Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

it's a moving number that will always change with resource depletion, climate, efficiency of applications, and when skynet becomes sentient.

I suppose living in a society where the 8 richest people are worth as much as the poorest 4,000,000,000 fudges the numbers a bit

MOV EOT MARS

elon and grimes already closed the sarcophagus drank the fluid and flew there to stake properties, also mars is now named "musk."

re the map up there, gonna give my friends in Saskatoon a call

Three things surprised me reporting this story:
1) I didn't realize just how much of the US economy depends on outdoor labor
2) Heat hurts productivity well before it reaches dangerous levels
3) There's no national workplace heat protection standardhttps://t.co/b2dKSrIJnF

— Umair Irfan (@umairfan) July 27, 2018

I was listening to a piece on the radio on how recently built glass fronted apartments in London have been built to a spec for a moderate, rainy climate and have become impossibly hot during this summer. They lack a window the other side for through ventilation and have ceilings too low for fans, which don't really solve the problem anyway.

There is an element of low sympathy rating for people who buy a close to a million pound valued apartment, and then discover it is a like a baking tin in the summer!

scene report: the southwest is on fire for the 10th year straight.

southwest us i mean

xpost I had friend that was working at St0ne B4rns (Blue H1ll) and I was shocked that when they were out working all day in this bourgie ethical farm in the heat and sun, they had absolutely no shade during breaks. I was like tell "them they need to set up temporary tents or something, and make them supply all the sunblock!"

humans must evolve these features

how many human beings

We were probably beyond carrying capacity (that is, the population that could be supported indefinitely without non-renewable resources) at 3 billion in 1960. That's on the higher end of estimates from Cohen's How Many People Can the Earth Support, some estimates are around 1.5 billion. The Green Revolution of Haber-Bosch nitrogen, potash, and phosphate fertilizers; and dwarf cereal crops that didn't bend under the weight of their seed; didn't really change that, as phosphate, potash, and the methane used in Haber-Bosch are finite (though there are renewable workarounds for the last). Crop yields in developed nations have plateaued, so there's little sign of a second Green revolution.

I find the UN projection of 11 billion in 2100, a bit fanciful. The projected 750 million Nigerians would turn the nation, already a major food importer, into a Yemen like basketcase. Were it not for climate change, I suspect we might have had a blowoff party touching 10 billion before resource constraints (petroleum, phosphate, soil, groundwater, ecosystem services, etc) felled us. Then the Four Horseman would do their bit to bring humanity back below carrying capacity. Ecological overshoot is the worst roller coaster.

Climate change likely to hastens the timeline. The rule of thumb from studies of research farm plots (with adequate water, fertilizer, and pest control) is that every °C reduces crop yield by about 10%. Some, like rice in the tropics, decline more, 17% / °C. Germination at elevated temperature has been vexing the crop breeders for decades. The real world would be worse, as precipitation shifts, groundwater is exhausted, weeds & pests become worse, monsoons become shorter (eg, Indonesia's is barely enough for 2 rice crops/year), and working outdoors becomes seasonally lethal in places like the Ganges basin. On "business as usual" emissions trajectories (+ 4 °C MST in 2100, not including poorly modeled feedbacks), would that mean -50% global food calories? -60%? It all gets rather dire the more one looks.

“I’m an environmental journalist, but I never write about overpopulation. Here’s why.” https://t.co/PgrruphpF3 via @voxdotcom

— Pawel Frelik (@Nomad93) July 27, 2018

This is what Redding, California looks like right now. The fire is devastating and we are all overwhelmed. pic.twitter.com/mArsZnhOb4

— Candace McHatton (@bullettoothRuth) July 27, 2018

the big NYT magazine article is up:

This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change. Complementing the text is a series of aerial photographs and videos, all shot over the past year by George Steinmetz. With support from the Pulitzer Center, this two-part article is based on 18 months of reporting and well over a hundred interviews. It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe. It will come as a revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they came to solving it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html

gonna save that one for when i have some mental health to spare

Already some who miss the point.

Scientists aren’t impressed with New York Times’ new story on climate change

'how close they came to solving it' assumes a lot of initiative and inertia that doesn't actually exist tbh

it's one thing to fuck things up for people and polar bears, but puppies?

