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Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

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Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#101

Post by pfdietz »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #45
pfdietz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me get this straight: in the face of a failure to control global warming by other means, you'd prefer your anxiety about possible risks to prevent any attempt to counter the warming by this approach, dooming the world to potentially catastrophic temperature increases? Are YOU serious?

Assuming your doomsday predictions are correct and all this time... then assuming your counter to the prediction is correct. Ya'know what... go right ahead and try to terraform the Earth to whatever you think is... best. Your doomsday prediction may then come true actually. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that. God speed in making your artificial ice age.

> artificial ice age

Oh good grief. Are you getting your position here from Snowpiercer?

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#102

Post by yterdy »

twblalock wrote: post #78
yterdy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an unfair assumption to make, but it is an assumption, since no records pertaining to conditions in Africa or South America are mentioned (or Australia and on Pacific islands, for that matter). That's where my despair comes from; a consideration of the peoples of those regions was not included, even though the headline seems to be a general statement about human life on Earth in 536.

This is where history and archeology diverge. We know how bad things were in Europe and East Asia because written records survive which describe the crop failures etc. We don't have records from that time period from Africa or South America. All we can do is assume that people there suffered as well, due to the global nature of the problem. Sometimes people get left out of historical narratives because there just are…

"The global nature of the problem" is also an assumption; there is the chance that, should oral histories in West and Central Africa have survived, or more was known about surviving, undeciphered Mesoamerican and Andean records, we might have learned of differing conditions outside of the Global North. In both cases, our inability to access those sources of information is not an accident of nature, but the result of several historical campaigns of cultural or total genocide.

I think you're missing my point, which is that the erasure of these regions from the record (which runs through the history of archaeology, up to the publishing of this article) was a purposeful and avoidable tragedy. If we are to talk about the conditions of human life and civilization, we should aspire to do one better than the example of your intellectually-honest historian, and affirm that we simply don't know, not that we could not have.

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#103

Post by rnk »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #59
quickthrower2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich countries are also going to be outbidding each other though. Some nations may decide not to sell it all because they need to eat themselves. This would be worse due to limited supply and no way to quickly ramp up.

Countries like the US and Canada, who are net food exporters, would basically be fine. China would face huge problems. Failed states would experience catastrophic famine.

I agree rich countries could buy food up to a point, but if the us and canada had drastically lower yields for a few years, there would be world wide shortages, countries would limit exports eventually.

I asked the question about what would northern countries do because the volcanic eruption impacts seemed to be more focused on the north in the article. But of course the world is connected, and the south is relatively poorer, and we are all connected, and there's not that much excess food. When a huge eruption does occur, or other destructive things like a CME, it will affect the world.

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#104

Post by rnk »

Baeocystin wrote: post #36
pfdietz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big backup is diverting certain animal feeds to instead feed people.

Yup. There's a reason corn subsidies are what they are, for example, and it's not (just) politics.

It's my understanding the kind of corn they grow to make ethonol isn't the kind of corn people eat. https://nebraskacorn.gov/corn-101/corn-uses/ethanol/

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#105

Post by gcanyon »

henearkr wrote: post #99
gcanyon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> decades The ice in Greenland is up to 3000 meters thick, and Antarctica is up to almost 5000 meters. Are you suggesting the net melt could average up to half a meter a year?

Yes. "Thousands of years" is clearly wrong, so it is at best several centuries. About "decades": I'm not saying it will, but that it could. It is completely in the plausible, and scientists have been proven to be too much conservative, to the great surprise of everyone including themselves.

https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2...

That says that loss over the past 19 years is 5 meters; that's less than a millimeter per day. You're proposing a melt up to 500 times faster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet#Future_ice...

That says that the fastest plausible scenario has the ice sheet melting in 1000 years, while the greater likelihood is 10,000 years. And that's if/after we cross temperature thresholds we're not guaranteed to cross.

Nowhere does it entertain the whole thing going in decades. If you have credible sources that argue for the possibility of decades, or even a century or two, you should add that to the page.

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#106

Post by rnk »

smitty1e wrote: post #72
rnk wrote: post #4

And nothing prevents new volcanic explosions from doing this again. How would the northern world deal with this today? Not that well.

I submit that there would be some initial weeping and gnashing of teeth, but then human ingenuity would kick in and we would muddle through. Ingenuity >>> Chicken Little

To some extent I agree with you but it won't be quick. Poor people will suffer the most. That ingenuity might not come for years, people would suffer before new food arrives.

I am probably unusual because I bought 90 days dried food supply for my family in an emergency. But almost all the food I have and eat normally was bought in the last month, except for a few canned goods. I think most people in the us would run out of food in a month or two at most.

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#107

Post by henearkr »

gcanyon wrote: post #105
henearkr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. "Thousands of years" is clearly wrong, so it is at best several centuries. About "decades": I'm not saying it will, but that it could. It is completely in the plausible, and scientists have been proven to be too much conservative, to the great surprise of everyone including themselves.

https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2... That says that loss over the past 19 years is 5 meters; that's less than a millimeter per day. You're proposing a melt up to 500 times faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet#Future_ice... That says that the fastest plausible scenario has the ice sheet melting in 1000 years, while the greater likelihood is 10,000 years. And that's if /a…

The tipping point for Greenland is said to be 2.5°C, and at that tipping point the minimum melting time is said to be 1000 years.

Apart from the fact that all of this relies only on the data we have (we'll discover many more chaotic systems and tipping points, amplifying feedback etc), it also says nothing about what happens at 3.5°C or 4°C warming for Greenland (important precision, as Greenland itself is warming at a much larger rate than the planet globally).

And no, I have no reference to add, only to be cautious and reminding that everybody has been way too much optimistic.

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#108

Post by Baeocystin »

rnk wrote: post #104
Baeocystin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. There's a reason corn subsidies are what they are, for example, and it's not (just) politics.

It's my understanding the kind of corn they grow to make ethonol isn't the kind of corn people eat. https://nebraskacorn.gov/corn-101/corn-uses/ethanol/

That is a common misconception. But! Field Corn is 100% edible by people. All varieties of corn are. We eat it as corn meal, corn syrup, corn flakes, etc.

It isn't quite a sweet as, well, sweet corn when boiled/roasted on the cob. But it's no problem at all as a food.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/corn/dent...

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#109

Post by henearkr »

henearkr wrote: post #107
gcanyon wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2... That says that loss over the past 19 years is 5 meters; that's less than a millimeter per day. You're proposing a melt up to 500 times faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet#Future_ice... That says that the fastest plausible scenario has the ice sheet melting in 1000 years, while the greater likelihood is 10,000 years. And that's if /a…

The tipping point for Greenland is said to be 2.5°C, and at that tipping point the minimum melting time is said to be 1000 years. Apart from the fact that all of this relies only on the data we have (we'll discover many more chaotic systems and tipping points, amplifying feedback etc), it also says nothing about what happens at 3.5°C or 4°C warming for Greenland (important precision, as Greenland itself is warming at…

And I want to precise that I am not speaking about Antarctica.

I don't think that Antarctica will lose its ice cover. Only probably its ice shelves, and also some glaciers will shrink, but overall it'll stay white.

Re: Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)

#110

Post by jiveturkey »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #23

I’m amazed by the amount of historical information held in ice. Activities from silver mining to volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago can be found as chemical traces in the cores. There’s just a few years where this kind of research will be possible. I hope we can maximize our discoveries before the world loses most of its ice.

when that happens, data in the ice will be the least of our worries
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