Random political thought thread.

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

My daughter is almost 9 years old and the last few days have brought the first real snow of her young life ("real" in the sense of "more than just a an inch or two for a day or two"). When I grew up in the 80s and 90s the kind of weather we've had here in Germany over the last week was normal winter weather. Over the last 20 years or so German winters have increasigly been just lots of rain and temperatures above the freezing point rather than snow and ice. She had never before been able to ride a sledge. Most conversations on climate change that I've had with my kids were triggered by things like "Mummy, I really hope it will snow this winter so we can build a snowman".

15 of the 20 hottest years in Germany since the beginning of recordings in 1881 were in the 21st century (with 2022 holding the current record but 2023 set to break it).

The 1.5°C target refers to the global average. Here in Europe we already have an increase of 2°C compared to the preindustrial average and in the Arctic it's even a 3°C increase. In the US you guys have (so far!) only had an increase of a little over 1°C. So what you have seen locally so far is pretty tame in comparison to what's bound to come around soon.

The winters have been pretty cold and snowy since I moved here, usually. This year, it snowed on Halloween, with some accumulation. I'm not sure how this compares to what snows here were like in the late 80's/early 90s. I didn't grew up here. I remember visiting here for Christmas and there being lots of snow, more than I was used to, at least for December.

I probably would not like it if the entire winter was more like March/April weather (constant cold rain). I don't have much of an issue with the 20 degrees (or lower) weather; that's just the matter of dressing appropriately.

With regards to the photos of SF looking like something out of Blade Runner 2049, I'll say that it didn't get that bad here (I accidentally deleted an earlier post to this effect). There were air quality warnings and you can definitely still see smoke; it's looks like a thick, stationary low-flying fog.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Regarding Germany vs Midwest. These kinds of stories is exactly why i said that different places have different thresholds of when things will get significantly bad. However that is something that media never really made it clear to the public and this is why we have such a mess on the topic. One of the key element here is that not all surface types reflect equal amount of energy back into space. Ice reflects most of that energy, sea on the other hand absorbs most of the energy. While average landmass is somewhere in between. What means that in Europe you automatically have better conditions for warmer weather since the whole place is basically one big peninsula that is sticking out of Asia. Plus there is plenty of seas and deep gulfs that go deep into Europe. Therefore in the Summer that water absorbs the energy and keeps it through colder parts of the year. What keeps environment warmer. While in the Midwest you are pretty far from seas and oceans, so there isn't this mechanism of water that is keeping the place a few degrees warmer than it should be. What means that snow has easier time to stay on the ground instead that it melts. Since the place is colder because it doesn't have close sea, and then the snow itself cools down the place since it reflect most of the sun's energy. While without Great lakes this effect would probably be even more pronounced in the Midwest. Although that could also reduce snow levels in the region, since water for the snow still has to come from somewhere.



But of course there are some other factors as well. Like winds and some other factors.
However ability of the surfaces to reflect and absorb Sun's energy is pretty big deal in how things work locally. This is exactly why slow but sure melt of the Arctic ocean is a problem. Since that is turning reflective ice surface into open water ocean that absorbs the energy. Therefore once we lose our northern ice cap during the Summer times that creases new climate reality for the whole planet. Since one of the key elements of the story will be gone. Plus what is extra inconvenient is that right next to Arctic ice cap is Greenland. Which is covered with thick ice. So if Arctic ocean starts to absorb energy in the Summer instead that it reflect it that will mean that the land based ice of Greenland will start to melt at openly observable rate. However since this is land ice that means that it's melt will start to rise sea level by observable amount. From what I know there is enough ice there to rise sea level by about 7 meters (about 20+ feet). Therefore if this activates you can forget about the sea level status quo that we had over our lifetimes. This is exactly why I said that losing coastal cities in the mid century and beyond is something that is realistic threat. Once you pass various tipping points of climate change the game changes.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

One graph pulled out of somewhere doesn't make an argument in this broad topic. Real debate on this requires going into how rivers are made, trends with glaciers that are basically water towers of the world, acidification of the seas and their Ph level, food chains in nature that keep the world as we know it in place. What is with the migration of species. You are talking about food supply and nowhere you have mentioned insects and how they are doing (and without them there is no agriculture as we know it, without them fertilizer is basically useless). What about the changes in the amount of rain and snow in various areas. Etc. etc. Every year climate change related famine kills millions in the developing world, so this graph is simply wrong. Especially since it fails in defining what is climate related death. Most of those deaths aren't some glorious direct deaths in some epic natural disaster. Plus property deamge is a thing in all this, this isn't just about dying. After all the problem is that just about all serious data suggests that this line should go significantly up in the future. The problem is the future, not the present. The present is OKish.