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/environment/global-warming/melted-asphalt-shoes-for-dogs-as-europe-wilts-in-heat/articleshow/65274425.cms

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-climate-events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state

hypothetically, what would a "fix" to climate change even look like? could we, I dunno, plant a billion trees or something?

presumably mad scientist sequestration of billions of tons of carbon dioxide but hopefully not by using genetically engineered microorganisms in a runaway process that goes Too Far

Industrial civilization has added 560 gigatonnes of carbon to the Earth system. The total biomass of trees, globally, is 283 gigatonnes. So, to scrub human impact, we'd have to triple the current land mass devoted to forests, and then find a way to sequester that carbon. Not gonna happen.

In the physical world, its a retreat of populations to denser/walkable living in urban centres (with suburbs plowed under for farmland), as fast as possible rollout of wind, solar, nuclear, power-to-methane, algal fuel. In the policy world, its ceasing all new government leases of fossil fuel mineral rights, and putting a price on carbon of around $100-200/ton, which would make renewables the more economic choice for utility and private investment. Domestically, one could offset the impact of carbon taxes by using them to replace all payroll (pension) and income taxes for all under some income threshold. Internationally, an international body would have to be set up to define universal export tariffs for all countries that are cheating on carbon pricing.

It's not going to happen until electorates are made aware of the consequences of unchecked climate change. Sea-level rise, droughts, storms and fires, they get press but these are fairly minor compared to the billions who will starve, and the collapse of nation states in most of the global South. We're reducing the human carrying capacity of the Earth for millenia, if its just a 2 billion reduction over 5000 years that's 125 billion who will never live, more than the total of all humans who have lived to date.

It doesn't harm anyone if a hypothetical person doesn't come to be.

More strongly, being born is an irreparable harm so that just sounds like 125 billion hypothetical people spared the indignity of being.

I'm sympathetic to the negative utilitarian argument, but as far as we know, humanity and more generally conscious life is the only thing giving the entire universe meaning. Whether they're suffering or happy.

yeah but meaning to whom

https://www.theonion.com/climate-researchers-warn-only-hope-for-humanity-now-lie-1828171232

hypothetically, what would a "fix" to climate change even look like? could we, I dunno, plant a billion trees or something?

― frogbs

hypothetically, what would a "fix" to climate change even look like? could we, I dunno, plant a billion trees or something?

― frogbs

hard to say. nobody who's actually knowledgable on the topic is arguing for it.

it's going to be difficult over the next century. in a sense climate change was the equivalent of that thought experiment with the train and whether to switch it from its track with, you know, seven billion people on it to the track with only hundreds of millions of people, and we collectively spent the time arguing about whether there was even a train at all. we humans are very philosophical people. i guess the next century will be a mad struggle for excuses about why it's ok that the bulk of the world's human population (along with innumerable non-human species) is dying off. in that respect i guess the current political situation is helping, because it's allowing me to let go of personal ethical beliefs that are frankly ludicrous in that context.

for almost all of the wild environment, i think maybe we’re not at excuses yet. our current management practice is transitioning from ignorance to denial. Hmm you are probly right that we’re on the cusp of an excuse-dominant social environment.

my parents are in spain at the moment, where the recent heatwave likely just played a sizeable role in killing one of their elderly friends

itshappening.gif

multiple xps
i'm all for eliminating payroll taxes, but it seems that tying that to the revenue raised thru carbon taxes would eventually lead to falling gov't revenue as less carbon is used. i tried googling about this question but my phraseology may have been off because i got nothin' except for some Alliance for Market Solutions stuff about how carbon taxes could be good insofar as they could constrain federal spending thru just that mechanism.

Tax rates are arbitrary, merely a political problem. If civilization is saved through reducing emissions, we can transfer the tax burden to the rich or everyone or on some other economic externality.

Fundamentally, unchecked climate change means most countries south of Switzerland (including the U.S.) cease to exist as organized political entities. Doing something about this, quickly, is more important than any local politics, and will be understood as such by end century. Far enough into the crisis, I expect that countries that violate emissions restrictions will be blockaded and their fossil infrastructure bombed.

absolutely agree, at the end of the day centering 'how we will pay for' measures against climate change is crazy, because there is no possible way we can afford the alternative. i really worry about the possibility of international cooperation, rather than increasingly dangerous competition, over the next century as resources become more scarce though.

it's cheap for everyone to die, costs nothing, nbd

*vox.com voice* you may think so, but i have some cards here which show mass human death would actually have a deleterious effect on global GDP.

going to see Roy Scranton talk about his new book WE'RE DOOMED: NOW WHAT? tonight

also walking around carrying "antropocene or capitalocene" everywhere

some shocking news - it looks like former EPA administrator scott pruitt might not be approaching this important debate about climate change in good faith!!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not been able to offer any scientific evidence for statements made by the agency's former Administrator Scott Pruitt when he went on CNBC in March 2017 and said that carbon dioxide was not known to be a major contributor to climate change.

