Conspiracy theories surrounding human influenced climate change, what's up with that?


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Philippines sends tonnes of rubbish back to Canada

You see? Even the most apologetically polite nation can't get something as simple as recycling right.
What hope does the rest of the world have?
:D

Did I say my floor for the year 2100 was +2.5°C? I may have to revise this upwards. I mean, Canadians! So conscientious and they fail with all caps on a task so simple to get right.


And to balance out my recent spat of harsh cynicism here's something almost positive. Ya gotta admire a guy like Russ George.

The climate renegade
What happens when someone wants to go it alone on fixing the climate?

At first pass it sure looks like Ol' Russ is on to something. A drop in the bucket for C-capture I'm sure but it might just be a significant aid to salmon recovery in stressed areas.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

So I see there was a bunch of casual nonsense about New World slavery and the Civil War posted in the last couple pages.

I'm not gonna add material to it in that thread (it was a big digression to begin with), but I'll take a moment to point out Freedmen's Patrol, written by the former Samnell of Paizo. Lots of juicy deep dives and close reading. He lately did a series of posts about the rather muddled end of slavery in my home state of Massachusetts between 1780 and 1790.


More good bad news on plastics in the world ocean.

Microplastics Have Invaded The Deep Ocean — And The Food Chain

We Were Missing Most of the Plastic in the Ocean
The highest levels of microplastics are found more than 650 feet below the surface.

This is turning out just like I said it would. And, to head off the inevitable flurry of ad hominem obfuscations, not because I'm so smart. No, because I've been reading smart people who publish in peer reviewed literature for the past half decade. I believed them. Turns out they were right. Go figure.


Which prediction of yours is coming true? And if you're just copying other people's articles... are you really making predictions?

I could be wrong, but I don't remember a single person disagreeing with you that plastics are a problem. So, I'm not even sure who you're trying to say "I told you so" to.

Silver Crusade

Quark Blast wrote:
to head off the inevitable flurry of ad hominem obfuscations

Apparently you failed :-(


pauljathome wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
to head off the inevitable flurry of ad hominem obfuscations
Apparently you failed :-(

:D

Yes, it was all but inevitable I assume.

Back to the topic of what plastics are in the ocean and what they are doing to the ecosystem:

NPR wrote:

"What we found was actually pretty surprising," Van Houtan says. "We found that most of the plastic is below the surface." More, he says, than in the giant floating patches.

And also to their surprise, they found that submerged microplastics are widely distributed, from the surface to thousands of feet deep...

Bruce Robison, a senior scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, says he was shocked at how much plastic they found. "The fact that plastics are so pervasive, that they are so widespread, is a staggering discovery, and we'd be foolish to ignore that," he says. "Anything that humans introduce to that habitat is passing though these animals and being incorporated into the food web" — a web that leads up to marine animals people eat.

The Monterey Bay findings appear Thursday in the journal Nature Scientific Reports and only represent a local sample. But Robison says 70 years of manufacturing plastic may have created a global ocean problem. "We humans are constantly coming up with marvelous ideas that eventually turn around and bite us on the butt," he says with a dry laugh.

And scientists are just beginning to diagnose the extent of that wound*.

The Atlantic wrote:

Earlier this year, another group found plastic fibers in the guts of animals that live in the 36,000-foot-deep Mariana Trench, the lowest point on Earth. The Monterey Bay study suggests that microplastics are not just present below the surface of the ocean, but may be abundant...

When animals eat microplastics, they are, obviously, not eating food. The material can clog their guts. The chemistry of plastic also means the material tends to attract pollutants in the ocean water, making it even more dangerous to eat...

As the problem of plastic pollution has gained attention, so have viral solutions, such as the Ocean Cleanup, a 2,000-foot-long floating boom meant to collect plastic on the surface. The tube broke in testing, without collecting much plastic (a result experts could have predicted). The deep ocean is harder to reach, dark, cold, and under immense pressures. It’s hard to imagine how to even begin removing plastics there. “The best approach is to stop chucking so much in the ocean in the first place,” Galloway says. “That’s always going to be the best approach.”

Strictly speaking this isn't AGW but it is related in that AGW causes major stress in various ecosystems across our planet and works as a force multiplier with all the plastic crapola in the world ocean. Plastics and their derivatives aren't just bad, they're really bad. And the fallout from our overuse of plastics and related chemicals is only just beginning to be told.

The truth is so negative that it is likely to produce apathy when people are told both the severity and the steps needed for the cure. So the real truth (that is the practical truth) is that next to nothing will be done and the ensuing catastrophe will work itself out through attrition on human economies and human beings; especially the poor ones.

* See this related issue regarding plastics on land: Organic Farming Has A Plastic Problem.


pauljathome wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
to head off the inevitable flurry of ad hominem obfuscations
Apparently you failed :-(

Point out the ad hominem that I made. No. Seriously. Highlight which words you felt were an insult against him.

And I still agree that plastics are a huge problem.

Silver Crusade

Irontruth wrote:
pauljathome wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
to head off the inevitable flurry of ad hominem obfuscations
Apparently you failed :-(

Point out the ad hominem that I made. No. Seriously. Highlight which words you felt were an insult against him.

And I still agree that plastics are a huge problem.

Irontruth wrote:
Which prediction of yours is coming true? And if you're just copying other people's articles... are you really making predictions?

I strongly suspect that you're just a loathsome little troll, but on the off chance that you've let your antipathy to Quark get the better of you, that is a classic (albeit slightly subtle) Ad hominem.

You're not attacking his argument, you're just trying to ridicule him.

And now, I presume, you'll launch an Ad Hominem on me. I suspect that you'll argue that I don't know what an Ad Hominem is.


You're the one insulting me at the moment.

Silver Crusade

Irontruth wrote:
You're the one insulting me at the moment.

Well, to be technical I'm only insulting you if you're NOT a Troll.