I know that you wouldn't change your mind but I simply have to type it for the sake of others that are reading this. You evidently don't even know how much you don't know about this topic. This isn't some culture war that you can win with a meme.

You usually do a pretty good job of responding to me, but come on man. The bolded does everything but beg me to come to the conclusion that further discussion on the topic is not worth having.

Maybe you're of the opinion that a discussion can't be had without all parties subscribing to the same cottage industry of white papers, think tanks and NGO's that all predict the same climate change doomed future.

I'm frankly not of that opinion, and think that the most important discussions happen when the parties come from different priors like you and I clearly do. Something you may not agree with. I can't know what's in your head frankly and won't speculate as to what is (a consideration I would ask that you extend to me in the future).

In that case the prudent thing to do is to find where the parties agree and build the discussion from there. That agreement lies in the present being OK.

I would also imagine it lies in the fact that we can both agree on how the climate changed in the past till now. Being able to see the past with 20/20 vision and all that.

But in the grand scheme of things this is one topic of many and if its one not worth getting into then I guess it's just not.

I'm not trying to be acrimonious with this, as we've had many fruitful discussions in the past and would not like to see our inability to have a good faith conversation here impede our ability to debate in the future on other topics.

All the best.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Maybe you're of the opinion that a discussion can't be had without all parties subscribing to the same cottage industry of white papers, think tanks and NGO's that all predict the same climate change doomed future.

I've been feeling lately like I've been too hard on the various ENTJs on this forum, and that I've given them too much shit. There are other mitigating factors in some cases as well: But I had to respond to this sentence:

The guy who that graph is attributed to belongs to a think tank. The Hoover Institute. I imagine one of the things it does is take money from oil, gas, and coal industries and funnel it to people like Bjorn Lomborg. Fellows there top out at $220,000, so whatever Lomberg's got going on is probably a pretty good gig. (Unfortunately I still have some integrity left.) Official funders are foundations with the names of a bunch of rich people I've never heard of, so I can't verify the oil/gas/coal link but I'll bet it exists.

Former members include the recently deceased Henry Kissinger.

Not that this will change your mind, but this is for the other people in the audience, it's not a neutral, politically disinterested source. Such a thing may not technically exist, since climate change is a political issue in the U.S.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I've been feeling lately like I've been too hard on the various ENTJs on this forum, and that I've given them too much shit. There are other mitigating factors in some cases as well: But I had to respond to this sentence:

The guy who that graph is attributed to belongs to a think tank. The Hoover Institute. I imagine one of the things it does is take money from oil, gas, and coal industries and funnel it to people like Bjorn Lomborg. Fellows there top out at $220,000, so whatever Lomberg's got going on is probably a pretty good gig. (Unfortunately I still have some integrity left.) Official funders are foundations with the names of a bunch of rich people I've never heard of, so I can't verify the oil/gas/coal link but I'll bet it exists.

Former members include the recently deceased Henry Kissinger.

Not that this will change your mind, but this is for the other people in the audience, it's not a neutral, politically disinterested source. Such a thing may not technically exist, since climate change is a political issue in the U.S.

Which is why I tracked back to what can be agreed upon, that the present is OK and that we can agree upon what has happened in the past.

Everyone has their scientists and studies.

I usually prefer to talk to people about what they think. What can we agree on? Is there a foundation that can be agreed upon from whence a discussion can emerge?

The most boring thing I can think of is people citing sources back and forth at one another.

If anyone believes the science is settled one way or another, then there is literally no discussion to be had.

Sadly there may not be a way to disentangle academia (think tanks etc.) from political self interestedness. Though there are some things that are pretty black and white measurable (crime statistics being one).

I'm generally much more interested in why people prioritize some topics over others. How do you decide which issue is most pressing?

Sometimes there isn't a discussion to be had sadly.

