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Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

nytimes.com

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Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#191

Post by richardknop »

trophycase wrote: post #40
nostrademons wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the problem is self-limiting. If global warming reduces the carrying capacity of the environment, people will die. Dead people don't use resources; their bodies are returned to the environment by decomposers, where they will provide fertilizer for trees and other plants, which will grow even more abundantly because of the enhanced CO2 levels. Eventually the earth reaches a new equilibrium at a somewhat higher te…

It's not true that a stable equilibrium is always reached. It's also possible that irreversible changes are set into motion which shift the equilibrium so far away from livability that humans cannot survive.

This has been happening throughout history of Earth. Just look at all the ice ages (including the most recent so called little ice age).

Just cca 11,000 years ago, without any human intervention (nobody driving SUVs around back then), temperature has risen dramatically which caused massive ice sheets on top of North America and Europe to melt. This caused sea levels to rise by 120 meters, swallowing an area of land larger than China and Europe combined.

Until this day we still don't know what caused that (and it seems to be a reoccurring event as it has happened multiple times). The last time it happened it has caused extinction of most of megafauna (with some remnants surviving in Africa as it was least affected).

We are struggling to cope with sea levels rising by 1-2mm per year. Imagine if they rose by 120m in couple of years. All coastal mega cities - NYC, SF, Tokyo etc would be underwater completely.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#192

Post by lloeki »

ASlave2Gravity wrote: post #186

A little off topic, but the novel Japan Sinks [0] by Sakyo Komatsu is a wonderful insight into Japan and its fears/feelings on natural disaster. Also, more generally, just a really great disaster novel. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Sinks

Also fascinating, Dragon Head[0] is a 10 volume post-apocalyptic natural disaster psychological and survival horror manga worth a read.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Head

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#193

Post by richardknop »

super-serial wrote: post #124
averagewall wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue is too political for normal people to properly understand. I don't mean to offend you personally but there's little value in the feelings of someone who's been immersed in a social atmosphere of global warming propaganda, calls to action, and pressure to shut down dissenting voices. Even scientists can't safely publish work on positive effects of climate change or areas where it's not as bad as previously…

The Permian extinction was a global warming extinction. The atmosphere was methane and hydrogen sulfide. Oxygen levels dropped too low for anything to survive... read the book 'Under Green Skies' which makes the case for that. There are reasonable people predicting that type of mass extinction will occur within our lifetime. This blog makes a pretty good argument it will happen: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/exti…

Last global extinction event was 11,000 years ago when temperature rose drastically, ice sheets melted and sea levels rose by 120m. It killed most of megafauna. What caused that (and what caused the ice age in the first place) is still not well understood by scientists.

In my opinion, to think that human caused global warming and sea levels rising by 1.5mm per year will lead to global extinction event seems a bit far fetched when you compare it to what caused the last global extinction. The current climate changes are minuscule compared to huge climate changes (not caused by any human activity!) that happened quite recently.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#194

Post by Boothroid »

alexanderstears wrote: post #75
jacobolus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with taking personal steps, but by themselves they are largely worthless. It’s like optimizing an I/O bound program by speeding up some of the arithmetic operations not on any critical path. Telling people who continue to commute by car or use grid electricity or travel internationally that they don’t really care about climate change is idiotic – not just useless but actively counterp…

Telling people who continue to commute by car or use grid electricity or travel internationally that they don’t really care about climate change is idiotic That's a strawman. What the parent comment says is that people's behavior reveals their preferences. A more clear example is this - someone who drives a Suburban for fun and burns their trash isn't in a good position to demand that others go out of their way to tr…

One of the complications here is that the CO2 costs of manufacturing the car aren't taken into account. When they are, it can actually be preferable to continue to run the gas guzzler. Manufacturing steel and batteries is hugely energy and resource intensive.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#195

Post by richardknop »

woodandsteel wrote: post #116

From what I understand, Japan thinks the climate is getting warmer due to human action, and serious steps need to be taken to deal with it. I have a question for the global climate change skeptics out there. Are there any major countries in the world besides the US and maybe Russia where the central government agrees with you on what is happening and what to do about it? (If there are give us some links)

There is a difference between "central government agrees with you" and whether they are actually doing something about it. Most world governments give lip service to climate change but don't do much trying to stop it.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#196

