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Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

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Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#31

Post by themagician »

_rrnv wrote: post #22

Planet Earth will be fine. It survived much worse than some little human emissions. The meteor and winter that followed that killed off the dinosaurs was much worse than some elevated CO2. Whether humanity survives this is another question. My bet is we will, since we are like roaches. But many will die for the sins of the few. Interestingly, these few who will survive are probably the ones who created this mess and…

"Save the planet," isn't about saving the planet—it's about making people feel bigger than they are. People don't like the feeling of smallness that comes with the realization that nothing we do really matters.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#32

Post by accrual »

_rrnv wrote: post #22

Planet Earth will be fine. It survived much worse than some little human emissions. The meteor and winter that followed that killed off the dinosaurs was much worse than some elevated CO2. Whether humanity survives this is another question. My bet is we will, since we are like roaches. But many will die for the sins of the few. Interestingly, these few who will survive are probably the ones who created this mess and…

I agree the Earth will survive even if it's not the same Earth we know and love today. Maybe we should all give a little extra appreciation for this specific time we live in - one of great technological advancement and one in which we still have much of the natural beauty we've come to take for granted. The future will be increasingly high tech, but those who live in it may not have untouched forests, coral reefs, or temperate weather in which to enjoy alongside it.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#33

Post by superb_dev »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #29

Way back in the SimEarth days I got introduced to the Gaia concept, which at the time seemed a little hokey, but as time goes on seems more and more apt. Not trying to sound like Agent Smith, but sure seems like the earth is treating humans like a virus and is warming itself up to get rid of us. We had a long time to see it coming, but it's not politically popular to acknowledge it, and here in the U.S. you can signa…

The earth is not warming itself, WE are warming the earth

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#34

Post by worldsayshi »

withinboredom wrote: post #5

I’ve kind of accepted we are screwed. Whether I am alive when shit hits the fan or not is another question. But seeing that people are trying to build satellite mirrors to put MORE solar energy into the planet without even thinking about it for more than a few minutes, I would say we are more screwed than we realize. The first law of stupidity applies.

I'm tired of hearing this idea that this is some binary phenomenon of either saving the world or dooming it.

Technological civilization is undergoing a chaotic growth and reshaping process that will end up thrashing the container it lives in to an unknown and catastrophic degree. There's no known ultimate boundary to this process. Or the only really known ultimate boundary, a completely dead planet, is very far away. We cannot know exactly what will happen but we have a lot of power to shape this process and limit the damages.

The process will continue. There's no going back. There's no stopping. Only a multitude of ways to affect the outcome. Some of those ways can limit the destruction. Some of those ways can shape the process to something that can live and let live.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#35

Post by block_dagger »

_rrnv wrote: post #22

Planet Earth will be fine. It survived much worse than some little human emissions. The meteor and winter that followed that killed off the dinosaurs was much worse than some elevated CO2. Whether humanity survives this is another question. My bet is we will, since we are like roaches. But many will die for the sins of the few. Interestingly, these few who will survive are probably the ones who created this mess and…

The planet itself (the rock) will of course be fine but the ecosystem has undergone and continues to undergo a massive extinction event caused by humans. This is an avoidable tragedy. I agree with some of your analysis but strongly disagree with your sentiment.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#36

Post by SoftTalker »

_rrnv wrote: post #22

Planet Earth will be fine. It survived much worse than some little human emissions. The meteor and winter that followed that killed off the dinosaurs was much worse than some elevated CO2. Whether humanity survives this is another question. My bet is we will, since we are like roaches. But many will die for the sins of the few. Interestingly, these few who will survive are probably the ones who created this mess and…

There is no power to be extracted from CO2. It takes energy to break the C-O bonds.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#37

Post by abeppu »

> “The overall diagnostic is that the patient, Planet Earth, is in critical condition,” says Johan Rockström

The planet as a patient is a problematic metaphor. What does this mean? A human patient in critical condition is at risk of dying. But the planet is not going to "die", though many species will.

We need better ways of talking clearly (not with hyperbole) about the current situation and the stakes. Even with serious and aggressive policy changes, we'd still be on a track for key measures to get worse for some time, and we're bad at discussing "under costly policy A, X will be k% worse than today with expected outcome Y, but without adopting policy A, X with be (k+l)% worse than today expected outcome Z." So people end up saying "we're doomed regardless, so why should I have to pay/change/act?"

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#38

Post by superb_dev »

gruntledfangler wrote: post #28

“The health check will also serve as a “mission-control center” for decision-making, per the statement, by using satellite data, A.I. and multiple scientific disciplines—as well as the wisdom of Indigenous peoples, which is something the researchers hope to incorporate more of in following editions” Just in case you were considering taking this seriously…

Sounds like they’re using all available resources. What’s wrong?

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#39

Post by NhanH »

aaomidi wrote: post #26
_rrnv wrote: post #22

Planet Earth will be fine. It survived much worse than some little human emissions. The meteor and winter that followed that killed off the dinosaurs was much worse than some elevated CO2. Whether humanity survives this is another question. My bet is we will, since we are like roaches. But many will die for the sins of the few. Interestingly, these few who will survive are probably the ones who created this mess and…

IMO. You’re brainwashed for thinking technology is going to save us from this tbh. Climate already saw a lot of improvements during the 2020 lockdowns.

We could use technology to implement more lockdowns :-)

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#40

Post by anigbrowl »

bbor wrote: post #11

Never loved this framework because the arbitrary quantization can make things look better than they are (“sure temps are up 4° but we’re still banning aerosols, so drill baby drill!”) but it’s certainly a good starter framework for getting people’s attention. And to those that read this and just give up: please don’t. We’ve done incredible things as a species, and today’s world is not based in unchangeable natural co…

Every time I say the solution is to restrain those who callously and deliberately profit off climate damage, by force if necessary, people get upset and downvote me, metaphorically speaking. But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity.

People who go to a museum and throw paint at a work of art (which is protected behind glass) are routinely condemned and sent to jail. But even if they were actually destroying art, their point is that many extractive industries are actually destroying the environment and killing off whole species, damaging human health etc., and not only does society tolerate this, in many cases it subsidizes it. We choose instead to condemn the people who draw attention to this.

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