Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic • Hacker News Board

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#241

Post by gnaritas » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 4:48 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #128

gnaritas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, however, the problem is preserving humans from near extinction, not preserving our knowledge and culture for the few who might survive if we ignore the problem.

> for the few who might survive It doesn't have to be for our survivors... We could, and I believe we should, do it for the next civilization to come after ours, even if it's a few alien visitors. If for no other reason than to leave a legacy of our short existence against the infinity of this universe.

I and I'm sure most people on this planet don't care about leaving a legacy to a future species when the problem at hand is our own survival.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#242

Post by mirimir » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 4:58 AM UTC

M_Grey wrote: post #239

mirimir wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The freakiest one in Peter Watts' Echopraxia is the firestorms.

I have to get around to reading those books... I have Blindsight sitting on a shelf.

I love his ideas, but sometimes they swamp the action. There's less of that in Echopraxia than in Blindsight, as a response to feedback. But Blindsight gives you back story for Echopraxia.

After you've read them, do check out https://www.reddit.com/r/SF_Book_Club/comments/2hzpmt/echopr... .

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#243

Post by kneel » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:12 AM UTC

bithive123 wrote: post #49

Here is a good video about the arctic methane emergency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9ed5E54s4 Some summary points: - Total amount of methane in the current atmosphere: ~5 gigatons - Amount of carbon preserved as methane in the arctic shelf: estimated at 100s-1000s of gigatons - Only 1% release would double the atmospheric burden of methane - Not much effort is needed to destabilize this 1% - The volume current…

Methane release will be followed by an increase in methanotrophs and probably some weird algae blooms.

Nature is fairly dynamic, especially at the prokaryotic level.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#244

Post by xtian » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:16 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #212

xtian wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've constructed a society which is incapable of responding effectively to even ultimate crisis, and faced with that realization all we can think to do is devise a way to preserve the leavings of that dead-end paradigm. Very nice.

Others can and could still learn or be inspired, if not from at least SOME of the things we've made or thought of, then from our mistakes.

So these others will have some ability to learn from our mistakes which we don't possess now?

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#245

Post by zasz » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:22 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #194

zasz wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, the half-life of methane is 7-9 years. Not the lifetime. The 34x potential I gave is for methane over a hundred years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential It's incredibly potent stuff, so much that despite the relatively quick breakdown, an initial mass of methane will have a warming effect that is 20-35x that of an equivalent mass of carbon dioxide over a century. GWP numbers take the brief…

The risk is from 100s's of Gigatons which is a extremely massive quantity. How much of that is going to be liberated and how soon has a massive impact on estimates. Anyway, your first link says " In the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane has a lifetime of 12.4 years" (If that's X ln(2) for half life it's 8.6 years) "This means that a methane emission will have 28 times t…

The point of everything I have said is that it would take only a small quantity of methane, relatively speaking, to make a significant contribution to global warming. You don't need to emit as much methane as would match all the warming caused by current levels of CO2. Even an extra tenth of a degree is bad news. Every tenth of a degree shaves off a decade from the time we have to fix our planet. Any significant source of greenhouse gases.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#246

Post by m_mueller » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:25 AM UTC

ivoras wrote: post #137

dwaltrip wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we get a 5° - 10° Celsius increase, wouldn't there be plenty of opportunity for millions of humans to survive closer to the poles? Not that it would be easy or desirable. Some of the worst scenarios might result in 99% (or higher) of humans dying - obviously an unspeakably immense tragedy. Yet that would still leave tens of millions of people to carry on. It seems to me that it would be extremely difficult to…

Depending on what exactly happens. If the composition of the atmosphere changes enough, only the simplest life forms will survive.

You need to find what are the stable equilibriums with - or in the worst case without - a biosphere. +7C-8C, if it's the peak, is most probably survivable for the biosphere as a whole, because we know that this happened before (permian triassic boundary).

However, there's a very important distinction here: The permian triassic boundary conditions did not arise coming abruptly out of an ice age. An ice age after a warm period leads to lots of methane being stored, and it's reasonable to assume that the current methane storage is much larger than at the permian triassic (oh, did I mention that that was already an extinction event, probably the worst we know about?).

