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Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

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Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#41

Post by sliverstorm »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #19
revscat wrote: post #7

Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today. It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them. Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late. I am growing increasingly pessimistic that su…

Fukushima possibly contaminating the entire Pacific, making any seafood from there not able to be eaten, is not as bad as a little more CO2? By the way, not 1 word in the article, filled with all sorts of scary quotes, about diatoms and their role in CO2 sequestration.

Fukushima contaminated seafood to a very minor degree. The studies I read about determined that a standard serving size of affected tuna (an apex predator) was 1/20th of the BED [1]

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#42

Post by DenisM »

rickjames28 wrote: post #32

Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today Yes, global warming has become the religion of leftists.

It's not just global warming, it's also the "food safety" button - the GMO scaremongering and the whole "organic" deal.

Both conservatives and liberals get very religious about what people put in their bodies; the two sides differ primarily on which orifice concerns them the most.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#43

Post by lutusp »

revscat wrote: post #7

Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today. It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them. Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late. I am growing increasingly pessimistic that su…

> Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late.

I have some bad news:

* The problem isn't pollution and CO2 release, at last not directly. The problem is the number of people doing the polluting and CO2 releasing.

* A solution would be to have a smaller worldwide birthrate. Easy to say.

* But any solution to the above point is very likely to collide with equality and fair play, as well as crashing into the "Population Paradox".

* The Population Paradox goes like this -- someone delivers a reasoned appeal to have fewer children, in the name of human survival and that of the earth. It's perfectly worded, and delivered to a huge audience.

* Sensitive, intelligent, compassionate listeners resolve to have fewer children.

* Insensitive, unintelligent, uncompassionate listeners don't -- they will have the usual number of children.

* That's the Population Paradox in a nutshell: because of evolution, over time people become less sensitive to the damage they cause. And history proves that political "solutions" aren't solutions at all, but disasters.

I hate to break this to you, but the biggest obstacle to a human solution to this problem is ... humans. Or nature, if you prefer, in the guise of natural selection.

EDIT: People, do try to avoid downvoting posts that are truthful but upsetting, solely on the ground that they're upsetting.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#44

Post by rosser »

DanBC wrote: post #16

What can I, as an individual with no money nor power, do to help stop this? I can reduce my energy use as far as possible. Apart from the online stuff I'm pretty low CO2. I can reduce, reuse, and recycle. (I need to get better at that.) But what else can I do?

The ecological impact of meat is one of the biggest reasons I became a vegetarian.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#46

Post by geedy »

DanBC wrote: post #16

What can I, as an individual with no money nor power, do to help stop this? I can reduce my energy use as far as possible. Apart from the online stuff I'm pretty low CO2. I can reduce, reuse, and recycle. (I need to get better at that.) But what else can I do?

Crowd fund energy initiatives. Depending on your views on various energy sources, i.e. solar, take a look at

https://www.sunfunder.com/ https://joinmosaic.com/

Also, don't become too pessimistic. Even here, its pretty obvious that people tend to fall into two camps: doomers or deniers. Very few in between. I have spent the better part of a year struggling with depression related to the realization of the scale of environmental and sustainability issues facing civilization. I was a doomer, and some days, I still am. That said, I also see that the uptake of renewable energy is accelerating. Electric car sales were considered negligible two years ago, and now they are growing fast. Thats not to say that there aren't HUGE challenges facing us. But I also feel more hopeful that things will eventually change in time.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#47

Post by grannyg00se »

DanBC wrote: post #16

What can I, as an individual with no money nor power, do to help stop this? I can reduce my energy use as far as possible. Apart from the online stuff I'm pretty low CO2. I can reduce, reuse, and recycle. (I need to get better at that.) But what else can I do?

Minimizing meat consumption fits in with those other individual contributions, I think.

However, I'm not confident that individual contributions like that are very effective in a global economy based on perpetual growth and consumption.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#48

Post by jonnathanson »

YZF wrote: post #22
revscat wrote: post #7

Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today. It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them. Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late. I am growing increasingly pessimistic that su…

Anyone else here doing Coursera's A Brief History of Humankind course? Sadly human history is that of destroying and changing the environment, unintended consequences, and constant failure to improve the human condition. I'm not sure removing the power structure will fix this, what is going to happen when those are removed? At least in some places in the world the power structures are all that stand between individua…

In a really twisted way, that's what makes Agent Smith's speech in The Matrix so interesting. The one about how humanity is "a virus" destroying the world. At the time the movie came out, that whole spiel felt like overblown, James Bond villain-esque speechifying. These days it's almost starting to sound like a halfway reasonable analogy.

While I disagree that we've failed "to improve the human condition," I do think that, as a species, we're prone to taking the short view. We do what's expedient for us, and only for us, and only in the immediate timespan. We're fantastically bad about planning for the future. Throughout history this has actually benefitted us somehow; being creatures of convenience, fear, etc., has forced us to innovate. Now it's a question of whether we can innovate more quickly than we can fuck things up.

"We are an animal with better cognitive abilities. Let's hope that we can progress beyond this stage fast enough..."

I'm strangely optimistic. Not happy about the current situation, and pessimistic about the environment over the next 50-100 years. But I have hope that we'll figure this out. In a weird way, I have hope that this will finally be the undeniable, forced confrontation with our waste and excesses that will demand global cooperation and an end to petty, short-term bullshit. A big step forward for our species, forced upon us when our back's against the wall.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#49

Post by mikeyouse »

rickjames28 wrote: post #32

Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today Yes, global warming has become the religion of leftists.

This is such a ridiculous statement.

Leftists like Bill Gates, Newt Gingrich, John Hunstman, Frederick Smith, Susan Collins, Tim Pawlenty?

Cap and Trade was a free-market republican idea originally [1], but now that it's being advocated by the 'Leftists', it's become much more politicized.

A plurality of scientists agree that steps should be taken, the FUD denial is all paid for by a dozen companies who stand to profit from additional delays, yet it's somehow comparable to 'religion' to think that we should take action?

[1] - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Presence-of-Min...

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#50

Post by lutusp »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #19
revscat wrote: post #7

Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today. It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them. Being technologists we tend to assume (hope?) that some solution will present itself before it is too late. I am growing increasingly pessimistic that su…

Fukushima possibly contaminating the entire Pacific, making any seafood from there not able to be eaten, is not as bad as a little more CO2? By the way, not 1 word in the article, filled with all sorts of scary quotes, about diatoms and their role in CO2 sequestration.

> Fukushima possibly contaminating the entire Pacific, making any seafood from there not able to be eaten ...

This false view has been partly inflamed by an "environmental" website that posted an alarming picture of Fukushima radiation spreading across the Pacific -- except the posted picture was actually of the tsunami wave's height, not radiation, spreading across the Pacific.

Fukushima isn't going to release nearly enough radiation to poison the Pacific Ocean. Maybe it will release just enough radiation to force changes in the nuclear power industry. Nothing else has worked.

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