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

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

#91

Post by bregma »

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

Well, no.

Primarily, the sun warms the surface of the Earth, and the Earth itself generates heat.

What WE are doing is reducing the amount of heat radiated from the surface of the Earth until atmospheric expansions reaches a new equilibrium. In other words, we're affecting the radiative cooling equilibrium of the Earth. We are not heating it in any way.

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

#92

Post by abeppu »

bongodongobob wrote: post #41
abeppu wrote: post #37

> “The overall diagnostic is that the patient, Planet Earth, is in critical condition,” says Johan Rockström The planet as a patient is a problematic metaphor. What does this mean? A human patient in critical condition is at risk of dying. But the planet is not going to "die", though many species will. We need better ways of talking clearly (not with hyperbole) about the current situation and the stakes. Even with se…

Why does this argument always come up? We all know the planet won't die. Humans might though. That's why we're concerned. This is always presented as some "ackshully" very smart argument. Yeah, it's a big fuckin rock, of course it won't die. That's not the concern.

So what does it mean? A lead person with the project said it, and it was the only quote from that person that made it into the article. The boundaries are explicitly said to not be known tipping points, so we don't know that some new mechanisms become dominant outside of them. We're only told that leaving these bounds is "higher-risk" and that inside the bounds is some "safe zone" but the actual risk or the meaning of "safety" in this context are not communicated.

This is a leading science publication reporting on an apparently notable finding about how serious the current situation is, but the actual information presented is either vague or hyperbolic.

Note, I'm not saying the situation isn't serious, or that drastic action isn't warranted. I'm saying this piece, discussing this work, is at minimum sloppy and unclear, and I think this is at the level of being counter-productive. When the situation is serious, try speaking clearly rather than in shrill metaphor.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

yieldcrv wrote: post #24
_rrnv wrote: post #22

Planet Earth will be fine. It survived much worse than some little human emissions. The meteor and winter that followed that killed off the dinosaurs was much worse than some elevated CO2. Whether humanity survives this is another question. My bet is we will, since we are like roaches. But many will die for the sins of the few. Interestingly, these few who will survive are probably the ones who created this mess and…

I think people are more concerned about the coral reefs than the humans

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by Vecr »

superb_dev wrote: post #38
gruntledfangler wrote: post #28

“The health check will also serve as a “mission-control center” for decision-making, per the statement, by using satellite data, A.I. and multiple scientific disciplines—as well as the wisdom of Indigenous peoples, which is something the researchers hope to incorporate more of in following editions” Just in case you were considering taking this seriously…

Sounds like they’re using all available resources. What’s wrong?

Are they limiting the input to a 1% cap, then multiplying the difference from the actual model by 0.000000001?

If so it might not be too bad in practice, but it's still bad science. It's like someone today took planetary epicycles and copied them verbatim into their car physics simulator. Yeah, it probably won't be a material detriment, but why are they in there?

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

#96

Post by infinite8s »

redsunglasses wrote: post #84
ghastmaster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last 400,000 years the concentration has fluctuated from about 180ppm to about 300 many times.[1] My historical reference in the previous post was the last 500,000,000 years. In that context we are low. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmo...

Since our species' collective life comprises the last 400,000 years, and we are 420ppm now, do you think it's also fair to say that we are historic highs?

Maybe ghastmaster is a super-intelligent bivalve.

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

#97

Post by wongarsu »

ghastmaster wrote: post #73
circlefavshape wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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".

Technically that's prehistoric. History conventionally starts with the invention of writing

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

#98

Post by sickofparadox »

roschdal wrote: post #21

Humanity needs to stop flying all the time.

"No vacations far away" or "No visiting distant family" are not winning rallying cries for climate change and will, in fact, doom any movement that tries to use them.

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

#99

Post by Aachen »

mistrial9 wrote: post #64
roschdal wrote: post #21

Humanity needs to stop flying all the time.

humanity is not flying.. a very, very small subset of humanity.. and "largest carbon footprint has most prestige" is a very real phenomenon among that set. Four times in the last month I have read bragging stories mentioning very privelaged and therefore "elite" individuals described, including extreme private airplane use. Watch for the kneejerk response, too. Anti-"climate protest" media commonly uses the "flying h…

On that topic, I was recently very surprised to learn that only 3% of Indians were ever on a flight in their life. With the country being so geographically large and so many Indian people in workplaces and conferences and everything (as in, it's just normal to me), it blew my mind to realise that most of these are actually all among the top richest fraction

It's just crazy how well-off we are compared to so many people around the world in not just low- but also middle- income countries. We really could do well to take a small step back and get everyone onto some fair middle ground while we fix these emissions

Edit: found the source: Polymatter's video "Why there are no flights between India and China" from earlier this month, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuWAdYl5icY at 16:32

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

#100

Post by fzeroracer »

bbor wrote: post #79
fzeroracer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, othe…

> 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?

You do realize that said protest caused mass inconvenience, right? It was upending a lot of the racist norms at the time which in turn triggered waves of violence against black protesters which is what started the ball rolling. Said waves of violence also lead to the creation of the Black Panthers which actively scared many parts of the government at the time.

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