But, at the least, I definitely admit that I was rude and made my point in a poor fashion. I apologize for that.

However, I believe that I DID address your question and pointed out your Ad Hominem.


No, I don't think you did. I didn't say anything about him, my point was about the things he said. Yes, he's included in that, because within the sentence I am structuring my sentences with active verbs.

"Bob missed the free throw."

I guess I could just say: "The free throw was missed," but if we have all the facts about who took the shot, then we still know who did the missing. Using an active verb doesn't make a statement inherently an Ad Hominem. So no, I don't think you succeeded in showing that I was insulting him.

If you want to go back a few pages, you'll find plenty of insults though.


pauljathome wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
You're the one insulting me at the moment.

Well, to be technical I'm only insulting you if you're NOT a Troll.

But, at the least, I definitely admit that I was rude and made my point in a poor fashion. I apologize for that.

However, I believe that I DID address your question and pointed out your Ad Hominem.

Not really. You defined ad hominem, but didn't say anything about where it was used.

"Show where you predicted these things you claim to have predicted" isn't ad hominem. It's a valid challenge to a claim.


thejeff wrote:
pauljathome wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
You're the one insulting me at the moment.

Well, to be technical I'm only insulting you if you're NOT a Troll.

But, at the least, I definitely admit that I was rude and made my point in a poor fashion. I apologize for that.

However, I believe that I DID address your question and pointed out your Ad Hominem.

Not really. You defined ad hominem, but didn't say anything about where it was used.

"Show where you predicted these things you claim to have predicted" isn't ad hominem. It's a valid challenge to a claim.

Wander among the posts on page 58 of this thread. I made the "bold" claim that microplastics were pushing species to extinction. My opinion was excoriated with pungent disdain by Ironthruth. In truth, there was one scientist in one of the links I provided that claimed there was "no evidence" for that. Good for that scientist. Way to hang your ### out there and be wrong for everyone to see. No doubt a shill for some plastics consortium.

Anela Choy and company over at Scripps are giving us just the first of many studies that will vindicate my original statement regarding plastics in the world ocean and species extinction.

I can't help that people are so blind to their own prejudices that they refuse to see the obvious. I have no hope of providing anything that counts as evidence when "debating" Ironthruth or CB so I don't bother. Trolls gotta be trolls and I'm fine with letting them be so. The inordinate capacity to troll my every post on this thread, while nominally keeping withing the rules of the forum, tells me all I need to know. And I know ad hominem when I read it.


Hey. I’m new to the thread, so greetings all! I’ve checked in on it on and off for the past few years, mostly out of disbelief that it’s continued for so long after the OP’s question was answered.

But if there’s trolling going on in this thread, I want in on that shyte!

Forgive me if I sound ignorant - I am ignorant! - but what is it that makes Irontruth a troll? If responding to someone’s every post is the hallmark of trollish behavior, even if responding with invective to someone’s every post is the hallmark of trollish behavior, that defines Quark Blast just as well. From what I’ve read, Irontruth is more civil about the back-and-forth, not less.

But hey, I’m new to the thread, so I could be missing something.


Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:

Hey. I’m new to the thread, so greetings all! I’ve checked in on it on and off for the past few years, mostly out of disbelief that it’s continued for so long after the OP’s question was answered.

But if there’s trolling going on in this thread, I want in on that shyte!*

Forgive me if I sound ignorant - I am ignorant! - but what is it that makes Irontruth a troll? If responding to someone’s every post is the hallmark of trollish behavior, even if responding with invective to someone’s every post is the hallmark of trollish behavior, that defines Quark Blast just as well. From what I’ve read, Irontruth is more civil about the back-and-forth, not less.

But hey, I’m new to the thread, so I could be missing something.

Irontruth is never satisfied with a reply from anyone who disagrees with him. You could spend all your waking moments justifying your position to that one and make no headway. "I sense much petulance in this one", a wise Jedi Master once posted on these forums. But hey, don't believe me. Just go over to his posting history, on most any topic thread, and you'll see I'm correct in my assessment.

The only regular detractor of mine on these forums I have respect for is thejeff. Dude is wiser than a Maharishi, even if he is sometimes wrong in his opinions.

* and trolling is #####, so I don't recommend it


Here's some general audience info on the issue.

NWF wrote:

“For small populations—of which there are many in the seabird world—even a small amount of pressure from plastic pollution might have a significant impact on their extinction risk,” says Stephanie Borrelle, a postdoctoral researcher in New Zealand who studies birds. Ocean plastics contain toxic chemicals, both from the manufacturing process and from pollutants that adhere to plastic surfaces. Those poisons, she says, can leach into an animal’s tissue, “potentially affecting the reproduction output or biophysical function.”

Whatever the population impacts, Borrelle says, they occur in a larger context that includes climate change, fishing bycatch and habitat loss. “These species are hammered by a whole bunch of human activities,” she says. “Plastics could be just that tiny little nail in the coffin.”...

We humans now produce our own weight in plastic each year. Scientists can’t pinpoint exactly how much of that ends up in the ocean, but one study in Science estimated between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons in 2010 alone. If we keep up the pace, predicts the World Economic Forum, ocean plastics of all types will outweigh fish by 2050...

The idea of sweeping the ocean has plenty of critics. Some warn of ecological harm... “It’s a complete distraction,” says Eriksen, who worries that the splashiness of the floating filter will divert energy and resources from the real solution: keeping plastics out of the ocean in the first place.

Poor Eriksen. Good luck on getting people to listen to sensible solutions. Case in point; see the next item below.

.

Cleaning up the plastic in the ocean

Discarded plastic is piling up around the world and pooling in the ocean. Sharyn Alfonsi reports on the problem's deadly consequences for wildlife and what can be done to stop it

CBS wrote:

If all goes according to plan, it's designed to use the wind, waves and water currents to skim the plastic, and corral it into an area where it can be removed, the first phase of an ambitious goal.

