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Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

insideclimatenews.org

131–140 of 254 posts

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of ignorance regarding what 5-8 degree warming means. The worst case scenario (and that is the only one we should be concerned with!) is a global mass extinction event. We've already had 5 of them - one of which was due to runaway greenhouse warming - https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinction... We cannot be sure we'll stop at 5 degrees or 8 degrees. After that we will have a mass ex…

How would every last human die? I mean, sure, millions or even billions . . . but not one human surviving with all the resources and resourcefulness we have at our disposal?

Fighting over the remaining resources of course.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#132
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So about 50% of US citizens you would treat like holocaust deniers/flat-earthers? http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/public-views-on-climat...

Yes, absolutely.

This would only allow them to win more elections and retain power for longer. Instead include them in discussions; try to socialize them. Don't talk down to them as they will move away from the discussion and purposefully remain ignorant and vote on such feelings of wrong and vengeance that emerges from ridiculing them. Have we learned nothing from Trump's victory? If so, get ready for two terms.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#133
Sea level rise is neither the largest nor most immediate threat of climate change.

Water happens to have one of the highest, and I would argue, the most important thermal capacity of all the compounds we're likely to come into contact with daily. Water has about 5-10x the heat capacity of most common things and so heating up the all the oceans by say 2 degs average is an ENORMOUS amount of energy.

Why is this important? The reason we have climate refugees today is not the water level but rather the higher intensity storms that the warmer waters spawn. Far before ppl are forced from the shores by rising waters they will be forced from the shores by massive, frequent, destructive storms that, instead of say destroying 1/1000 homes, will destroy 1/100. Eventually it will be economically non-viable to live in storm-prone zones. And those zones will increase in size over time to go far inland (away from fresh water), causing more migration.

This is happening NOW and will be a major factor in the lives of all our children.

It's easy for ppl to dismiss rising sea levels because it doesn't seem dangerous and happens over decades. It's far harder for ppl to dismiss weather disasters that they might have some first or second handed experience of or, more likely, a visceral fear of.

Maybe we should have a different metric? So instead of sea rise/year we should have expected floridian homes destroyed/year.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now, even if we reduce our emissions to zero . The latent emissions in the atmosphere will already bone us. I'm glad I live in the Netherlands. We're a very rich country, and we have been battling water for more than a thousand years as a people. Places like Bangladesh will be comp…

> the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now My impression is that this is the latest fallback position intended to stop/delay us from acting (I don't know that the parent commenter intends it that way; this isn't a criticism of them). In rough order: 1) There is no global warming 2) There is global warming, but it's not caus…

It just like "A Narcicist's Prayer":

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did...

You deserved it.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#135

Sea level rise is neither the largest nor most immediate threat of climate change. Water happens to have one of the highest, and I would argue, the most important thermal capacity of all the compounds we're likely to come into contact with daily. Water has about 5-10x the heat capacity of most common things and so heating up the all the oceans by say 2 degs average is an ENORMOUS amount of energy. Why is this importa…

You claim that the scenario you describe is happening "NOW". Could you provide a citation for that claim? Or even better, are people betting money that it is true, as might be represented with a greater-than-inflation rise in premiums for flood insurance, home owners insurance, or umbrella insurance in the affected geographies?

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#136
post #117
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you consider catastrophic. 5-8C means you lose both the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, so you get 60m (200 ft) sea-level rise, so you totally lose all the coastal cities, and the current round of civilization is almost certainly done for. But homo sapiens will probably survive, and so civilization will probably eventually be rebuilt. It won't be the end of life on earth under any circumstances. Act…

But homo sapiens will probably survive, and so civilization will probably eventually be rebuilt This is a very arrogant assumption. Our species is one component of a little-understood web of interconnected dependencies. Just because humans are slightly more clever than past dominant species doesn't make us any less extinction-proof.

  Just because humans are slightly more clever than past dominant species doesn't make us any less extinction-proof.
Homo sapiens: the Dunning-Kruger hominid.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#137
post #135

Sea level rise is neither the largest nor most immediate threat of climate change. Water happens to have one of the highest, and I would argue, the most important thermal capacity of all the compounds we're likely to come into contact with daily. Water has about 5-10x the heat capacity of most common things and so heating up the all the oceans by say 2 degs average is an ENORMOUS amount of energy. Why is this importa…

You claim that the scenario you describe is happening "NOW". Could you provide a citation for that claim? Or even better, are people betting money that it is true, as might be represented with a greater-than-inflation rise in premiums for flood insurance, home owners insurance, or umbrella insurance in the affected geographies?

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/before-the-flood/video...

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#138
post #135

Sea level rise is neither the largest nor most immediate threat of climate change. Water happens to have one of the highest, and I would argue, the most important thermal capacity of all the compounds we're likely to come into contact with daily. Water has about 5-10x the heat capacity of most common things and so heating up the all the oceans by say 2 degs average is an ENORMOUS amount of energy. Why is this importa…

You claim that the scenario you describe is happening "NOW". Could you provide a citation for that claim? Or even better, are people betting money that it is true, as might be represented with a greater-than-inflation rise in premiums for flood insurance, home owners insurance, or umbrella insurance in the affected geographies?

Hurricanes? New Orleans will never recover. That same season saw a couple other storms that were just as strong but luckily missed worst case scenarios.

I wouldn't be shocked if cat five hurricanes became pretty common in a couple of decades due to warmer waters, and one or two of those a year would devastate coastal economies.

But I'm not a weatherman...

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#139
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are already past the point where conservation will help, a carbon tax seems like closing the barn doors after all the cows escaped. the market is already going down the alternate fuel route. What I want to know is there any concrete plan to build something that will remove excess CO2 from the air and ocean that can be built by the government. Build this is going to go over a whole lot better than tax this.

I think that carbon tax pays for the building of the thing?

I don't think a carbon tax is ever going to be politically viable.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently to do it properly it's by killing poor people.

Solar, wind and nuclear kill poor people?

Telling poor people that the only power they are allowed to have is too expensive for them to afford does result in their having shorter lifespans. Energy is one of the keys to modernity; you can't power an MRI machine with UN-subsidized corn.

If you provide them with solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, tidal, or possibly fusion power at costs lower than or equal to organic fuels, they will not suffer (and might benefit).

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