121–130 of 149 posts
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Well if California goes, we might as well all pack up, civilisation is over.
Okay. So what do you think will happen when a significant chunk of the United States economic power is under water?
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Interesting that even at a ridiculous, unprecedented 500m sea level rise, there are still substantial areas of dry land. It would be a radically different world, and a smaller one for us land based animals, but it doesn’t seem outlandish that civilization could persist.
It's difficult to imagine the extent and depth of suffering that humans will endure during the transition.
I am not a "denier", I can recognize that anthropomorphic activities are changing the climate over time and we're not prepared to deal with that. But this sort of article annoys me because "on record" represents a nanosecond of geologic time. There are mountains, and plant fossils [1] under the ice at Antartica, so at some point in the geologic record there was little to no ice at all! And no humans likely either, wh…
If we did in 40 years what took thousands or millions of years to happen naturally, it’s worrisome.
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The Netherlands didn't endure much suffering. In fact, quite the opposite.
I think they're referring to the increasing intensity of severe weather.
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I sort of understand the cultural aspect of it, curious what you mean by the biological adaptation needed. As far as I know a person from the tropics has no problem living in Canada (well sure they complain about how cold it is, but they do fine).
Beyond lighter skin being an adaptation to absorb more UV light for vitamin D production, there appear to be other skin adaptations that enable success for living in near polar latitudes. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/06/115741/human-evolution-cha... You could argue that we have the technology to overcome these biologically hurdles, and we do, but we're talking about millions of poor refugees who would have nothing…
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My family member worked as a petroleum geologist for Exxon-Mobil for many years, and he is fond of talking about how the climate has changed dramatically throughout the earth's history as a sort of defense against any discussion of climate change. That those changes historically went very poorly for the organisms living in affected areas doesn't seem to faze him, as though we should be desirous of a new Permian extin…
I’m not defending Exxon but I feel like no one asks the question “What if we never discovered fossil fuels”. Well, perhaps Earth would be in the middle of an ice age (And there is evidence to support it) which clearly isn’t good for all the species that would go extinct during such a period. If you look past the alarmism I don’t think we understand this complex system as well as we like to think we do. And that is co…
It wouldn’t.
> And there is evidence to support it
There isn’t. Show us the link.
Earth’s cycles are measured in the many thousands of years. The industrial revolution has 200-300 years and hasn’t really made a dent since the last 100 or so.
The amount of denial in a supposedly well informed crowed such HN never ceases to surprise and depress me.
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They'll have a _long_ time to migrate though, no?
The rise in sea level is something of a misnomer, because the real damage comes in storm surges. Even a 1cm rise increases the amount of water that can pushed inland by *checks notes* a whole helluva lot. So while manhattan isn't going to be put underwater even after a whole foot of sea level rise (predicted by 2100), the storms it has to survive will be much worse. People won't move just from a little water in the r…
I am not a "denier", I can recognize that anthropomorphic activities are changing the climate over time and we're not prepared to deal with that. But this sort of article annoys me because "on record" represents a nanosecond of geologic time. There are mountains, and plant fossils [1] under the ice at Antartica, so at some point in the geologic record there was little to no ice at all! And no humans likely either, wh…
Sorry Chuck, but when a post starts with “I’m not an X, but…” it often ends up being X. If we did in 40 years what took thousands or millions of years to happen naturally, it’s worrisome.
If you can find posts of mine from 10 years ago you'll see that my position hasn't changed a whole lot.
What I have never believed however is that it was possible to communicate the impacts humans are having to a large enough portion of the population that set priorities to change the eventuality that Al Gore warned of in "An Inconvenient Truth."
I've talked about this sort of self denial in my own journey to getting my weight under control where it is easy to say, ""These calories aren't making me fat, it is all those other calories I've already eaten that made me fat. Not eating this tasty treat would just deny me a treat and not change my weight one bit." It is true, and it was what I wanted to believe, but within that truth was that my actions, my habits, and my choices led me to place where I was fat.
It was hard work to get me to a point in the way I think about things to consciously change my day to day activities and change the way I thought about my "relationship" with food, to get to a reasonable weight. Do that for 7 billion people with regard to their cars/energy consumption? It is inconceivable![1]
That said, it also annoys me that the science says seeding the oceans with iron [2] could potentially remove massive amount of CO2 from the air, and yet we don't even allow people to try. Either it is an existential threat (which I think it is) so everything is on the table, or it isn't.
[1] And yes I do know what that word means :-)
[2] https://edu.rsc.org/feature/iron-ocean-seeding/2020176.artic...
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Dry land is just one aspect of climatic stability. Tolerable and predictable weather patterns is another. Fertile regions, a critical consequence of that. The question isn't whether some will survive, the question is: Who, why them, and at what cost? Furthermore, it's best to avoid population bottleneck scenarios in general, isn't it? So, sure; we can relax at least our fears for a Kevin Costner "waterworld."
Maybe "stability" isn't the best factor for human progress? I'm not saying "therefore, let's maximize chaos!" -- just pointing out that /stability/ in today's world is more likely to lead to "business as usual." I know Hollywood movies like to focus on dystopian scenarios wherein the Onepercenters always end up the sole benefactors of significant changes (especially due to worsening climate/pollution)...but is that r…
It's the culling of vulnerable populations that will limit our biodiversity and development towards ultimate catastrophe resilience. We've seen enough homogenization of architecture and institutions already to seriously endanger our tenure on the planet.
It's strange to me that you view "western nations" as possessing "greater stability" than the Persian, Indian, Chinese, and Ottoman empires and, likewise, strange that you think "the Onepercenters" "historically preferred" strong, stable social structures and not, specifically, a differential between their holdings and a marginal region to exploit.
Some people like to romanticize the opportunities available for underdogs in times of crisis but, for example, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is an easy counter-example. Vulnerability isn't strength. A "rising tide" doesn't lift all boats.
Ours is a hugely abstract and almost criminally vague level of discourse, however. I can't think of any meaningful consensus at which you and I might arrive. I just hope you can grow to recognize that survival of the fittest has no foresight, and no memory. Too cheaply do we cull the only locally unfit. Leaving climate change to do its worst in the hopes that it might topple "business as usual" sounds like a great way to preserve the most ruthless actors.
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The scientists know this. Paleoclimatology is one big part of climatology. But the outcome is the opposite - you should be more scared, since it shows that climate can change massively. That affects things like agriculture or sea level. What would you assume the sea level was, when those plants were alive? For example, with very quick search: "In general, world oceans were about 100 to 200 metres (330 to 660 feet) hi…
I just went looking for a map to see how different coastlines would look with a 200m sea level rise. It's, unsurprisingly, significant!! https://www.floodmap.net/