Boyan Slat: I hope to deploy say around 60 of these cleanup systems in the-- in the next two to three years....

Susan Freinkel: I know all the problems about plastic, and if you open my kitchen, you know, cabinets, I've got a box of Ziploc baggies there because it's easier. So you know, we have to really wrestle ourselves with-- what conveniences are we willing to give up, what kind of consumption are we willing to sort of pull back on in order to change.

It is a big ask that would require a major overhaul in the way we live our lives...

And because we must all give up convenience, none will*. And they'll wave and cheer exceedingly poor ideas like that of the ocean garbage skimmer while continuing to make their lunch with, effectively, one-use ziplock bags.

I especially liked this little exchange here:

CBS wrote:

Kevin O'Brien: Yeah, and the smaller the piece of plastic and the smaller the animal that can consume it.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Do we know that they definitely have effects on fish?

Kevin O'Brien: We don't know that for certain. These plastics become a magnet essentially for toxic chemicals that are found in the environment, PCBs, pesticides, fire retardant chemicals.

Kevin O'Brien: And so the longer a piece of plastic stays in the environment, the more toxic it becomes.

Studies have found these microplastics in everything from supermarket seafood to drinking water, but scientists don't yet know what all that means for our health.

We don't know for certain that Roundup causes cancer but you get a Darwin Award if you drink it everyday for a beverage.

.

* This is not to say that we can't all be forced to give up convenience. That can happen and does on a far smaller scale than "global" all the time. Check out social laws in Singapore sometime when you're bored.


So...do I troll or am I just amusing, then QB?


Quark Blast wrote:
* and trolling is #####, so I don't recommend it

This thing I said, it was said in jest.

To play the devil’s advocate, isn’t a marked lack of satisfaction with opposing opinions fairly descriptive of yourself as well? The difference, I’m sure, is that you’re right where he’s wrong (I’m assuming Irontruth’s a he as the post I’m replying to also referred to him as such, someone correct me if I’m wrong), but at least in the realm of opinions and unprovens (such as the nature and future of humanity) you can hardly fault him for displaying a trait you have in common.

The argument you’ve been making seems to be (and correct me where I’m wrong) that humankind can’t act in time to avert the worst of climate change, where Irontruth, possessing the same facts, thinks that humankind can. I, like you, am not a sociologist, nor am I an economist, nor am I a historian, nor am I privy to any exclusive data in regards to the climate, nor am I an oracle (nor am I a cleric, druid, or shaman); and so the only claim I can with any authority make is, ‘we’ll see.’

But the question itself is entirely academic. The only answer to ‘exactly how many people will starve to death over the next century’ is sell everything you don’t need, save money, stockpile food. Honestly, what annoys me worse even then climate change deniers (they, at least, have the excuse of being stupid) are people who acknowledge climate change, know that millions at the least will die, and then do nothing to prepare themselves and their family. I know people who are “worried” about climate change, and yet own multiple computers, multiple cars, don’t own the gigantic houses they live in, and have nothing squirreled away for rainy days to come.


Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
* and trolling is #####, so I don't recommend it

This thing I said, it was said in jest.

To play the devil’s advocate, isn’t a marked lack of satisfaction with opposing opinions fairly descriptive of yourself as well? The difference, I’m sure, is that you’re right where he’s wrong (I’m assuming Irontruth’s a he as the post I’m replying to also referred to him as such, someone correct me if I’m wrong), but at least in the realm of opinions and unprovens (such as the nature and future of humanity) you can hardly fault him for displaying a trait you have in common.

The argument you’ve been making seems to be (and correct me where I’m wrong) that humankind can’t act in time to avert the worst of climate change, where Irontruth, possessing the same facts, thinks that humankind can. I, like you, am not a sociologist, nor am I an economist, nor am I a historian, nor am I privy to any exclusive data in regards to the climate, nor am I an oracle (nor am I a cleric, druid, or shaman); and so the only claim I can with any authority make is, ‘we’ll see.’

But the question itself is entirely academic. The only answer to ‘exactly how many people will starve to death over the next century’ is sell everything you don’t need, save money, stockpile food. Honestly, what annoys me worse even then climate change deniers (they, at least, have the excuse of being stupid) are people who acknowledge climate change, know that millions at the least will die, and then do nothing to prepare themselves and their family. I know people who are “worried” about climate change, and yet own multiple computers, multiple cars, don’t own the gigantic houses they live in, and have nothing squirreled away for rainy days to come.

Those of us even more cynical know that saving money won't help at all - though being really rich might buy you time. And that stockpiling food will help only a little if at all.

I've mostly chosen to prepare by not having kids. :(


Even if/when there are forests in the poles, there will be habitable parts of the earth. At the very least, it’s common sense to relocate to the part of your nation that will be least effected by climate change over the thirty or fifty years. (And by that point odds are that we’ll have created an artificial superintelligence, for better or worse, so there’s not a whole lot of sense in planning beyond that.) There will be billions of climate refugees over the next few decades, you’re helping no one, least of all yourself, by not getting out ahead of this thing.

You are rich enough to buy time (though I protest the fatalistic way that’s worded; if things continue the way they have historically, everyone dies eventually - the game is seeing how long you can stretch that out); you’re reading this on an internet so I know you’re wealthy like I could scarcely comprehend when I was a kid, so you might as well buy as much time as you can afford - I’m told it’s priceless. There’s neither point or space here for reinventing the wheel, so I’ll point you towards the blogs Early Retirement Extreme and Mr. Money Mustache for solid advice on living cheaper, without sacrificing quality of life.


Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:

Even if/when there are forests in the poles, there will be habitable parts of the earth. At the very least, it’s common sense to relocate to the part of your nation that will be least effected by climate change over the thirty or fifty years. (And by that point odds are that we’ll have created an artificial superintelligence, for better or worse, so there’s not a whole lot of sense in planning beyond that.) There will be billions of climate refugees over the next few decades, you’re helping no one, least of all yourself, by not getting out ahead of this thing.

You are rich enough to buy time (though I protest the fatalistic way that’s worded; if things continue the way they have historically, everyone dies eventually - the game is seeing how long you can stretch that out); you’re reading this on an internet so I know you’re wealthy like I could scarcely comprehend when I was a kid, so you might as well buy as much time as you can afford - I’m told it’s priceless. There’s neither point or space here for reinventing the wheel, so I’ll point you towards the blogs Early Retirement Extreme and Mr. Money Mustache for solid advice on living cheaper, without sacrificing quality of life.

It's the billions of climate refugees. And the wars. And the social collapse.

Having food stored up and some cash doesn't really help with societal collapse. I'm not interested in living a doomsday prepper lifestyle - especially since I'm likely to be pretty old by the time things get that bad. And I don't have kids to worry about, as I said.

When I talk "rich enough", I'm talking rich enough to buy that security. An estate and people to work it and protect it. To set your self up as a neo-feudal lord if need be. Living cheaper doesn't get you there. I live cheaply enough anyway - though not "Extreme!" level.

I already live in a place less likely to be affected, at least initially, but nowhere won't be affected by billions of refugees and the wars and civil unrest that go along with that. Trying to set yourself up to ride it out personally is just a crapshoot I'm not interested in. It's a trap. This is a societal problem and can only be dealt with on that level.


Quark Blast wrote:
thejeff wrote:
pauljathome wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
You're the one insulting me at the moment.

Well, to be technical I'm only insulting you if you're NOT a Troll.

But, at the least, I definitely admit that I was rude and made my point in a poor fashion. I apologize for that.

However, I believe that I DID address your question and pointed out your Ad Hominem.

Not really. You defined ad hominem, but didn't say anything about where it was used.

"Show where you predicted these things you claim to have predicted" isn't ad hominem. It's a valid challenge to a claim.

Wander among the posts on page 58 of this thread. I made the "bold" claim that microplastics were pushing species to extinction. My opinion was excoriated with pungent disdain by Ironthruth. In truth, there was one scientist in one of the links I provided that claimed there was "no evidence" for that. Good for that scientist. Way to hang your ### out there and be wrong for everyone to see. No doubt a shill for some plastics consortium.

Anela Choy and company over at Scripps are giving us just the first of many studies that will vindicate my original statement regarding plastics in the world ocean and species extinction.

I can't help that people are so blind to their own prejudices that they refuse to see the obvious. I have no hope of providing anything that counts as evidence when "debating" Ironthruth or CB so I don't bother. Trolls gotta be trolls and I'm fine with letting them be so. The inordinate capacity to troll my every post on this thread, while nominally keeping withing the rules of the forum, tells me all I need to know. And I know ad hominem when I read it.

I agree with you that plastics are a big problem. It's a massive leap to say "plastics are a health risk to marine life and anything that eats them (ie humans)" to extrapolate that into "plastics are an extinction level event".

So far, you have provided lots of examples of the first one, but you have not yet shown a single scientific source that backs up the second claim.

I'm with you that plastics are a problem. In fact, I agree with you on pretty much everything you say about them.... except for your claim of an extinction level event. That is a pretty specific and large claim, and I don't think you've shown a single piece of evidence that supports it.

Also, you should reread some of your posts on page 58. You've routinely used the fact that you get A's in classes as proof that you can't be wrong about anything in this thread. Your complaints that I don't listen to anyone else and assume that I am always right sound an awful lot like projection.


Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:

Hey. I’m new to the thread, so greetings all! I’ve checked in on it on and off for the past few years, mostly out of disbelief that it’s continued for so long after the OP’s question was answered.

But if there’s trolling going on in this thread, I want in on that shyte!

Forgive me if I sound ignorant - I am ignorant! - but what is it that makes Irontruth a troll? If responding to someone’s every post is the hallmark of trollish behavior, even if responding with invective to someone’s every post is the hallmark of trollish behavior, that defines Quark Blast just as well. From what I’ve read, Irontruth is more civil about the back-and-forth, not less.

But hey, I’m new to the thread, so I could be missing something.

Oh, there are times I am extremely uncivil. I just know how to turn it on and off.


thejeff wrote:

It's the billions of climate refugees. And the wars. And the social collapse.

Having food stored up and some cash doesn't really help with societal collapse. I'm not interested in living a doomsday prepper lifestyle - especially since I'm likely to be pretty old by the time things get that bad. And I don't have kids to worry about, as I said.

Having a few months of food stored up does help if society only collapses a little. It would make the difference between starving to death in the weeks after a natural or man made disaster, or being one of the ones who make it long enough for relief workers to get to you. And if you grow what you eat, you’ll last as long as the water does, whatever it is society does.

The world won’t unravel all at once, and right until the moment you die there’s hope. If/when things get past the point of no return, where cutting emissions will do nothing to help, the governments of the world are going to try their hand at geoengineering. Will that make more of the world habitable, albeit too late for many, or will it just make things into an even worse hellscape? I don’t know, but the only answer I need is to buy as much time as I can afford. And that’s without mentioning intelligence enhancing brain-machine interfaces, or artificial intelligence, both of which are being built as we speak by corporations and governments, and either of which would bring on technologic and societal change comparable to the industrial revolution or the advent of the internet.

Setting yourself up to ride it out is the only sane choice - because it’s the only choice that gives you a chance of doing so! Buy as much time as you can afford; we don’t know how bad exactly things will get but it’d be mighty silly to bite the dust afore the shitstorm truly hits the fan.