Interestingly there should be a point of agreement here that would provide a pathway for issue resolution, namely nuclear power. Unfortunately the imbedded interests in both oil and gas and renewables both stand to lose from the public coming to that conclusion so they do all in their power to keep that from happening. They have been remarkably effective in this.

To be frank discussions on this topic tend to go nowhere at a much higher rate than other topics and as such my interest in engaging with it is much lower.

Everyone's positions are baked in.

If you want my unvarnished thoughts on it, the real world effects of climate aren't going to be such that we are forced to prioritize it over other issues in my lifetime. Our focus on it up to this point has been a luxury afforded to us by our dominance and lack of other problems (as I mentioned earlier in the thread). As other more measurable and immediate problems crop up as a consequence of the west losing its global dominance, climate change will probably become more of a back burner issue. I think we are already seeing this in Europe as the lack of Russian gas had forced Germany to go all in on lignite coal even as it shutters nuke plants.

That's mostly all I have to say on the subject.

 

[Virtual ghost]

You usually do a pretty good job of responding to me, but come on man. The bolded does everything but beg me to come to the conclusion that further discussion on the topic is not worth having.

Maybe you're of the opinion that a discussion can't be had without all parties subscribing to the same cottage industry of white papers, think tanks and NGO's that all predict the same climate change doomed future.

I'm frankly not of that opinion, and think that the most important discussions happen when the parties come from different priors like you and I clearly do. Something you may not agree with. I can't know what's in your head frankly and won't speculate as to what is (a consideration I would ask that you extend to me in the future).

In that case the prudent thing to do is to find where the parties agree and build the discussion from there. That agreement lies in the present being OK.

I would also imagine it lies in the fact that we can both agree on how the climate changed in the past till now. Being able to see the past with 20/20 vision and all that.

But in the grand scheme of things this is one topic of many and if its one not worth getting into then I guess it's just not.

I'm not trying to be acrimonious with this, as we've had many fruitful discussions in the past and would not like to see our inability to have a good faith conversation here impede our ability to debate in the future on other topics.

All the best.

I am sorry but it seems that you took the bold part in a wrong way. What stands behind my claim that you don't know how much you don't know is the fact that I am trained geologist. What simply means that I know more about the subject than almost anyone else. Not to mention that I am paying attention to the topic for decades. All of this is exactly why I have the guts to put myself above the media and the circus in them. Since I don't need those to explore the topic in debt. Also this is exactly how I ended up with interests in geopolitics. Since at this point the two topics can't really be separated one from another. So as doctor can diagnose you with cancer I can diagnose you climate change. The denial of people about both situations tends to be similar for obvious reasons.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Interestingly there should be a point of agreement here that would provide a pathway for issue resolution, namely nuclear power. Unfortunately the imbedded interests in both oil and gas and renewables both stand to lose from the public coming to that conclusion so they do all in their power to keep that from happening. They have been remarkably effective in this.

To be frank discussions on this topic tend to go nowhere at a much higher rate than other topics and as such my interest in engaging with it is much lower.

Everyone's positions are baked in.

It isn't baked in everyone, however the presentation of evidence is lacking in the media. What is probably even done on purpose for the most part.


Also as I said nuclear energy has it's problems that are being ignored since people want to have a savior. The obvious problem with nuclear energy is that there is peak uranium just as there is peak oil. If you put the world on nuclear energy the supply of various ore that could fuel it should run out pretty quickly. This is exactly why these are called "rare earth elements". Another problem is that much of the world isn't allowed to have nuclear energy or they are just too poor to have it. So they will just continue to use fossil fuels or go renewable.

Plus there is climate change that is melting glaciers and causing heat waves. In other words glaciers have the role of preserving rivers in the dry Summer season. However if they melt out many rivers will be gone over the Summer (or at least some parts of it). However Nuclear power plants tend to sit on the banks of rivers for a reason. Which is that they are using river water as cooling mechanism. However if there is no river the concept falls part. This a problem on the level that solar energy doesn't work work during night time. However here you are risking much bigger types of incidents due to that.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I am sorry but it seems that you took the bold part in a wrong way. What stands behind my claim that you don't know how much you don't know is the fact that I am trained geologist. What simply means that I know more about the subject than almost anyone else. Not to mention that I am paying attention to the topic for decades. All of this is exactly why I have the guts to put myself above the media and the circus in them. Since I don't need those to explore the topic in debt. Also this is exactly how I ended up with interests in geopolitics. Since at this point the two topics can't really be separated one from another. So as a doctor can diagnose you with cancer I can diagnose you climate change. The denial of people about both situations tends to be similar for obvious reasons.

