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The Earth is getting greener

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Re: The Earth is getting greener

#131

Post by sprocket »

moosey wrote: post #97
BillFranklin wrote: post #17

The article is a bit all over the place. > So, yes, greening is complicated. It’s not inherently good. Sometimes it’s very bad. Context, it turns out, matters a lot. The tone suggests they're afraid of the change, but the article can't articulate why since the reason for the change and result are both possibly good and bad, but we don't really know yet. The NASA MODIS project is ongoing and produces data that people…

This winter in my neck of the woods I hear a lot of people saying "oh, what great weather this year", because it's warm and without snow. If they had taken enough math to understand chaotic dynamic systems, they would need be as anxious as I am. It's less that I can tell you exactly what's going to happen, although there are definitely things that we are certain of, like riskier hurricanes. What keeps me up at night…

I dairy farmed for 14 years, and my wife and I got out in the winter of 2023. We've seen ever increasing scarcity of water in our region, because the surrounding mountains don't get enough snow pack whose melt feeds the streams through spring and summer, and we don't see the spring rains nearly as much anymore either. We used to be able to irrigate our hay fields all summer long with no issues, until fall rains returned. Now the rains stop in April, we irrigate until the water runs out (which last year was in June), and then hope for the best. When we need to buy hay for our animals, prices have nearly tripled in the last 10 years.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#132

Post by zer0tonin »

deadeye wrote: post #120
bradley13 wrote: post #101

If the world were getting browner, they would panic. It's getting greener, so they have to try a bit harder, but they still manage to panic. Panic --> Clickbait --> Ads --> Money

My 86-year-old grandmother noticed no change in the climate over the course of her life. Meanwhile, we now have 15-year-old kids absolutely panicking over how much the climate has changed in the last 100 years, convinced their grandparents generation has doomed them to a heat death. It's bazar.

> My 86-year-old grandmother noticed no change in the climate over the course of her life.

She should consider getting checked for dementia.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#133

Post by adastra22 »

api wrote: post #126
adastra22 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you listen to speaking on the subject? It is brought up constantly. You can have a documentary on TV about climate change without bringing up Venus as a cautionary tale, for example. People who concern themselves with climate change genuinely think it will lead to mass human die offs, in my experience.

It could lead to mass die offs but due to starvation, extreme weather events, and most of all war. If we reacted with calm rationality we’d probably adapt pretty well but we’re not likely to do that. One refugee crisis to Europe has just about brought on the return of fascism, and that’s minor compared to what major climate change might cause. Climate change will be like AIDS or anaphylactic shock. You won’t die of i…

Or it could lead to global economic upheaval as the trade balances radically change, but people still being fed and governance not falling apart.

Prediction is as much based on the data as yours. You can dial back the alarmism.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#134

Post by satvikpendem »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #122
platz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The objective data is the greenness of the earth measured by satellites. the article offers multiple possible explanations for this and what their effects might be. it acknowledges those derivative outcomes are speculative.

All of the offered explanations still paint humans as the perpetrators of a crime against the environment. Not once is a greening planet painted in a positive light in this article. Its as if the writer is afraid to say something positive about CO2 emissions.

They do so because, just because something is greener does not make it better for humanity. For example, we can have "greener" algae blooms that nevertheless eat up the oxygen in a lake or ocean and then we have no fish to eat.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#135

Post by tmnvix »

BillFranklin wrote: post #17

The article is a bit all over the place. > So, yes, greening is complicated. It’s not inherently good. Sometimes it’s very bad. Context, it turns out, matters a lot. The tone suggests they're afraid of the change, but the article can't articulate why since the reason for the change and result are both possibly good and bad, but we don't really know yet. The NASA MODIS project is ongoing and produces data that people…

> the change and result are both possibly good and bad, but we don't really know yet.

I'm no scientist, but I believe the current ecological disaster effecting the UK's largest lake may be an example of the type of bad outcome we could expect to see more of.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/19/like-the...

It appears that a large algal bloom might be the immediate cause. Apparently algal blooms benefit from higher CO2 levels.

https://www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/climate-change-and-har...

I can't find it now, but I do remember reading some theory that previous extinction events on earth were driven by large amounts of organic matter breaking down anaerobically (i.e. underwater) which leads to a huge increase in some pretty nasty gases in the atmosphere. There have (apparently) even been times when some of the world's oceans were effectively large swamps.

Edit: My mistake, I didn't read about what I mentioned in that last paragraph - I heard it on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eM1aakTzMw

To give the general gist of what's covered in the above video/interview with paleobiologist Peter Ward:

03:00 - We need a little bit of CO2, but it’s easy to have too much CO2

04:20 - Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (co-written with Dan Brownlee)

04:40 - Excessive heat and mortality

05:12 - Volcanic activity responsible for past CO2 spikes

05:40 - Previous mass extinctions

05:57 - Non-animal mass extinctions

07:18 - Uneven atmospheric heating

and much more...

