Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Not saying global warming is fake or not real, it definitely is. But imagine newspapers running stories about industrial pollution's effects on cancer rates or birth defects rather than lowering ice levels in Antarctica. There would probably be much more political will to fix things.

they do? industrial pollution is generally localized and highly publicized. look at the response to fracking, the mississippi river delta's nitrate levels, or any factory with known carcinogens in north america. there's plenty of coverage, but even when it's a problem that is going to effect many others, it's still seen as relatively local. communities are suing, the epa is seen as relatively defanged and it's become a struggle to get movement.

if you want to see what happens when long-term avoidance of ecological issues comes into play, look at what is happening near LA in areas where dustbowls have cropped up and people are finally being forced to deal with the empty watershed causing dust air pollution. or the lack of potable water in california and the large amount of press that is getting. or search google news for "hydrofluorocarbons" and see what's going on with those being banned.

there have always been people striving toward something _better_, it's just the understanding of by-products and effects of "better" have always been poorly understood. suburban sprawl generally was about families wanting yards and parks and schools that are "better" for their kids. the mass expansion and industrialization of american society post-WW2 was widely about looking toward the future where efficiency and wealth were prized. we wanted more time for family and entertainment and we got plastics and tv dinners.

"i still think the extinction of the human race would be a tragedy and a net deficit to the universe..."

hmmmm.....

it's hard to say, if we're all extinct, who is to judge?

dolphins don't have a rich oral culture talking about the good times before humans. maybe they do. it's probably kind of sad.

entire language of beeps and whistles all boils down to "stupid humans"

dolphins are pretty mean and probably would drown us all, one at a time, if they had a chance. bless em.

pfft dolphins, our real species enemy is the cephalopods. I for one salute our new cephalopod overlords.

whenever i watch olde tyme movies and t.v. shows - like now i'm watching hell on wheels - and they show those pristine landscapes and i know what happened because i'm from the future it just bums me out. so pretty. would be so peaceful without us. i love the christian native american on hell on wheels. "I don't think I have enough hate in my heart to be a Christian..."

I'd probably be okay ("okay") with the ultimate extinction of the human race if all of the other living species were able to survive whatever wiped us out.

on earth or

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/Id4whitehouse.jpg

Whose to say it hasn't happened before?

maybe aliens are just WAITING to start fresh and re-stock their zoo with other cooler animals that they have collected elsewhere.

they might have had bets on how long it would take us to wreck everything.

Considering that tardigrades can survive exposure to the vacuum in space and can withstand temperatures just above absolute zero and can be boiled in water, life in some form will surely persist, no matter what we do. But in the meantime, we've been taking out a chunk out of the biosphere with the current, ongoing mass extinction, of course.

This is a completely random personal note, but I'm in a depressive state right now, and it's weirdly comforting to think about the extinction of humanity.

Maybe global warming is just Earth's way of burning off pests that are effing it up for everything else. Like the Weapons in Final Fantasy VII.

tardigrades are so incredible, can't believe I'd never heard of them before Cosmos

This is a completely random personal note, but I'm in a depressive state right now, and it's weirdly comforting to think about the extinction of humanity.

― :wq (Leee), Thursday, July 9, 2015 1:02 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

take it to the depression thread.

feel like a few rules for this thread are in order, 1) no saying 'i don't care about global warming', 2) no jacking off to tech magic bullets unrelated to how reality works, 3) no telling us how much the thought of mass extinction soothes your mood disorder. ta!

While I'm certainly no misanthrope and I have a lot of affection for many of its individual members, it's hard for me to deny that homosapiens are kind of a garbage species. I'm sure the entirety of earth's other species would also find that hard to deny, had they an anthropomorphic ambassador through whom they could share their collective feelings.

remember what this guy said that time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4

"The planet is fine, the people are fucked."

the earth + plastic. love that part.

Yeah if anything this thread is an antidote to warm (sorry) feelings about the human race.

One can't help watching the whole overpopulation/unsustainable growth/resource shortage/greenhouse emissions story for several decades of adult life without some misanthropy seeping in.

