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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

#331

Post by awinder »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #326
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…

>Honest question: Why is Mainstream Media not covering this like it should be doing? Heck, this should be the breaking news every single day!! Perhaps it is because of the influence of the largest industry in the world in terms of revenue: the petroleum industry. Money talks, or rather in this case, money hushes. Where do you think the primary source of climate change denial propaganda comes from?

It's the job of every other industry that depends on the world existing to call them out on this and spend actual dollars as a protective measure. And the people and their governments, because the collective interest in fixing this can not be decided by a minority value holder. We have done this before with ozone issues and we can do it again but it's past due time to just collectively have the aha moment.

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

#332

Post by mastax »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #326
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…

>Honest question: Why is Mainstream Media not covering this like it should be doing? Heck, this should be the breaking news every single day!! Perhaps it is because of the influence of the largest industry in the world in terms of revenue: the petroleum industry. Money talks, or rather in this case, money hushes. Where do you think the primary source of climate change denial propaganda comes from?

ExxonMobil: http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/current-issues/climate-po...

Donald Trump: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26589529219124838...

I don't know what to think anymore.

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

#333

Post by nradov »

huxley wrote: post #307
api wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think polio eradication is a good counter-example. There were no strong economic forces advocating for the status quo; the iron lung industry was quite small.

There are still polio cases today but pretty much only in areas ruled by death cults who don't care whether their people live or die. So game theory isn't a factor there.

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

#334

Post by rhino369 »

earthtolazlo wrote: post #217
dcgoss wrote: post #213

This is the first time I've heard about this issue. If this is as severe and terrifying as these comments are making it seem, why has this not been covered more?

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

Rapid runaway global warming isn't the scientific consensus.

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

#335

Post by alicorn »

jnicholasp wrote: post #324
alicorn wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

I'm not conflating IQ with values, I'm arguing that as average IQ goes up, the percentage of the population who will recognize that certain problems of non-immediate import will inevitably become immediate, personal problems, will also go up. I agree with you that the mechanisms through which greater awareness and active concern for seemingly abstract problems will trickle into the global zeitgeist are things like ed…

I see your point. I would argue, howevever, that very few of the issues we are facing at the moment stem from lack of understanding. We have most of the knowledge we require to instantiate a radically better-off civilisation, and, most importantly, we have the tools to continue gathering and applying said knowledge and iterate on said civilisation.

But we choose not to. There are loads of VERY smart people in the top positions of gigantic multinationals. They do not lack for IQ, or for information that without a shadow of doubt informs them about the long-term consequences of their actions. They choose, daily, to apply their IQ and information not to create solutions that would benefit humanity as a whole, but to maximize the short-term gains for themselves and (hopefully) their shareholders. The reasons for this behaviour are multitudinous and complex, but I would argue that lack of IQ is not a major contributing factor, quite the opposite.

And all that could still fall in the category of "fine, whatever", if in their greed they would not actively destroy the education system already in place, because people who lack basic knowledge and tools for critical thinking are that much easier to manipulate. Again, it is not the lack of IQ that is the issue, it is the knowledge and exercise it has been exposed to. I myself have an IQ well above average (Mensa member), but before I found out about heuristics, biases and critical thinking, and learned to apply them, I was an easy prey for "mediums", "spiritual guides" and other "new age" crap.

TL;DR people are easy to manipulate regardless of their IQ, if they haven't had an opportunity to learn to use it.

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

#336

Post by Fiahil »

BEEdwards wrote: post #323
Fiahil wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all that bad, we will have the opportunity to live in a Mad Max like environment for real ! If we, humans, - as a species - are unable to focus away from dirty politics and gossips, then we don't really deserve to survive. Maybe we need to go through a few centuries of post-apocalyptic landscape to transform ourselves and evolve ?

What about Earth's other life? It just gets to go extinct? Shit deal for everything else living on this planet, maybe it should go "Zoo" on us in self defense.

Well, when dinosaurs disappeared, shit got real for everyone else too !

I'm pretty sure other species will found a very welcome relief in the disappearance of humankind.

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

#337

Post by M_Grey »

jnicholasp wrote: post #320
TeMPOraL wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The point here, we're not coordinated enough . Not by a long shot.

I'm not arguing here that we are. I'm arguing that it is conceivable that intelligent creatures could exist that were.

Why would such a cooperative require intelligence, never mind high intelligence? We already see such vast cooperatives in fungi, but they have no selection pressures for intelligence. Far from it, competition is the driver that made us "smart".

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

#338

Post by gnaritas »

Razengan wrote: post #296
gnaritas wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody's saying we should give up or not try to survive, but IF the options came down to: Going extinct — or — Going extinct without any trace whatsoever of our existence left behind, which would you prefer? You said it yourself: If you can't mobilize man to fight climate change, you aren't going to mobilize him to prepare for it either.

I won't care, because I'll be dead. So let me be clearer, the notion that anyone will care about leaving proof of our existence rather than themselves trying to survive I find laughable. It's an easy nonsense thing to say when living in relative comfort but when the reality of survival kicks in, such lofty bullshit will go right out the door and you'll be fighting to eat and live another day, not worrying about humanity leaving traces behind for posterity.

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

#339

Post by xg15 »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #292
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…

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…

> Third, it's possible to drop global temperatures in a few months' time if direly needed. Ranging from orbital sunshades to tropospheric aerosols, solutions can be cheap and easy to deploy.

(Emphasis mine)

Isn't that basically the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory? The irony would be pretty entertaining if we ended up actually realizing that to combat climate change.

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

#340

Post by marcosdumay »

tonmoy wrote: post #234
marcosdumay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Wikipedia great? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas ) |Water vapor and clouds |36–72% | |Carbon dioxide | 9–26% | |Methane | 4–9% | |Ozone | 3–7% |

Ok, so release of 50 gigatons of CH4 means 10x increase in atmospheric CH4, then we are looking at around 50% contribution to greenhouse effect from CH4 after that I guess.

That's basically double of what CO2 contributes today, what will also increase the amount of water in the atmosphere.

But CH4 is short lived, so the most important question is how fast it will be emitted. (And the second may be: could we make it even shorter lived?)

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