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A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

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Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#241

Post by webnrrd2k »

sph wrote: post #186
satvikpendem wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I meant current governments not culture itself.

It is sad to admit it to our Western selves, but authoritarians plan across decades, democracies across electoral terms at best. No king wants to rule over a failed state.

History is replete with destructive, stupid and failed authoritarian rulers. King John, Ferdinand VII of Spain, etc... just basic research will uncover a lifeline of reading on the topic. Check out Mao's Great Leap Forward killed millions, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Hirohito didn't work out so well, either. The list just goes on and on.

Seriously, read about the Roman emperors, or the Crusades, or, for a more modern example, how's Putin doing on setting up his country for long-term success? How's Trump doing with America?

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#242

Post by jay_kyburz »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #169
gorjusborg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important distinction: what is good for ecology is not necessarily good for economy. If we need unbounded growth to jeep our economic system to function, its the economic system that is wrong, not nature.

Hence why the die hard capitalist shills are so set on going to space.

We should help by shooting them into space.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#243

Post by cameldrv »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #42
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

The environmental movements of the past 60 years have been extremely successful, certainly in the U.S. The ozone hole problem has been essentially solved, acid rain has been essentially solved, mass scale water pollution like rivers catching on fire has been essentially solved, massive smog has been essentially solved.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#244

Post by Jare »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #177
yoyohello13 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole comment rests on a very big assumption that these rates will never recover. Just because you can fit a trend line doesn’t mean the projections will pan out. It could just as easily be the case that once population starts meaningfully decreasing, the opportunity cost of children will also decrease and fertility rates will recover. This happens all the time in nature. Our population absolutely exploded over…

When will the trend recover? When civilization falls to the point that nobody can make birth control pills, if not before.

It recovers when having 1.1 kids per person on average does not mean making substantial sacrifices in quality of life over your entire life. Since many people will still not have kids, that sounds like 3 kids per couple being affordable in a comfortable, enjoyable, not stressful manner.

Right now you can guess that for many couples, 2 kids becomes close to unaffordable, and 3 becomes nearly unmanageable. Individually, you will see couples choose to do it and even to do it in ways that others both envy and chastise; but overall, it's not happening.

It requires many things to change not just in economy, but in society as a whole. It's not going to happen in a society devoted to growth, that's for sure.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#245

Post by yongjik »

intended wrote: post #208
yongjik wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a two-sided sword. When you are the consumer, blame the producer. When you are the producer, blame the consumer. In this way everybody can blame someone else and ensure that nothing is done. For example, more people buying EVs can meaningfully reduce CO2 consumption, but you can easily find millions of people ideologically opposed to that. Or just look at how reliably people reject any policy that vaguely looks…

When you are informed, you hold to account the person responsible. The entire issue of incentives to consume being a reason to blame consumers, is obviated when there are entire industries that have spent significant amounts of money and capital to ensure that voters cannot come to a consensus. The science on global warming was clear eons ago. The true revolution has been in scientists learning how weak facts are whe…

At some point, people should agree they are responsible for the opinions they hold. Otherwise there's no point even arguing, because the only alternatives are that (1) the modern society fails, or (2) we will have an iron-fisted eco-fascist ruler who will "restore the balance" by stomping on people's will.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#246

Post by superfrank »

Kon5ole wrote: post #87

I don't know if it's too late to stop the worst case scenarios of global warming yet or if there's still time, but it doesn't seem to be happening anyway. The world can't deal with something that requires global concentrated efforts. However, I do think we have time to prepare for the worst case scenarios, and individual countries and states can do that efficiently on their own. Improve evacuation routines in floodab…

> The world can't deal with something that requires global concentrated efforts

Historically, that's not correct. The Montreal Protocol to reduce CFCs in response to the hole in the ozone layer is a perfect example of us doing this.

I realize the world has changed and maybe it's not possible in our current political climate, but we have worked together as a planet to solve these type of global problems before.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#247

Post by zerobees »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #42
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

I'm not as negative about this, but with the benefit of hindsight, it's easy why the current initiatives didn't go anywhere.

It's not that people are not willing to make sacrifices. We repeatedly did this in times of famine or war. Europe during WWII is a perfect example. Another good example of a major cultural shift in response to a new threat was the AIDS epidemic. The entire sexual revolution went out the window and we're now in a world where young people have a lot less sex than ever before. We like to talk about gender and sexuality, but we do a lot less with it, so to speak.

Anti-consumption / degrowth arguments face an uphill battle because they basically say "you should live a harder life". There should be less stuff, the stuff should be more expensive, there should be less of you. So you need a good answer why this is the right choice. Doing it "for the planet" doesn't sound too convincing because we're also a part of the planet and most people feel entitled to it. It's hard to get others to make real lifestyle sacrifices because you showed them some photos of koalas or coral reefs.

Because koalas don't cut it, we started giving increasingly apocalyptic, doomsday-type answers, all the way to renaming "climate change" to "climate crisis" or "climate disaster / catastrophe". That was probably a mistake. It created a sense of inevitability (so might as well have fun while you can) and undermined the credibility of the proposed solutions. Is it really going to save us all if I'm sorting my recyclables into five different bins?

So in a sense, I think this is a PR disaster more than anything else.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#248

Post by GeoAtreides »

solid_fuel wrote: post #223
GeoAtreides wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's your argument? are you actually making one or ... ?

They're pointing out that stupid short-sighted reactionary tendencies on the part of the farmers is directly contributing to the problem that will make their livelihood impossible in the future. It's ironic, if nothing else.

no, he's engaging into a classical "tu queque" that adds nothing but noise to the discussion, maybe except some division between classes and pointless finger-pointing

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#249

Post by nikanj »

zerobees wrote: post #247
yoyohello13 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

I'm not as negative about this, but with the benefit of hindsight, it's easy why the current initiatives didn't go anywhere. It's not that people are not willing to make sacrifices. We repeatedly did this in times of famine or war. Europe during WWII is a perfect example. Another good example of a major cultural shift in response to a new threat was the AIDS epidemic. The entire sexual revolution went out the window…

WWII was much easier to sell to the people, because the nazis were invading _now_. It seems impossible to sell reduced standard of living today to respond to a problem tomorrow

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#250

Post by to11mtm »

CalRobert wrote: post #66
yoyohello13 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids o…

> You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids or fewer you're... basically there.

'political' is true but it covers so many different problems.

For example, while there is a grocery store very accessible to me, you have to plot the route carefully due to the road design.

Then there's the problem of the condo I currently live in not having the infrastructure for charging. (My compromise in that case is a hybrid. Kinda want a plug-in hybrid for my next car, they've gotten to where it very well could handle 80% of my driving.)

> Granted this doesn't include luxuries like jetting halfway around the world for a 1 week holiday or living in a 4000 square foot house in the desert and driving a studio apartment an hour to work every day, but really, is that a better life?

I've never gotten this lifestyle either... I'm not afraid to do a long road trip once a year or so, but yes in most cases too many costs have been externalized for too long.

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