Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted • Hacker News Board

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#191

Post by loons2 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:26 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #181

anm89 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who agrees with your suggestion as to how serious climate change is, I've come to think asking individuals to change their behavior to fix the problem is actually counter productive. People generally want to do the right thing and they want to matter whereas in my experience the average person is not a great systems thinker. So people are very receptive to calls to "be better" because it let's them fight f…

There isn't much the individual can do to fix climate change. Even if you went completely off the grid to live in the woods outside of the industrial civilization eating plants etc this wouldn't fix anything. Yes, you would certainly reduce your emissions but this is not nearly enough. Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain th…

> Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain there for thousands of years.

Cite please?

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#192

Post by pier25 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

loons2 wrote: post #191

pier25 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't much the individual can do to fix climate change. Even if you went completely off the grid to live in the woods outside of the industrial civilization eating plants etc this wouldn't fix anything. Yes, you would certainly reduce your emissions but this is not nearly enough. Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain th…

> Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain there for thousands of years. Cite please?

https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-co2-j...

> The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#193

Post by samhain » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #181

anm89 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who agrees with your suggestion as to how serious climate change is, I've come to think asking individuals to change their behavior to fix the problem is actually counter productive. People generally want to do the right thing and they want to matter whereas in my experience the average person is not a great systems thinker. So people are very receptive to calls to "be better" because it let's them fight f…

There isn't much the individual can do to fix climate change. Even if you went completely off the grid to live in the woods outside of the industrial civilization eating plants etc this wouldn't fix anything. Yes, you would certainly reduce your emissions but this is not nearly enough. Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain th…

The next two most effective things to reduce carbon footprint beyond not having children is, one, killing yourself, or two, killing the board members of a company responsible for the majority of carbon emissions.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#194

Post by pier25 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:33 PM UTC

samhain wrote: post #193

pier25 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't much the individual can do to fix climate change. Even if you went completely off the grid to live in the woods outside of the industrial civilization eating plants etc this wouldn't fix anything. Yes, you would certainly reduce your emissions but this is not nearly enough. Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain th…

The next two most effective things to reduce carbon footprint beyond not having children is, one, killing yourself, or two, killing the board members of a company responsible for the majority of carbon emissions.

Yeah but my point is that reducing our carbon footprint is not even scratching the surface of the problem.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#195

Post by loons2 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:36 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #192

loons2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain there for thousands of years. Cite please?

https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-co2-j... > The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes th…

Thanks. A staff writer for the Guardian. Think I'll look a bit further for a more authoritative (read logical) number.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#196

Post by fooblitzky » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:38 PM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #94

Fede_V wrote: post #27

Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…

Global warming is not an existential threat if you consider the studies that look at existential threats in general. It's not even in the top 10. Of the top of my head, asteroids, bio weapons, disease, the Sun, AI and authoritarianism are more serious. Especially AI - not being the dominate species anymore will be dangerous. But 10°C more? That just requires AC and migration.

I think you might be overestimating the resilience of your food network. It's understandable, everything is currently set-up to insulate you from the origins of your food.

Plants, rainfall, and harvests are susceptible to changes in climate.

Globally, though, I'd be surprised if we could last a single year if every food crop failed. You can already see what this looks like in Africa and the Middle East - famine affects entire countries at a time. Imagine if there was a string of bad years - say 10 or 15.

As a kind-of related example, most of the US would starve within a week if there were no oil to power trucks. Our current globalized food production/transportation network is extremely fragile.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#197

Post by pier25 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:48 PM UTC

loons2 wrote: post #195

pier25 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-co2-j... > The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes th…

Thanks. A staff writer for the Guardian. Think I'll look a bit further for a more authoritative (read logical) number.

I was being gentle. Is the IPCC good enough for you?

> There is sufficient uptake capacity in the ocean to incorporate 70 to 80% of foreseeable anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, this process takes centuries due to the rate of ocean mixing. As a result, even several centuries after emissions occurred, about a quarter of the increase in concentration caused by these emissions is still present in the atmosphere.

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#198

Post by benn0 » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #127

Fede_V wrote: post #27

Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…

> As citizens, I encourage everyone to reducing their carbon footprint as much as possible (yes, that means that your life gets comfortable) and voting exclusively on how credible a politician is on tackling global warming. I would just like to add. Absolutely vote. But please don't use it as an excuse to do nothing yourself. While you are waiting for politicians to act, start acting now. In case you are wondering wh…

Great list. It seems odd that we always equate a reduction in our footprint with a reduction in lifestyle, where options like these would arguably be a lifestyle improvement (or at least neutral).

I would also add - stop or reduce discretionary air travel. Similarly to local meetups, there are often so many undiscovered destinations/events that can be just as rewarding as an overseas trip, without the 20+ hours in transit that are required.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#199

Post by AstralStorm » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #146

anm89 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who agrees with your suggestion as to how serious climate change is, I've come to think asking individuals to change their behavior to fix the problem is actually counter productive. People generally want to do the right thing and they want to matter whereas in my experience the average person is not a great systems thinker. So people are very receptive to calls to "be better" because it let's them fight f…

I tend to agree. We've had 30+ years of exhortations for individual action against climate change. Yet global emissions are the highest they've ever been. Meanwhile, we haven't really tried an effective government policy. One that would replace other forms of taxation with a carbon tax. We've only tried individual solutions, dabbling around the edges, carbon offsets, cap and trade. Manifestly they haven't reduced emi…

Not even the tax can do it, because polluters will migrate.

You would have to combine the tax with more serious measures like duties based on either estimated or actual emissions level. Or outright bans.

Additionally mandating certain important practices like garbage disposal, reduction and methane capture.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#200

Post by DuskStar » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

samhain wrote: post #193

pier25 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't much the individual can do to fix climate change. Even if you went completely off the grid to live in the woods outside of the industrial civilization eating plants etc this wouldn't fix anything. Yes, you would certainly reduce your emissions but this is not nearly enough. Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain th…

The next two most effective things to reduce carbon footprint beyond not having children is, one, killing yourself, or two, killing the board members of a company responsible for the majority of carbon emissions.

Are you sure that not having children or killing yourself actually reduces long term global carbon emissions? Because the second order effects start to get odd, here.

Imagine that all the people who believed in climate change - globally - committed suicide in some appropriately low-carbon manner. Everyone remaining does not believe in climate change. How long does it take the population to bounce back, and what sort of global warming mitigation do you think happens? Does the world in this thought experiment end up emitting less carbon?

Individual actions might have next to no effect, but institutional actions will. Giving up your opportunity to influence those institutional actions (whether through your own efforts or those of your children) is not beneficial to the environment. Of course, this calculus is different for the average person. But if you're the sort of person who's contemplating suicide to help the environment, you're exactly the sort of person that the world needs to not commit suicide.