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World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

cnbc.com

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Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#121

Post by wongarsu »

jowea wrote: post #106
wongarsu wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a nice place on Earth to ride out climate change would be a lot simpler. But it also puts a massive target on your back. If society collapses, everyone will want in on your little Garden Eden, and no amount of fortification will be able to keep millions of people out. Nuking the entire surface of the Earth would solve that issue, but is generally frowned upon. Better to just build your bunker far, far away w…

You see self-sustaining colonies outside of Earth in our lifetime? Wouldn't they need a massive industrial base, a variety of resources, large populations, etc to not need Earth?

Aren't you exactly describing Elon's proclaimed plans for a mars colony? Not a tiny lab like NASA would build, but an industrial base with thousands of inhabitants.

Is his plan realistic? Hard to tell. It's far beyond anything we have ever done, and financing such a plan is going to be challenging to say the least. And technologically we are also decades out. So I guess he better hurry up. But that's a different goal post that the one I set, a plan doesn't have to be easy or have probable success in order to be better than the other bunker plans.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#122

Post by gmuslera »

jodrellblank wrote: post #59
gmuslera wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with very complex and large systems is hard, probably harder than our knowledge will be capable of this century, even if we keep accelerating. That is the world system, climate, life, cycles, feedback loops, and many other things that we probably are not aware yet (just check the number of recent discoveries to have a hint) as a very complex and interrelated system. Trying to have an "engineering" there and n…

But do you have a better idea? If you want meaning for people’s lives that rules out mass death and dictator demanded planet-wide austerity and reduction in lifestyle down to subsistence - even if anyone could enforce that, which is something people would go to war to defend themselves against. If you individually choose to consume less and own less that’s not enough to make a difference. Has there ever been a time i…

We are wired to try to solve by addition, not by subtraction, for a complex system that we destabilized by adding something, adding even more things is the road to even more destabilization and emergent (usually very destructive) behaviours. That is a useful heuristic on how to deal with things we don't understand fully, it won't go back to the old normal, but have better odds to not worsen a lot things by our new actions. So, to keep pressing the pedal till somewhat, magically, it solves itself is probably the wrong approach.

Maybe there is no right approach, maybe there is no solution if you factor not just the planet but the human system that made things this way and keep worsening it. But even as token measure try to move in the right direction is more meaningful than doing it in the wrong one, you are not isolated, more people may follow what you do in either direction.

And about the cost/damage of trying the "right" approach in the short term, it probably will be far cheaper than taking the wrong one in a bit longer term. Not caring about the long term is to make sure to have a near enough time limit, essentially a suicidal approach.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#123

Post by AnimalMuppet »

changoplatanero wrote: post #47
timeon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technologies have not helped yet. Just covered part of increased demand. So it doesn't seem like technology is going to save us. It is all just distraction. Only way is one that will never happen: de-growth.

Is degrowth even enough to save the planet from warming? Imagine 95% of people on earth magically disappeared. Have we already emitted enough co2 that the atmosphere will continue to warm for a long time even without those people’s new emissions?

CO2's half life is 120 years. So, yes, a long time, in human lifetimes. But not all that long in civilization timelines.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#124

Post by thelastgallon »

gitfan86 wrote: post #31
atleastoptimal wrote: post #6

I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lowering on average anytime soon, the only way to save the world's species, our state and growth of civilization and such is through technological advances, AI, terraforming, etc. There's no hope simply through austerity, things are too screwed already.

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major incre…

The temperature is a metric of energy in the system. 10 degrees means a significantly more energy in the system. This energy manifests as weather events. No infrastructure in any climate will be left standing with that change. We already see extreme events increasing.

And, lookup wet bulb temperature.

Humans usually regulate their internal body temperature by sweating, but above the wet-bulb temperature, we can no longer cool down this way, leading our body temperature to rise steadily. This essentially marks a limit to human adaptability to extreme heat – if we cannot escape the conditions, our body’s core can rise beyond the survivable range and organs can start failing: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#125

Post by wongarsu »

adamwong246 wrote: post #109
wongarsu wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to space exploration, Elon has by far the best bunker plan. He knows there are a couple decades left until shit really hits the fan. As you say bunkers on earth aren't all that promising, but what if you could make a self-sustaining colony on another planet, far away from societal collapse.

