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Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#161

Post by vkou »

lozenge wrote: post #114
vkou wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emission growth has stopped, but what we need to do is hit net zero. We are no closer to that today then we were 20 years ago. There isn't even a vague plan for the United States to get there.

I don't know why you're downvoted. The RCPs that show us respecting the goal of the 2C limit all show emissions need to shrink globally and reach zero around 2050 or even earlier. The fact emissions have stopped growing is not really much progress. It is like we are cruising to disaster rather than accelerating towards it.

Probably because there is no practical plan to reduce them to zero. There's much hand-wringing about future technologies, but the reality of it is that it will require drastic reduction in consumption.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#162

Post by tiatia »

matte_black wrote: post #88
michaelmrose wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans prior to modern times haven't ever exceeded the carrying capacity of our environment and haven't had a die out that substantially reduced our population in modern times. Your thesis other than being fictional also is an emotional appeal to the concept that what is natural is desirable which is wholly unsound both on its face and because any die out sufficient to be effective is entirely likely to not only take…

Education is not the savior. There is a physical limit to resources here on this Earth. There is only so much food we can make, only so many jobs we can create. The only way to manage population is to control breeding. That is not a scaleable solution.

"The only way to manage population is to control breeding."

Not surprised this gets downvoted.

The one who speaks the truth, needs a fast horse. Chinese Proverb

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#163

Post by chc »

mlloyd wrote: post #107
leggomylibro wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet. Hey, that was the plot of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness ! http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx Spoilers: "...But we were not on a station platform. We were on the track ahead as the nightmare plastic column of foetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its…

God that is hard to read. The guy might be thought a genius but I got absolutely nothing from that passage save the penguins.

I think part of it is that this comes near the end of the book and a lot of it is referring to stuff that had previously been established, and part of it is that the style of writing that was en vogue a century ago is kind of hard to read today. I mean, here's a bit from the beginning of the contemporary classic Ulysses:

> Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

It's pretty writing, but it is also pretty hard to read if you're used to the way people write nowadays.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#164

Post by sulam »

pdeuchler wrote: post #156
sulam wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need models when I have the historical record. The historical record says mean sea level is going to be hundreds of _meters_ above current levels in the not-too-distant future.

This is why people don't listen to the scientists, because absurd FUD like this gets spread and it discredits the entire movement. Even the most doomsday predictions are on the order of inches, maybe over a foot in the next 50 years. Such a rise would still be incredibly devastating, don't get me wrong, but it would take about a hundred years of a completely runaway warming cycle to raise the seas a single meter, muc…

I'm quite serious about the historical record. This is not FUD, this is data. The historical record shows that the last time atmospheric CO2 concentration was at the level we are at currently, several things were true. 1) temperatures were 4-5C higher. 2) there was no permanent surface ice anywhere on the planet as far as they can tell. 3) mean eustatic sea level was anywhere from 50 to 200m above current levels.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008PA001615/full

Keep in mind, it's not just melting you need to figure in, there's also the thermal expansion of water.

Also models do not currently project the Antarctic losing all of its ice, yet this is what the historical record suggests is likely. The models also do not account or undercount the contribution of non-anthropogenic forcing factors such as the one this article refers to -- they assume that _we_ are the main feedback loop, and yet there is evidence that we have entered a regime where we could reduce emissions to zero and the non-anthropogenic feedback would continue to add CO2 and methane to the atmosphere at a rate equal to or exceeding our current emissions.

I believe the main reason you aren't hearing things like this is because scientists are picking their most defensible claims because they know that they will be hounded by climate change deniers. They are not talking about their worst fears, for worry of being labeled FUD.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#165

Post by labster »

Varcht wrote: post #121
tzahola wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how evolution works. That’s like saying that a dog could easily kill a velociraptor because dogs are 65 million years “more evolved”.

Dinosaurs are now birds? Do Velociraptors climb trees?

You got it backwards, birds are now dinosaurs. The world just got that much cooler. If you're not convinced, look through YouTube for videos of my favorite dinosaur, the raven.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#166

Post by tiatia »

stale2002 wrote: post #139
jessaustin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really more of a philosophical position, isn't it? That isn't to say it's correct, but what would "evidence" even mean in this context?

Well evidence would be something like "over time these countries have had reduced quality of life over the past decade, because of population growth". But it seems like the opposite is true. Quality of life is still massively improving basically everywhere. We are not running out of resources.

"There is No Steady State Economy (except at a very basic level)" http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-stat...

Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-02-12/limits-to-growt...

Wealth And Energy Consumption Are Inseparable http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-...

Galactic-Scale Energy http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

You also want to have a look at this:

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.be/2011/08/seneca-effect-ori...

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#167

Post by LeifCarrotson »

mc32 wrote: post #146
SEJeff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Velociraptors have two rows of teeth in addition to a 2.5" retractable middle claw theorized to be used for slashing or stabbing attacks. Many dogs would have a size advantage, but all would have fewer teeth and generally soft padded paws with no serious claws. Even with the smaller size, the Velociraptors seemingly have the advantage. The "Fighting Dinosaurs" fossils give some credence to the claw being used to pier…

Do wild turkeys have spurs like fighting cocks, and how do they fare against dogs, i would wonder.

Yes, turkeys (wild or domestic) have spurs. Typically an inch or so in length, up to a bit more than two inches for the biggest, oldest birds. They also have interesting beards, which can be 10 inches long!

They'll bluster and charge to defend young against a curious city dog, but will flee up to roost if challenged by a pack of hunting dogs. If you find a cornered turkey, don't try to catch it or let your dog attack: you'll probably win from sheer mass and from having predatory weapons, but you will be badly bloodied.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#168

Post by chc »

leggomylibro wrote: post #110
mlloyd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God that is hard to read. The guy might be thought a genius but I got absolutely nothing from that passage save the penguins.

Honestly, I think he's more seen as a pulp-y xenophobe than a genius. But could he write portentous purple prose, or what?

"Lovecraftian" is still used as a general term for an entire genre of fiction. He was a xenophobe, but that is not what he's best known for. Similarly, Aristotle was a misogynist, but it would not be accurate to say that Aristotle is best known as a navel-gazing misogynist.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#169

Post by grondilu »

tzahola wrote: post #30
bsaul wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, what if every of those bacteries whose evolution stopped thousands of years ago are simply completely inapt to compete with the ones we've got today, because those had much more time to evolve ?

That’s not how evolution works. That’s like saying that a dog could easily kill a velociraptor because dogs are 65 million years “more evolved”.

I don't know about velociraptors, but there probably is a Creodont species that was pushed to extinction by ancestors of dogs. I mean it is believed that Creodonts disappeared due to the concurrence of the Carnivora order.

The idea that more recent species are "more evolved" than ancient ones is not completely absurd.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

#170

Post by PeterisP »

rconti wrote: post #57
ProAm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99.9% of all creatures to exist on earth are now extinct. [1] We're not special. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

How many of them were at the top of the food chain?

Top of the food chain generally is more vulnerable to changes causing extinction, not less.

E.g. if food for small rodents becomes much less available, the expected result is that small rodent species dwindle in population but survive, while some of large predators that need those small rodents may go extinct.

Cockroaches and rats will outlast homo sapiens.

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