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‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

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Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#41

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #40
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7bn do not consume like the US consumes.

They don't need to. Chinas CO2 per capita is over double the sustainable level. That's how high the bar here is, anywhere even half developed is massively too polluting. You need about 2/3 of the globe not just to stop GROWING emissions but to actively cut them.

The developing world's growth is largely fueled by consumption in the west - and the current CO2 in the atmosphere from the last 2 centuries was largely from the west as well.

The financial incentives to pollute are too great for developing countries. We can't expect them to bear the full brunt while Americans are buying F-150s and denying its existence.

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#42

Post by gshdg »

FooHentai wrote: post #23
gshdg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re called trees.

Not really - By converting pasture back to woodland you could potentially restore some of the released carbon from agriculture-driven destruction of old forest land. But it won't make up for the vast reserves of carbon that have been dredged up from deep underground and released to the atmosphere. If it's necessary to re-balance that withdrawal we're going to need to put something back down there, or come up with som…

AFAIK, every other method requires massive electricity input; and we’re still not getting enough energy from renewables for that not to mean spewing more additional carbon than we sequester for each unit sequestered.

(Of course, trees also require massive energy input. The difference is that we don’t have to supply that energy.)

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#43

Post by LatteLazy »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #41
LatteLazy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to. Chinas CO2 per capita is over double the sustainable level. That's how high the bar here is, anywhere even half developed is massively too polluting. You need about 2/3 of the globe not just to stop GROWING emissions but to actively cut them.

The developing world's growth is largely fueled by consumption in the west - and the current CO2 in the atmosphere from the last 2 centuries was largely from the west as well. The financial incentives to pollute are too great for developing countries. We can't expect them to bear the full brunt while Americans are buying F-150s and denying its existence.

I'm using co2 from consumption numbers there. The average Chinese person is already over twice the safe limit from their own emissions.

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#44

Post by magicnubs »

korantu wrote: post #19

> “senior U.N. environmental official” claims that if global warming isn’t reversed by 2030, then rising sea levels could wipe “entire nations . . . off the face of the Earth.” > Crop failures coupled with coastal flooding, he said, could provoke “an exodus of ‘eco-refugees,’ ” whose movements could wreak political chaos the world over. Unabated, the ice caps will melt away, the rainforests will burn, and the world w…

> instead of doing anything people just have their burger whole try can

I assume this is just a typo, but I can't for the life of me figure out what the original was

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#45

Post by makerofspoons »

magicnubs wrote: post #44
korantu wrote: post #19

> “senior U.N. environmental official” claims that if global warming isn’t reversed by 2030, then rising sea levels could wipe “entire nations . . . off the face of the Earth.” > Crop failures coupled with coastal flooding, he said, could provoke “an exodus of ‘eco-refugees,’ ” whose movements could wreak political chaos the world over. Unabated, the ice caps will melt away, the rainforests will burn, and the world w…

> instead of doing anything people just have their burger whole try can I assume this is just a typo, but I can't for the life of me figure out what the original was

I read it as "instead of doing anything people will just have their burger while they can"

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#46

Post by lcam84 »

klipt wrote: post #27
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a whole lot that we can do. A plant caused the last ice age[1]. If we could genetically engineer that plant to grow on the ocean, it would sequester an incredible amount of CO2. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

Most of the discussion of combatting climate change focuses on reducing atmospheric CO2, but there's an entire second category of approaches: Solar Radiation Management, some of which could be much faster and cheaper than reducing CO2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation_management While reducing CO2 emissions via investment in renewables is still an important long term goal, if we're already heading toward…

I find some challenges in geo engineering: - Problem shifting. Gaia is a very complex system, and geoengineering solutions can have unexpected effects - We don't just have the problem of climate change to solve. Loss of biodiversity, acidification of the oceans, soil loss have to be taken into account. - We have the jevons paradox. By finding a technical solution to the problem we can think that it is justifiable to continue polluting.

If we could slow down human activity, nature would begin to regenerate. I think it is possible to slow down our development without any major problems for humanity, after all we have never lived in a period of such prosperity. It would be a matter of maintaining our level of wealth (or even lowering it a little) instead of aspiring to more.

Solutions created by us are usually fragile compared to natural systems that are anti-fragile.

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#47

Post by lcam84 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #17
lcam84 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you are right, but we need to try something and for me this is what make sense. For instance did you notice the effect of covid in the environment? We need to challenge assumptions. The assumption of growth is one of them. We need to have intrinsical objectives. The goal should not be to save the planet but to act in the best possible way to make it happen.

How do you and me try degrowing the world economy? We can't. >The goal should not be to save the planet but to act in the best possible way to make it happen. Sorry, but this sort of thinking is exactly what has gotten us nowhere for the last 50+ years.

We could channel the consuption taxes to a UBI. This would make local economies more competitive compared the global economy. For example, taxes on fossil fuels would make products made from far away more expensive than local products. With time UBI would not be needed as local economies tooked the global economy role.

There are many attitudes towards climate change. We can be too optimistic and tell ourselves that we do not need to worry because we will have a solution in the future. We can be very pessimistic and think that it is no longer worth it, we all gonna die. I want to have a middle position, I know it is a very big challenge and there are great possibilities, that it will not be possible to reverse what lies ahead, but we will try nevertheless. The objective is not what will happen to the planet, the objective is to define what is our role in all of this.

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#48

Post by n4r9 »

gshdg wrote: post #42
FooHentai wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really - By converting pasture back to woodland you could potentially restore some of the released carbon from agriculture-driven destruction of old forest land. But it won't make up for the vast reserves of carbon that have been dredged up from deep underground and released to the atmosphere. If it's necessary to re-balance that withdrawal we're going to need to put something back down there, or come up with som…

AFAIK, every other method requires massive electricity input; and we’re still not getting enough energy from renewables for that not to mean spewing more additional carbon than we sequester for each unit sequestered. (Of course, trees also require massive energy input. The difference is that we don’t have to supply that energy.)

Which leads back to my question: is it not possible that we may find a technological alternative to trees which scales better and does not require us to supply so much energy.

Re: ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists

#49

Post by gshdg »

n4r9 wrote: post #48
gshdg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, every other method requires massive electricity input; and we’re still not getting enough energy from renewables for that not to mean spewing more additional carbon than we sequester for each unit sequestered. (Of course, trees also require massive energy input. The difference is that we don’t have to supply that energy.)

Which leads back to my question: is it not possible that we may find a technological alternative to trees which scales better and does not require us to supply so much energy.

I suspect the chemistry of it requires as much energy put into sequestering as is captured by releasing it. But... I could be wrong.
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