You don’t have to live like a doomsday prepper - the middle class of America waste a truly absurd amount of money, and it doesn’t take much curbing of one’s unconscious rampant consumerism to see returns; even a little money compounds quickly. You might as well give those blogs I linked a glance-over. And don’t be discouraged by ERE’s extreme name, it was mostly written more than decade ago and naming conventions were different.


Thomas Seitz wrote:
So...do I troll or am I just amusing, then QB?

From this POV? Amusing.

:D

.

Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
This thing I said, it was said in jest.

Yes, and this thing I said, it was said in sarcasm.

:D

Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
To play the devil’s advocate, isn’t a marked lack of satisfaction with opposing opinions fairly descriptive of yourself as well? The difference, I’m sure, is that you’re right where he’s wrong (I’m assuming Irontruth’s a he as the post I’m replying to also referred to him as such, someone correct me if I’m wrong), but at least in the realm of opinions and unprovens (such as the nature and future of humanity) you can hardly fault him for displaying a trait you have in common.

I can fault him when the trait is expressed inordinately; indeed even perversely.

Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
The argument you’ve been making seems to be (and correct me where I’m wrong) that humankind can’t act in time to avert the worst of climate change, where Irontruth, possessing the same facts, thinks that humankind can. I, like you, am not a sociologist, nor am I an economist, nor am I a historian, nor am I privy to any exclusive data in regards to the climate, nor am I an oracle... and so the only claim I can with any authority make is, ‘we’ll see.’

Here's where you're wrong:

Humankind can't act in time to make the Kyoto/Paris/Katowice goal of a +1.5°C year 2100.

At this point, barring near-miracle CC&S tech being developed and scaled by about the 2030, we won't even make a +2.5°C year 2100.

I suspect we'll avoid the "worst of climate change" if only because so many things would have to go right wrong that the odds are pretty slim that will be the path we take.

Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
But the question itself is entirely academic. The only answer to ‘exactly how many people will starve to death over the next century’ is sell everything you don’t need, save money, stockpile food. Honestly, what annoys me worse even then climate change deniers (they, at least, have the excuse of being stupid) are people who acknowledge climate change, know that millions at the least will die, and then do nothing to prepare themselves and their family. I know people who are “worried” about climate change, and yet own multiple computers, multiple cars, don’t own the gigantic houses they live in, and have nothing squirreled away for rainy days to come.

I'm with thejeff on this particular point. Not the sans-kids thing so much (lots of time to see on that one for me) but that if things go really bad on a global scale being all survivalist will only prolong one's agony. With a general breakdown of social institutions (e.g. no functioning CDC, ECDC, etc.) the #### will hit the fan forthwith. Nuclear and biological warfare are very quick acting phenomena. You could have a 100 years of MREs squirreled away and be lucky to use 1% of them.

.

Irontruth wrote:

I agree with you that plastics are a big problem. It's a massive leap to say "plastics are a health risk to marine life and anything that eats them (ie humans)" to extrapolate that into "plastics are an extinction level event".

So far, you have provided lots of examples of the first one, but you have not yet shown a single scientific source that backs up the second claim.

I'm with you that plastics are a problem. In fact, I agree with you on pretty much everything you say about them.... except for your claim of an extinction level event. That is a pretty specific and large claim, and I don't think you've shown a single piece of evidence that supports it.

How does a species go extinct?

One member at a time.

How fast does an environmentally stressed species go extinct?
Faster than one that isn't.

Irontruth wrote:
Also, you should reread some of your posts on page 58. You've routinely used the fact that you get A's in classes as proof that you can't be wrong about anything in this thread. Your complaints that I don't listen to anyone else and assume that I am always right sound an awful lot like projection.

The "A's" I was referring to were from a few academic professionals, with international renown, who make their living studying climate issues.

I'll take their opinion of my understanding over yours any day viz-a-viz AGW.


Rising methane: A new climate challenge

Science wrote:
In 2007, the amount of methane in the atmosphere (CH4) began to rise after a 7-year period of near-zero growth (1). Recent research shows that a second step change occurred in 2014 (2). From 2014 to at least the end of 2018, the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere increased at nearly double the rate observed since 2007 (see the figure). Because CH4 is a potent greenhouse gas, rising atmospheric CH4 presents a major challenge to achieving the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, an international consensus to limit temperature increase to 2°C or, if possible, to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

Gee, this sounds like a particular case of a very familiar refrain from moi. Several of my talking points are seen in this article:

1) Complex systems are resistant to being accurately modeled
- 1a) Methane in particular seems to have a "life of its own" in that it just doesn't behave like it ought

2) With more information we find things are worse than has been previously reported
- 2a) Therefore we have less time than we thought to fix things

3) Tipping elements are key to understanding this data

4) Cow burps are unambiguously important enough to clearly see the need to "go veg" on a global scale

ABC had this to say

ABC wrote:
The emissions targets in the Paris Agreement were based largely on data from the 1990s and early 2000s, when methane levels were flatter, said Sara Mikaloff Fletcher, a climate scientist with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington and first author of the new article. The only emissions scenario that achieves Paris Agreement goals in climate models assumes that methane levels have been declining since 2010, when in fact they have been rising since 2007, she said.

As I said, a +2.5°C year 2100 is looking more and more as being too optimistic.

.

Here's a CBC article quoting a guy who's still just a shave too hopeful to understand where we're at:

CBC wrote:

The University of Alberta researcher likened it to a U.S. study done in the 1970s that asked people to look at car crash footage and estimate the speed of the vehicles involved in the collision. The speed estimates changed based on the language researchers used to describe the crash. "Collide," "bump," "contact" or "hit" resulted in lower speed estimates, while the verb "smash" resulted in higher estimates.

Westbury said there could be a similar reaction to the way climate change is described.

"What I would suspect is that if we all started using more negative terms, then we would all start thinking about climate change more negatively, and presumably that would make us do something about it," he said.