Calling Mars our back-up planet is beyond foolish. If humans cannot manage Earth, they certainly cannot manage the airless, frozen radioactive desert that is Mars. Do you think that these Martian colonist will be substantially wiser than Earthicans? Consider Mr. Musk's recent behavior before you answer that question!

I didn't call it our back-up planet, I called it Elon's back up planet.

Humanity will survive climate change. Our society may not, and that's what people try to insure against with bunkers or space colonies. To achieve that goal, the bunker or colony only has to be stable for a couple decades, maybe a century if you include the wish for a better life for their children.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#126

Post by jowea »

bloopernova wrote: post #72
FreelanceX wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as "doomed". Humanity is not going to disappear. We can either do better or worse, and there really is no limit to the "worse" side.

If predictions of 8 to 10 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century are true, then humanity is absolutely doomed.

Maybe I'm optimistic (for a certain value of optimistic) but I feel we would do mass geoengineering and/or start serious international emission control, enforced by war if necessary, before we get to that.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#127

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

OwseiWT wrote: post #40
gitfan86 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major incre…

floods, droughts and that kind of stuff. I'll will not die on a 40c heat, but some may, and the consequences on other systems will also affect me. The panama canal, the lake more specifically, is drying up because of this stuff. And ~40% of US cargo ships use it.

> I'll will not die on a 40c heat

That will really depend on how humidity changes. A earth with 10C more energy can hold a whole lot more water in the air, and that drops the wet bulb temperature. "Ah, but it's a dry heat" in the future could mean the difference between life or death.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#128

Post by jowea »

wongarsu wrote: post #121
jowea wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see self-sustaining colonies outside of Earth in our lifetime? Wouldn't they need a massive industrial base, a variety of resources, large populations, etc to not need Earth?

Aren't you exactly describing Elon's proclaimed plans for a mars colony? Not a tiny lab like NASA would build, but an industrial base with thousands of inhabitants. Is his plan realistic? Hard to tell. It's far beyond anything we have ever done, and financing such a plan is going to be challenging to say the least. And technologically we are also decades out. So I guess he better hurry up. But that's a different goal…

Don't we need millions of people for a viable industrial Martian civilization? Honest question don't know.

Also, we haven't even been to Mars, unless SpaceX has some single-state to orbit spaceplane plus some fancy interplanetary engines in the works I'm not that optimistic. And who is going to finance this?

Honestly building a Fallout vault to wait the worst out seems easier.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#129

Post by jowea »

Fornax96 wrote: post #78
smeej wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want this to sound dismissive, but aren't we all "doomed" in the end anyway? How long does anything we do have an impact anyway? A generation? Two? Five? How many individual people have had an impact on the world five or more generations after they've died, as a percentage of the total population? Were all those other people's lives meaningless? I think you're grappling with a fundamental aspect of being mort…

The hardest part for me to accept is that there are so many people who just don't care. Not about the disasters, the climate refugees, the death toll, the extinction of thousands of species, respiratory diseases, etc. How can people just accept all that as a fact of life when it's all man-made horrors?

I don't think we humans were made to think like that. Almost everyone mostly wants to live their lives and has just enough mental energy to care about problems in front of them.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#130

Post by jowea »

smeej wrote: post #52
Fornax96 wrote: post #41

We're doomed. News like this drains my motivation to do anything at all, because it might all be for nothing anyway.

I don't want this to sound dismissive, but aren't we all "doomed" in the end anyway? How long does anything we do have an impact anyway? A generation? Two? Five? How many individual people have had an impact on the world five or more generations after they've died, as a percentage of the total population? Were all those other people's lives meaningless? I think you're grappling with a fundamental aspect of being mort…

Not the previous poster but it could feel meaningless if you really sincerely think civilization is doomed. At least with optimism for the future you can feel like you mattered to the people close to you, or you were a good cog in a great machine, or you lived a happy life and so will your successors.

Even with daily life, if you think your own life is going to worsen in the future no matter what you do, won't that demotivate you today?

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