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Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

theconversation.com

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#31

honest question, is it so bad if we go extinct? why bother going through all this effort and anxiety for someone we'll never even meet? taking an honest look at my own life, I'm just a sophisticated robot that eats, poops and labors just so I can continue to eat, poop and labor yet another day...

I agree. The title should say "permanent damage to current species"

Plenty of animals, plants, and humans will die. And they will be replaced with different animals, plants, and humans.

Of course, in 70 years, even if we fix climate change, we will be dead anyway.

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#32
post #3

> Relying on carbon dioxide removal and so-called negative emissions technologies to lower greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over several decades is too risky to contemplate. Author is saying to not even think about all solutions? Unprompted, on a post ostensibly sharing research findings? Sounds a bit dogmatic and politically motivated. I don’t trust their results.

the solutions are not technological, they are just about people reducing each drastically their footprint, and creating more natural super efficient carbon sinks, also called forests, permacultures, and more vegetation overall

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#34
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crushing many cubic kilometers of rock, transporting it, and then spreading over large areas takes quite a bit of energy, you'll find. It's not easy as you say, and only specific types of silicate rocks work. You seem to keep thinking that the "tech" is what matters here, and not the necessary enormous industrial and ecological inputs this would take. Also, no, I'm not wrong about the scale. This solution would requi…

> Again, you still aren't grasping how big this would be. You seem to be very sure about knowing what I can or cannot grasp. You wield this sentence as some kind of weapon against me but the fact is you are not presenting any arguments. Humanity has shown that it can do a lot if it just wants. Look at the scale of world wars where large part of world's output was converted to war effort because we just didn't like th…

humanity can't crush a bunch of cubic km of rock and spread over vast areas of land in a non-polluting way. It won't be carbon negative after drilling, blasting, digging, crushing, transporting, and spreading it around. If you can do it on your garden as a side-effect of hobby gardening, that is a nice benefit.

BTW, I worked as mechanic on heavy equip, crushers, drills, and haulage at many mines.

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#35
post #3

> Relying on carbon dioxide removal and so-called negative emissions technologies to lower greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over several decades is too risky to contemplate. Author is saying to not even think about all solutions? Unprompted, on a post ostensibly sharing research findings? Sounds a bit dogmatic and politically motivated. I don’t trust their results.

and what are your qualifications?

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but what about all this obsession about ensuring that there are still humans in say 200 years, when anyone who might exist is a complete stranger to us?

Because humans like other humans? humans want a legacy? humans want the species to persist and even excel? Not everyone is a nihilist.

and yet most humans continue pursuing a lifestyle that is simple not sustainable at an 8 billion people scale, and don't want to give it up. Doesn't sound like they care much about the consequences of their actions on others.

Haven't made the calculations, but I'm quite sure we could keep the current technological pillars of well-being (food, health, heating) without much issue to the environment if we gave up all the other superfluous crap (private cars, gadgets, plastics toys, 3d videogames, etc). And we'd probably be much less depressed too.

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#38
All these extrapolation attempts need to be taken with a grain of salt.

One thing we know:

* carbon and methane that we release en masse in the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise globally, it has been known for decades. It has a negative impact on the stability of climate and thus food/safety.

Things we don't know:

* exactly how big is the impact of temperature on the habitibility of earth.

* how many degrees of increase is needed to be a danger to mankind's existence? Or how many people (even give or take) will suffer or die?

* how fast will science find applicable solutions and what speed is necessary to keep the harmful effects limited?

So we can keep on repeating that we are not doing enough to mitigate, or even that it is already too late, but that speculating does not solve anything.

Bottom line, we should keep trying to keep temperature increase as low as possible, on multiple fronts: more efficient usage of resources, less inequality between poor and rich, investing in technology, persuade people not to waste resources, thinking about alternative types of economies,... Only future will tell if it were enough.

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#39
post #3

> Relying on carbon dioxide removal and so-called negative emissions technologies to lower greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over several decades is too risky to contemplate. Author is saying to not even think about all solutions? Unprompted, on a post ostensibly sharing research findings? Sounds a bit dogmatic and politically motivated. I don’t trust their results.

the solutions are not technological, they are just about people reducing each drastically their footprint, and creating more natural super efficient carbon sinks, also called forests, permacultures, and more vegetation overall

I expected downvotes in a place where Elon Musk must be considered a god / savior against global warming (while cars with 500kg of batteries can't certainly be a good idea)

but that's still the truth that someone highly knowledgable like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marc_Jancovici would explain in more details, there are many aspects, not just carbon

Re: Temporarily overshooting 2°C would cause permanent damage to Earth’s species

#40
post #3

> Relying on carbon dioxide removal and so-called negative emissions technologies to lower greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over several decades is too risky to contemplate. Author is saying to not even think about all solutions? Unprompted, on a post ostensibly sharing research findings? Sounds a bit dogmatic and politically motivated. I don’t trust their results.

If this, hypothetically, isn’t the solution, then what is?

It is literally not possible to get everyone to stop emissions. If reducing emissions by planting trees and building carbon banks isn’t enough, will anything be enough?

Seems kinda fatalist to just say “ah, we’re fucked”

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