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Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

nature.com

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Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#111
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching climate change deniers periodically change up their bullshit because the old bullshit got too obviously wrong has been equal parts hilarious and frustrating. I guess now we're at the "okay okay fine, it's a problem, and humans are causing it. But we should still do nothing to fix it, because... China?" Screaming right past the acceptance stage and in for another loop of denial.

Why is that unreasonable? US emissions are actually lower than in the past. But the US could go to zero and if China and India don't lower emission it won't matter . Tragedy of the commons and all.

Because accepting the potential demise of modern complex society and the collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity world wide and a mass exctinction event because "Fuck it China and India are bad so lets just party until the end." Is fucking stupid.

The proper framing is we need to reduce emissions and so does China and India so how do we facilitate that. The answer is to 1.) Reduce our own emissions to have the moral basis to push other countries to reduce their emissions. 2.) Tax imported goods based on the emissions created in their production. Incentivizing foreign countries to reduce their emissions to be competitive in US markets. 3.) Lobby other countries to do the same using the diplomatic means we have at our disposal.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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What are you talking about? Where did I make an end of the world prediction? It is you who brought that up. Of course nothing is going to end. Nice strawman. You even try to bring COVID into the discussion? What are you doing, and why?

He just trying to point out what is media agenda now. Keep people in fear. Which is true and last two years are proof of it.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#113
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China and India will not play ball. That is a lame excuse, mostly used by people from developed countries that are responsible for the issue, so you dodge responsibility and also try to put blame on the developing country why you are continuing screwing the environment. It is like you have a history of you and your ancestors abusing your children and you don't want to stop because the new neighbor is also abusing hi…

> It is like you have a history of you and your ancestors abusing your children and you don't want to stop because the new neighbor is also abusing his children too This is a poor metaphor. It's more akin to having a family history of child abuse, trying to stop the cycle, explaining to your neighbor why it's bad, and then your neighbor saying "well, your grandpa beat the shit out of your dad, so we get to beat our k…

>And of course, the largest producer of CO2 isn't the US as you imply, it's China

Only if you ignore per capita and history.

A better analogy, Someone was selling meat, 50% horse and 5-% rabbit , he was using q horse at 1 rabbit ratio, this are your stats , bullshit.

>It's more akin to having a family history of child abuse, trying to stop the cycle

Except you are trying not to stop the cyucle and finding s shitty excuse, I will continue poisoning this city with coal related toxic waste because China has even worse pollution. I should continue throwing plastic garbage in the river and kill our river life because the neighboring country/cities does the same.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#114
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pandemic also told us that people won't even do something as mildly inconvenient as wearing a mask. Forget about major life changes.

I believe it also showed us the limit of individual action on climate change. It's doubtful I could have gotten 100% work from home out of my employers sans pandemic. My partner stopped going to work because her industry was on government provided life support. Despite that CO2 emissions in 2020 dropped by 6%. A change which would be wiped out in a few years by the natural growth. Getting individuals to do anything m…

There is that terrible idea that you know what should be best for others. Just forget it, it is not how society works. Totalitarian states trying that idea use over and over and fail with terrible costs.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#115

Here's a related, recent New Yorker article about the melting permafrost. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-sibe... https://archive.is/ZyhPf > Over thousands of years, the frozen earth swallowed up all manner of organic material, from tree stumps to woolly mammoths. As the permafrost thaws, microbes in the soil awaken and begin to feast on the defrosting biomass. It’s a funky, organic process, a…

So then what happens, the microbes eat stuff, more soil is produced, more trees and animals grow, more rain comes, more stuff gets buried, and the cycle repeats itself?

Honest question, not refuting anything here just a lot of the articles stop at the melting part, what happens after that?

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#116
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon emissions are correlated to human activity. We can dial them up or down theoretically through human action. Methane emission through permafrost (both land and submarine) could end up as a cascading natural emission that forms a feedback loop. I think that's a big part of why people are panicking.

The cheap option of going out of our way to do less (so we emit less) is very probably off the table at this point. As a species we need another plan. I like a mixed approach of sequestering atmospheric gasses via processes that synthesize useful compounds from the components we don't want in the air as well as hard scifi concepts like giant reflective surfaces in space. Throttling the quantity of sunlight by reflect…

If you block sunlight, you will negatively effect food production, tree growth etc. I don't think it will have the positive effect you think it will.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#117

Many humans. Rich life (individual freedoms and high material quality of life). Low environmental impact. Pick two. EDIT: this apparently is one of my most disliked comments. To clarify, my point is that we can’t have both unlimited population growth and a high quality of life without accepting environmental impacts. If a high population of people have to crowd into dense micro apartments and give up cars and face co…

> Many humans. Rich life (individual freedoms and high material quality of life). Low environmental impact. Pick two.

I really don't buy this, it seems illogical to me.

We have technologies that can produce a rich and comfortable life with much less or zero emissions, nuclear, renewables. We don't need to fuck stuff up as bad as we have. We've fucked stuff up this bad because of lobbying, resources companies have lobbied and fought long and hard to keep selling this poison to the world. To keep us buying cars that use petroleum. To keep people believing that it's either oil and coal or you're going back to the stone age it's bull shit because oil and coal is the stone age.

If you buy into those technologies I've mentioned above, you don't really have to entirely give up the life you know, in fact you might get to keep the life you love and have cleaner, better air to breathe.

We've woken up, but we still have those cretins doing their dirty work (the Australian Government for example.

