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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#31

Post by SoftTalker »

blueflow wrote: post #2

Its not a "risk". Water vapor (clouds) is a stonger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We already got measurably higher temperatures, so we also have higher water evaporation, and from the last 5 years it looks like it happens every year. So the runaway is already happening, until something stops it near hothouse conditions or hopefully earlier than that.

Water vapor (clouds) also reflects sunlight. So it's complicated. We know the planet has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures in the past, and it did not "run away"

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#32

Post by fc417fc802 »

axus wrote: post #15
OGEnthusiast wrote: post #8

So maybe the people who aren’t having kids due to climate change were right after all?

The problem can now only be solved on the supply side. Cut the production of oil and gas below the planet's natural carbon sequestration.

s/production/extraction/

Nothing wrong with synthetic.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#33

Post by shrubby »

bamboozled wrote: post #17
aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

Die a horrible death while watching a group of hateful people scream that it’s all the immigrants fault and that they ate all the cats and dogs, I guess …

... immigrants, LGBT, women, another religion, the ones with no religion, communist, liberal,...

But never the zillionaires, they've worked haaaard and deserve everything!

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#34

Post by bhickey »

chasil wrote: post #29

What is generally not understood is that our current icehouse phase is rare. 'A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet... Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history. 'Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously... Earth's current icehouse state is known as the Quaternary Ice Age and began ap…

The _state_ isn't alarming, it's the rate of change. The transition is happening on a scale of human lifetimes instead of geological time.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#35

Post by xyzal »

aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

You work in software, right? Then you can donate some money to enviro orgs.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#36

Post by smartmic »

Carrok wrote: post #28
smartmic wrote: post #18

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution t…

I've started composting. I'm sure that'll outweigh the average Vegas visitor's emissions. /s I'm being a bit facetious obviously, but it does feel a bit like tilting against windmills. We need policy and systemic changes, if we're relying on individuals to all collectively start doing the "right thing", we're sunk.

I agree. But at least in a democratic system, the "each and everyone of us" are politicians that each and everyone elects. So it starts from the basis, IMHO.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#37

Post by swiftcoder »

aperrien wrote: post #7

Are there any attempts to start geo-engineering to fix this? I'm assuming there will be no attempt to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere, can we at least do something to take it back out? Can we use solar or renewables to possibly do that at scale?

So far all of the carbon capture techniques (apart from growing forests and keeping them protected) have been pretty unsuccessful, and/or don't scale well.

That leaves us in the realm of solutions that may be very likely to disrupt our ecosystem themselves, like genetically-engineering algae/phytoplankton to improve ocean carbon sequestration

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#39

Post by grumbelbart »

axus wrote: post #15
OGEnthusiast wrote: post #8

So maybe the people who aren’t having kids due to climate change were right after all?

The problem can now only be solved on the supply side. Cut the production of oil and gas below the planet's natural carbon sequestration.

The low prices of solar and batteries are a glimmer of hope. For many regions it's now the cheapest source of electricity.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#40

Post by maybelsyrup »

vdupras wrote: post #30

And yet, the only reasonable action to take is to flag this topic and move along with the "humanity has always found a way out, technology will save us. Remember, we were supposed to drown in horse manure!" Why? Because candidly looking at those risks as a society means deep collective existential dread, which automatically means an immediate civilizational collapse. So I'm guessing some of our elite is actually igno…

> It's unfortunate because a rapid civilizational collapse could give humanity as a species a better chance of survival.

How's that?

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