During a live interview last year on Squawk Box, the administrator stated: “I would not agree that [carbon dioxide is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” adding, “there’s a tremendous disagreement about the degree of the impact” of “human activity on the climate.”

Pruitt’s statements contradicted overwhelming scientific evidence as well as everything the EPA had published before he took office. In response, a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) formally requested any scientific documentation that might have informed Pruitt’s opinion, given the gravity of the about-face.

The EPA stalled and refused to turn over any documents. PEER responded by suing the agency for dereliction of its duty to supply public documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

In June, a federal judge sided with PEER and ordered the EPA to provide any scientific documentation that might have helped Pruitt come to the conclusion he asserted on CNBC.

The EPA eventually provided a 12-page document to PEER. The document included six pages of emails between CNBC producers and Pruitt aides, as well as four pages of “top-line notes” that Pruitt used, outlining what he would talk about on the interview. None of those notes mentioned climate change or carbon dioxide’s effect on the environment at all.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/epa-docs-dont-show-any-scientific-evidence-for-scott-pruitts-climate-claims/

i never thought anyone would be able to claim the "even worse than anne gorsuch" throne, but Pruitt managed to pull it off without a problem

Fundamentally, unchecked climate change means most countries south of Switzerland (including the U.S.) cease to exist as organized political entities. Doing something about this, quickly, is more important than any local politics, and will be understood as such by end century. Far enough into the crisis, I expect that countries that violate emissions restrictions will be blockaded and their fossil infrastructure bombed.

― Roomba with an attitude (Sanpaku)

other than the immediate implementation of a brutal global authoritarian government accompanied by mass extermination of all dissenters, i'm not sure what "doing something about this, quickly" could possibly look like. furthermore, i'm not convinced that there was ever any other possible option when it came to controlling anthropogenic climate change.

this is the frustrating thing to me - we keep framing the stuff we didn't do because it was "expensive" and acting like that cost can be measured only in dollars when in fact the greater cost always has been and always will be human lives. freed from the necessity to sell unpopular measures, i'd kind of like to know what the actual costs of controlling anthropogenic climate change would have been, and what would have been necessary to make it happen.

if the midterms don’t go well i’m cashing out my meager IRA (5k, 30 years old) to pay off some debt and pad my savings. fuck it

this thread is so great because it's about the most important issue that nobody wants to touch, hence why it never gets bumped. because there is almost no solution. let's seriously make this an over/under thread about the value of saving for retirement etc. obviously nobody cares. i think we are increasingly fucked and meant to see the end of the world either via a nuke screwup or just from climate decline. the 21st century rocks!!! peace!!

Why do anything about it, aren’t we all just waiting around to die childless as it is

Globes just sit back and enjoy the ride

it's a good topic to avoid. just thinking about it tends to drain sanity points, much less talking about it. the only reason i'm here is because i've recently had extensive treatment for my suicidal depression, and as a result i temporarily have the emotional resilience to even consider what the world will look like in 100 years. it's emotionally healthy to think about the future, i've been told.

and yeah, of course i don't have kids. i've known for long enough the vague shape of what's coming, consciously or subconsciously, that it didn't seem right to put them through that. other reasons too, of course, but my personal emotional state (and apparently the personal emotional state of plenty of other people) isn't as separable from the world at large as certain people seem to believe it should be.

i've dabbled in antinatalism, but ultimately i find that a lot of beliefs today, including my own humanism, are just plain irrelevant in the face of this terrible and alien future. that's the real challenge, this complete disjunction between what's necessary to believe to survive today and what will be necessary to believe fifty years from now, to do the little things to make life tolerable even understanding the overwhelming likelihood is that it's all for naught, that the "good" i try to strive for today is something that will be utterly impossible in fifty years.

if any members of the future human race wants to know what the hell was going on with us during the 20th and early 21st centuries, just know that we're all fucking lunatic basket cases. don't even try to look for rational motivations, we didn't have them. just a big basket of excuses. i hope that humanity will survive, in whatever form, and one day learn to do without excuses.

not an antinatalist but if this board survives the coming ecopocalypse a lesson of our tragedy future laffer-era americanist scholars might take away is women should have 100% control over their reproductive rights and priests (witch doctors, whatever) need to keep their voices down about that

wonderful writing rushomancy. i don’t get why people say ilx sucks, seems glib. y’all are the smartest and most insightful people online