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Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

reuters.com

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Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#151

Post by john_moscow »

graeme wrote: post #136
john_moscow wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except a single factory in China emits more CO2 than all the readers of this HN thread combined. So all you are going to do by minimizing your own carbon footprint is make your own life miserable and free up the resources for someone who doesn't give a damn. And I am sorry to say that, but I don't think that a global framework enforcing the same environmental restrictions on every country in the world, regardless of…

>And I am sorry to say that, but I don't think that a global framework enforcing the same environmental restrictions on every country in the world, regardless of its economic state, is realistic. Sorry. We don't need a perfect global framework. We just need to shift incentives to some extent. The market is already coming up with some non-carbon alternatives. Adding a carbon tax will shift incentives further and incre…

I am arguing that we need a framework where an individual's actions reducing the carbon footprint will benefit that individual instead of reducing their life quality. Carefully designed taxes that would make non-carbon alternatives more competitive are realistic. Asking/forcing people to scale down their lifestyle without offering viable alternatives isn't.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#152

Post by jbay808 »

akvadrako wrote: post #137
jbay808 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you didn't get downvoted for saying this. You are wrong, but it's a fair perspective because most people wouldn't know why an extra 4-10 C is such a problem. There are a lot of reasons such as whether food or water scarcity might trigger nuclear war. But the biggest reason is that it puts us into the territory of previous mass extinction events on Earth. This article does a good job of illustrating the worst p…

1) You'll notice I didn't put nuclear war in my list of existential threats. That's because it also will likely not cause human extinction. 2) We are probably already in a mass extinction event. That also has little change of causing human extinction - we're the most adaptable species this planet has ever seen.

Did you read the article I linked? It's not talking about the extinction of rhinos, tigers and polar bears. It's talking about the mechanics of the end-Permian mass extinction. To quote Wikipedia:

"known colloquially as the Great Dying... approximately 252 million years ago. It is the Earth's most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct."

Seriously, it's a good article and quite short. I think you'd find it interesting food for thought and I'm honestly interested to hear your response to it, not some cheap dismissals.

Edit: if you really don't have time to read the whole thing, at least let me know what you think of the figure on page 6

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#153

Post by jordanbeiber »

thtthings wrote: post #141

Our planet needs to be viewed as and felt as a living entity. There needs to be a shift so we care for every living entity. Every plant, animal, human. Our values need to shift from material pursuits and those as a benchmark for happiness and success to how we treat one another and also other living beings. Is there a website i can go to and check earth's health as a whole? Like we can check our own health. It would…

I have my ideas that this is what we should use AI for - basically a technocracy where any decision is entered in to a computer that does the crunching. Degree of sustainability vs gain and have the computer say "no" if it's just not viable. If it says "yes" have a vote and let it be decided.

Just dreaming.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#154

Post by mikeash »

archey1 wrote: post #76
mikeash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren’t a denier then why are you repeating a classic, thoroughly debunked denier talking point? https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm

Maybe they honestly didn't know? Hell, I didn't even know about global warming on Mars until OPs comment..

It’s possible, but beyond a certain point it becomes difficult to extend the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#155

Post by UnFleshedOne »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #113

Canada, Siberia.....both of these areas have been relatively untouched/unexploited due to the permafrost issue and generally inhospitable weather. But they represent a HUGE portion of the global land area.... So why aren't we looking at climate change as opening up vast tracts of the northern hemisphere to settlement and exploitation?

I'm sure there is a lot of land under permafrost, but make sure you are not unduly impressed by how it looks like on a mercator projection.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#156

Post by graeme »

john_moscow wrote: post #151
graeme wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And I am sorry to say that, but I don't think that a global framework enforcing the same environmental restrictions on every country in the world, regardless of its economic state, is realistic. Sorry. We don't need a perfect global framework. We just need to shift incentives to some extent. The market is already coming up with some non-carbon alternatives. Adding a carbon tax will shift incentives further and incre…

I am arguing that we need a framework where an individual's actions reducing the carbon footprint will benefit that individual instead of reducing their life quality. Carefully designed taxes that would make non-carbon alternatives more competitive are realistic. Asking/forcing people to scale down their lifestyle without offering viable alternatives isn't.

Fair enough. I tend to agree then. I think taxes, with tax reductions in other areas to offset the pain, are a better solution than asking for individual effort.

You hadn't mentioned this in your comment though, so I thought you were arguing something else.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#157

Post by NikkiA »

akeck wrote: post #84

How reasonable is the Clathrate Gun hypothesis? https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

It's already happened, methane has been bubbling from the arctic seabed since 2012.

Noone that can do anything cares.

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20120422.htm...

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#158

Post by pantalaimon »

734129837261 wrote: post #51
HugoDaniel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we will adapt, but not fast enough.

We will. We always do. There is no reason to assume we won't. The wealthy westerners will not notice because of air conditioning and endless bottled water. The less wealthy ones will suffer the heat a bit more. The poor ones will be taken care of. Third world nations will suffer. Some might die. Maybe many. But humanity will adapt. We might lose a few hundred million in the next few decades until their folks find new…

Where do you expect food to come from without an ecosystem that supports the crops we are farming right now?

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#159

Post by munificent »

overthemoon wrote: post #80
cardamomo wrote: post #65

The oft-quoted opening of David Wallace-Wells's "The Uninhabitable Earth" comes to mind. Reviews have generally only included his first sentence: "It is worse, much worse, than you think." Here is his entire opening paragraph: > It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and comes to us bundled with sev…

Curious about what he means by "that wealth can be a shield against the ravages of warming". That is--I can see a case for the wealth of a nation not being a shield for every citizen, but I wonder whether the very rich could weather climate change for a long time. But I suppose that's not the same thing as being totally unaffected.

If climate change kills the bottom 90% of the population, the remaining 10% will follow shortly behind them because nothing that made them "the 10%" will exist once those 90% are gone. "Wealth" at it's most fundamental means "can pay less wealthy people to do things for you". Without the poor, no one is rich.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#160

Post by talaketu »

csours wrote: post #109
Reedx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll probably do a collective face slap that we failed to invest in Nuclear technology (see the difference in Gen IV vs old tech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor ). We had a solution for clean energy, but let fear override reason.

I'm not doubting you, this is just an honest repetition of what I've heard before. I thought that nuclear was also a GHG contributor because of the fossil fuels used in mining and refining it. Is this not the case? Like there is some cradle to grave GHG coefficient for different sources of power...

Nuclear power is very carbon-efficient (tonnes CO2 emmitted / GWh produced) due to the large quantity of energy produced over the generator lifecycle. It's on par with wind power, and better than solar, according to World Nuclear Org.

  | Lignite | 1054 |
  | Coal | 888 |
  | Oil | 733 |
  | Natural Gas | 499 |
  | SolarPV | 85 |
  | Biomass | 45 |
  | Nuclear | 29 |
  | Hydroelectric | 26 |
  | Wind | 26 |
[1] http://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/on...
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