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

siberiantimes.com

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

#301

Post by lambdadmitry »

kogepathic wrote: post #295
lambdadmitry wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is the case when MSM are not blowing things out of proportion, so by comparison it looks like an understatement. This doesn't "spell doomsday" for the upcoming generations. First, I believe we are already well on path to sustainable energy. Let's be honest, any planet-wide change will take time, especially when affected by economic means. Granted, world-level dictatorship may achieve zero carbon emissi…

> but people already live both in the desert (like Northern Australia) and in tundra (like Alaska). Presumably you're referring to Aboriginal Australians and Inuit/Eskimo peoples? It might be useful to note that these groups of people are known for their utmost respect toward nature, and the fact that their communities are largely sustenance based. > Third, it's possible to drop global temperatures in a few months' t…

I'm referring to places like Newman [0] or Norilsk [1]. Those places have nothing to do with "utmost respect toward nature", as they are settled for mining stuff. However, they are fine examples of people being able to thrive and support a modern western-level living even in harshest of environments. No need to ditch air conditioning or your favorite SUV.

> I find it difficult to believe that no one has already done it

At this point there is no need to. The population that matters most politically (so-called "first world countries") are not affected by global warming enough to require drastic active measures. There is not enough political capital to be won in leading international talks on active Earth cooling. However, if the pain become real enough, talks will be held, rockets will be launched and the Earth will be cooled.

> Greenpeace would already be doing it

First, AFAIK Greenpeace is mostly against active measures. Second, "cheap and easy" is relative: it's "cheap and easy" as in "building a dam", not as in "occupying an oil rig".

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newman,_Western_Australia

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk

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

#302

Post by graeme »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #298
graeme wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For yours points: 1. Renewables in a century? We'd have burned through a large chunk of buried by then. With massive degrees of warming 2. I'm not sure you understand likely warming scenarios. The world doesn't just warm a bit, then stay stable at a new normal. We are triggering runaway feedback effects. At a certain point, even if emissions are zero, the earth keeps warming. 3. This may be something we'll have to do…

1. Yep, in a century. I don't see how we can realistically do that faster without some sort of planetary Stalin. You think that would be a better option? 2. "Runaway" is relative and it will stabilize at some point. The particular point is debatable, but it's surely not a Venus-like environment (not until the Earth geology stops). Earth has seen much, much warmer times (palms-on-Antarctica-level warmer) and yet there…

Oh, I had interpreted their asteroid remark loosely, in the sense of "a really bad thing is forecast to arrive several decades from now!" rather than "sudden death will arrive several decades from now"

1. I actually think we'll keep burning all the carbon unless technology makes it economically inefficient to do so (because the alternatives are better). I guess by my critique here I meant to say that I thought your timeline would leave to worse results than you thought it would.

And no, I don't think we'll have human extinction from climate change.

But, I think the consequences will be dire. Right now we have a very large world population, and it's still growing. We're managing to feed ourselves now, but only tbrough great technical feats in agriculture that have increased yields. And we basically require all the land to do this, and a network of global trade in foods.

What happens when some portions of land become unusable? When droughts worsen? When war erupts due to food pressures and large crop areas can't have capital intensive techniques used on them? If war disrupts global trade?

I think our system is very fragile, and premised on continuous improvement.

Do you think a lot of people will die this century if we continue on our present course, or do you think we'll manage to produce enough food regardless?

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

#303

Post by alicorn »

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…

Sorry, but you conflate IQ with individual values that are acquired mainly through culture and education. A higher IQ does not automatically mean that a person will care about global problems that have no immediate negative effect on their own life, affect everyones wellbeing in the long run and are hard to solve. Or that a society with a higher average IQ will magically create political and economical structures that reward working towards common good instead of rent seeking.

Case in point - Silicon Valley has probably an average IQ around 120-130. How many truly planet-saving innovations have been created there? I mean, you fail to eradicate powerty in SF, your backyard. Because why bother if creating ever new and exciting ways to share cat pictures is infinitely more personally rewarding in the short run and who gives a f about anything else?

