Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#161

Post by rblion » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 12:35 PM UTC

api wrote: post #24

caconym_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for a reversal in the apparent worldwide collapse of liberal democracy, I guess. Probably climate change and said collapse will feed into each other. The way most oligarchs and their toadies are wired, I think they're more likely to look to pull the ripcord for themselves rather than spend big on best-effort change for everyone else. Dismantlin…

I see a darker possibility. Maybe we are acting. Maybe governments and oligarchs in richer more powerful nations have concluded in secret that the situation is hopeless and that it's too late to prevent major climate change, so they are deploying totalitarianism. When I see Trump's push to build the wall, I think maybe the wall is not for today's migrant workers and trickle of refugees. Maybe it's to wall off America…

I've been thinking along very similar lines. This just makes more sense than the hopelessly optimistic scenarios of 'everyone giving up meat, adopting clean tech, getting along and sharing resources while we expand into space'. Ideally, this is what we want but anyone who has real-world experience dealing with people from all walks of life AND some respect for physics knows this is a LOT harder than it looks.

I believe WWIII is already happening, it's just not a typical war fought with soldiers. It's a battle of memes (unit of culture, much deeper than reddit memes) proliferated through media to divide, distract, delude the masses. Those in power intend to keep their power and are perfectly aware of the situation unfolding around the globe. They are making moves accordingly, the media doesn't know the long-con so they chalk it all up to mental illness and corruption. If they are all sociopathic, why would they reveal their plans to society? It would go against their deepest instinct for self-preservation.

Yes, the world's poorest regions will be devastated the most and there will be millions of migrants TRYING to move to America more than any other nation. By then, there will be many 'moats' in place to protect the American people. China is already moving people and capital into key regions around the globe (Suriname, next to Brazil) to capitalize on the situation as it unfolds. India will be hit particularly hard because of the amount of people in their country.

The global elite already have 'escape plans' like private islands and top-floor penthouses with guards in the lobby. Some of them care about what happens to the 'commonfolk', some of them don't. That's just the way it is.

The way to stay sane in all this is start with yourself, do what you can to be skillful and of service, build a life connected to nature, live off the land as much as possible, work remotely if possible, know how to live without tech if possible. This is all practical to me, I don't know how else to plan for 'retirement' other than this.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#162

Post by sitkack » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 12:41 PM UTC

abathur wrote: post #127

watertom wrote: post #37

The only way forward, the only chance we have is to invent technology to trap and sequester green houses gases from the upper atmosphere. Reducing human greenhouse gas output won’t happen fast enough to fix things, and I’m not sure that it’s possible to capture and trap existing green house gases, but it’s the only chance we have, because it’s the only way to stop the positive feedback loops that are currently runnin…

I agree that we'll probably need capture, but just want to inject a concern I have with seeing capture as salvation: Any capture/sequestration tech that produces marketable byproducts may have a big leg up on any tech that has to depend on large purely-altruistic investments. Technology tends to get more efficient with time/investment/scale. If any capture/sequestration processes achieve profitability (maybe even jus…

We need both.

1. Stop doing it

2. Reverse it.

We can't reverse the amount of carbon without stopping our emissions. And it is important that we don't _allow_ people to hand wave one away for the other. We need at least both, we also need to track mitigations in helping the environment (trees, animals, rivers) to operate in these new regimes.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#163

Post by api » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

rblion wrote: post #161

api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a darker possibility. Maybe we are acting. Maybe governments and oligarchs in richer more powerful nations have concluded in secret that the situation is hopeless and that it's too late to prevent major climate change, so they are deploying totalitarianism. When I see Trump's push to build the wall, I think maybe the wall is not for today's migrant workers and trickle of refugees. Maybe it's to wall off America…

I've been thinking along very similar lines. This just makes more sense than the hopelessly optimistic scenarios of 'everyone giving up meat, adopting clean tech, getting along and sharing resources while we expand into space'. Ideally, this is what we want but anyone who has real-world experience dealing with people from all walks of life AND some respect for physics knows this is a LOT harder than it looks. I belie…

It's WWIV and it may have started on 9/11/01, which I have started wondering might have been a proxy attack. Don't know but it seems possible. WWIII was the cold war with all its proxy battles.

Full scale hot wars between major powers have been too Pyrrhic a scenario even for the winner since the bomb, so now they are a mix of propaganda, espionage, proxies, terrorism, and economic warfare. The meme stuff you mention is just newer propaganda techniques. Terror is really another propaganda technique.

As others have noted in my OP I perhaps made it sound too conspiracy-ish and organized. There is surely a bit of that but it's mostly people behaving in a short sighted, selfish, and reactive way.

I don't think tech will collapse. I think as nature collapses we may grow more reliant on it. Space is on the table too. It's another place to go, and very strategically powerful.

This future looks a ton like cyberpunk. The prophecies of William Gibson continue to unfold.

