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Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#61

Post by c0nducktr »

throwaway9990 wrote: post #31
czechdeveloper wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This vastly underestimates human capacity to destroy earth, which is also reason why lost of people do not believe in climate change to begin with. If we go, all vertebrates go too. At least all cat and bigger sized. Life will survive, but I would not call if "fine". Is it still fine if it's only microscopic life? When it stops being fine?

Dinosaurs died off. Earth is fine. I think unless we start blowing up Earth with nuclear weapons on purpose, it will be fine. If humans are gone today, the CO2 levels will go back to normal pretty quickly with plenty of animals surviving all over the place.

I don't really care if the "Earth is fine" if it's uninhabitable for humans.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#62

Post by StavrosK »

stingraycharles wrote: post #60
StavrosK wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problem, it's when something can be improved when everyone does the right thing together, but nobody has any incentive to do the right thing alone. Exactly like dumping trash everywhere, if you do the right thing alone, you're just inconveniencing yourself by spending money to dispose of trash properly while everyone else dumps it wherever.

Thanks again, very informative. So does that mean that the prisoner's dilemma is unrelated to this ? The reason I mentioned that is that I figured there were two outcomes: - be rich/save money now, and get a possible competitive edge over other countries - invest in your future, long-term assuming other countries do the same

The tragedy of the commons can be modeled as a game, and the matrix can be similar to the one from the prisoner's dilemma, but they're not exactly the same. For example, if you properly recycle and I just dump my trash, I'm not better off than if we just both dumped our trash, which is what happens with the prisoner's dilemma. Basically, the prisoners have an incentive to deceive each other, whereas in the tragedy of the commons, you generally don't.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#63

Post by jacquesm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the exact same effect but through a different path. Thinnk of it as a house, no matter where the house develops problems you'll always see it in the roof.

Not sure I understand the analogy. What classes of problems a house can develop structurally that are primarily visible standing on the roof, before the whole thing collapses? Or do you mean that even a partial collapse always affects things above it?

Any change in the structure of a house will typically affect the roofline. That's why checking the roofline is a very good thing to do when purchasing a house, if the roof is straight that is an important data point about walls and foundation supporting that roof. A sagging roof is a sure sign of problems in the rest of the building, rarely a sign of trouble with the roof itself.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#65

Post by coliveira »

stingraycharles wrote: post #3
swampthinker wrote: post #2

I hate this feeling of hopelessness regarding global warming. It feels like even if you were a billionaire/massive corp, at some point you would say "wow we should stop, or else there won't even be a world to spend this money in".

I think it's partially related to something akin to the prisoner's dilemma: it's a world-wide problem, and "we" might not want to take the financial hit for being the first in leading the cause. I spent quite some time in South-East Asia the past few years, and when you see the sheer amount of boats that just dump all their trash in the ocean, and the sheer lack of awareness of the issue, it makes you hopeless. I com…

> I can't help but wonder whether this is all just a show

Do you know that the garbage that is "recycled" in the USA used to be sent (until Dec 2017) directly to China? This is one of the scams of the century. Nobody knows what China does with the material they cannot use, and in fact they just decided not to take it anymore.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#66

Post by TeMPOraL »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
TeMPOraL wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I understand the analogy. What classes of problems a house can develop structurally that are primarily visible standing on the roof, before the whole thing collapses? Or do you mean that even a partial collapse always affects things above it?

Any change in the structure of a house will typically affect the roofline. That's why checking the roofline is a very good thing to do when purchasing a house, if the roof is straight that is an important data point about walls and foundation supporting that roof. A sagging roof is a sure sign of problems in the rest of the building, rarely a sign of trouble with the roof itself.

Thanks! I'll remember that if I'll need to buy a house.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#67

Post by thatcat »

bamboozled wrote: post #17
yodsanklai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your feeling, but I also note this contradiction: > I spent quite some time in South-East Asia > I come home, diligently recycling my trash Not saying you shouldn't recycle your trash, but your flights are much more impactful for the environment than your trash.

Is flying really that bad compared to ocean pollution? I feel like flying is overall a pretty efficient means of transport, everything is geared towards efficiency. Plastic in the oceans, now that’s a mess.

Flying is ocean pollution.

By emitting that large amount of co2, you are disrupting the ocean co2 flux, reducing o2 available and causing acidification. The warming caused by the thermal capacity of the co2 melts the polar ice , cooling the oceans and reducing their salinity. Plastic is relatively a small problem.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#68

Post by rsync »

brohoolio wrote: post #24
swampthinker wrote: post #2

I hate this feeling of hopelessness regarding global warming. It feels like even if you were a billionaire/massive corp, at some point you would say "wow we should stop, or else there won't even be a world to spend this money in".

We fixed the ozone layer and stopped acid rain. We can fix this. It just takes commitment.

"We fixed the ozone layer and stopped acid rain. We can fix this. It just takes commitment."

That's not a good comparison - ozone layer and acid rain were caused by very specific externalities that were relatively easily substituted with "better" ones that didn't cause (for instance) ozone holes and acid rain.

Carbon, on the other hand, is the least common denominator of human activity - so much so that even our breath produces it. I don't see any possible patterns of human existence on the earth that are ex-carbon.

Carbon output is a simple function of population in a way that ozone and sulfur are not.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#69

Post by anothertwo »

the8472 wrote: post #32
brohoolio wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We fixed the ozone layer and stopped acid rain. We can fix this. It just takes commitment.

acid rain: stop emitting sulfur, it'll wash out of the atmosphere within years, forests will recover in decades ozone layer: stop emitting CFCs, they'll decompose over decades and ozone concentrations will rise again climate change: just stop emitting carbon and... no wait, we're still locked into centuries of rising ocean levels and temperatures even if we lowered everything to zero right now. It would take actively…

Extracting CO2 could very well be possible.

Re: Ocean's Oxygen Starts Running Low (2016)

#70

Post by Tharkun »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55
spodek wrote: post #45

Nobody mentioned reducing pollution and greenhouse emission is the best way to help the situation so I will -- non-polluting alternatives to flying, eating meat, heating and cooling (I'm surprised how many people heat their homes in the winter so they can walk around in shorts), packaged food. Having fewer children. As a community, HN seems to think nuclear energy is easy while carpooling or flying less are misguided…

> As a community, HN seems to think nuclear energy is easy while carpooling or flying less are misguided wastes of effort. Yes, because it's the truth. Knowing that reflects understanding. It's orders of magnitude easier to design[0] a nuclear reactor than it is to get a meaningful number of people to voluntarily refrain from flying, or even driving cars. Getting lots of people to agree on something, especially when…

That's an interesting perspective, and one I hadn't considered before. I have to admit that it only fuels my fatalism. If people can't be convinced not to (e.g.) throw their trash out the window, then I can't help but despair.
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