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Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

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31–40 of 118 posts

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#31

It's a good time to point out that coordinated global action is required. Trump withdrew us from Paris. Harper withdrew Canada from Kyoto. Russia is a petrostate that will benefit more from global warming than any other country in the world, so look at 2016 through that lens. Only 40% of conservative Republicans even believe climate change is happening ( https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/politics-...…

> coordinated global action is required. Trump withdrew us from Paris. Harper withdrew Canada from Kyoto.

Neither of those were coordinated global action that will make any difference. "Symbolic" agreements don't fix anything; they're just a way for politicians to punt the problem (if you think it's a problem) further down the road so they can stay in power. Not to mention that none of the countries that signed up for Kyoto came anywhere near meeting their targets (which were already too permissive to make a difference) anyway, and it looks like the same will be true of Paris. The US prefers not to sign agreements that we know we won't keep and that won't make a difference anyway; that's why we didn't ratify Kyoto and why Trump pulled us out of Paris.

The kind of draconian "coordinated global action" that would be necessary to actually stop CO2 emissions is not going to happen; nobody will accept that drastic a hit in standard of living. Not to mention that doing that would condemn all of the currently developing countries that have the most to lose to staying in poverty, which will make it so much harder for them to adapt. The best thing we can do is to create more wealth and bring more people out of poverty, and make our infrastructure more decentralized and robust. That will benefit everyone regardless of what kind of change comes.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#32
post #17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should we do?

Methane is a valuable resource, so it should be cost effective for somebody to capture it.

Certainly not. Methane may have some value, but it is quite plentiful and fracking has made it cheap. Oil drillers already flare it off when it's inconvenient and uneconomical to capture. You're talking a methane release spread across continents, then dispersed into the atmosphere in parts per billion.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mean to pick on you, but this question comes up in every single climate change post. Answering it is exhausting. We need a climate change FAQ. The simple answer is end fossil fuels. How do we do that? Vote, eat less meat, bike ride, strike, protest, invest in solar, boycott, reuse, buy less, telecommute, etc. Use your imagination. Do something, do everything, the end goal is we all stop releasing sequestered…

> The simple answer is end fossil fuels. How do we do that? Build nuclear power plants. All the other things are fine, but if you really want to end fossil fuels, you need a non-fossil-fuel source of reliable base load power. Nuclear is the only one we have. Other sources are fine, but they can't produce reliable base load power. And, btw, I think we should end fossil fuels even if it turns out not to make much of a…

>Build nuclear power plants.

And to all the people who say "they take too long there isn't enough time": the best time to start nuclear power plant construction was 10 years ago, the second best time is now.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#34
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children I do already, the weather is much worse than when I was a kid, much drier and the heat waves are harsher.

And it's -10 degrees C with half a foot of snow where I live at this exact moment, does that cancel out your anecdote?

No. No it really doesn't.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#35
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mean to pick on you, but this question comes up in every single climate change post. Answering it is exhausting. We need a climate change FAQ. The simple answer is end fossil fuels. How do we do that? Vote, eat less meat, bike ride, strike, protest, invest in solar, boycott, reuse, buy less, telecommute, etc. Use your imagination. Do something, do everything, the end goal is we all stop releasing sequestered…

> The simple answer is end fossil fuels. How do we do that? Build nuclear power plants. All the other things are fine, but if you really want to end fossil fuels, you need a non-fossil-fuel source of reliable base load power. Nuclear is the only one we have. Other sources are fine, but they can't produce reliable base load power. And, btw, I think we should end fossil fuels even if it turns out not to make much of a…

Hydropower can work for base load, but it has its own issues.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#36
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children, unless maybe they live in a very low area by the coast. This plays out over hundreds of years. It's still a serious problem and we need to address it, but I keep seeing emotional reactions that ignore the science and the current predictions.

There's been a difference in the last 15 years... Look at the ocean currents. Look at the hurricanes stalling. That didn't use to happen. Look at tornado alley moving west. Look at the mass migration out of Siberia.[0] If you haven't noticed anything you aren't paying attention, or you're a gas company shill spreading misinformation. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climat...

"tornado alley moving east", fyi.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#37
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children I do already, the weather is much worse than when I was a kid, much drier and the heat waves are harsher.

And it's -10 degrees C with half a foot of snow where I live at this exact moment, does that cancel out your anecdote?

[deleted]

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#38
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see comments like this all the time, but it doesn't happen that fast. You won't notice a big difference in your lifetime, and neither will your children I do already, the weather is much worse than when I was a kid, much drier and the heat waves are harsher.

And it's -10 degrees C with half a foot of snow where I live at this exact moment, does that cancel out your anecdote?

That’s actually a confirming anecdote FYI, the occurrence of more extreme weather events in both directions

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#39
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should we do?

I don’t mean to pick on you, but this question comes up in every single climate change post. Answering it is exhausting. We need a climate change FAQ. The simple answer is end fossil fuels. How do we do that? Vote, eat less meat, bike ride, strike, protest, invest in solar, boycott, reuse, buy less, telecommute, etc. Use your imagination. Do something, do everything, the end goal is we all stop releasing sequestered…

All of that is pointless, it will not work, and anything that requires human behavior to change en mass without direct incentives is wildly unrealistic. Imagine doing all that, only to die, all the same. We cannot accept simple answers, we need complicated engineered answers.

Increasingly, I find the best thing to do is get your affairs in order, do not birth a child, and try to enjoy what is left of this life before it’s all over and the world cooks to death.

If life must have no purpose, then you might as well choose to be happy. And I mean it. BE happy, before it’s too late.

Re: Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia

#40
post #4
post #2

So have we fired a clathrate gun then [1]? It's getting increasingly difficult to pretend worst-case global warming scenarios won't turn into reality in the next 25 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

What should we do?

Nothing. We're fucked. The world will die in the pursuit of expanding growth and profit.
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