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‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

theguardian.com

41–50 of 113 posts

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#41

In other news, population is declining among Japanese and this is a huge crisis as well. What exactly does life look like per capita if population continues to increase or stay the same? How is the solution to this problem not exactly what the Japanese are doing? Time to kill off our pyramid scheme economic growth models and barbaric bronze age "be fruitful and multiply" religions.

Indeed. Essentially, the resources available to the average person are sum_of_all_resources / total_nr_of_people. The amount of a lot of resources (energy, food, mobility, communication) to go around has grown greatly since the industrial revolution. But some resources, like land, minerals, fish in the sea, are just fundamentally limited. The only way to have more on average is to diverse what is available by less people.

Or you can just take more for yourself by stealing it from the less privileged and future generations, which seems to be the current modus operandi...

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#42
post #34
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a whole boatload of misdirection and but maybe. Yes, the sun shines and brings energy from above, yes the core is hot and brings energy from below. This was known centuries ago and is accounted for. "The ethical skeptic" is just parroting another form of denialism; it's not us, it's the flucuations from the sun, it's not us, the core is suddenly radiating more heat outwards, maybe it's the volcanos, perhaps it…

Yep, and in fine doesn't matter if it comes from the sun, the earth core or too many cow farts, the end result is the same

??

We cannot do much about heat from the core, but that's essentially steady state in the short term (50 year time scales) and declining in the long term (heading towards a cold rock).

We cannot do anything about the output of the sun, we can 'shade' ourselves by blowing bubbles in space or by (very very carefully) altering the atmosphere.

We can more directly alter our CO2 output and work on recovery from the atmosphere.

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President Biden can’t create legislation. That has to come from Congress. McCarthy (R) is speaker of the house. “Can’t the President issue executive orders?” Yes but the Supreme Court has been striking down and limiting the EPA from executing on executive orders or other mandates that the agency has. For example last year [1] > By a vote of 6 to 3, the court said that any time an agency does something big and new – i…

Democratic states can't create legislation for their own states?

they can and do.

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows an enormous amount of ignorance over how the US works. Because of gerrymandering, republicans own the House of Representatives, no legislation can pass from the legislative branch if the Congress and the House don’t agree. The executive branch can not “just” make new legislation. It’s not part of its power or job. You can’t blame Joe because Marjorie Taylor Greene and every so and so lunatic has decided to…

This shows an enormous amount of ignorance of how federalism works. Nothing is stopping Californians from banning fossil fuels.

California's Governor Gavin Newsom has banned the sale of new gasoline cars after 2035.

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen the analogy be made that it is comparable to avoiding the grounding of a big vessel, say an ocean tanker. The sooner you act the smaller the course and velocity changes will have to be, the later the more extreme and violent they will have to be. We're already well into the territory where we will in all likelihood not escape a grounding. But we can still choose the spot where we ground and indirectly affec…

> We're already well into the territory where we will in all likelihood not escape a grounding. The melting ice will increase sea levels sufficiently to avoid grounding.

That's your best effort at contributing to the discussion?

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#46
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President Biden can’t create legislation. That has to come from Congress. McCarthy (R) is speaker of the house. “Can’t the President issue executive orders?” Yes but the Supreme Court has been striking down and limiting the EPA from executing on executive orders or other mandates that the agency has. For example last year [1] > By a vote of 6 to 3, the court said that any time an agency does something big and new – i…

Democratic states can't create legislation for their own states?

I was responding to the person above who specifically called out the president, ergo federal level.

Second I want to mention there aren’t “Democratic” states or “Republican” states. Just states. Each state is full of Americans. Sometimes they vote for one party and sometimes they vote for another. For example I used to vote Republican and then the party has diverged from what I value. I live in the same state and that hasn’t changed.

To answer your question though which is why can’t states with supposed Democrat leadership or control create legislation for their own states - they can and often do. For example [1].

It’s important to note that Congress can take action at the federal level, and state legislatures can also take action at the state level and they’ll probably be able to do some very precise legislation that the federal government would have trouble with, but then the federal government can use its much greater power (and budget) to do things that any single state or group of states cannot.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/06/business/california-emissions...

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#47
post #4
post #2

“It is very much outside our understanding of this system.” This is what worries me: climate change leading to entirely new regimes that we don't understand and thus can't model or predict with any accuracy. You just can't build a seawall for a sealevel rise of between 50 and 300 cm somewhere in about 20 to 50 years. Or for heatwaves of maximum 35 to 45 degrees, precipitation of max 20-100mm/hour, etc. Climate adapta…

> in about 20 to 50 years That's the optimistic timeline :) I've read somewhere that up to half of Antarctic sea ice could easily disappear in hours or days, given right conditions. Greenland is not looking good either. https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/coming-soon When Greenland melts completely global sea levels will rise about 20 feet, or 7 meters. We aren’t talking about “if” anymore. We are way past that. Now,…

That's the big problem with anything involving feeback loops. There is a domain where it's unstable and then a small change can cause big and surprisingly rapid effects. Nature is full of such tricky stuff and there is unfortunately no manual so we are learning a lot of this stuff by experiencing it first hand.

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#48
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President Biden can’t create legislation. That has to come from Congress. McCarthy (R) is speaker of the house. “Can’t the President issue executive orders?” Yes but the Supreme Court has been striking down and limiting the EPA from executing on executive orders or other mandates that the agency has. For example last year [1] > By a vote of 6 to 3, the court said that any time an agency does something big and new – i…

Democratic states can't create legislation for their own states?

CA and NY are passing tons of legislation to fight climate change. They are 100% leading the charge.

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#49
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point, but is much being done while a democrat is in charge? Seems like Joe has squandered the best part of another term. Amendment: I didn't mean he is doing nothing, or a bad job, but he could even just address the UN or NATO and actually explain that while his hands are tied, he could offer support in any other way possible until America gets his head correct.

This shows an enormous amount of ignorance over how the US works. Because of gerrymandering, republicans own the House of Representatives, no legislation can pass from the legislative branch if the Congress and the House don’t agree. The executive branch can not “just” make new legislation. It’s not part of its power or job. You can’t blame Joe because Marjorie Taylor Greene and every so and so lunatic has decided to…

Not just the House. The Senate is de facto gerrymandered as well. Two senators for 700k in Wyoming vs 40M in California.

Re: ‘Something weird is going on’: Antarctic sea ice stays at historic lows

#50
post #2

“It is very much outside our understanding of this system.” This is what worries me: climate change leading to entirely new regimes that we don't understand and thus can't model or predict with any accuracy. You just can't build a seawall for a sealevel rise of between 50 and 300 cm somewhere in about 20 to 50 years. Or for heatwaves of maximum 35 to 45 degrees, precipitation of max 20-100mm/hour, etc. Climate adapta…

If we aren’t able to predict it then we need to assume the worst. Start moving inland/to higher areas now. I’m not optimistic though. I don’t understand why people (with the means) continue to live and rebuild in areas that regularly get savaged by hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

I think of Buckminster Fuller's "Spaceship Earth" concept of how we are all the crew on a spaceship and need to work together, and Jim Morrison's quote, "I'm just trying to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames", and I believe the model that humanity operates under is most accurately summarized as "Shithouse Earth".
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