It takes a certain skill to write a scientific paper with little to no scientific explanation. :)
Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
41–50 of 84 posts
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#42It's almost amusing that this summary (don't have journal access, so haven't read the paper) doesn't bother to name any negative consequences of this so-called "planetary collapse". It's just "Shit. Bad stuff will happen. We're all doomed.", without even saying what the bad stuff is . Are they worried about agriculture? Species extinction? Disease? They don't say. How on Earth are we supposed to evaluate the likeliho…
"the planet’s ecosystems, as we know them, could irreversibly collapse in the proverbial blink of an eye" seems like a fairly straightforward clearcut negative consequence. They're worried that ecosystems (those networks of interacting species) will collapse (meaning the ecosystem dynamics change and the vast majority of the species who rely on and compose the ecosystem go extinct).
That seems like obvious nonsense - eg. mile-wide asteroid impacts, which are much larger in terms of energy release than all nuclear arsenals combined, don't cause mass extinctions. But it at least gets credit for being a specific claim. Just saying "collapse" is vague, and could arguably apply to just about anything.
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you suggesting that models are not a useful scientific tool?
Yes, somewhat. Models are a useful tool to see what happens when the science is known. They work well to check if you understand your theory well: You model it and experiment with it at the same time. If you model matches the real world then you are good to go. But if you try to make a model based only on your observations, without also being able to experiment, then that's not science, that's tautology. Your model w…
I think you're confused about how models work in a scientific sense. They can be used for prediction, and if they couldn't they wouldn't have any value at all. Of course they sometimes don't line up with the real world; why do you think there are a metric shit-ton of scientists in Antarctica?
In terms of the article, the theory of climate is pretty well understood at this stage, and the models are sound at the macro scale. The hard parts are now in factoring in relatively small changes to make the numbers line up even better, and working through the implications of their predictions... which is what the article seems to be doing.
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#44It's almost amusing that this summary (don't have journal access, so haven't read the paper) doesn't bother to name any negative consequences of this so-called "planetary collapse". It's just "Shit. Bad stuff will happen. We're all doomed.", without even saying what the bad stuff is . Are they worried about agriculture? Species extinction? Disease? They don't say. How on Earth are we supposed to evaluate the likeliho…
I thought the claim was that the earth's environment is subject to critical transitions, that critical transitions are by their very nature highly disruptive on all levels of a system, and that if you statistically map the environment then it looks strongly as though we look like we are approaching another one rather quickly. The thing is, if we are approaching a critical transition then it is very hard to say what t…
"Transitions" is way too vague to mean anything. What will "transition"? The climate? Another climate transition on the order of the most recent interglacial beginning seems reasonable (+3-5 C over centuries), but if that's what "critical transition" means, we've been through dozens over the last million years and are none the worse for wear. (At least if you just look at species count.)
What would the actual negative consequences of such a transition be? Would they outweigh the positive consequences? Would they outweigh the cost of avoidance measures, taking into account the probability that those avoidance measures won't work? The avoidance measures here are extreme even by extreme standards - we're talking a comparable cost to a global thermonuclear war (large decrease in population, large semi-permanent decrease in global GDP). We need numbers here, guys. Numbers.
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#45[deleted]
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#46Why is this shit on Hacker News, let alone any sort of scientific publication?
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#47I hate being that person, but I have to honestly ask, if the scientific community as a whole cannot agree on exactly how much effect humans personally cause to the environment today, how can anyone claim with the level of surety that these people seem to have that something major is going to happen, that humans can mitigate, within a lifetime?
What difference does it make? Humans obviously have the power to drastically alter the planet. Doing so in a sustainable way is just good sense.
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#48Alright, I've just read the paper and I'm surprised that it got published in Nature. I mean, as far as crystal ball gazing goes, saying that "shit might, y'know, change in the future and stuff" is pretty reliable, but I'm not really sure how it counts as science . Link to actual paper (may or may not work outside the ivory tower I currently occupy, someone please check and let me know): http://www.nature.com/nature/j…
Dude, did you read the thesis? It's the main blue part at the top, like every paper in Nature. It says that local ecosystems are known to go through critical transitions, and that what's make these transitions remarkable is that the tipping point is so hard to identify or predict. They are extrapolating this and saying that a global tipping point may exist as well. That's it. You are right, it's incredibly vague and…
The article then states that "This study concludes we better not exceed the 50 per cent mark of wholesale transformation of Earth’s surface or we won’t be able to delay, never mind avert, a planetary collapse", as if that is a fact, and then claims that "We’ve already reached the 43 per cent mark through our conversion of landscapes into agricultural and urban areas" (maybe that is so for their definition).
And then therefore concludes that "governments undertake five actions immediately", the first example being "Society globally has to collectively decide that we need to drastically lower our population very quickly" - so mankind must enter into a global depopulation program. We all know exactly what that is. It doesn't look like scientific claims at all, it looks like irrational hysteria with an agenda.
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The paper is pretty calm and careful about predictions, as far as I can tell. What assertion from the paper (which is behind a paywall at Nature.com, but can be found free online via sneaky methods like googling the title), specifically, do you feel is unsubstantiated or overblown? Current models of the entire planetary ecosystem are admittedly quite primitive, but they often have proven to be predictive. That which…
It's not a question of whether the assertions are unsubstantiated or overblown, it's that they're sufficiently vague as to be unscientific. Things like: Therefore, the plausibility of a future planetary state shift seems high, even though considerable uncertainty remains about whether it is inevitable and, if so, how far in the future it may be. don't seem much more useful than my horoscope for today: Today you may b…
Just the first few pages seems to contradict you pretty strongly.
The gist as far as I can tell is that complex systems behave in specific ways when changing from one state to another (eg. "an increase in variance in ... fluctuations"), and that the climate currently seems to be undergoing similar fluctuations. It doesn't seem to be particularly vague; I noticed references to things like the inverse power law of species body mass, so they're not just pulling numbers out of their ass.
In real world terms? Mass extinctions most likely, just like the last major state shift.
Re: Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The paper is pretty calm and careful about predictions, as far as I can tell. What assertion from the paper (which is behind a paywall at Nature.com, but can be found free online via sneaky methods like googling the title), specifically, do you feel is unsubstantiated or overblown? Current models of the entire planetary ecosystem are admittedly quite primitive, but they often have proven to be predictive. That which…
What is a specific scenario, aside from the climate change scenario we all know about, that could lead to collapse that's discussed in the paper?
They seem to be talking specifically about biospheric interactions, so it'll likely be some sort of domino effect, something like:
Frog A goes extinct, frog A just happens to eat beetle B.
Without (as much) predation pressure, beetle B goes completely fucking nuts and eats everything in sight, including most of the forests in the area, crops, etc.
Everything in the area starves, the ecosystem collapses, and you're left with scrub, beetles and widespread erosion until something else can colonise the area and start a new ecosystem.