutrition are rampant.

Melting permafrost is releasing ancient microbes that today’s humans have never been exposed to—and as a result have no resistance to. Diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks are rampant as these species flourish in the changed climate, spreading to previously safe parts of the planet, increasingly overwhelming us. Worse still, the public health crisis of antibiotic resistance has only intensified as the population has grown denser in habitable areas and temperatures continue to rise.

Every day, because of rising water levels, some part of the world must evacuate to higher ground. Every day you see images of mothers with babies strapped to their backs, wading through floodwaters. News stories tell of people living in houses with water up to their ankles because they have nowhere else to go, their children coughing and wheezing because of the mold growing in their beds, insurance companies declaring bankruptcy leaving survivors without resources to rebuild their lives.

Those who remain on the coast must now witness the demise of a way of life based on fishing. As oceans have absorbed carbon dioxide, the water has become more acidic and is now so hostile to marine life that all but a few countries have banned fishing, even in international waters. Many people insist that the few fish that are left should be enjoyed while they last—an argument, hard to fault in many parts of the world, that applies to so much that is vanishing.

As devastating as rising oceans have been, droughts and heat waves inland have created a special hell. Vast regions have succumbed to severe aridification, sometimes followed by desertification. Wildlife there has become a distant memory.

Cities such as Marrakech and Volgograd are on the verge of becoming deserts. Hong Kong, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi, and many others have been desalinating seawater for years, desperately trying to keep up with the constant wave of immigration from areas that have gone completely dry.

Extreme heat is on the march. If you live in Paris, you endure summer temperatures that regularly rise to 111°F (43.8°C). This is no longer the headline-grabbing event it would have been 30 years ago. Everyone stays inside, drinks water, and dreams of air-conditioning. You lie on your couch, a cold, wet towel over your face, and try to rest without dwelling on the poor farmers on the outskirts of town who, despite recurrent droughts and wildfires, are still trying to grow grapes, olives, or soy—luxuries for the rich, not for you.

You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in the hottest parts of the world, where, for upward of 45 days per year, temperatures skyrocket to 140°F (60°C) —a point at which the human body cannot be outside for longer than about six hours because it loses the ability to cool itself down. Places such as central India are becoming increasingly challenging to inhabit. For a while people tried to carry on, but when you can’t work outside, when you can fall asleep only at 4 a.m. for a couple of hours because that’s the coolest part of the day, there’s not much you can do but leave. Mass migrations to less hot rural areas are beset by a host of refugee problems, civil unrest, and bloodshed over diminished water availability.

Even in some parts of the United States, there are fiery conflicts over water, battles between the rich who are willing to pay for as much water as they want and everyone else demanding equal access to the life-enabling resource. The taps in nearly all public facilities are locked, and those in restrooms are coin-operated. At the federal level, Congress is in an uproar over water redistribution: states with less water demand what they see as their fair share from states that have more. Government leaders have been stymied on the issue for years, and with every passing month the Colorado River and the Rio Grande shrink further

Food production swings wildly from month to month, season to season, depending on where you live. More people are starving than ever before. Climate zones have shifted, so some new areas have become available for agriculture (Alaska, the Arctic), while others have dried up (Mexico, California). Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire, and tornadoes.

One thing hasn’t changed, though—if you have money, you have access. Global trade has slowed as countries such as China stop exporting and seek to hold on to their own resources. Disasters and wars rage, choking off trade routes. The tyranny of supply and demand is now unforgiving; because of its increasing scarcity, food can now be wildly expensive. Income inequality has never been this stark or this dangerous.

As committed as nations are to keeping wealth and resources within their borders, they’re determined to keep people out. Most countries’ armies are now just highly militarized border patrols. Lockdown is the goal, but it hasn’t been a total success. Desperate people will always find a way.

Ever since the equatorial belt started to become difficult to inhabit, an unending stream of migrants has been moving north from Central America toward Mexico and the United States. Others are moving south toward the tips of Chile and Argentina. The same scenes are playing out across Europe and Asia. Some countries have been better global Good Samaritans than others, but even they have now effectively shut their borders, their wallets, and their eyes.