Well worth a listen if you have the time.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#136

Post by wredue »

drewcoo wrote: post #121
wredue wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same reason a demonstrably racist person can’t make racists jokes, but a demonstrably not racist person can get away with racist jokes. Where the statements are coming from makes a huge difference in their reception. “The earth is greening” is a popular argument from climate change deniers as “proof” that we’re not currently living in a catastrophic upset of species diversity (we measurably are). The problem…

> It’s the same reason a demonstrably racist person can’t make racists jokes, but a demonstrably not racist person can get away with racist jokes. So be a "good person" and you can tell any "jokes" you like. Happy Black History Month!

That’s not what I said. I said they can get away with it.

“Getting away with it” for bigoted jokes has a lot of nuance and context sensitivity.

For comedians including bigoted jokes in their set, it’s usually surrounded with self deprecation, self awareness, not the whole set, and is extremely careful about how they go about crossing the line, they know that they crossed a line and bring it back.

This is contrary to bigoted people telling bigoted “jokes”. It’s usually their whole set. They keep the set over the line. There’s no self reflection. It is bigotry coming from a place of bigotry.

I know that you on the alt-right tend to lack the capability to process nuance, and that you’re going to completely latch on to that single byte. So further explanation of why there’s a difference means nothing to you, but hopefully others see that being able to get away with a bigoted joke now and again is absolutely not the same thing as it “being okay”.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#137

Post by bryanlarsen »

mp05 wrote: post #89
bryanlarsen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Earth is fine": of course, it's a giant ball of rock. A few degrees isn't going to affect it. "~90% of species are fucked": it's not the magnitude of the change, it's the speed. The climate is changing on a decades-long time scale, and that's too fast for most species and ecosystems to adapt. The corollary there is that ~10% of species will be fine, and thrive. Like every mass extinction event the world will loo…

> unless the top billion stops whining and starts doing something. The most vocal whiners I know still drive a giant 4Runner and get new skis every year. > We're a bunch of spoiled brats that think 10% inflation and the end of the world are calamities of similar magnitude. What's the point of this statement? What solution are you suggesting that will directly lead to inflation? Reduced employment? Carbon taxes? > fuc…

> What's the point of this statement? What solution are you suggesting that will directly lead to inflation? Reduced employment? Carbon taxes?

Carbon taxes, yes.

> > fucked. fucked. fucked?

> Lay off the John Oliver.

Just echoing the tone of the comment I'm replying to. And they were going Carlin, not Oliver.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#138

Post by _kulang »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #129
moosey wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This winter in my neck of the woods I hear a lot of people saying "oh, what great weather this year", because it's warm and without snow. If they had taken enough math to understand chaotic dynamic systems, they would need be as anxious as I am. It's less that I can tell you exactly what's going to happen, although there are definitely things that we are certain of, like riskier hurricanes. What keeps me up at night…

What are people supposed to do? Just live in guilt and fear? People arent idiots simply because they're trying to make the best of a bad situation

I think guilt and fear might be warranted as people have had a history of willingly being idiots regarding climate change. Best of a bad situation is one thing. Best of a bad situation which you are party to is another

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#139

Post by silverquiet »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #129
moosey wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This winter in my neck of the woods I hear a lot of people saying "oh, what great weather this year", because it's warm and without snow. If they had taken enough math to understand chaotic dynamic systems, they would need be as anxious as I am. It's less that I can tell you exactly what's going to happen, although there are definitely things that we are certain of, like riskier hurricanes. What keeps me up at night…

What are people supposed to do? Just live in guilt and fear? People arent idiots simply because they're trying to make the best of a bad situation

> What are people supposed to do?

I tried drinking copiously but eventually my insides started hurting. So I don't know either.

Re: The Earth is getting greener

#140

Post by nuancebydefault »

Scarblac wrote: post #45
api wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole environmental movement made a mistake framing things as a moralistic struggle to “save the Earth.” Like George Carlin famously said on this subject: “the Earth will be fine. We’re fucked. The Earth has been far warmer with higher CO2 concentrations in its past and it was fine, but there were no humans then. It’s also been in an ice age fairly recently, but there was little civilization as far as we know and…

> Environmental concerns are selfish. That's overstating it. Yes, life will go on. But it's not only us that will die - as you say, much of the marine ecosystem will die off, we're not the only animal that has problems with wet bulb temperature (most don't even sweat), and humanity isn't going to die of starvation before we make everything remotely edible out there extinct first. Life is going to look extremely diffe…

I'm pretty sure they meant 'selfish' in a positive way, to emphasize that we are not aiming to 'save the planet', we should save ourselves. If we all die, the planet and its ecosystems will be fine eventually anyways, they still have about 4 billion years to restore itself.
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