Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries' • Hacker News Board

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#71

Post by ghastmaster » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:16 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #54

ghastmaster wrote: post #46

> Earth’s oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, providing a valuable carbon sink as humans burn fossil fuels. But this process also makes the oceans more acidic, which can disturb the formation of shells and coral skeletons and affect fish life cycles, per the report. Atmospheric CO2 levels are at historic lows.[1] Bivalves have shells and evolved during the Cambrian Explosion. The Cambrian explosion took…

The animals alive in it today aren't adapted to these Cambrian conditions though?

That's the $50,000,000,000,000 question.[1] Are they adapted? Will they adapt? Who knows?

1 - https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/cost-to-end-climate-chang...

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#72

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:16 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #40

bbor wrote: post #11

Never loved this framework because the arbitrary quantization can make things look better than they are (“sure temps are up 4° but we’re still banning aerosols, so drill baby drill!”) but it’s certainly a good starter framework for getting people’s attention. And to those that read this and just give up: please don’t. We’ve done incredible things as a species, and today’s world is not based in unchangeable natural co…

Every time I say the solution is to restrain those who callously and deliberately profit off climate damage, by force if necessary, people get upset and downvote me, metaphorically speaking. But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity. People who go to a museum and throw…

> People who go to a museum and throw paint at a work of art (which is protected behind glass) are routinely condemned and sent to jail.

They're condemned because their way of protesting is worthless. Protesting only works if it either inconveniences people enough to trigger action or if it targets the people actually responsible. If they truly believed that climate change was a critical issue, then they should take a page from how union strikes used to work.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#73

Post by ghastmaster » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

circlefavshape wrote: post #53

ghastmaster wrote: post #46

> Earth’s oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, providing a valuable carbon sink as humans burn fossil fuels. But this process also makes the oceans more acidic, which can disturb the formation of shells and coral skeletons and affect fish life cycles, per the report. Atmospheric CO2 levels are at historic lows.[1] Bivalves have shells and evolved during the Cambrian Explosion. The Cambrian explosion took…

"Historic"? I do not think it means what you think it means

500,000,000 years of my understanding of atmospheric CO2 concentration is what I was referring to as "Historic".

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#74

Post by butterknife » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

superb_dev wrote: post #33

redleggedfrog wrote: post #29

Way back in the SimEarth days I got introduced to the Gaia concept, which at the time seemed a little hokey, but as time goes on seems more and more apt. Not trying to sound like Agent Smith, but sure seems like the earth is treating humans like a virus and is warming itself up to get rid of us. We had a long time to see it coming, but it's not politically popular to acknowledge it, and here in the U.S. you can signa…

The earth is not warming itself, WE are warming the earth

Why are WE distinct from Earth?

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#75

Post by not_the_fda » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #44

withinboredom wrote: post #5

I’ve kind of accepted we are screwed. Whether I am alive when shit hits the fan or not is another question. But seeing that people are trying to build satellite mirrors to put MORE solar energy into the planet without even thinking about it for more than a few minutes, I would say we are more screwed than we realize. The first law of stupidity applies.

Nah, this is just doom and gloom based on persistent and pervasive messaging. On large geological timescales, our temperatures are pretty close to the mean. Even given the last 500 million years, we're nowhere near the peak [1]. Will habitable zones change? Yes. Will migrations occur? Yes. Will there be unrest leading to disease, famine and death? Yes, for sure. And we could get all those things from war, a major nat…

Humans haven't lived on the planet on geological timescales. All of human civilization only became possible because 10k years ago the climate cooled and stabilized enough for there to be agriculture.

Without agriculture there is no human civilization, no nation states, no institutions. We go back to being hunter gathers.

With an unstable climate agriculture disappears. Billions will dies, life expediencies will crater, the modern world you know will no longer exist.

Yes, the planet will be fine, at one point it was a giant snowball, humans are fucked.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#76

Post by RandomThoughts3 » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #40

bbor wrote: post #11

Never loved this framework because the arbitrary quantization can make things look better than they are (“sure temps are up 4° but we’re still banning aerosols, so drill baby drill!”) but it’s certainly a good starter framework for getting people’s attention. And to those that read this and just give up: please don’t. We’ve done incredible things as a species, and today’s world is not based in unchangeable natural co…

Every time I say the solution is to restrain those who callously and deliberately profit off climate damage, by force if necessary, people get upset and downvote me, metaphorically speaking. But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity. People who go to a museum and throw…

> We choose instead to condemn the people who draw attention to this.