"Presumably'? I would die laughing if climate change climate crisis wasn't already killing me.

:D


Quark Blast wrote:
I'm with thejeff on this particular point. Not the sans-kids thing so much (lots of time to see on that one for me) but that if things go really bad on a global scale being all survivalist will only prolong one's agony. With a general breakdown of social institutions (e.g. no functioning CDC, ECDC, etc.) the #### will hit the fan forthwith. Nuclear and biological warfare are very quick acting phenomena. You could have a 100 years of MREs squirreled away and be lucky to use 1% of them.

We’re coming at this from two very different perspectives. I see no reason not to extend one’s life by as long as possible - if I ever decide that there’s no hope and you’re just prolonging your own suffering, you can always choose to die. Having the choice to not die does nothing but expand your options. Bleeding to death is faster than starving anyway.

There’s also the distinct possibility that climate change doesn’t kill everyone everywhere, at least not within your lifetime. Societal collapse ≠ nuclear or biological warfare, and almost seems to prohibit such things on a large scale. And even a nuclear winter wouldn’t likely kill everyone everywhere! Like every historic catastrophe, and every catastrophe yet to come, people who saw the writing on the wall and stepped out of the barreling train’s path will be disproportionately represented among the survivors.

Sadly bereft of oracular prowess, we don’t know exactly how bad things will get. There are a *lot* of middle ground between ‘miracle tech is built and scaled in time, and everything ends happily’ and ‘world governments’ attempts at geoengineering do nothing to soften the blow, and then everyone nukes everyone else for no adequately explained reason’. We can only prepare as best as we’re able, and hope for a less bad ending. Or do nothing, guaranteeing we die even in the ‘happy’ ending, like so many are doing.

Post scriptum the first: Might I recommend following Jeff’s advice and not adding more people to the planet? Plenty of orphans out there.

Post scriptum the second: I infer that you’re unread on the topic of superintelligence, perhaps the most plausible of miracle tech (and by its nature the easiest/least necessary to scale), as well as being an existential risk in its own right. A good book for the layperson is, “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” by Nick Bostrom. You can probably find it at your local library.

Any intelligent being capable of building an entity smarter than itself has the potential to set of an ‘intelligence explosion’ as the smarter entity could in turn create something smarter than itself, ad infinitum, limited only by the size of the being. This, rather than the robot armies displayed in media, is the promise of and danger posed by artificial intelligence - something as close to omniscient as physics allow, in command of technology that makes our science fiction look mundane. The most frightening/hope-inciting thing about superintelligence is that building something smarter than oneself isn’t hard; evolution managed it and evolution is a moron.

Silver Crusade

Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
I see no reason not to extend one’s life by as long as possible

Except acting to extend my life isn't cost free.

I live in Toronto (actually in the city, not even in a suburb). If society collapses, absent extreme luck, I'm going to be toast. Having a years worth of rations in my basement really wouldn't change that appreciably.

What would change that would be to move to somewhere a lot more remote than Toronto.

But that has huge costs associated with it regardless of whether or not society collapses. Including adding to my health risks if things DON'T collapse (I'm NOT in perfect health and healthcare is a lot better here in Toronto than in somewhere remote).

So, I'm sticking here and hoping things don't go seriously south in my lifetime (at 61, given my health and lifestyle, that is probably on the order of 20 years or so on average)


Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:


But the question itself is entirely academic. The only answer to ‘exactly how many people will starve to death over the next century’ is sell everything you don’t need, save money, stockpile food.

An alternative to this "only answer" is the rather more straightforward don't have children.


Quark Blast wrote:

How does a species go extinct?

One member at a time.
How fast does an environmentally stressed species go extinct?
Faster than one that isn't.

You do realize that every living organism dies in the course of it's life cycle.... right?

You haven't done the work to show that plastics are an extinction level event. I agree with you that it is difficult to estimate, but you haven't even shown us some studies that actually point to it at all. Yes, there is massive evidence of harm. Show me that the harm is having an effect on population levels (or even something suggestive of it).

I'm not even saying that what you've claimed is impossible. You might actually be right. My point is that so far on this issue, you have not demonstrated the validity of your claim.


In a societal collapse situation you're hosed no matter what.

Unless you can go full Shayanne mountain and live underground undetectably for the rest of your life you can have a food production system that supports X number of people producing food that get good at producing food, or you can have a food looting system which supports a lot more people that get very good at killing people producing food.

The only way to avoid it is to build a large community of survivors united in common defense.. you know, rebuild some kind of society.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:

In a societal collapse situation you're hosed no matter what.

Unless you can go full Shayanne mountain and live underground undetectably for the rest of your life you can have a food production system that supports X number of people producing food that get good at producing food, or you can have a food looting system which supports a lot more people that get very good at killing people producing food.

The only way to avoid it is to build a large community of survivors united in common defense.. you know, rebuild some kind of society.

And, unless you have that isolated secure self-sufficient base all set up beforehand, whether you survive to be part of one of those systems is going to be largely a crap shoot. Having some food stashed and a big backyard garden doesn't handle starving refugees well.

But that's basically what all the post nuclear apocalypse stuff my generation grew up with convinced me of. That the older generation's bunkers and survivalist mentality wouldn't help in the real crisis. The generation before mine feared nuclear war and plotted to survive it. Mine grew up knowing we were all going to die before 30 and basically hoping we'd go out in the bright flash rather than linger a few months or years.

This crisis is different - slower, more predictable, can only be avoided by radical action rather than inaction, but it's no less horrifying. Half measures won't matter in terms of surviving it. Especially not on an individual, personal level.

The same applies to avoiding (or at least minimizing) it. This is a societal problem and it can not be addressed by individuals cutting back on their lifestyles on a personal level. Such things feel good from a moral standpoint, but don't have nearly the impact of broader societal changes can have.


