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Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

williamcolgan.net

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Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#21

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

galangalalgol wrote: post #18
edgefield wrote: post #9

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

Hostile to human life seems a bit hyperbolic. Our technology and society will collapse and stop the co2 addition well before then. Its possible we will have hit run-away by then, but I don't think that is currently predicted? A malthusian collapse followed by a second shot with sustainable tech built on the back of unsustainable ones might well have a chance.

Do large scale catastrophic floods, heat waves, snow storms, hurricanes, and wild fires not qualify as hostile to human life?

What is the true scotsman weather and climate that is hostile to human life?

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#22

Post by random314 »

goatlover wrote: post #13
edgefield wrote: post #9

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

It won't become hostile to human life, it will become more challenging for human civilization to deal with the warming. And we don't need magic, we can decarbonize and pursue several strategies for mitigation.

The crop failures and flooding will create famine, refugee crisis and wars that will kill more people than WW2, covid19 etc. But unlike the previous crises, it will mostly affect "other" people.

But we will have several strategies for mitigation on paper.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#23

Post by datalopers »

random314 wrote: post #20
edgefield wrote: post #9

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

I noticed an influx of Republicans into HN about 2 years ago. Since then there have been a lot of emphasis on Republican talking points, including vaccine phobia, mask phobia, climate science denial and other anti science stances. The change felt quite sudden.

> The change felt quite sudden

They've always been here but vocal and unashamed airing of those views is what rapidly changed across culture (not limited to HN) as a whole. Ignorance and conspiracy is now a badge of honor.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#24

Post by seibelj »

random314 wrote: post #20
edgefield wrote: post #9

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

I noticed an influx of Republicans into HN about 2 years ago. Since then there have been a lot of emphasis on Republican talking points, including vaccine phobia, mask phobia, climate science denial and other anti science stances. The change felt quite sudden.

You don’t have to be a republican (as if that’s a slur?) to disagree with the “science” of masking considering government officials said not to use masks, then to use masks, then we were all going to die if we didn’t wear masks, now no one is wearing masks… What is and is not “settled science” is up to extreme interpretation

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#25

Post by enchiridion »

rowanG077 wrote: post #15
enchiridion wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Magic at the moment”, that’s a new one to me. What a way to box the entirety of human ingenuity into a pithy phrase. Such a fiendish application of the dialectic knife.

I don't think it was meant as you interpret it. Rather a callback to the famous quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

That might be right.

I took it in the spirit of climate change advocates who tend to argue for immediate radical change. Underlying those arguments is a belief that we will not be able to address problems as they arise in the future.

I think we will. I believe in the power of human ingenuity to respond to constraints of the environment. That’s what I took it to mean; the ability to solve unsolved problems when the need arises.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#26

Post by edgyquant »

Arainach wrote: post #17
goatlover wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't become hostile to human life, it will become more challenging for human civilization to deal with the warming. And we don't need magic, we can decarbonize and pursue several strategies for mitigation.

It will absolutely become hostile to human life. https://theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-...

Please post peer reviewed papers and not sensationalist articles. You’ll quickly see how wrong you are

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#27

Post by edgyquant »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #21
galangalalgol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hostile to human life seems a bit hyperbolic. Our technology and society will collapse and stop the co2 addition well before then. Its possible we will have hit run-away by then, but I don't think that is currently predicted? A malthusian collapse followed by a second shot with sustainable tech built on the back of unsustainable ones might well have a chance.

Do large scale catastrophic floods, heat waves, snow storms, hurricanes, and wild fires not qualify as hostile to human life? What is the true scotsman weather and climate that is hostile to human life?

If they do then the Earth already qualifies as hostile to human life

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#29

Post by upsidesinclude »

MAGZine wrote: post #8
echelon wrote: post #5

Not to veer off topic, but this felt tangential with the mention of thawing peat. I've read some analysis that says global warming will make much more of Russia arable and open up lots of new economic opportunities. China will gain new shipping lanes through the Arctic. Canada will also get more useful land, etc. Obviously it's going to wreak havoc on ecosystems and species diversity and the climates of other nations…

Not well, IMO. Or, at least, "it's complicated." Take for example, the boreal forest, which produces roughly equivalent amounts of oxygen as the Amazon. A large swatch of canada is covered by boreal forest. As the climate warms, the growing season could become elongated. However, there actually isn't any more arable land in Canada without deforesting. Grassland goes right up to the forest, and the forest doesn't stop…

For everything you described the opposite is also true.

Now that we've largely settled on "climate change" instead of all the other catastrophic descriptors which didn't last a decade...

There will be places where what you claimed is true and places where the opposite is true, if the climate changes in the way you propose.

The benefits to many places will be immense, there is no rigorous science measuring at this point, because no one will pay for that investigation to take place publicly.

The new paradigm with "denialism" being a career sinking position means honest appraisal is not happening publicly.

The southwest US had a seven year drought through the nineties, now they experience exceptional monsoons. It is not hotter there by any measure that humans can appreciate. Data shows us it is hotter in the cities, but the climate is not warming outside of the cities once the city data is expunged.

What do you do with that information?

Historical data suggests that there is no safer time to be alive. And yet, people are dying from starvation, not because we don't have food, mind you. Because we won't get food to people that starve.

Isn't it funny. We can focus on a future catastrophe and never have to help people or be kind now. We can be vicious and mean to people and they deserve to starve to death because they won't do as they're told and follow "the science"

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#30

Post by jpollock »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #21
galangalalgol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hostile to human life seems a bit hyperbolic. Our technology and society will collapse and stop the co2 addition well before then. Its possible we will have hit run-away by then, but I don't think that is currently predicted? A malthusian collapse followed by a second shot with sustainable tech built on the back of unsustainable ones might well have a chance.

Do large scale catastrophic floods, heat waves, snow storms, hurricanes, and wild fires not qualify as hostile to human life? What is the true scotsman weather and climate that is hostile to human life?

Hostile to human life means "humans cannot exist without technological assistance".

It doesn't mean mass death, that's a measure of the Carrying Capacity. Hostility means carrying capacity is zero, or close to it.

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