So, my point is, higher IQ is not a solution in and of itself, since human nature - instinct to care about oneself first and foremost, will still be present. This instinct can be only tamed by education, culture and political and social structures that promote common good. The chances that a society will evolve these kinds of structures is a toss-up. It is a lot more likely that the outcome will be exactly the same as what we see now - much like adding a 1.2 multiplier to all stats for both mobs and pcs in a computer game - numbers are different, but it is still the same game.

The key is culture, and education, and conscious work towards better social, economic and political structures. But I am quite sure that we will all kill ourselves a long time before any of that will happen.

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

#305

Post by yk »

nroets wrote: post #275
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…

Has anything been published in international peer reviewed journals ? Are there scientists at NASA or ivy league universities who became concerned and verified it through modeling and simulations ? If the answer is no in both cases, why should the public be alarmed ?

Well I am no expert, but there is google scholar. The first result searching for "siberian methane bubbles" is Walter &al. 2006 [1], furthermore a simple search for :siberian methane bubbles nasa" yields a rather interesting overview article from Nasa's Earth Observatory [2]. So while the presence of an media article not necessarily imply that there is research, in this case the article reports on an active area of study.

[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107 /abs/nature05040.html

[2] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/MethaneMatters/

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

#306

Post by vidarh »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #301
kogepathic wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but people already live both in the desert (like Northern Australia) and in tundra (like Alaska). Presumably you're referring to Aboriginal Australians and Inuit/Eskimo peoples? It might be useful to note that these groups of people are known for their utmost respect toward nature, and the fact that their communities are largely sustenance based. > Third, it's possible to drop global temperatures in a few months' t…

I'm referring to places like Newman [0] or Norilsk [1]. Those places have nothing to do with "utmost respect toward nature", as they are settled for mining stuff. However, they are fine examples of people being able to thrive and support a modern western-level living even in harshest of environments. No need to ditch air conditioning or your favorite SUV. > I find it difficult to believe that no one has already done…

Places like Norilsk are not self-sufficient. They are able to support a "modern western-level living" because of massive supporting infrastructure in more hospitable locations.

Where do you think their food comes from, for example?

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

#307

Post by huxley »

api wrote: post #240
mattmanser wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a particularly good candidate I would think. For example we know what's happening and could theoretically have stopped it but didn't/don't have the will. The Fermi paradox requires it to be extremely unlikely to survive, but you could imagine scenarios on other worlds where the right kind of political situation was around to stop it.

What if it's not lack of will but game theory? Maybe it's actually impossible for a large complex system to act against these trends because there exists no stable game strategy for the kind of large-scale cooperation that is necessary?

I can think of two counter-examples:

* Polio eradication

* The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer/Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer

Both are examples of multi-state cooperation that dealt with serious world-spanning issues, the Polio eradication has had the most immediate impact, but Ozone Layer depletion has been checked and the numbers will trend down to 1980s levels over the next 20 years.

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

#309

Post by jug »

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…

Global warming is also extremely costly so it's a financial threat too, and also a problem causing political destabilization and increased tensions, radicalization from climate refugees crisises etc.

So yes it should be covered for many reasons.

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

#310

Post by jug »

whyenot wrote: post #139
M_Grey wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you look at the many different potential sources of, "Fucked... goodbye..." the trend is very clear. We're juggling apocalypses and just waiting to find one that will stick. Will it be ocean acidification first? Ocean levels rising? Catastrophic weather patterns? Famine? Drought? War touched off by rapid changed? Mass extinctions? They're all in play, each with the potential to end us.

Is this why we have not yet found signs of intelligent life in the universe? Every time a civilization is advanced enough to really screw up (their) planet, inevitably, they do? Fermi Paradox redux.

Also, another problem that you easily put yourself into and that we did as well, besides the climate change, is that our world is built on non-renewable resources. Easy, abundant access to oil was essential to kickstart the current society as this only demands low tech solutions for success. Could humanity do the same with the current resources if we were forced to start over?
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