Coriat wrote:
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:


But the question itself is entirely academic. The only answer to ‘exactly how many people will starve to death over the next century’ is sell everything you don’t need, save money, stockpile food.
An alternative to this "only answer" is the rather more straightforward don't have children.

I don’t have children, nor do I plan to. (I might adopt, but only when I’m at a point where I don’t have to work for a living.) That doesn’t change the fact that a very large number of people will be killed and/or displaced by climate change over these next few decades, and it’d be best not to be one of them.

Everyone everywhere is screwed in the case of societal collapse, but how screwed we all are depends on how badly society collapses, and on each of our individual circumstances. The following decades will see stronger and more frequent fires and storms, this alone is cause enough to keep a bit of food on hand so you aren’t one of those people raiding a Walmart at the last second while a hurricane bears down on you.

But yes, hoarding food isn’t a viable long term solution! I never claimed it was. It’d be nice to have a buffer in the increasingly likely scenario that supply chains are cut and their aren’t enough relief workers to get to everyone in time, but if those supply chains are cut forever than there’s not a whole ton that a whole ton of food would do for you. Nobody knows how bad this thing will get, so the sane thing to do is, rather than hope everything goes so peachy keen that one doesn’t have to change their lifestyle at all, or rather than shrug one’s shoulders and say that since there’s nothing an individual can do to y’all might as well lie down and die already, is prepare for the scenarios that can be prepared for.

Of course, storing food is a tangent. It’s a common sense thing to do, but it’s hardly as important as living somewhere far from the coast with stable weather. The United States at least has written a study on how different parts of the country are likely to be affected, so I’m sure everywhere else has too. Or as important as being financially independent. Things’ll get really bad a decade from now, so everyone ought to have a ten year plan to early retirement. (Which isn’t nearly as hard as it seems (making the plan that is, not implementing it (I’m not really finding implementation hard myself, but I know other people have more emotional attachment to owning things.))) And of course everyone needs to look at their circumstances and their environment and decide what else it is they need to do in specific.

I know it’s not likely any of you will act on this - I’ve had variations of this conversation with any number of people and have come to conclusion that it’s a rare human indeed who’ll prepare for things that don’t seem real to them while there’s still time to do so. After all, isn’t that why we’re in this mess in the first place? Still, I wish you all the best of luck, and wish that luck wasn’t quite so important for our futures.


Yeah, I'm certainly not against having food for relatively short term emergencies, which likely will get more common at least weather wise. And for considering changes in climate patterns when thinking about where to live - on the other hand, where you can find good work matters too.

As for early retirement: The single biggest problem in the US - at least for those not living on the edge of poverty even while working - is healthcare. Trying to live on a frugal fixed retirement income and cover healthcare costs yourself is a recipe for disaster. Once you're old enough for Medicare it's viable, but that's not early. It might look easy while you're young and healthy and medical costs are low, but even healthy people can come down with expensive problems and the odds go up as you age.
But I'm not sure what early retirement really has to do with climate change problems anyway. Being financially independent is always a good thing, but it doesn't insulate you from climate events and climate change doesn't make jobs go away en masse - not until it gets so bad that your retirement accounts all go away in the collapse.
I suppose you could use your savings and retirement to move to a safe location, regardless of whether there's decent employment there?


thejeff wrote:
I suppose you could use your savings and retirement to move to a safe location, regardless of whether there's decent employment there?

Yes. Being financially independent insulates you from economic shocks. Should food, gas, and shelter become prohibitively expensive, half a million dollars in the bank (easily doable in twelve years (at which point we'll have passed the point of no return, according to the UN), if you can make 40,000 dollars a year and live off of 9,000 (assuming a seven percent interest rate, which . . . well, assuming inflation-adjusted returns over this particular ten year period does strike me as a tad optimistic)) gives you options that most people won't have. It's far more important than storing food, since money buys food and where food stores are depleted money compounds.


Quark Blast wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:
So...do I troll or am I just amusing, then QB?

From this POV? Amusing.

:D

So now I feel the need to reenact's Joe Pesci's iconic scene in Goodfellas...


Asmodeus' Advocate wrote:
...stuff

I've read Bostrom's book. He knows the state of the art for sure. Alas, "Skynet" is the type of AI that doesn't let you know it's there until it's too late to thwart it. Vinge has similar ideas. Kurzweil is just funny. The thing with the dangerous type of AI is it's real hard to tell if you've created a genie until you let it out of the bottle. And if you never let it out of the bottle you crimp it's usefulness mightily (assuming it's useful to humanity!). I expect that if it can be done it will be done.

thejeff and BigNorseWolf wrote:

...unless you have that isolated secure self-sufficient base all set up beforehand, whether you survive to be part of one of those systems is going to be largely a crap shoot. Having some food stashed and a big backyard garden doesn't handle starving refugees well.

Unless you can go full Shayanne mountain and live underground undetectably for the rest of your life... rebuild some kind of society.

Outside of Utah or southern Idaho I wouldn't want to be LDS in a global collapse type crisis. Everyone with a gun knows you hoard food. Rebuilding society of some sort is a fine idea but it better be a gun-toting society with large numbers of tote'n fools.

.

Back to CH4 in the atmosphere.
I linked that study and it really has me worried. Worried, not just cynical.
The part I bolded in particular, "The only emissions scenario that achieves Paris Agreement goals in climate models assumes that methane levels have been declining since 2010, when in fact they have been rising since 2007", has some pretty ugly connotations.
It would not be crazy to see this as the beginning of the first tipping point of many to come. Let's hope I'm actually wrong about something on this thread.

:D


This...
Australia Seals Coal Commitment as Controversial Mine Approved

Bloomberg Economics wrote:

“You hear a lot about all the reduction in demand in the EU, the U.S., Australia, but there is still very big demand for coal in the rest of the world, increasing demand in fact,” said Abby Macnish, head of investments at TWD Invest, which has about A$350 million under management. “It’s still the main energy source to produce electricity.”