All in all it's not completely out of the question that an abrupt release of enough methane could lead to a Venus syndrome, and thus the complete sterilisation of the planet.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#247

Post by jnicholasp » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:32 AM UTC

M_Grey wrote: post #229

jnicholasp wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like your imaginative capacity could stand to be exercised more. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways in which intelligent entities could meaningfully differ from us, and which would lead to different political circumstances. And we ourselves are not that far from being able to deal reasonably with problems like this. If nothing else were different about us, except that average IQ were, say, 120 on t…

There is no reason to believe that intelligence, in whatever form it takes, ever stops being energetically expensive. Is it possible to imagine selection pressures that would select for high intelligence over other factors? How harsh can an environment get, or how easy, before something like brute strength or rapidly breeding is always a cheaper strategy? Some rules are universal, because they're thermodynamic. That'…

We already know that thermodynamics and evolutionary pressures can allow for intelligent beings with a population average IQ of 100 (on the arbitrary scale we've devised for ourselves) to exist, since we humans do exist. I'm suggesting that a slight increase in that population average might be enough to make a large difference in how we collectively respond to mid- to long-term problems.

If you're arguing against that suggestion, it seems you would have to be arguing that human intelligence exists at a level that is nestled directly up against some kind of hard thermodynamic limit, even though a non-trivial portion of our species already exists on the other side of that line. I don't see how that argument could plausibly be made.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#248

Post by jnicholasp » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:39 AM UTC

deathhand wrote: post #214

louthy wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you could imagine scenarios on other worlds where the right kind of political situation was around to stop it. I can't imagine that. The only evidence I have to date (from a sample size of 1 planet) is that there is next to zero real political will, even if the politicians of the world create additional heat saying they have in fact found the political will.

Because we are not unified and working towards the same goal. Tribalism is our roots and they will be our ends. That is the problem with too many sentient beings-everyone believes they deserve something. Thus no intilligent life unless they are a single entity.

Competition is not the only response to being one entity among many, and it is not even necessarily the most reasonable response. Cooperation is also possible, and it is one of the necessary elements in every human organization, from the family to global cultures. We have civilization because we are to some degree able to cooperate, and if you simply turn up the dial on that trait, it is easy to imagine that other creatures could exist who were even better cooperators - and who would be collectively even more successful because of it.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#249

Post by flogic » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:45 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #164

gech wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as a member of the .01% I'd rather only build new infrastructure where I can guarantee only myself and select others will be able to utilize it. I wouldn't want to waste my money on something that might be ended up being used by the public.

The only people going to Mars for the foreseeable future will be those with explicitly useful skills that can only be done in person. The 0.01% are going to be dead weight up there unless they have such a skill. And given it's a one-way ticket... how much social pull will the 0.01% have over the people with actual skills. You may be a multibillionaire on earth, but being able to sell widgets to the masses isn't a ski…

More importantly if the population of earth is facing critical systems collapse, what are the odds of the next critical resupply mission the Mars colony actually launching. It's not like a martian colony would be self sufficient anytime soon.

Re: Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' in Arctic

#250

Post by developer2 » Fri, Mar 24, 2017, 5:45 AM UTC

xutopia wrote: post #156

The majority of the population does not care about this one bit. They're going to carry on driving their gas guzzlers. The only change we can make is if we, who understand what is at stake, invest in renewables to bring their price down. When the backwards people will see us all in our cheap to run, fast to accelerate and cheap to maintain electric pass them on the highway will they feel dumb buying gallons of gas to…

>> The majority of the population does not care about this one bit. They're going to carry on driving their gas guzzlers. The only change we can make is if we, who understand what is at stake, invest in renewables

>> When the backwards people will see us all in our cheap to run, fast to accelerate and cheap to maintain electric pass them on the highway will they feel dumb buying gallons of gas to keep their guzzlers going.

It's always funny to see someone posting online about how they consider themselves to be part of a group that supposedly "cares", while proclaiming that it's other people who are the (larger part of the) problem.

If you a) live in a populated city; b) purchase products that must be manufactured, shipped, and disposed of; c) own any vehicle (including fully electric); d) use electricity to power heat, A/C, and technology including a computer used to post on HN: you are categorically part of the problem. There is no such thing as an environmentally responsible citizen in any first world country. We all live unsustainably, and no amount of "I bought an electric vehicle", "I recycle and compost", "I buy local", etc., makes the tiniest dent in the system. I wish people who believe they are environmentally self-conscious while still living in unsustainable comfort would get off their high horses. Your contribution to the ecosystem's woes is not measurably different whatsoever compared to that of your "uncaring" neighbors.