Its all good. I'm a trained political scientist, with a background in finance, real estate, international relations, and law. I trade in what's happening now, and how people interact with that data on a political level.

This biggest issue with nuclear globally is its tendency to produce weapons grade fissile material (namely plutonium). It's hard to reconcile attachments to non-proliferation with a desire to allow the third world to decarbonize their energy production. If/when the energy crunch gets bad enough, I assume we'll get over this. Thorium doesn't really solve the problem. There's enough uranium in the ground to power the world for as long as fossil fuel has powered ours. My assumption being that nuclear power offers humanity the time to find a more permanent solution (sadly fusion as always another 20 years away, hopefully we crack it one day).

The thing that bugs me is the assumption that we can't adapt to a changing world, something man has been doing since we started sharpening sticks and throwing them. There seems to be an assumption that if we don't freeze the climate in amber man would never be able to survive the changes. An assumption that I find laughable.

And then there's the elephant in the room, China and India bringing coal plants online faster than the west is closing theirs. We are already playing a losing game. With European domestic energy prices already being deeply affected.

At base the question becomes what are the solutions? What can realistically be done in our world as it exists now to meaningfully address these issues.

From where I stand renewables make limited sense. The wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine everywhere. Of more immediate importance is China's dominance in the rare earths involved in those technologies.

Nuclear isn't perfect but it seems like the only road to take in the right direction.

To be honest what we are going to do, most likely is an all of the above strategy. The world isn't going to stop using fossil fuels even once we can power our grids completely from other sources (mainly for industrial reasons, oil is used in a TON of industrial processes the modern world couldn't live without).

Given that the world isn't going to end tomorrow and man has an unparalleled capacity to adapt to change, I think that these problems will be addressed as they need to be. Which is what we've been doing to this point.

We've had several decades of hyper-fixating on this, but I think the coming more pressing problems of a multipolar world will do much to put this problem back in its proper place.

A problem to be aware of, but not one which requires restructuring our entire way of life to address.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Its all good. I'm a trained political scientist, with a background in finance, real estate, international relations, and law. I trade in what's happening now, and how people interact with that data on a political level.

This biggest issue with nuclear globally is its tendency to produce weapons grade fissile material (namely plutonium). It's hard to reconcile attachments to non-proliferation with a desire to allow the third world to decarbonize their energy production. If/when the energy crunch gets bad enough, I assume we'll get over this. Thorium doesn't really solve the problem. There's enough uranium in the ground to power the world for as long as fossil fuel has powered ours. My assumption being that nuclear power offers humanity the time to find a more permanent solution (sadly fusion as always another 20 years away, hopefully we crack it one day).

The thing that bugs me is the assumption that we can't adapt to a changing world, something man has been doing since we started sharpening sticks and throwing them. There seems to be an assumption that if we don't freeze the climate in amber man would never be able to survive the changes. An assumption that I find laughable.

And then there's the elephant in the room, China and India bringing coal plants online faster than the west is closing theirs. We are already playing a losing game. With European domestic energy prices already being deeply affected.

At base the question becomes what are the solutions? What can realistically be done in our world as it exists now to meaningfully address these issues.

From where I stand renewables make limited sense. The wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine everywhere. Of more immediate importance is China's dominance in the rare earths involved in those technologies.

Nuclear isn't perfect but it seems like the only road to take in the right direction.

To be honest what we are going to do, most likely is an all of the above strategy. The world isn't going to stop using fossil fuels even once we can power our grids completely from other sources (mainly for industrial reasons, oil is used in a TON of industrial processes the modern world couldn't live without).

Given that the world isn't going to end tomorrow and man has an unparalleled capacity to adapt to change, I think that these problems will be addressed as they need to be. Which is what we've been doing to this point.

We've had several decades of hyper-fixating on this, but I think the coming more pressing problems of a multipolar world will do much to put this problem back in its proper place.

A problem to be aware of, but not one which requires restructuring our entire way of life to address.