It sucks in that there were and are much better options, but collectively I am not convinced humans are intelligent or conscious enough to override the brain stem yet and choose them.

Oh well time to go fry up some krill wafers and jack back into the matrix.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#164

Post by api » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

arbitrary_name wrote: post #68

api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a darker possibility. Maybe we are acting. Maybe governments and oligarchs in richer more powerful nations have concluded in secret that the situation is hopeless and that it's too late to prevent major climate change, so they are deploying totalitarianism. When I see Trump's push to build the wall, I think maybe the wall is not for today's migrant workers and trickle of refugees. Maybe it's to wall off America…

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2100228/c... >>A side effect of Beijing’s investment – an influx of Chinese migrants – is often perceived by locals as an expression of China’s de facto territorial expansion. The article goes on to say that the scale of the migration is not actually that large, but it's an interesting tidbit.

Could be more of a foothold like America's hundreds of overseas military bases.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#165

Post by simonh » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #125

simonh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. That’s not going to cause massive, crippling hyper inflation at all, is it.

That's such a myopic, small way to see the world. Human dignity is the priority, if our economy doesn't work for that then we change the economy, we don't give up on dignity.

I agree completely. Nobody should go hungry, without basic health care or without a roof over their heads in a modern advanced economy. But $1,000 a month for everybody is insane. It would require a massive tax on corporations and the wealthy, and it’s just an objective fact that raising taxes that way does not significantly increase tax income. It just doesn’t. It’s been tried over and over in many countries and it never works.

I live in the UK. We have universal health care, a robust social care model, my kids are getting a decent free education and we have a decent benefits system. I’m proud of all of those and don’t resent a single penny I pay in taxes towards it.

But plonking big wadges of cash on everybody, funded by hammering anybody that looks even moderately successful, is a recipe for economic mayhem.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#166

Post by MiroF » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #60

MiroF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

> Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime Oh, they are feeling the personal costs of climate change. It's just the political machines are trying their best to hide this fact. Example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northcarolina/north-c... I think a generation of people are so brainwashed that they can never be convinced of the harms that climate ch…

As an example of people being concretely impacted by climate change now, you are citing projected sea level increases. I think you could have probably picked a better article to prove your point.

That aside, the point I'm making is that it would still be much cheaper to relocate people from those coasts (in the immediate future) and engage in emergency preparedness than it would be to substantially mitigate our emissions output.

In the long term, that fucks us, but most voters aren't long term thinkers.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#167

Post by MiroF » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #79

Mikeb85 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm in Alberta, Canada, and I guarantee 95% of voters here would choose increasing oil production vs. any sort of climate action. We just had a pretty bad recession, our unemployment is still above typical levels, and we just had an unseasonably cold summer after a pretty cold winter. It's not an issue of being brainwashed, people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that…

> people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that isn't readily apparent That's a false equivalency. Jobs and homes exist in other places than Alberta and in other industries than oil extraction. Sure it will be painful to change for these Albertans but to argue that they have no choice but to vote for increasing oil production is just plain wrong.

Nobody said they have no choice - but they definitely won't vote to decrease oil production and if you think they voluntarily will you have your head in the sand

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#168

Post by MiroF » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #91

MiroF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

I believe people are much more reasonable then you give them credit for. When properly informed they will make the right choices. And the good news is that you don’t even need to wait for the majority to make the “right” vote. Apparently, it’s enough for the 3.5% of the population to take part in a sustained active resistance to bring about radical change [0]. This is also why I believe Extinction Rebellion is the la…

The majority of people who believe in climate change would be unwilling to pay $10 a month to avert it entirely.

3.5/100 is for easy concessions that didn't actually require giving up capital (like race concessions, because racism is actively irrational). A rational actor today who only cares about their own interests (like the super rich) will fight tooth and nail to prevent any actual change to their consumption.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#169

Post by MiroF » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #49

MiroF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

>Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal. Dying on a burning planet is a cost I expect to feel personally.

> Dying on a burning planet is a cost I expect to feel personally.

But you understand that isn't how the science works, right?

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#170

Post by simonh » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 10:57 PM UTC

ryacko wrote: post #160

simonh wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy isn't an undifferentiated lump of money, stuff and people. It is a complex structure. If most people have a lot more money, they will be able to afford a lot more of the stuff most people buy most of the time. So the inflation will be concentrated in staples and consumer goods simply due to greater demand versus supply. If prices stayed as is, it's hard to see why anyone would do a lot of the low paid to…

After numerous natural disasters, wars, etc, the one long-term constant for prosperity seems to be human capital. If you have society that attracts the smartest individuals for the most productive professions (which is right now anything involving information technology), your society wins. Your society will develop new concepts first, will be the first to sell it, and the first to reap revenues from it. Besides, it…

The smartest people in the most productive professions are above average earners. How is taxing them into the ground going to attract them?