Hern WM. 1993. Has the Human Species Become a Cancer on the Planet? A Theoretical View of Population Growth as a Sign of Pathology. Current world leaders, 36(6), 1089-1124.

http://i.imgur.com/1KEJu12.gif

Etc.
Hern WM. 1999. How many times has the human population doubled? Comparisons with cancer. Population and Environment, 21(1), 59-80.
Hern WM. 2008. Urban malignancy: similarity in the fractal dimensions of urban morphology and malignant neoplasms. International journal of anthropology, 23(1-2), 1-19.

take it to the depression thread.

feel like a few rules for this thread are in order, 1) no saying 'i don't care about global warming', 2) no jacking off to tech magic bullets unrelated to how reality works, 3) no telling us how much the thought of mass extinction soothes your mood disorder. ta!

― e-bouquet (mattresslessness), Thursday, July 9, 2015 3:18 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck off

http://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/my-global-warming-epiphany#.dsgyXRNg1

Wise words:

A simple trick one of my bosses at the Pentagon had taught me: He called it the nut test. I have tried it a dozen times or so in interviews, on scientists and skeptics of all sorts, and it quickly reveals whether you are getting a straight argument.

I was interviewing a chronic critic of global warming studies, particularly the 1998 “hockey stick” one that found temperatures in our century racing upward on a slope that mirrored a hockey blade pointed skyward. He argued vociferously that the study’s math was all messed up, and that this meant all of climate science was a sham.

I listened, and at the end of the interview, I gave him the nut test.

“What are the odds that you are wrong?” I asked, or so I remember.

“I’d say zero,” the critic replied. “No chance.”

That’s how you fail the nut test.

I had asked a climate scientist the same question on the phone an hour before.

“I could always be wrong,” the scientist said. Statistically, he added, it could be about a 20% to 5% chance, depending on what he might be wrong about.

That’s how you pass the nut test: by admitting you could be wrong.

Indeed

better buy a boat soon

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/20/climate-seer-james-hansen-issues-his-direst-forecast-yet.html?utm_content=buffer1b0f4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

There's so much carbon in the atmosphere that radiocarbon dating will soon be unreliable

The aging of the atmosphere predicted by these simulations has the potential to severely impact the use of radiocarbon dating. Within the next 85 y, the atmosphere may experience Δ14CO2 corresponding to conventional ages from within the historical period encompassing the Roman, Medieval and Imperial Eras. For archaeological or other items that are found without sufficient context to rule out a modern origin, radiocarbon dating will give ambiguous results.

Record Ocean Temperatures Threaten Hawaii's Coral Reefs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11762680/Three-scientists-investigating-melting-Arctic-ice-may-have-been-assassinated-professor-claims.html

Assassination? Is this real?

people can be assassinated by lightning bolt now huh

yikes, it's a shame this got published

if there is any conspiracy afoot here i'd say it was more likely to be an attempt to discredit climate scientists as a group by allowing one of them to go off on one in the media rather than big climate's efforts to bump them off one-by-one with flights of stairs and blots of lightning

No Foreseeable Relief After Iran City Feels Like Exceptional 163° F.

(that's 67.8° C for those in scientifically literate countries)

what the shit :O

terrifying

what is this "apparent temperature"? like in actuality it's not 68 degrees as such?

it includes measures of humidity in addition to air temp, i think? so it feels like 68 degrees on the ground, your sweat evapirates at the same rate it would in the apparent temp, that kind of thing

ah so factors like a breeze or whatever

yeah, i think so. can't imagine what standing outdoors in 68 degrees would feel like, jesus christ

it's terrifying - i was in seville last year and it was 42 and felt like a particularly hot 42 as it's inland, and that was unbearable, like you feel kind of ill. it must be really dangerous.

maybe the oligarchs will start caring about global warming because it will decrease worker productivity

I've been in 45 degrees in summer in Rome and it was close to unbearable, could hardly walk a couple blocks without stopping in the shade for a drink of (warmed by the sun) bottled water.

dead workers just harder to motivate

Over summer here in adelaide we regularly now get 2 weeks of 42-46 degree heat and its hell