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

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

#261

Post by pasquinelli »

jnicholasp wrote: post #257
pasquinelli wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could liken our situation to yeast in a bottle of wine. Given that comparison, what good would an average 20 iq points do? I don't see how any species could not evolve for conditions of scarcity, and I don't see how sudden abundance wouldn't lead down the same path we're on. If anything smarter would be worse. But, like you say, we don't know we're screwed, so it's a lot of supposition.

Yeast can't make metaphors, can't understand that they're in a fermenting bottle with limited food and increasing amounts of excreted toxins, and couldn't imagine or implement plans to do anything about that situation even if they could comprehend it. Humans can do all of those things - except, so far, muster the collective political will to take meaningful steps. So I don't know in what sense it would be useful to m…

"Yeast can't make metaphors, can't understand that they're in a fermenting bottle with limited food and increasing amounts of excreted toxins, and couldn't imagine or implement plans to do anything about that situation even if they could comprehend it. Humans can do all of those things - except, so far, muster the collective political will to take meaningful steps."

you mean the thing that allows any of those other things you listed matter at all?

and with all those abilities, it may make no difference, so there's no evidence that the difference in intelligence between yeast and humans is sufficient to save us. then why would 20 more points do it? and if yeast survive but people don't, what then? the point is in both the case of the yeast in the bottle and the human case our drive for survival kills us when we move into sudden abundance. greater average intelligence would just bring that abundance on faster.

since we can't seem to steer this ship, we're at the mercy of the currents. despite all our metaphors and plans and concern about global climate change we don't seem able to do anything. is there much of a difference in carbon footprint between your average walmart shopper and your average graduate student, concern notwithstanding?

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

#262

Post by TeMPOraL »

rbobby wrote: post #230
Raphmedia wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save it for your ticket to mars.

We added too much CO2 to atmosphere so we'll move to a planet with an atmosphere of 100% CO2... sounds like a plan! :)

The problem isn't CO₂. The problem is the roaming hordes of zomb^H^H^H^Hpeople displaced by rising ocean levels and subsequent collapse of civilized society. Mars doesn't have that :).

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

#263

Post by averagewall »

ythn wrote: post #226
astrodust wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single time the models have turned out to be wrong it's always been that they've been overly optimistic. Not once has there been an "oh, it wasn't as bad as we thought" moment. It's always worse. It's going to be bad. A little panic is not a bad thing. If we panic for nothing that's better than brushing it off and having the worst possible outcome unfold because of inaction.

> It's going to be bad. A little panic is not a bad thing. It's always lose/lose for the skeptics: Scenario A: skeptics were wrong - "burn them at the stake, they screwed us all over!" Scenario B: skeptics were right - "well, they got lucky. It wasn't as apocalyptic as experts were claiming. They were still wrong to have rejected the evidence at hand and I was still right to have believed the evidence at hand"

If reducing emissions means harming economies and impoverishing and killing people, then if skeptics are right, "you" will have caused needless destruction.

If preventing climate change didn't cost anything, then nobody would be against it. But it will be pretty expensive and somebody will have to suffer to pay for that. That somebody probably doesn't want us to prevent it because they may well lose out, even in the long term.

Do you use any power generated by coal? Do you use a car or bus? Do you eat meat? If you do any of those things, it means preventing climate change is too expensive for you.

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

#264

Post by chillwaves »

developer2 wrote: post #250
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…

That part you neglect to mention are those who advocate for making changes at the federal level politically that would actually create the solutions required for the problem versus the type of people who vote in folks like Donald Trump who actively deny the problem exists.

Given that consideration, the core of your premise is false.

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

#265

Post by ianai »

brogrammer2 wrote: post #258

Honest question: Why is Mainstream Media not covering this like it should be doing? Heck, this should be the breaking news every single day!! After all, this spells doomsday for the upcoming generations, so shouldn't it be the news that should be shown/covered almost everyday on the front page. The people have the right to know that their children and grandchildren will suffer because of something that is going on ri…

Until people undeniably feel it they will not believe they are the problem. It takes a lot for someone to change their minds in the face of "criticism".

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

#267

Post by rubber_duck »

jacquesm wrote: post #141
rubber_duck wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but I think climate change is just one of many variables that show how our global society is fragile - the direction of my proposal would go a long way towards making it much more robust, isolation from climate change is just one problem solved by it. It becomes easy to quarantine/filter access preventing biological contamination. Even on city level you can have isolated blocks further limiting the impact of cat…

Another problem I see with your approach is that it tends to favor the rich countries in an extreme way over the poorer ones (assuming it could be pulled off at all), which I think is the final move in the 'externalization' game, let the rest of the world die so that the remnants of Western civilization can go and colonize an otherwise empty world at some point in the far future.

It's a problem if you're looking for a global solution, but even the poor countries would benefit from R&D breakthroughs.

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

#268

Post by cafebabbe »

dcgoss wrote: post #221
earthtolazlo wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think climate scientists have been screaming about for the past several decades?

It always seemed like CO2 was the biggest issue. Call me naive but I didn't hear anything about massive underground methane bubbles ready to explode and destroy humanity imminently.

I heard about that problem ten years ago, without specifically looking for it. It's probably known for decades.

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

#269

Post by InclinedPlane »

brogrammer2 wrote: post #258

Honest question: Why is Mainstream Media not covering this like it should be doing? Heck, this should be the breaking news every single day!! After all, this spells doomsday for the upcoming generations, so shouldn't it be the news that should be shown/covered almost everyday on the front page. The people have the right to know that their children and grandchildren will suffer because of something that is going on ri…

If the media covered everything they should have to the standard of quality they should have over the last, oh, let's say twenty years, the world would be an incredibly different place.

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

#270

Post by AznHisoka »

fellellor wrote: post #251
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life != human life. That's the fallacy many in the green-movement miss. It's not about saving the Earth, Earth will be largely fine. Climate management is about saving humans .

Reminds me of a Louis CK bit.

George Carlin.
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