We've woken up but it might be too late now.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#118
post #86

To see both the longer trend (graph), a comparison with the value at the same time the previous year, and the current value for CO2, CH4, N2O, and SF6 I occasionally check the Global Monitoring Laboratory (NOAA): https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/ Link to methane, click on one of the four switched at the top for the others. Warning: It always is pretty depressing to visit this site. You can also check out a tab "G…

[flagged]

""Before humans burned the first coal to fire the first steam engine, the planet was warmer than this and had much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.Both went back down."

Yes. That's true and it doesn't in any way mean that it is at all safe for humans to jack up co2 levels in such a short period of time. All of the available evidence from the people who discovered those things in the first place suggests that this is a massive gamble we are taking with bad odds and everything we hold dear is at stake.

""People twice your age lived through the end-of-the-world predictions of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But here we are, more technologically advanced than ever (for better or worse). But this time it's different! We have science!""

That's exactly right. Climate scientists aren't some kooks looking for clues to Armageddon in the bible or hearing voices. Global warming is happening. It's measurable. We know exactly whats causing it and we have very good reason to believe its dangerous to society and ecosystems. This has fuck all to do with doomsday cults. Don't look up is a perfect metaphor. If 97% of astrophysicists agreed that a meteor is on a collision course for the earth you wouldn't complain that you heard similar things from Jim Jones and you don't want to waste your tax dollars to divert some imaginary asteroid. For some reason with climate its socially acceptable to hold such an idiotic view.

""Science is a process carried out by people; people like John Cook, Michael Mann, etc, well-known frauds who were nonetheless widely touted by top journalists at outlets like the NYT and top politicians like Barack Obama.""

The findings of both Mann and Cook have been independently verified and expanded upon by a variety of scientific studies following separate lines of inquiry. As in following different lines of evidence using different methodologies. You are a partisan and the partisan media outlets have maligned these guys, but their work stands up. I'm sure theres a conspiracy you can conjure to explain this though.

""We see a constant stream of articles here on HN, highly upvoted, even, decrying the corruption in the peer review process, the research grant process, and confirmed by commenters telling tales of their time in the PhD research world.""

There are a number of different problems in academia and the peer review process. None of them have cast doubt on the consensus findings of the field of climatology. Actually one of the problems is predatory journals who accept anything for a fee and that's more really only a problem for climate contrarian scientists since that's the only kind of journal where they can pass "peer review" most of the time.

""These scientists were brought up in the same institutions that brought us COVID lockdowns, don't-mask--now-mask--nevermind-don't-mask, redefined vaccines-that-aren't-what-vaccines-used-to-be-defined-as, etc. And the media touts them just the same.""

Jesus next thing you're going to tell me to trust Q

""We see that this whole planet of humans has been kept in a state of panic for two years about COVID, because there exist entities who want to increase their power, and the way to transfer power is to convince people that it's necessary for their own good.""

They aren't transferring power. They're expending it. None of the covid measures has made it easier for one party to win an election or harder for the other. Biden hasn't been granted emergency authority to be president for life. No they've implemented measures to try to keep people safe and the backlash from it seems to make it less likely they stay in power. Not more. The whole narrative here is just self serving political hackery.

""But, no, of course, there couldn't be any similarity between these two issues behind the scenes. After all, it's scientific consensus! Which has always been a reliable indicator of objective truth, and is one of the cornerstones of the scientific process!""

There is a similarity, but it isn't behind the scenes. It's right here in these comments. Your narrative. That's what's similar. Conservatives need an enemy to rally the troops and that enemy is mostly democrats and anything they advocate for. Especially if opposing that thing happens to be in the best interests of coporate backers of the republican party. Just claim it's all a conspiracy to give the government power and the rank and file will eat it up. Good governance be damned. Future be damned.

""What's that idea, the Gell-Mann amnesia effect? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.""

No it's fool me once shame on you, fool me, we won't get fooled again

""If I weren't such a staunch advocate of free speech, I'd say that it ought to be criminal, how people have been convinced to live a life of fear, to think that there's no point to having a family, working toward the future, etc. How much suffering has been caused by these lies. It's simply evil.""

What's evil is downplaying actual dangers as lies and subjecting society to things like global warming and deadly diseases because you've come to associate these things with liberals. All the while banning books and passing anti 1st amendment, anti education laws under the guise of banning CRT in schools.

""Somewhere there must be a book that catalogues the dire, end-of-the-world predictions made by humans throughout the millennia. I'd implore you to find it, read it, be at ease, and live your life to the fullest while you have the health and means to do so. ""

Climate science is science. It is not tainted by the false predictions of con men and cult leaders. That doesn't work that way.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Where did I make an end of the world prediction? It is you who brought that up. Of course nothing is going to end. Nice strawman. You even try to bring COVID into the discussion? What are you doing, and why?

He just trying to point out what is media agenda now. Keep people in fear. Which is true and last two years are proof of it.

The media agenda is the same media agenda that there has always been and that's to make money. Whoever told you there's a media agenda is the one with the agenda that they aren't telling you about.

Re: Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 : space colonies

If we can't live comfortably on earth (even with the worst expected effects from climate change), how can we live on another planet or in outer space which has a far less hospitable environment than any climate change could cause here on earth. I think of space colonies as being protection from some catastrophic event on earth, not as an answer to climate change. It's not like we could move significant numbers of peo…

Yeah, I've had that thought often enough. If we can't make people enjoy living in (insert least popular region in your cultural environment), how would anybody want to live in space/the moon/on Mars?

These days it's flanked by a much darker counter: well at least space would provide a society that has reproduction under control with a reasonably wide moat from breeders.

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