Just how badly have we fucked the planet? I want scientific reports, twitter threads, the lot.
Just how badly have we fucked the planet? I want scientific reports, twitter threads, the lot.
Very.
We haven't fucked the planet at all, barely scratched the surface in fact. Bits of the climate are looking pretty ropey but that only affects the people living on the surface.
Watch the Attenborough documentary on Netflix Manc, it explains all you need to know.
The tldw is that we're fucking the planet for us to live on as a species, but we're not yet past the point of no return and it's debatable when that will be. My view is we'll absolutely hit it at some point and the Earth will be a horrible place to live for humans, but other stuff will still be here.
Stuff like this is really cool though: https://www.engadget.com/magnetized-...041225378.html
The transformation into better, newer, greener solutions could finally make the world like tomorrow's world.
Well, it will for the countries that employ it but it'll matter little when China and India are still pumping out as much crap as they both do. We're fucked. Well, I say we, those in our age group will be dead before this really all hits home.
You'd think the richer bits of the world will be able to Malthus their way out of it a bit but the rest are fucked.
If it was in real trouble then there would be real solutions rather than token monetisations. That’s about all I need to know.
I thought that for a while too, years ago mind, but the reality of it is that there are no solutions other than the ones people don't want to take, because they mean drastically changing the way we live before we can actually see the problem, which no one is prepared to do.
Think of it like the Pandemic, if Boris had announced in January last year that he was shutting the borders immediately he'd have been lolled out of parliament.
And we could change how we live, but China and India will carry on regardless and I genuinely think people would rather live in no World than one where China are willingly given an advantage.
I think you'll find those with more money will do better than those without and if it gets to the point where it thins the population out a bit then 'we' will either learn our lesson (it's not like we don't already know how to stop the damage, we just don't want to) or we go around again.
And while we're here, the climate has nothing to do with how shit Michael Fish is.
Globally we are the super rich, so we will just wall off the brownlands and grow fat on the Siberian breadbasket.
Hard to tell. If you're really curious, check out the IPCC report. It is the source. The projections for 2100 seem... not all that bad to me? The mainstream notion is that we need drastic changes or we are fucked. Different people mean different things by "being fucked", but if you go by IPCC projections, then it is not clear what would be worse for humans living in 2100: climate change or some of the "drastic changes" bandied about.
So Pep, you don't think the atmosphere is going to become unbreathable? IIRC Attenborough seemed quite convinced it would.
By 2100? No. Even the worst case scenarios in IPCC do not predict that. All models only go up to 2100, btw.
I think we'll start with some areas simply becoming uninhabitable, either because the climate makes it too hot/cold etc for it to be practical or because population pressure gives way to outright chaos (or more likely a blend of the two). Most of the rest of the world will probably carry on much as before, it's not like we haven't happily ignored famines that killed tens of millions of people on multiple occasions or decades long local conflicts that have done the same albeit on a smaller scale. Once the Chinese are on board and/or if we've managed to move away from oil as the solution to literally everything it might be possible to slow it down.
Oil is the big one for me, if we can find a decent source of energy that doesn't involve (finding, getting, moving, refining, selling, moving again and finally) burning the stuff then that's half the battle.
The population projections for the parts of the world that currently struggle to sustain themselves is the bigger long-term concern. They will either tear themselves to pieces or get on the move.
People always talk about how places like Bangladesh will get too hot and will be underwater and all of that because of climate change. Well, the place is already a shithole, climate change or not, and will only get worse if, as you say, the population keeps growing at the same rate and they don't get their act together. Now, if they were to do a China and become rich, then the place would become more bearable (AC is pretty nice) and the population increase would slow down, as it often does in richer countries.
Sounds a lot like competition, lets not risk it.
Yeah, I know the recent floods in NYC got people on twitter bemoaning climate change but it glosses over the more obvious problem of shit infrastructure. The North River tunnels are still fucked from Hurricane Sandy.
The issue we're seeing now is the feedback loops are accelerating events and causing faster and faster change (as mentioned in either thread, see the temperature rises in the Arctic circle which is 4-6 degrees at times more than normal) .
There's not going to be a safe space if eco systems collapse and the natural order goes with it. And I disagree on China, I actually think they have the government to be the boldest (they've promised a lot recently but their coal addiction says otherwise).
This is what Dickie says in it:
If we continue on our current course the damage that has been the defining feature of my lifetime will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next. Science predicts that were I born today I would be witness to the following:
2030s: Amazon rainforest degrades into a dry savannah, altering the global water cycle. Arctic becomes ice free in the summer. Without the white ice cap less of the sun's energy is reflected back out to space and the speed of global warming increases.
2040s: Throughout the North frozen soils thaw releasing methane, accelerating the rate of climate change dramatically.
2050s: Oceans heat and becomes more acidic, killing coral reefs and fish populations crash
2080s: Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse. Pollenating insects disappear and the weather is more and more unpredictable
2100s: Our planet becomes 4 degrees warmer. Large parts of the Earth are now uninhabitable. A 6th mass extinction event is well underway.
Mis-remembered the bit about the atmosphere being unbreathable, it's not in there from his mouth, just a lot of imagery instead that leaves that impression on you.
Has anywhere ever got rich enough quickly enough to absorb population growth on the sort of scale predicted for 2100? China had to suppress its population to the tune of about half a billion fewer people being born, and industrial revolution Europe could flush its excess populations overseas in numbers that would need the contemporary United States to be taking tens of millions a year in. How is Egypt going to provide opportunities for its population doubling when it can't do so for its existing one unless half of it floods and becomes arable?
He also says that each of those steps should be viewed like doors that once opened, cannot be closed.
If anyone is willing, I would bet some money that the Arctic will not be ice free in the summer by 2030. Any takers?
Even RCP8.5 (IPCC's worst case scenario) only predicts that happening by 2050, with some big-ass uncertainty bars.
2030: Giggles may not be alive any more.
2040: Giggles probably won’t be alive any more.
Some time later: world burns
We will keep digging all the coal, iron ore etc out of the ground for rest of time thank you very much.
Most of it seems to assume worst case scenarios (which is not the path currently being followed, btw) and takes a lot of positive feedback loops to be a certainty, which THE SCIENCE has actually very little information about. The 4 degrees by 2100 is IPCC's worst case scenario, which assumes zero mitigation. We are already doing some mitigation, so it is a very unlikely scenario. That is just being alarmist, which might be effective to get people on the "let's do something" side, but it is not very honest. Anyone honest would base their predictions on IPCC's most likely scenario, not on the worst one (how would you feel if someone told you everything is going to be fine based on the best case scenario?)
Enlightening stuff, Pepe.
How old is Giggles that he isn't seeing 2040?
On the subject of Attenborough I was speaking to someone who was a producer or something on the Blue Planet series (I think) recently and found the fact that all of his stuff is very tightly scripted, and he has pretty much zero input into it, somewhat of a let down. He's basically just Ron Burgundy.
The animals need narratives.
I got no involvement. I am just interested.
My research is mainly in combustion science though, and I teach a course on internal combustion engines, so if you want to discredit everything I ever say on the matter, just say that I am obviously biased because I want to keep my field alive. My latest work was on the manufacturing of battery cathode materials, so I got both bases covered, but still.
Part of the Arctic Circle is current on fire, which is fun.
Siberia has been on fire for a large part of the last 18 months.
I bet it's the pesky gays wot dun it.
It's just what they deserve for not raising their kids on a diet of RuPaul's Drag Race.
It's also why you're paying through the nose for stuff like plywood at the moment.
Ash from forest fires covering snow making it absorb more heat and melt faster is a real big brain global warming power move.