We condemn them because what they do is dumb not because they draw attention to climate change. It’s the same thing as glorifying a teenager skipping school. Climate activists are incredibly good at killing their own credibility. That’s why most people don’t bank on them to change anything.

> But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity.

It’s a useless way of tackling the issue. You won’t magically convince the global population to have a worse life especially considering inequalities are so high. You go tell the Nigerian that they should accept to die of starvation (the country feeds itself through oil export and its population is booming) because sadly the USA polluted too much. It’s all for the greater good after all.

Meanwhile, people actually tackling the issue are making impressive strides in the right direction. You want to solve global warming? Go do research on cleaner tech. Throwing soup at paintings is a pointless waste of time.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#77

Post by Aachen » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #23

lotsofpulp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the assumption coming from that a “shit hits the fan” event will happen? What if it is just a slow degradation in myriad aspects of quality of life only felt over the course of decades?

Ah yes, the myriad aspects of quality of life that has degraded over decades. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-activists-disasters-fir...

Regarding the second link, it seems to put off climate issues as something we're mastering based on extreme weather events and other disasters like earthquakes resulting in fewer and fewer casualties despite having more and more humans on the planet to be potentially struck. They start the article with climate protests, but those protests are looking decades to centuries into the future; it's not about the type of events we've historically encountered. This amazingly positive trend is much less likely to continue if we go far beyond the Paris agreement's temperature, which we've just about started crossing afaik. That's what those protests are about, it's not about our own lives or lifetimes necessarily...

Did upvote your comments btw because your general point about the world not having been going to shit is underrepresented and was, to me, very important to learn about (about five years ago now)

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#78

Post by worldsayshi » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:20 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #60

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern era of humans roughly coincides with Earth's coldest period over the last 485M years: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705 Even some of the worst predictions for where temperatures are headed before we get close to Net Zero emissions don't put us above historical averages. To be clear, if the worst predictions come to light, that will be bad for people. But the planet will be fine. I doubt s…

Afaik Earth turning into Mars would require shedding the magnetic field such that our atmosphere can be stripped by solar radiation Venus seems more in reach but I don't know the specifics. Will continue researching in my evil scientist retreat

Venus atmosphere has a very different composition.

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#79

Post by bbor » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #72

anigbrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I say the solution is to restrain those who callously and deliberately profit off climate damage, by force if necessary, people get upset and downvote me, metaphorically speaking. But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity. People who go to a museum and throw…

> People who go to a museum and throw paint at a work of art (which is protected behind glass) are routinely condemned and sent to jail. They're condemned because their way of protesting is worthless. Protesting only works if it either inconveniences people enough to trigger action or if it targets the people actually responsible. If they truly believed that climate change was a critical issue, then they should take…

  The movement was characterized by nonviolent mass protests and civil disobedience following highly publicized events such as the lynching of Emmett Till. These included boycotts such as the Montgomery bus boycott, "sit-ins" in Greensboro and Nashville, a series of protests during the Birmingham campaign, and a march from Selma to Montgomery.

Eh, none of that seems to fall into either of the buckets you describe, other than maybe sit-ins "targeting" racist owners of restaurants. Plus, I know this is annoying but... source? Any data backing that claim?

Re:JustStopOil, they also regularly target banks and private jets. It's just that those protests get much less attention in the press, and draw harsher criminal punishments. How else do you make progress on changing laws other than convincing voters that it's a problem?

Assuming we can't just do what the US did for civil rights and rely on an unusually powerful judiciary to save the day via anti-democratic fiat ;)

Re: Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'

#80

Post by hodgesrm » Fri, Sep 27, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #40

bbor wrote: post #11

Never loved this framework because the arbitrary quantization can make things look better than they are (“sure temps are up 4° but we’re still banning aerosols, so drill baby drill!”) but it’s certainly a good starter framework for getting people’s attention. And to those that read this and just give up: please don’t. We’ve done incredible things as a species, and today’s world is not based in unchangeable natural co…

Every time I say the solution is to restrain those who callously and deliberately profit off climate damage, by force if necessary, people get upset and downvote me, metaphorically speaking. But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity. People who go to a museum and throw…

> But even if they were actually destroying art, their point is that many extractive industries are actually destroying the environment and killing off whole species...

How does trashing art actually solve the problem? It just makes people with normal level of concern who are actually trying to do something look as if they are in cahoots with people who are bonkers.