...
Australia has committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by at least 26% from 2005 levels by 2030 under the Paris Agreement, yet has no domestic policy mandate to meet the target. In fact, the country’s carbon footprint has been increasing in recent years as a number of large gas export projects come onstream.
...
“The project is of marginal viability at best, and it’s totally unbankable,” said Tim Buckley from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a long-standing critic of Adani’s plans. “Yet the probability of it going ahead has never been higher than today.

This why a +1.5°C year 2100 is practically impossible. Technically possible, but not practically.

Well, not just that. But that is a prime example of the several billion I could set out which work against a practical achievement of the Paris Agreement target.

Fingers crossed for scaleable near-miracle CC&S tech.


I'm guessing QB you didn't feel like responding to my Joe Pesci quote then...

Liberty's Edge

Renewable electricity generation capacity has surpassed coal in the US

Carbon emissions are falling while GDP rises in numerous countries

Thus, claims that 'first world' countries will not convert to renewables and/or that doing so will require a significant drop in standard of living are both proving to be false.

Global warming can and will be stopped without any significant impact on human quality of life or behavior. Rather, false claims that addressing global warming would lead to economic/social upheaval have already done, and will continue to do, far greater damage than actually solving the problem ever could have... by delaying action and allowing global warming itself to grow to the point that it is impacting quality of life.


Thomas Seitz wrote:
I'm guessing QB you didn't feel like responding to my Joe Pesci quote then...

I never met Joe so I haven't any opinion.


I think that the fact that the IPCC scenarios that allow the world to meet a +1.5°C year 2100 all assume a flat reading for CH4, and yet it's been going up since 2007, and that will have more to say about things AGW than vacuous optimism.

No one has a handle on why the CH4 is going up either, other than it's going up faster now than in 2007. Which means, assuming humanity has something to do with it, that it will continue to rise for a decade or more at least and, as indicated, may be the first sign that we've kicked over a tipping element.

The CH4 rising anomaly is yet another reason why the Paris Agreement is only so much paper + a lot of CO2 from 30k people jetting to Paris (and Katowice) to argue and sign the stupid thing.

Which countries have a net zero carbon goal?

Most of the ones that do are banking on Carbon Credits. Not the best way to actually reduce global carbon emissions. But hey! it's great for signaling you "care" as a nation.

Boaty McBoatface, Internet-Adored Sub, Makes Deep-Sea Discovery On Climate Change

Boaty Study wrote:

Boaty was able to pinpoint a previously unknown way in which this mixing is causing water to warm up across large areas, she said. Usually, deeper, colder water mixes with shallower, warmer water — think of vast amounts of water moving up and down.

But the measurements taken by the little submarine show that cold water is also mixing with warm water at similar depths — more of a horizontal sort of flow.

"This was the unique new process that rapidly exchanges water between the cold and the warm and then spreads the effect of the different water properties over a larger area," Frajka-Williams says. And this sort of rapid churning is "a lot more efficient than it might otherwise have been" at mixing and heating.

The temperature of the water is important because warm water takes up more space than cold water, so warmer waters deep in the ocean would result in higher sea levels.

"The resulting warming of the water on the sea bed is a significant contributor to rising sea levels," the researchers say. "However, the mechanism uncovered by Boaty is not built into current models for predicting the impact of increasing global temperatures on our oceans."

Mechanism NOT accounted for in any climate model? Who predicted that on this thread?

Srsly, the future is fine. We've got windmills! WTH else do we need?
:D


I predicted it.

I bet in the future, we will discover more mechanisms that we are currently unaware of as well.

Liberty's Edge

The massive increase in fracking has led to a corresponding increase in methane leaks and thus atmospheric methane levels.

This is bad, but I don't think a huge concern because atmospheric methane breaks down fairly quickly. Thus, if going forward we decrease the amount of fracking/methane leaks then the problem will go away. It could only become a major issue if we continued to rapidly increase the amount of fracking / methane leaks for a few decades... which seems implausible given the growth rates of wind and solar power.

As to the fact that we don't know everything (i.e. new deep ocean water mixing process discovered)... duh?

Learning new minor details helps reduce uncertainty ranges, but in no way changes the overall picture.


Do you know what methane breaks down into?


Irontruth wrote:
Do you know what methane breaks down into?

Carbon dioxide and water.

So it will continue to increase global warming as CO2, but not as dramatically as it would if it persisted as methane.

The water shouldn't have a significant effect, as the atmosphere is essentially saturated with water vapor.


CB wrote:
Learning new minor details helps reduce uncertainty ranges, but in no way changes the overall picture.

No such thing as a "minor" detail in a chaotic system. Especially not when the particular "minor" detail mentioned happens to affect the global ocean.

"Minor"... :D

In addition, it's yet one more thing to ratchet up the floor temperature for the year 2100. We are sooo far past +1.5°C it shouldn't even be a number in the accord negotiations anymore.

Methane. Lasts for years, devolves into yet another GHG, and in the case of this unexpected rapid rise - is known to be significantly sourced from non-fossil sources.


Quark Blast wrote:
Rebuilding society of some sort is a fine idea but it better be a gun-toting society with large numbers of tote'n fools.

That's the plan. You need to have enough people and enough defenses so that the most optimal survival group (a hoard of murderous scavangers) has to look elsewhere besides your farms.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
In addition, it's yet one more thing to ratchet up the floor temperature for the year 2100.

As usual, you have no idea what you are talking about.

The finding that there is more mixing of cold deep ocean waters than previously known means that the oceans will absorb more heat than previously modeled... thus DECREASING atmospheric warming.

Your insistence that this is NOT a minor detail would then mean that it might well prevent us from reaching +1.5°C warming... but obviously someone who can't even tell the difference between up and down is not qualified to be predicting where things will end up.

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