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Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

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Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#191

Post by gridspy »

gridspy wrote: post #30
Scarblac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, once the CO2 is in the air and stays there, the warming will happen. Then hundreds of years later the threshold is passed and then even removing it from the air (something we can't do) won't help anymore. Once we've emitted enough CO2 to reach 2 degrees warming, it will almost certainly happen that all the ice melts. And there's a point where that will be certain, even if we learn how to remove all CO2 we emitt…

Fortunately the CO2 does eventually leave our atmosphere, given about 50 years.

Edit: the 50 year timeline was my childhood understanding. TIL it is far more complicated.

https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle/p...

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#192

Post by FredPret »

crispinb wrote: post #127
kiliantics wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't seem reasonable to say we have hundreds of years to figure out a solution. We've also known about the global warming problem in great detail for well over 50 years at this point. Since then we haven't figured it out but made it worse -- most of our cumulative emissions have happened in just the last 50 years. Why do people still think we can figure this out in a matter of decades without having to drasti…

> Why do people still think ... Because people haven't come to terms with the fact that humans are not Children of God nor disembodied Cartesian rational calculators, but actually a loquacious and smartish hominid, designed by selection for small group interaction. There is nothing to suggest this species is capable of planet-level cooperation towards a communally-decided end. Add to that the fact that path-dependent…

You make interesting points but I would disagree about global cooperation.

Every day we cooperate in an intricate dance with people all over the world, from different ideologies and legal systems, to operate our supply chains and information networks.

All we need is for the green option to be in everyone’s self-interest and the system will rapidly self-optimize.

We’re already getting there with green laws being globally popular, carbon taxes, and clean tech getting cheaper.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#193

Post by pharmakom »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #122
pharmakom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emissions per capita in China are not even that high though.

I didn't realize it was a per capita problem. Maybe we can breed our way out of it so the global emissions per capita will be better and the environment will be happy.

Not sure why you are being sarcastic. No one wants to reduce their emissions (maybe a small number do or perhaps only in the abstract. Most like their steak and international travel. I know I do) so how do we make it fair? I cannot see any way that is fair that isn’t based around some per capita distribution. Of course this will be impossible to do exactly, but we should aim for an approximation.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#194

Post by bradgessler »

peteradio wrote: post #183
graeme wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting. People think of climate change like a river. You reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the emissions, you reduce the size of the problem. But it's more like a bathtub. Emissions are the water filling the tub, but the real problem is the water level already in the tub. If you reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the flow into the…

Filling a bath tub requires active control, are you saying humans need to actively control the climate of the entire earth?

I don’t understand the bathtub analogy, but I will say it should be a goal of humanity to control the climate of the entire earth. The alternative is we don’t and are forever at the whim of what Earth and the solar system decides to throw at us.

I’ve found this argument to be appealing to people on both sides of the climate change debate.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#195

Post by crispinb »

FredPret wrote: post #192
crispinb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people still think ... Because people haven't come to terms with the fact that humans are not Children of God nor disembodied Cartesian rational calculators, but actually a loquacious and smartish hominid, designed by selection for small group interaction. There is nothing to suggest this species is capable of planet-level cooperation towards a communally-decided end. Add to that the fact that path-dependent…

You make interesting points but I would disagree about global cooperation. Every day we cooperate in an intricate dance with people all over the world, from different ideologies and legal systems, to operate our supply chains and information networks. All we need is for the green option to be in everyone’s self-interest and the system will rapidly self-optimize. We’re already getting there with green laws being globa…

Well it's too big a discussion to litigate here, but I don't agree that market forces + self interest have in fact been successful. Most significant problems have merely been postponed, precisely because we just don't have the cooperative mechanisms available to deal with them. Many of our ecosystems (ie. the actual physical world, rather than the virtual worlds of finance and markets) are on their last legs.

I also think the very concept of 'self-interest' is incoherent (as is 'national interest'), but again that's too large a topic for an HN comment.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#196

Post by climate_meme »

andrewstuart wrote: post #98

The truth is the human race can do nothing about the pending environmental disaster. Nothing has worked on a scale large enough to make any difference. Greed and nationalism and small mindedness and selfishness and war prevent humanity from addressing its fate. It's going to be nasty future for those who survive and this period will simply be the time in history in which humanity knew and did nothing.

This is a tired, played out meme which is only relevant in that it strokes the ego of those who repeat it.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#197

Post by climate_meme »

anonyfox wrote: post #93

And still here we are, and no one yet has found an effective argument that convinces people that: yes, this climate catastrophe is real, on track to happen, and within our lifetime. We, as humanity, know what causes it, why it happens, what can be done to stop it, and even a few things to revert parts of it. The knowledge is there. Scientists proved things. Engineers built stuff. The literally only thing is that we a…

But, where is the catastrophe though? There has been prediction after prediction of catastrophe and none have come to pass.

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#198

Post by climate_meme »

Obviously we need communism to fix the weather. Give up your car, your meat, your vacations, limit your indoor heating and for Christ sake, don't have kids (not that you Gen-Zs had that option anyways ..).

Scientists (TM) and the private plane travelling climate circus are sure that this will cause the temperature in the year 2100 to be reduced by a whole one hundredth of a degree.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#199

Post by FredPret »

crispinb wrote: post #195
FredPret wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make interesting points but I would disagree about global cooperation. Every day we cooperate in an intricate dance with people all over the world, from different ideologies and legal systems, to operate our supply chains and information networks. All we need is for the green option to be in everyone’s self-interest and the system will rapidly self-optimize. We’re already getting there with green laws being globa…

Well it's too big a discussion to litigate here, but I don't agree that market forces + self interest have in fact been successful. Most significant problems have merely been postponed, precisely because we just don't have the cooperative mechanisms available to deal with them. Many of our ecosystems (ie. the actual physical world, rather than the virtual worlds of finance and markets) are on their last legs. I also…

My argument is that market forces have done a brilliant job in marshalling far-flung and diverse interests to optimize for the sum total of our self-interests.

For instance, I'm using this device for fun and profit and it was made by actual communists on the other side of the planet.

People until recently have not thought of the ecology as being in their personal interest in a direct and concrete way, only a vague and diffused good. Tragedy of the commons and all that.

But that's changed because now being green can be cheaper (carbon tax, cheap solar panels, other tech progress) and cool.

The market deals with all long-term significant problems this way - leave it until it's urgent, then absolutely smash it. This isn't perfect but it's probably the only way to get 8 billion decision-makers to coordinate on anything.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#200

Post by Timon3 »

nostrademons wrote: post #149
Timon3 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite this binary. Yes, we're fucked. But the less we do, the worse we're fucked. It's better to have a glimmer of hope and use that to unfuck what you can.

That's true but also risks misallocating resources to efforts that won't make a big difference now when we should be focusing on mitigation rather than avoidance. If we had taken Al Gore's warnings in the 80s and began an aggressive push to move off of fossil fuels then, we could perhaps have avoided the whole climate change problem. We didn't, and we can't now. Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the cl…

That's an interesting and valid point. Thank you for expanding on it so much!
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