Even if you live in areas with more temperate climates such as Canada and Scandinavia, you are still extremely vulnerable. Severe tornadoes, flash floods, wildfires, mudslides, and blizzards are often in the back of your mind. Depending on where you live, you have a fully stocked storm cellar, an emergency go-bag in your car, or a six-foot fire moat around your house. People are glued to weather forecasts. Only the foolhardy shut their phones off at night. If an emergency hits, you may only have minutes to respond.

The weather is unavoidable, but lately the news about what’s going on at the borders has become too much for most people to endure. Under increasing pressure from public health officials, news organizations have decreased the number of stories devoted to genocide, slave trading, and refugee virus outbreaks. You can no longer trust the news. Social media, long the grim source of live feeds and disaster reporting, is brimming with conspiracy theories and doctored videos.

The demise of the human species is being discussed more and more. For many, the only uncertainty is how long we’ll last, how many more generations will see the light of day. Suicides are the most obvious manifestation of the prevailing despair, but there are other indications: a sense of bottomless loss, unbearable guilt, and fierce resentment at previous generations who didn’t do what was necessary to ward off this unstoppable calamity.

WorldsStongestNerd posted:

With a tape measure.

I wonder how much a dick measure tech gets paid.

Perry Mason Jar posted:

Five figures but they say it's six figures.

Accretionist posted:

It's such a steady procession of things going wrong.

[...]

Flora's disappearing. Fauna's disappearing. Seas are rising. Seas are acidifying. Climate's shifting. Polar vortex is getting zany. Biosphere's thiamine deficient. Plastic's suffusing everything. Sperm counts are shrinking. Dicks are shrinking. Balls are shrinking. And our leadership's a bunch of yacht-obsessed, wannabe-aristocrat perverts who're like, "ha ha, right? Now watch me poison this town's drinking water."

What could it mean?

Craig Dilworth - Too Smart for Our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind, page 393 posted:

The fundamental problem as regards the continuing existence of the human species is that, while we are ‘smarter’ than other species in our ability to develop technology, we, like them, follow the reaction, pioneering and overshoot principles when it comes to dealing with situations of sudden, continuous or great surplus.

In keeping with this, and also like other animals, we are not built so as to care about coming generations, other than those with which we have direct contact. As Georgescu-Roegen says, the (rat) race of economic development that is the hallmark of modern civilisation leaves no doubt about humans’ lack of foresight.

Even if made aware of the entropic problem of the human species, humankind would not be willing to give up its present luxuries in order to ease the life of future generations. When problems arise we turn to the nearest solution to hand, and do not take into account the long-term consequences of our actions.

In this regard we act irrationally. We humans, in whatever situation, will gladly use irreplaceable resources to produce a technological fix if it fills an immediate need. The longest we are prepared to put off gratification is perhaps a year, where in certain societies, though people may be dying of starvation, seeds are saved for the next year’s planting.

MightyBigMinus posted:

the megafauna were the first to fall to the capitalist ape

Real hurthling! posted:

the IEA is declaring we are at peak oil...demand
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/never-mind-peak-oil-global-forecaster-calls-peak-gasoline-11615988228

iirc the iea is captured by industry and that seems to jibe with their idiots claim that improved gasoline efficiency will reduce demand counter to every such advance in fuel efficiency ever

""The Atlantic - The World Isn’t Ready for Peak Oil" posted:

Two months ago, the world experienced a historic collapse in oil prices, as coronavirus-related shutdowns cratered global demand, briefly turning prices for May delivery negative. Prices have since rebounded modestly, but they remain unsustainably low for countries that depend on oil exports to generate government revenue.

The resulting instability, from the Middle East to Africa to the Americas, raises a flurry of immediate national-security concerns. But the current crisis also offers a stark preview of the challenges the world will face if it negotiates a climate accord without also moving to stabilize the more than a dozen countries that depend on oil exports as their primary source for generating government revenue.

