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Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

williamcolgan.net

11–20 of 75 posts

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#11

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

What leads you to believe there is a “significant” number of people who view the earth as flat on HN?

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#12
post #5

Not to veer off topic, but this felt tangential with the mention of thawing peat. I've read some analysis that says global warming will make much more of Russia arable and open up lots of new economic opportunities. China will gain new shipping lanes through the Arctic. Canada will also get more useful land, etc. Obviously it's going to wreak havoc on ecosystems and species diversity and the climates of other nations…

Ocean used to be 400 feet lower. We are still coming out of an ice age. People will move further inland if needed.

That feels like it's oversimplifying the effects of mass displacement and the destruction (both economic and physical) of all of the residential, commercial, agricultural, industrial, etc. property.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#13

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

It won't become hostile to human life, it will become more challenging for human civilization to deal with the warming. And we don't need magic, we can decarbonize and pursue several strategies for mitigation.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#14

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

“Magic at the moment”, that’s a new one to me.

What a way to box the entirety of human ingenuity into a pithy phrase.

Such a fiendish application of the dialectic knife.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#15

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

“Magic at the moment”, that’s a new one to me. What a way to box the entirety of human ingenuity into a pithy phrase. Such a fiendish application of the dialectic knife.

I don't think it was meant as you interpret it. Rather a callback to the famous quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#16

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

Drawdown https://drawdown.org/ lists number of strategies what is and can be done to mitigate results of global warming. So it is not all white or black, but yes it is still quite serious .

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#17

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

It won't become hostile to human life, it will become more challenging for human civilization to deal with the warming. And we don't need magic, we can decarbonize and pursue several strategies for mitigation.

It will absolutely become hostile to human life.

https://theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-...

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#18

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

Hostile to human life seems a bit hyperbolic. Our technology and society will collapse and stop the co2 addition well before then. Its possible we will have hit run-away by then, but I don't think that is currently predicted? A malthusian collapse followed by a second shot with sustainable tech built on the back of unsustainable ones might well have a chance.

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#19
post #7
post #5

Not to veer off topic, but this felt tangential with the mention of thawing peat. I've read some analysis that says global warming will make much more of Russia arable and open up lots of new economic opportunities. China will gain new shipping lanes through the Arctic. Canada will also get more useful land, etc. Obviously it's going to wreak havoc on ecosystems and species diversity and the climates of other nations…

Many opportunities, yes, Czechia will have access to sea...

Ahoj

Re: Melting ice reveals two-million-year old peat

#20

As an aside, it’s striking to me that Hacker News has a significant audience of flat earthers. Don’t look up, right? Let’s be clear, human caused climate change is very real. Rigorous science confirms this and CO2 + methane levels are now driving very visible and catastrophic weather all over the world. The only thing left to debate is how quickly the planet will become hostile to human life and whether some scientif…

I noticed an influx of Republicans into HN about 2 years ago. Since then there have been a lot of emphasis on Republican talking points, including vaccine phobia, mask phobia, climate science denial and other anti science stances. The change felt quite sudden.
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