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Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

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Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#61

Post by rienbdj »

chrisco255 wrote: post #46
mirimir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm certainly not getting out alive. And so far, nobody that I know of has. Maybe someday, one day, though. But yes, you likely meant "we're" in the sense of the human race, or modern technological society. I really doubt that the human race is seriously at risk. Although global population could drop substantially. As part of modern technological society crashing. So it goes. It was probably inevitable. Edit: A…

Not getting how that's possible at all. An ice age would be far more devastating to the human race than a warming period. Crop yields are up: 1) https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornyl... 2) https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/riceyl... Ok, so food looks safe and secure. Um, lets see, what are the other basic needs? Shelter? Water? We've had the rainiest year in 125 years: https…

The productive and habitable locations will move and our governments will probably not keep up with migration crises. The issue is that there well be a dramatic reshuffling, even if total output remains strong.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#62

Post by bryanrasmussen »

pulisse wrote: post #15
revscat wrote: post #4

This seems like the perfect time to panic. I just don’t see how we’re getting out of this alive.

> I just don’t see how we’re getting out of this alive. Even worst case predictions for climate change don't imply the human race will be threatened. But what we will see is massive geopolitical disruption as previously habitable regions become uninhabitable. What happens when coastal Myanmar is underwater or southern India experiences 130 degree days on a regular basis? Climate change is going to make itself felt ov…

>Even worst case predictions for climate change don't imply the human race will be threatened.

I mean some obviously do https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/world-climate-ch...

here is someone who denies that it is an existential threat but provides a lot of nice links to people saying it is https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/06/04/i-denier-human-...

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#63

Post by loup-vaillant »

chrisco255 wrote: post #46
mirimir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm certainly not getting out alive. And so far, nobody that I know of has. Maybe someday, one day, though. But yes, you likely meant "we're" in the sense of the human race, or modern technological society. I really doubt that the human race is seriously at risk. Although global population could drop substantially. As part of modern technological society crashing. So it goes. It was probably inevitable. Edit: A…

Not getting how that's possible at all. An ice age would be far more devastating to the human race than a warming period. Crop yields are up: 1) https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/cornyl... 2) https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/riceyl... Ok, so food looks safe and secure. Um, lets see, what are the other basic needs? Shelter? Water? We've had the rainiest year in 125 years: https…

> We've got tons of resources for energy (more than ever in history).

Europe is already past its peak, and it already has some effects on its economy. (GPD is roughly proportional to the energy we spend: less energy, less stuff.) Unless we have some technological breakthrough, available energy will go down, and the economy will soon follow.

Malthus was wrong only because we found fossil fuels, allowing our crop yields to follow the exponential growth of the population (the growth used to be linear). If we're not careful, we could very well face a Malthusian collapse.Hmm.

> I'm really not seeing a reason to panic.

Certainly. Panicking only makes things worse. And the "time to panic" is precisely the time when we must not panic.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#64

Post by jpindar »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #27
jorblumesea wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "threatened". Sure, humans will continue to exist, we won't go extinct, at least not globally. But we're looking at local and possibly global societal collapse. If we're back 500 years in the past developmentally and technologically, that's a huge deal. Maybe even if you survive, can you go back to a world without vaccines, antibiotics and mass communication?

Do you think we can lose 500 years of tech development globally? I can see some areas becoming challenging and definitely a slowdown in progress but it seems unlikely that all this knowledge will evaporate

We might lose electronics and such, but we won't forget that a wood stove is more efficient than an open fireplace. We won't forget that it's a good idea to dig your outhouse far away from your source of drinking water.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#65

Post by noir_lord »

jorblumesea wrote: post #44
crispyporkbites wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think we can lose 500 years of tech development globally? I can see some areas becoming challenging and definitely a slowdown in progress but it seems unlikely that all this knowledge will evaporate

I don't have a good answer to that question, I'm not sure anyone does. But if society collapses, much of that knowledge goes with it. Our society is incredibly complex and fragile, with a very high degree of specialization. That makes us vulnerable to these kinds of issues. While the "dark ages" were hardly dark and ignorant, the collapse of the Roman empire meant advanced road building and concrete were lost for 150…

500 years would put us back to 1500ish, I can’t see that, steam technology and electric motors/turbines are simply doable (and where done) with not much technology to boot strap from, hand tools made machines which made specialised machines which repeated for generations but the first step comes back to steam and electrification.

It’s not like every book in every library would or could disappear.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#66

Post by jasonless »

Has anyone seen predictions that would provide a good estimate of when everyone would die? My sense is if we can surface this data to poor people quickly they might have time to save money and move to Northen Canada where most are saying the weather would be perfect as the climate heat average index increases. The more we share this on FB the faster we can save everyone. I think we can all agree rich people can stay in their original location bc they will have money to pay for AC. Just my 2 cents here.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#67

Post by crispyporkbites »

xwdv wrote: post #59
mikeash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re going straight from “we don’t really know if something is happening” to “it’s too late anyway so why bother” without going through the troublesome “we should try to stop this” phase.

If the world were a fine place worth fighting for, maybe you’d have a point. But increasingly, I just look around, see the news, see the social media, and think why bother? Humanity will never be anything more than this. Things seem to be wrapping up, don’t have kids, don’t try to save the world, just savor what is left till it’s gone. In the coming decades we will begin to see a loss in the knowledge of mankind, as…

Do you live on the same planet as me? The world is an incredible place and gets better every day!

I look at my children and their experiences growing up and it’s far better than mine ever were. If I had the choice I’d be born today.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#68

Post by andrewstuart »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #17
andrewstuart wrote: post #7

The biggest problem IMO is that people don't seem to be able grasp that governments simply cannot solve this. Only when there is that general understanding can people stop focusing on government as the path to solving this. Unfortunately however almost everyone focuses on government and elections which is simply wasting more time.

Individual action cannot convert to zero carbon generation, make treaties, implement carbon taxes, require impact labelling or ban unsustainable methods. Governments are the only ones with the necessary leverage. Even if we have to wait for some country to elect a Green party government, or there be enough XR style demonstrations disrupting the economy that they have to act.

All those certainties need to be loosened up.

New ideas are needed.

Clearly government has failed to solve this. And when there's a problem that needs solving, and the current 'solution' ain't working, well you'd be crazy to stick with that being 'the solution' wouldn't you?

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#69

Post by noir_lord »

mirimir wrote: post #24
ajconway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if Canada and Russia will be the nicest places to live in the next century.

The northern parts, sure. Also northern China. The Arctic could become the new Mediterranean.

Under what scenario would the temperature of the artic shift by more than 30C over the whole year...

That’s silly.

Re: Europe's record heat wave moves toward Greenland

#70

Post by pier25 »

kwk1 wrote: post #26
pier25 wrote: post #3

Greenland's ice sheet has been melting pretty fast for years [1]. Maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but using "threaten" sounds to me like until now it had been living peacefully unaffected by climate change. [1] https://www.livescience.com/64546-greenland-ice-sheet-meltin...

> Greenland's ice sheet has been melting pretty fast for years [1]. Your link talks about how the rate of ice sheet melting is increasing (currently 4x what it was in 2003), so I'm not sure how you arrived at this statement. The whole problem is not that it was never melting in the past, it's that the melting is accelerating, and that even the rate of acceleration may be increasing due to feedback loops; that is what…

> The whole problem is not that it was never melting in the past, it's that the melting is accelerating

Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that. My point is that we are way past the point of threats.

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