Post by zimpenfish »

richardknop wrote: post #193
super-serial wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Permian extinction was a global warming extinction. The atmosphere was methane and hydrogen sulfide. Oxygen levels dropped too low for anything to survive... read the book 'Under Green Skies' which makes the case for that. There are reasonable people predicting that type of mass extinction will occur within our lifetime. This blog makes a pretty good argument it will happen: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/exti…

Last global extinction event was 11,000 years ago when temperature rose drastically, ice sheets melted and sea levels rose by 120m. It killed most of megafauna. What caused that (and what caused the ice age in the first place) is still not well understood by scientists. In my opinion, to think that human caused global warming and sea levels rising by 1.5mm per year will lead to global extinction event seems a bit far…

That megafauna didn't live in e.g. megacities (containing vital infrastructure and toxic chemical factories) built on coastal flood plains. They also didn't have a (fairly) monocultured web of food items that could be devastated by climate change. Or a bee infrastructure that was already struggling and could be tipped over into extinction which then leads to much bigger problems.

Sure, we're going to have a smaller change in climate but we're also a lot more precariously placed than they were (and about as incapable of dealing with it.)

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#197

Post by richardknop »

zimpenfish wrote: post #196
richardknop wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last global extinction event was 11,000 years ago when temperature rose drastically, ice sheets melted and sea levels rose by 120m. It killed most of megafauna. What caused that (and what caused the ice age in the first place) is still not well understood by scientists. In my opinion, to think that human caused global warming and sea levels rising by 1.5mm per year will lead to global extinction event seems a bit far…

That megafauna didn't live in e.g. megacities (containing vital infrastructure and toxic chemical factories) built on coastal flood plains. They also didn't have a (fairly) monocultured web of food items that could be devastated by climate change. Or a bee infrastructure that was already struggling and could be tipped over into extinction which then leads to much bigger problems. Sure, we're going to have a smaller c…

Is it well understood why bee infrastructure is struggling? I was under impression causes behind bee problems are still unknown so I wouldn't connect it to climate change necessarily.

You are right that our civilization is very vulnerable because of our agriculture and food logistics being very fragile. A single really bad draught on a global scale would cause massive problems in feeding the large population we have.

I would argue that in this respect overpopulation is a bigger problem than climate change though. Instead of focusing on emissions and renewable energy there should be more focus on decreasing world population from current unsustainable level.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#198

Post by monk_e_boy »

tdist wrote: post #179
saalweachter wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also too, of course you should build your "prevent floods from wrecking our shit" system to handle floods "beyond anything we've seen before". Building it to handle less than what you've seen before would be stupid.

> Building it to handle less than what you've seen before would be stupid. Let me tell a second hand anecdote of a Burmese village. It was a rather small collection of huts raised on tall poles. But it was a village none the less. All paths in the village were laid out with a connected mass of wood. Along the path were sticks, rising pretty high up in the air. Somewhere along the top of the sticks were a lot of cuts…

Were the flood waters raging? Or placid?

Did they have room on the uprights to tie the cross members higher? Maybe the flood water held the wood up (buoyancy) and the uprights were there as anchors.

How did they raise the wood? I imagine it weighed a lot.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#199

Post by rurban »

foobar__ wrote: post #104

Interestingly, the official website doesn't mention climate change at all, as far as I can see [1]. Instead, it claims that the purpose of the tunnels is to protect the areas surrounding some smaller rivers upstream of Tokyo, which are on flood plains and regularly used to get flooded (no climate change required, just regular rain season/typhoon does this). Now due to urban sprawl more people want to live there, exac…

Because the reason is building codes, cutting green areas. Flooding is almost always related to changes upriver. Storms and climate change related water level rises are a danger, but not the main reason.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#200

Post by batushka »

foobar__ wrote: post #104

Interestingly, the official website doesn't mention climate change at all, as far as I can see [1]. Instead, it claims that the purpose of the tunnels is to protect the areas surrounding some smaller rivers upstream of Tokyo, which are on flood plains and regularly used to get flooded (no climate change required, just regular rain season/typhoon does this). Now due to urban sprawl more people want to live there, exac…

>Interestingly, the official website doesn't mention climate change at all, as far as I can see

The facts are true, the news is fake.

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