Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

He probably just gets bored giving the same warnings over and over and over again and comes up with random little stats like that because he's already used "INCREDIBLY, MINDBOGGLINGLY LOW" in a bunch of articles and speeches.

yeah fair enough. when he says about the reserves of fuel, and says something like "that's the end of it" or whatever, is he talking about literally the entire planet being destroyed? is there a total extinction scenario here, or what?

he writes, "You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet – but now that we know the numbers, it looks like you can't have both. Do the math: 2,795 is five times 565. That's how the story ends."

and before that he says: "Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. ("Reasonable," in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)"

no one is talking about the planet being destroyed, literally. the planet will be here for billions of years after humans are raptured into the loving glorious arms of jesus christ our savior. and few people are suggesting that global warming will cause humans to go "extinct". however, the implication for exceeding the "safe" amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (and there's a not small chance that it's already too late) is a transition, during our lifetimes, to a pretty miserable existence - scorching summers, more extreme weather both in terms of quantity and intensity, droughts, water scarcity, rising infectious diseases, millions of climate refugees, etc etc

of course, if you're rich you can survive pretty nicely for a while by gating yourself off from the rest of the world and hiring people to make the annoying people who want food and shelter to go away. the same thing will be going on, on a larger scale, with nation-states

somehow i doubt that a country full of people like this is going to react in a non-despicable fashion when the shit hits the fan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43lcd11QUqo

that clip is the tragedy of late-period U.S. in a nutshell, imo

sorry, Bloomberg is just engaging in vomitorious megalomania.

super-sized sodas' terrifying new math

That clip literally makes me sick to my stomach. I really hate this country some days.

Vomitorious megalomania or no vomitorious megalomania, in politics you take your allies where you can find them.

& Bloom was Bam's ally when he ejected OWS, don't forget

or perhaps sockpuppet

the planet will be here for billions of years after humans

It was interesting (to me, at any rate) to learn that due to the increasing luminosity of the sun as it processes through the main sequence, multi-cellular life only has about 800 million years left, and eukaryotic life about 1.2 billion. Terrestrial planets around G2 stars only offer about a 2 billion year window for complex lifeforms, which goes some way to explaining the Fermi paradox. The thought most civilizations can't handle the temptation of fossil energy may account for paradox entirely.

That clip literally makes me sick to my stomach. I really hate this country some days

yeah--the sort of people whose reponse to a question about the planet being irremediably fucked is to triumphantly shout 'USA! USA! USA!'... this is why we non-US people look at (some of) you guys with alarm and terror

hey as long as you realize that isn't the response that all of us take

If the planet is irredeemably fucked I'm going to stock up on Ativan

ditto with aging and death tho probably

hey as long as you realize that isn't the response that all of us take

Absolutely--it's just that they're the ones we tend to see on the telly/internet/in power

My mother-in-law is a born-again Christian and a teatard, and when I posted something on FB this morning mentioning climate change, this was her brilliant response:

Tell the folks waiting in line for gas for 6 to 8 hours in New York about climate change... and how do you plan to stop hurricanes? the climate has been changing since the earth was born... duh..

In the face of that, we're doomed.

would the baseball players on steroids analogy work on her? Climate change doesn't "cause" any single hurricane, but it makes them more frequent and more powerful, just like steroids don't cause any single home run, they just make them more frequent and more powerful?

yeah we're doomed

duh

yeah you can't argue with that can you. . . we're fucked

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/11/hurricane-sandy-the-aftermath/100397/

if you don't have anything that needs gasoline you don't have to wait in a gas line, duh

to get back to the point though,phil D...how do YOU plan to stop hurricanes?

death ray iirc

I believe George Carlin cut to the chase: "The planet will be fine -- SAVE US"

yeah, i sympathize with that, and i think that people are more likely to respond to warnings about the future of humanity rather than making it about polar bears.

still, it should be worth noting that it's projected that with a 4 degrees celsius rise in temperature by 2100, more than 50% of the earth's species would go extinct.

we're currently on track for a 6 degrees celsius rise in temperature by 2100, according to the International Energy Agency .

6 degrees celsius rise in temperature by 2100

oh shit! oh dear! (for the celsius-challenged, that's ~11 degrees fahrenheit)

that is pretty fucking bad

we're so fucked

all this shit reminds me of my great-uncle, who didn't believe in saving for retirement, because the rapture would have happened by then

last I checked, he's in his mid 80s, still doing some sort of work, and has some deadbeat kids

PLAN NOW BECAUSE YOU MIGHT NOT MERCIFULLY DIE BEFORE THINGS GO TO SHIT

...isn't that exactly what the antichrist would say in this situation?

more proof of the forthcoming rapture

more than 50% of the earth's species would go extinct

yes but how many of those are just beetles

already 50% extinct iirc

god must be pissed cause that's like 150k species right there?

Would the parable of the flood (not THE Flood), and the poxy fule sending away would-be rescuers because God would provide, be of any use for the pious?

tbh i don't think there are actually that many people who actually don't worry about global warming because of their belief that a rapture will save the day. unfortunately my dad is one of those people, but it's not too common from what i can tell. and there are some good books that lay out lots of christian arguments for doing something on climate change, citing the role of humanity as steward's of God's creation, etc. i wish my dad was that kind of christian. but i think it's easy to expend too much energy on the subset of rapture/global warming people because at least they have some sort of tangible, coherent reason for why they're not paying attention to hordes of scientists warning that we're about to be in deep shit. it may not be a reason that makes any sense to me, but at least it's something besides apathy and shrugging shoulders, and so it's easy to focus on it because at least there's something to attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugRhP2QS94s

So in short, Obama is stupid and unserious because he promised to stop the rise in the oceans that isn't happening because Al Gore is fat. But Obama is also weak and incapable because he didn't stop the rise in the oceans that isn't happening--but actually is happening because New York is drowning. Mayor Bloomberg can point to Obama's lack of success in this area, of course, since he endorsed him.

christ, this is depressing on so many levels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAuRrmSUQ08

I am dealing with global warming by never having kids and by drinking a lot so I will die early of cirrhosis of the liver

A man, a plan, a fatal disease.

not directly related to global warming (it's about nuclear winter) but i think re catastrophic environmental shift + survival of humanity it's relevant:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/11/nuclear-winter-and-human-extinction-qa-with-luke-oman.html

LOL comments box, the first guy says

Interesting article, though the fact that Luke Oman gave a 1 in 10,000 probability on a question where model uncertainty is so obviously a problem does not exactly inspire confidence in him.

and then goes on to say "here are 10 things that aren't in your model" and then just ballparks 1 in 100 out of nowhere, based on things like, uh, doomsday bombs, human extinction cults, mountains of decaying bodies, and how modern humans are non-viable

Anybody gonna check out the 350.org Do The Math Tour? I'm going to the presentation in SF on Saturday. Looks like they just got the Mayor of Seattle to agree to divest the city from fossil fuels.

I am dealing with global warming by never having kids and by drinking a lot so I will die early of cirrhosis of the liver

Misread this as "clitoris of the liver." Now I know why everything feels completely amazing when I'm drinking.

bonnie tyler's total clitoris of the liver

misread that as "tyler perry's total clitoris of the river"