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Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

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Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#21
post #16
post #5

Apparently it’s no longer mitigation, now adaptation. The desire to avoid nihilism at point is tough. I’m pushing 40 and I hope I get 25 more years, family kids are in for it.:(

I wish I didn't have a child, for his sake. The climate makes things like "retirement" really hard to think about... it just hurts to think about his future

I don’t have a child, and as someone who makes money by selling my time, retirement is still really hard to think about. Until I have enough money to make money from my money, I don’t think that retirement is a realistic option. And I have enough debt from just living my life that finding that FU point where I have sufficient money is a long, long ways off. Even at my “top 10% of the US” salary.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#22
post #14
post #5

Apparently it’s no longer mitigation, now adaptation. The desire to avoid nihilism at point is tough. I’m pushing 40 and I hope I get 25 more years, family kids are in for it.:(

I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children, unless maybe they live in a very low area by the coast. This plays out over hundreds of years. It's still a serious problem and we need to address it, but I keep seeing emotional reactions that ignore the science and the current predictions.

There's been a difference in the last 15 years... Look at the ocean currents. Look at the hurricanes stalling. That didn't use to happen. Look at tornado alley moving west. Look at the mass migration out of Siberia.[0] If you haven't noticed anything you aren't paying attention, or you're a gas company shill spreading misinformation.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climat...

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#23
post #9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should we do?

Use technology to survive in an inhospitable atmosphere. Probably without any dependency on the atmosphere outside our cities in the long run. Cleaning the atmosphere is harder when you’re just trying to survive. EDIT: Inhospitable atmosphere, to my mind, includes weather, drought, flash floods, etc. Not just the chemical makeup of the air.

> Use technology to survive in an inhospitable atmosphere.

Oh, please. The atmosphere will be perfectly hospitable. This is just FUD.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#24
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw as much engineering and innovation at the problems as possible. Conservation alone is no longer sufficient. And I meant problems. As in, protecting the food supply chain, protecting the electronics supply chain, adopting a defense posture to prepare for a far more desperate global population, finding ways to save coastal cities or quickly relocate people, throwing everything at the wall for innovative new exoti…

I wonder why ocean fertilization isn't talked about much anymore? All the articles I found about it were from ~10 years ago, with some vague conclusion that we shouldn't do it because it might be bad for the life on the ocean floor or something. There are no good solutions though, nothing will be perfect.

Haven't read anything about it in a while but I believe the conclusion was it wouldn't work, basically because it would take way too much iron to even start to make a dent.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#26
post #23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use technology to survive in an inhospitable atmosphere. Probably without any dependency on the atmosphere outside our cities in the long run. Cleaning the atmosphere is harder when you’re just trying to survive. EDIT: Inhospitable atmosphere, to my mind, includes weather, drought, flash floods, etc. Not just the chemical makeup of the air.

> Use technology to survive in an inhospitable atmosphere. Oh, please. The atmosphere will be perfectly hospitable. This is just FUD.

Really? Everything I’ve heard indicates a fairly dramatic change in the weather patterns as our global temperatures rise by even 1-2 degrees. The atmosphere is not just the chemical makeup, it’s the weather it creates. The droughts. The flash floods. The unnaturally cold winters, and unnaturally hot summers. Or vice versa - neither is very good for us.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#27
post #14
post #5

Apparently it’s no longer mitigation, now adaptation. The desire to avoid nihilism at point is tough. I’m pushing 40 and I hope I get 25 more years, family kids are in for it.:(

I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children, unless maybe they live in a very low area by the coast. This plays out over hundreds of years. It's still a serious problem and we need to address it, but I keep seeing emotional reactions that ignore the science and the current predictions.

[deleted]

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#28
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children, unless maybe they live in a very low area by the coast. This plays out over hundreds of years. It's still a serious problem and we need to address it, but I keep seeing emotional reactions that ignore the science and the current predictions.

> I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children I do already, the weather is much worse than when I was a kid, much drier and the heat waves are harsher.

And it's -10 degrees C with half a foot of snow where I live at this exact moment, does that cancel out your anecdote?

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#29
post #4
post #2

So have we fired a clathrate gun then [1]? It's getting increasingly difficult to pretend worst-case global warming scenarios won't turn into reality in the next 25 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

What should we do?

Green new deal applying financing to scaling known replacement tech like wind solar batteries and electric vehicles.

Also separate programs to identifying war scale R&D to identify topics and research them widely. Adjust contracting criteria for ability to pass scaling gates instead of financial or other criteria (this is the war terms for us).

Labor programs for rapid training and factory capital deployment.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#30
post #4
post #2

So have we fired a clathrate gun then [1]? It's getting increasingly difficult to pretend worst-case global warming scenarios won't turn into reality in the next 25 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

What should we do?

Well, cutting CO2 and CH4 emissions won't have much impact on decade scales. But we should still do that, to mitigate longer term damage.

What could help shorter term is adaptation. Moving cities to higher ground, away from oceans. And building dikes, where it's workable. But not in Florida or New Orleans. Maybe not even for New York City.

Also moving populations to areas that require less air conditioning. And moving farmland from areas that are becoming more arid. So generally, poleward.

And then there's immigration. As others move generally poleward. Targets could block immigration, and build walls where feasible. As the US and UK are doing. Or they could focus on integrating immigrants, as some EU nations are doing. That seems like the best long term strategy. Otherwise, you're going to have huge refugee camps, near borders, and probably end up killing lots of people.

And then we have social and political implications. I have no clue about that. Except to extrapolate current trends. So socially, that would be increased concentration of wealth, with the wealthy increasingly isolating themselves from the poor. And politically, increased authoritarian control, with associated surveillance.

Interesting times, for sure.

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