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Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

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Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#41

Post by jjoonathan »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #12
jjoonathan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you have to choose what to do , and that's always going to involve unknowns. For instance: 40 years ago, the USA could have chosen to continue building out nuclear power. Not accelerate the deployment, mind you, merely continue the roll out apace. If we had done so, we would be completely free of coal and gas today . Not maybe 30 years from now if we hustle, today . One could rage all day against the ri…

Potentially destroying the ocean vs spending money to reduce carbon emissions is a no brainer, and it's the job of these scientists to say that out loudly rather than to push for these extreme solution which can produce a blackswan disaster of epic proportions that even money won't be able to save. The arrogance of scientists to "try out my method instead" is at fault since if these scientists were to actually want t…

> The arrogance

> you fail to understand

Indeed.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#42

Post by aaron695 »

GOONIMMUNE wrote: post #2

It seems more and more likely to me that the general approach to climate change is going to simply be adaptation. We'll have to figure out ways to live and grow food in a hotter world that has more dramatic weather events. I think this will be expensive and could tragically lead to the deaths of many people who cannot afford to live in this new world. If a large country with many poor people are faced with this situa…

> and could tragically lead to the deaths of many people who cannot afford to live in this new world.

We don't care about the billions who can't afford to live in the current world.

But we do care about the ones who can't afford to live in the new one!

Why is this? It took a rich silicon valley dude to care about polio. But every layperson wants to destroy the current economy for future people.

Being from the future they are super rich compared to us, like every new generation now, so perhaps they just are better at writing Twitter hash tags?

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#43

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

LatteLazy wrote: post #32
api wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no chance of stopping this. The challenge is massive even if there were political will, and there is no political will. We need to plan for climate change as a near certainty and start preparing now.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Move to land on a hill. Travel north. Buy up some tundra that will be futile farm land in 50 years. We should also pause for a minute and not the silent beauty of this consensus. No major leader, no scientist, no religious figure ever said Fuck it, let's not bother. But that's what our species have decided...

There's been a pretty concerted effort by the oil and gas company to just say "There's no problem"

There have also been the luke warmers who say that climate change is happening, but whos to say that is bad.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#44

Post by aaron695 »

This has been done, I think most people know this.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-...

You can track down the 8 years of followup articles and research papers.

There is no evidence it didn't work. There's evidence it did.

The trick is, tie it to fishing and it might make a difference. Or it might just take pressure off fisheries.

You have billions yet to eat more meat, so hurry up with your lab grown meat or start doing things like this, that also should get the same subsidies as things like solar power.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#45

Post by staplers »

24gttghh wrote: post #38
staplers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing we can do for the environment by far is reduce consumption of beef and dairy products. This is very false. Source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Maybe not the best overall, but definitely the cheapest and easiest thing a consumer can do, right now, today, is eat less red meat.

There are already subsidies which incentivize the production of cattle. Just like with corn, if demand goes down, they'll just find a way to use cattle for something else (like turning it into feed or some energy source). The average citizen has very say in macro-economic supply chains.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#46

Post by 24gttghh »

staplers wrote: post #45
24gttghh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not the best overall, but definitely the cheapest and easiest thing a consumer can do, right now, today, is eat less red meat.

There are already subsidies which incentivize the production of cattle. Just like with corn, if demand goes down, they'll just find a way to use cattle for something else (like turning it into feed or some energy source). The average citizen has very say in macro-economic supply chains.

I highly doubt ranchers would turn to grinding up beef herds just to make more feed. They would just grow more forage/feed crops. But they really wouldn't since it's the beef that needs the absurd volume of feed, so ideally they would just go out of business.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#47

Post by ncmncm »

Ma8ee wrote: post #9
GOONIMMUNE wrote: post #2

It seems more and more likely to me that the general approach to climate change is going to simply be adaptation. We'll have to figure out ways to live and grow food in a hotter world that has more dramatic weather events. I think this will be expensive and could tragically lead to the deaths of many people who cannot afford to live in this new world. If a large country with many poor people are faced with this situa…

Yes, we will have to adapt. That doesn’t change the fact we also must try to slow and minimise it as much as is possible. Adapting to two degrees is probably an order of magnitude easier than adapting to four or five degrees. We rich westerners will most likely only be inconvenienced. We have our AC and we can afford more expensive food. If you live close to the coast or a river you might need to move. The greatest p…

The problem we face is the rise of Fascism in response to those waves, and the bad government and, most likely, war, always instigated by Fascists.

It is already starting.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#48

Post by ncmncm »

omginternets wrote: post #36
frazbin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Terraforming' earth has never been easy but it has long been necessary to feed humans. Bulk addition of soluble/leachable nutrients (naturally depleted by rainfall, fractionation by gravity, and chemical transformation) is the primary novel intervention in modern agriculture. We've learned that biological systems can be made to cycle much faster by turning the crank in this way. The rewards are great-- used in land,…

Yes, this is all true, and yet it’s the unknowns that will get us. There was a time where burning coal seemed like a good idea.

We thought saving the Ozone Layer by switching from CFCs to HFCs was a good idea.

Joke's on us! The HFCs currently in use in systems worldwide, if vented and not carefully incinerated, will trap as much heat as all the CO2 in the atmosphere, for centuries.

Specify propane or ammonia systems, and make sure existing systems have their fluid extracted professionally.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#49

Post by ncmncm »

frazbin wrote: post #40
omginternets wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is all true, and yet it’s the unknowns that will get us. There was a time where burning coal seemed like a good idea.

Whether the unknowns will get us is.. unknown. We are going to learn about whole-planet ecology in the next century whether we intervene or not. Pretending that we know less than we really do is kind of a trademark regressive-right tactic, so you'll forgive me when I say it's quite disengenuous and harmful to compare coal combustion to iron fertilization. The negative externalities of coal combustion have been known…

More likely we will fall to what we thought we knew that was not, in fact, true.

It happened in Iraq, to the tune of $5T.

Re: Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

#50

Post by nix23 »

Ma8ee wrote: post #9
GOONIMMUNE wrote: post #2

It seems more and more likely to me that the general approach to climate change is going to simply be adaptation. We'll have to figure out ways to live and grow food in a hotter world that has more dramatic weather events. I think this will be expensive and could tragically lead to the deaths of many people who cannot afford to live in this new world. If a large country with many poor people are faced with this situa…

Yes, we will have to adapt. That doesn’t change the fact we also must try to slow and minimise it as much as is possible. Adapting to two degrees is probably an order of magnitude easier than adapting to four or five degrees. We rich westerners will most likely only be inconvenienced. We have our AC and we can afford more expensive food. If you live close to the coast or a river you might need to move. The greatest p…

>We rich westerners will most likely only be inconvenienced.

For how many generation will that be?

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