Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air • Hacker News Board

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#201

Post by surge » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

cropsieboss wrote: post #27

Arctic ice has 1400Gt of carbon locked up as methane. [1] This is equivalent to 1400/10 = 140 years of human 2016 activity. [2]. Methane also has a stronger effect than CO2. If ice starts to melt, we are doomed. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions#Contr... [2]: https://www.co2.earth/global-co2-emissions

Also, ice reflects light back out into space, meaning we absorb more of it and the heat that gets generated from absorbing it, as the ice melts.

It's safe to say we're soundly screwed, and probably were screwed before we could realistically do anything about it. Anything we do now short of killing off 80% of the population and the other 20% living like native tribes men, won't have any real affect, it might slow it. Unless we come up with some solution the counter the feedback mechanisms and extract/recapture these gases from the atmosphere.

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#202

Post by gooseus » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 7:39 PM UTC

systemWizord wrote: post #190

ams6110 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there aren't any. Maybe all sentient species self-destruct when they discover and start developing technology but don't understand all the implications. There's a theory along these lines that explains why we've never found any signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life.

In my humble opinion, antinatalism contributes much to it. Smartest people I know are strictly antinatalist, and it makes sense. What's the point of keeping a specie alive? The very product of universe's RNG? Life is mostly suffering as it is, inter-stellar life would probably be even worse. I'm personally not invested in the environment-preservation fight at all.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I find antinatalist views to be small-minded, selfish and cowardly. In a vast universe of dead matter which tends toward equilibrium and decay there exists a process that tends toward complexity and order.

Life exists in this universe, it's a part it's nature and so is consciousness. Whether by design or by some random chance, it is self-evident that it exists. Not only that, you can find it adapted to the extremes of every environment it encounters.

Suffering is the engine of adaptation and everything we consider valuable has only come about through the immense suffering and sacrifice of those that have lived.

We, as conscious life, are the only known species which have the possibility to adapt to an environment outside of Earth. I believe, without any external spiritual input, that our responsibility is quite clear.

How much suffering is a function of the zero-sum game that is played in our (mostly) closed environment? Yes, expanding into space may increase the overall number of individuals suffering, but isn't it really suffering per capita that should be the measure?

Suffering isn't to be ignored and I believe seeking to reduce when possible is admirable and morally right... but to abdicate our responsibility to the process of life and allow it halt (which it will eventually on this planet)? Simply because some people feel bad about things sometimes? No, I'm not buying it for a second.

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#203

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 8:04 PM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #194

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tl;dr is that the commonly told origin of money, right back to Adam Smith, is a-historical assumption that is contradicted by archeological evidence. The a-historical account is that money was developed to make barter more efficient. This is not what we see in the records from Sumer, and there is similar evidence in the other locations where we know writing arose. Before the neolithic revolution societies economi…

So you're saying the first money was essentially "social credit"? I don't disagree with the spirit of the argument, but your good-will credit in your community doesn't have the properties we associate with currency such as fungibility and divisability. If they used a formalized series of IOUs that allowed for the long term planning of capital then I'd be more inclined to call it currency. But sounds like an interesti…

I'd strongly recommend the book. It's a little verbose in places but that's also because Graeber makes and justifies his arguments in detail.

And yes, it's the latter: formalized debt records that meet the 3 criteria we commonly define money by.

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#204

Post by needcheapbw » Thu, Aug 24, 2017, 8:17 PM UTC

mark-r wrote: post #200

needcheapbw wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation? How long is the lag? Years? How long does it take to fill a bathtub? If so much ice is really, actually melting in the world and has been for years; no shoreline changes have occurred anywhere in the world, then that must be some amazing lag.

The ice that's melting today is floating ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, because it's subject to warm ocean currents. Floating ice doesn't change sea levels when it melts. The ice that matters is the glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. Glaciers weren't formed in a day, and they won't melt in a day either.

That is correct. Glaciers melt constantly, new snow forms as moisture accumulates in higher elevations and condenses, falling as snow. The snow becomes the beginning of the glacier. It's a cycle that repeats. It is repeating right now, every year.

https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/life-glacier.html

https://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2016/11/Pio_XI_Glaci...

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#205

Post by sedachv » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 7:52 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #188

sedachv wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With fusion research there are already dozens of active research efforts, but we have absolutely no idea if any of them will work, or if we need a new approach nobody has thought of. That is the definition of research. Once something is discovered that works, it is called development. > In this situation throwing money at the problem simply isn't the solution. Why is funding fundamental physics research a bad idea?…

>Why is funding fundamental physics research a bad idea? It's not a bad idea and we are doing it. Fundamental research into fusion is happening on many fronts. That is a good thing and I am not arguing against it. There may even be good arguments to increase funding on some of those approaches. I'm saying that a 'huge' increase in funding, as proposed, at this stage would be premature given that there are plenty of o…

> What do you think we should hugely cut spending on in order to fund this huge increase? Proposals to spend lots of money on this or that are somewhat unconvincing unless you can explain where the money should come from.