In Iraq, for example, oil revenues account for 90 percent of the government’s budgetary income and two-thirds of its economy. This year’s falling oil prices have already reduced the country’s revenues by half.

Before the outbreak, Iraq’s unemployment rate hovered around 50 percent, and Baghdad faced a wave of youth-led protests that ultimately led to the ouster of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. But with dwindling revenues, the new government will be hamstrung in its efforts to improve economic conditions. To make matters worse, among Iraqis who are employed, 30 percent work in some capacity for the government. The World Bank estimates that Iraq will need oil prices to return to $58 a barrel just to meet its wage and pension obligations.

This is why the Obama administration, in which I served as the special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, pursued climate goals in Paris at the same time that it was investing in Iraq’s oil and gas infrastructure. We understood that a transition to a green economy couldn’t happen at the flip of a switch, especially in countries so economically dependent on fossil fuels.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, also finds itself in a precarious situation. Oil exports account for more than half of its government revenue and 90 percent of its foreign-exchange earnings. Yet the price decline means that Nigerian oil is currently being traded at prices lower than it can be produced. If Nigeria is priced out of global oil markets, the result could be catastrophic. What happens when half of the budget disappears in a country where more than 80 million people already live on less than $1 a day?

Some version of this story is playing out across multiple continents. According to the International Monetary Fund, Algeria, which depends on oil revenue for about 40 percent of its budget, will need oil prices to reach $109 a barrel in order to break even. In Libya, where the petroleum sector accounts for 60 percent of GDP, the break-even price is $100. Meanwhile, in our own neighborhood, oil accounts for a third of Mexico’s tax revenue and a quarter of Ecuador’s. If prices settle in the $30 to $40 range, the consequences could easily cascade, creating new regional instability in many parts of the world.

A spiraling collapse in government funding is likely to exacerbate existing tensions within the affected countries. Indeed, it already is. In Iraq, for example, ISIS has increased attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk by 200 percent this year, according to the Middle East Institute. In Nigeria, fears abound that another violent insurgency may take root in the Niger Delta, where a fragile peace is held together by monthly stipends the government may no longer be able to afford. Boko Haram, too, may find a new opportunity to gain a foothold, especially if the Nigerian government is unable to pay its already underfunded military.

Perhaps most disconcerting is the likelihood of a new international migration crisis. The combination of weakened governments, broad economic calamity, and surging violence is a recipe for severe dislocation, which could create spillover effects across borders. The most recent major migration crisis, which began with the Syrian civil war in 2011, helped give rise to ISIS while at the same time igniting a wave of ethno-nationalism in the West that threatens global institutions and alliances today.

We may avoid a repeat of such events for now. As countries begin to reopen their economies, global demand for oil may receive a sufficient boost to stave off the worst-case scenarios. But assuming that any such reprieve would be lasting would be a mistake. The coronavirus oil shock is not a one-off crisis; it is a dress rehearsal for a future fast unfolding.

The world is, after all, in the midst of an inevitable transition away from fossil fuels, and there can be little doubt that an effective climate-change strategy will reduce substantially the demand for oil. The details of the efforts to combat climate-change will determine how—and how soon—the world reaches peak oil. But reach it, it will, or perhaps it already has. And as it does, the international community must be prepared to manage the fallout in countries that depend on oil for their revenue.

That work should begin with a rejection of the siloed approach we take to our global policy, in which climate negotiators, national-security experts, and business leaders are rarely in the same room, across the same table from one another. At the next climate summit, we should make room for more seats, so that the accord includes an international coalition of governments and global institutions working to secure capital for a developing world that is currently hemorrhaging cash. We will need to invest in these nations, and help their economies and governments transition away from their dependence on petroleum. And, ultimately, the United States will need to reclaim its place on the global stage—as the leader of that coalition, rather than its leading antagonist.

Amos Hochstein is senior vice president at Tellurian. He served as the U.S. Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs where he led the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources.

CODChimera posted:

how is this not setting off every single alarm bell and red flag that we have??