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Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

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Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#91

Post by indefatigable »

emil0r wrote: post #87
indefatigable wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone famous once said something to the effect of: "When people believe in nothing, they will believe anything." Interestingly enough most of those people are completely in denial about their own irrational zealotry.

"One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything." Malcolm Muggeridge

That's it, thanks!

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#92

Post by socialist_coder »

javajosh wrote: post #74

Just out of curiosity, is there anything objectively better about colorful coral than the drab and dreary sea-life? The implication is that we should be upset that our sea life is about to get less pretty.

If you read the article or watched the video it answers your question.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#93

Post by patrickg_zill »

comicjk wrote: post #29
patrickg_zill wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> possibly Except that's not possible, even for a Chernobyl-level release of radioactive material. You might as well suggest that Chernobyl made all food from Britain to Afghanistan inedible. We can detect material from Fukushima in the Pacific, but only because we have the technology to detect radiation in infinitesimal amounts.

You do know, that even now, there are wild boars (hunted for sport in Germany) that cannot be eaten due to too-high levels of radioactivity, right?

see http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2011/0401/R...

And I have suggested nothing of the sort about Chernobyl rendering all food inedible... the type of accident, the fact it is water-borne rather than wind-borne, and that there is nearly 10 times the amount of nuclear material at Fukushima (1600 tons) vs Chernobyl (180 tons) make for a very different situation.

(I am not even including the spent fuel rods which Reuters amongst other news sources, claims are very dangerous if not handled properly: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/fukushima-nuclear-p... )

Besides, it has been more than 2 years and no covering of Fukushima has been done, whereas in Chernobyl they erected a cover over the reactor within 6 months.

What we do know as part of the historical record, is that the operator, TEPCO, has been lying or at least, shading the truth, about the severity of the situation all along.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#94

Post by moocowduckquack »

yk wrote: post #82
moocowduckquack wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1] 100 TW primary energy An article by MIT claims 14TW - http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/energy-scale-part1-1024.h... - and I've seen figures from 12TW to 20TW bandied around and I tend to use 18TW when running the numbers, but I have never seen an estimate as high as 100TW. Where's that figure from?

Ups, good catch. It is from a old blog post from myself [1]. The reasoning was 10 billion people, with first world energy needs ( 10 kW). The alternative to use this number is, that you get a safety factor of 6 to account for using solar as baseload, weather and everything else that dissipates energy. Edit: Additionally, the power of solar panels used is for England, not the Sahara. The purpose of the posting was ess…

You don't need to get everyone in the world to be consuming more energy than the average European to have converted most energy to solar though. I am all for using fudge-factors to allow for rough data, but I don't see the point in starting a calculation with completely fictional data when there is data available.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#95

Post by tsotha »

AsymetricCom wrote: post #17
ph0rque wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a way to sequester CO2 in soil, reverse desertification, and make more delicious steak, all at the same time: http://www.savoryinstitute.com/

No, we must throw off the shekels of our oppressors, then we can talk about practical solutions.

Throw off the shekels? Any shekels you want to throw off you just send my way, okay?

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#96

Post by markost »

baddox wrote: post #72
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…

I'm surprised to see such a baseless apocalyptic prophesy follow the phrase "I am an atheist."

Everybody has to worship something.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#97

Post by tsotha »

craigyk wrote: post #27
patrickg_zill wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hasn't released anywhere near enough radioactivity (in quantity or kind) to worry about making all seafood in the Pacific inedible.

It didn't even make the seafood off the coast of Japan inedible.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#98

Post by wes-exp »

hooande wrote: post #56
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…

It's very easy to underestimate the power of human ingenuity. The things we do routinely today would seem to be beyond magic to someone who lived 100 years ago. How do you even convey the concept of "automated car" to someone who doesn't know what a car is? How would you explain the job of a "director of social media strategy" to someone who lives in 1913? My point is that the people of the 22nd century will probably…

Human beings have a long history of rising to a challenge

This is true, but let's not use our past successes as an excuse to rest on our laurels. Right now humanity is firmly on track for ecological and economic disaster, and nature doesn't give two shits about our track record.

Our problems are serious, and we must attack them head-on. Not tomorrow. Now.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#99

Post by kbutler »

masklinn wrote: post #15
mathattack wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It dwarfs all other problems -- Syria, terrorism, the NSA, class and economic disparity, all of them." I don't know enough about climate science to be fully informed about impact, but this I know... A true carbon tax would be of such enormous magnitude, that it would compare with issues like class disparity. * If the pessimists are true, the deaths involved from climate change will draw Syria plus 9/11 plus many oth…

If the pessimists are correct, death due to climate changes will be on the scale of world wars.

If the pessimists are correct, death due to climage changes will be a mass extinction like the end of the Cretaceous period.

Re: Sea Change – The Pacific's Perilous Turn

#100

Post by gwern »

javajosh wrote: post #74

Just out of curiosity, is there anything objectively better about colorful coral than the drab and dreary sea-life? The implication is that we should be upset that our sea life is about to get less pretty.

The article goes into plenty of detail about the commercial impact.
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