That is actually the easy part. Latest numbers I have seen are from 2009, when the US government paid farmers $5 billion to waste their time growing corn to turn into ethanol (basically to turn 1 barrel of oil into 0.7 barrels of oil equivalent), and paid oil and gas companies $7 billion in oil and gas exploration subsidies. Enough money for huge increases in both renewable energy and fusion research programs:

http://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/eli-pubs/d19_07.pdf

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#206

Post by candiodari » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 11:58 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #196

alistproducer2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend you read "Money: The Unauthorized Biography [0]" You'll never look at money the same way again. Money is not a commodity even though we treat it as such. It certainly is not a finite resource. Plenty of money gets created everyday for thing far more stupid than trying to save the world. Look at how much money has been created (and will be spent) for no good reason at all in the current cryptocoin bubble.…

I already have an alternate view of money. I look at generalized wealth more directly, with money merely an somewhat interesting special case that is less special than most people think it is. (I tend to think even economists pay too much attention to currency. Not that they pay attention only to currency, but that they pay too much attention to it.) The simple truth is that if you bend the economy towards creating w…

I wonder where the theory that government spending is simply free actually comes from, that somehow when the government spends money (or enacts regulation or taxes, same thing) that the cost is somehow magically not that everybody has to work more and/or harder to achieve those things.

But it's sure becoming a popular theory.

Also: I think what you're describing might be the broken window fallacy: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#207

Post by EGreg » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 1:35 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #199

EGreg wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not simulate the smaller fires by chopping down trees and using them in construction after fireproofing the wood?

fireproofing wood generally involves toxic chemicals you don't want. Historically these chemicals have been found to offgas long after they are thought safe. It also isn't worth it because one cheap way to get rid of a house after the end of its useful life is burn it.

But we... but um... the whole point is to NOT release the CO2 back into the atmosphere. "Cheap" way to undermine the whole point! "Not worth it to fireproof"? This is actually pretty funny.

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#208

Post by alistproducer2 » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #196

alistproducer2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend you read "Money: The Unauthorized Biography [0]" You'll never look at money the same way again. Money is not a commodity even though we treat it as such. It certainly is not a finite resource. Plenty of money gets created everyday for thing far more stupid than trying to save the world. Look at how much money has been created (and will be spent) for no good reason at all in the current cryptocoin bubble.…

I already have an alternate view of money. I look at generalized wealth more directly, with money merely an somewhat interesting special case that is less special than most people think it is. (I tend to think even economists pay too much attention to currency. Not that they pay attention only to currency, but that they pay too much attention to it.) The simple truth is that if you bend the economy towards creating w…

>all the people doing that stuff as the result of a hoax

Are you saying that human-caused global warming is a hoax?

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#209

Post by systemWizord » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

gooseus wrote: post #202

systemWizord wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my humble opinion, antinatalism contributes much to it. Smartest people I know are strictly antinatalist, and it makes sense. What's the point of keeping a specie alive? The very product of universe's RNG? Life is mostly suffering as it is, inter-stellar life would probably be even worse. I'm personally not invested in the environment-preservation fight at all.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I find antinatalist views to be small-minded, selfish and cowardly. In a vast universe of dead matter which tends toward equilibrium and decay there exists a process that tends toward complexity and order. Life exists in this universe, it's a part it's nature and so is consciousness. Whether by design or by some random chance, it is self-evident that it exists. Not only that, you can find it a…

Yes, I agree, you are an idiot. "We" don't have responsibility to the process of life, it's your animal programming overriding all logic and rationality with stupid rhetoric like entropy vs complexity and other such mindless crap.

Re: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air

#210

Post by fencepost » Fri, Aug 25, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #178

fencepost wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The annotated version with links to source data is probably a better option to link. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...

The guy is talking about 10 degrees C scenarios, aka scenarios that nobody believes is going to happen. The IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change, believes that there will be 2-3 degrees C increase in temperature over the next century. When someone can rationally talk about what will happen in the IPCC predicted scenarios, which is the scientific consensus, then I will listen to them. If you are som…

I haven't gone back to re-read for this, but I believe 10 degrees is presented as a worst-case scenario because if we hit that it's pretty much game over.

The part you may want starts around footnote 20, in a paragraph that notes 4 degrees as a median projection from the IPCC, with up to 8 degrees at the high end of the curve without factoring in permafrost melt and its associated carbon release or any of a variety of other exacerbating factors (footnoted in the article).

There are ways to calculate how much effort or expense is reasonable to attempt to mitigate a risk, I believe that's often part of the job description of actuaries. Part of it involves figuring out what the cost is if the event in question happens, then what the likelihood of the event is.