In my book you are an idealist when it comes to climate change. As an answer I can ask you back why are avalanches still killing people ? Why can't people adapt ? You simply can't have solution to every problem on the spot. This just isn't how the game works in real life. People who think that we can just adept to the climate change going out of control simply don't understand the scale of the problem. Especially since that problem will mess up the very foundations of the world we are living. At this point if nothing is done about the issue we are looking at the biggest crisis on the planet in the last 248 million years. This isn't something we went through before.


While it comes to China, India and the rest of the 3rd world it is indeed becoming obvious that they will not stop with their energy practices. Which is exactly why I said that as it currently stands the problem has no workable solution. Therefore I said openly "plan for the worst".

However there is a part of the story that no media will tell you, since this is considered controversial and politically incorrect in the west at large. Which is that climate change will hit Asia quite hard, as well as the entire so called Global south. Asia is basically fully dependent on the glaciers in the Himalayas for their stability of water supply and thus their food supply. Therefore once that melts out their rivers will dry up and you will get the famine that world's history doesn't remember. Since this means that about 3.5 billion people will directly be hit with severe lack of basic resources. After all rice requires plenty of water from what I understand. While local environment practices allow plenty of pollution. This is exactly why the region has started to import plenty of food. Since they base their growth on the dirty and polluting growth. However once they start to run out basic resources they will be in severe problems. I mean where the hell will you find food for billions of people in the world where others also had their glaciers melted ? (While oceans through dissolved CO2 are stopping to support marine life due to increased acidity).

So if climate change gets out of hand you can just forget about Asia. These people are goners in that scenario.

 

[The Cat]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

In my book you are an idealist when it comes to climate change. As an answer I can ask you back why are avalanches still killing people ? Why can't people adapt ? You simply can't have solution to every problem on the spot. This just isn't how the game works in real life. People who think that we can just adept to the climate change going out of control simply don't understand the scale of the problem. Especially since that problem will mess up the very foundations of the world we are living. At this point if nothing is done about the issue we are looking at the biggest crisis on the planet in the last 248 million years. This isn't something we went through before.


While it comes to China, India and the rest of the 3rd world it is indeed becoming obvious that they will not stop with their energy practices. Which is exactly why I said that as it currently stands the problem has no workable solution. Therefore I said openly "plan for the worst".

However there is a part of the story that no media will tell you, since this is considered controversial and politically incorrect in the west at large. Which is that climate change will hit Asia quite hard, as well as the entire so called Global south. Asia is basically fully dependent on the glaciers in the Himalayas for their stability of water supply and thus their food supply. Therefore once that melts out their rivers will dry up and you will get the famine that world's history doesn't remember. Since this means that about 3.5 billion people will directly be hit with severe lack of basic resources. After all rice requires plenty of water from what I understand. While local environment practices allow plenty of pollution. This is exactly why the region has started to import plenty of food. Since they base their growth on the dirty and polluting growth. However once they start to run out basic resources they will be in severe problems. I mean where the hell will you find food for billions of people in the world where others also had their glaciers melted ? (While oceans through dissolved CO2 are stopping to support marine life due to increased acidity).

So if climate change gets out of hand you can just forget about Asia. These people are goners in that scenario.

Avalanches you say? We've got something for that.

A once in 248 million year crisis? Aren't you overstating your case a bit? Bigger than the K-T extinction event 65 million years ago? Or the glaciation that happened 34 million years ago?

 

[The Cat]

In my book you are an idealist when it comes to climate change. As an answer I can ask you back why are avalanches still killing people ? Why can't people adapt ? You simply can't have solution to every problem on the spot. This just isn't how the game works in real life. People who think that we can just adept to the climate change going out of control simply don't understand the scale of the problem. Especially since that problem will mess up the very foundations of the world we are living. At this point if nothing is done about the issue we are looking at the biggest crisis on the planet in the last 248 million years. This isn't something we went through before.


While it comes to China, India and the rest of the 3rd world it is indeed becoming obvious that they will not stop with their energy practices. Which is exactly why I said that as it currently stands the problem has no workable solution. Therefore I said openly "plan for the worst".

However there is a part of the story that no media will tell you, since this is considered controversial and politically incorrect in the west at large. Which is that climate change will hit Asia quite hard, as well as the entire so called Global south. Asia is basically fully dependent on the glaciers in the Himalayas for their stability of water supply and thus their food supply. Therefore once that melts out their rivers will dry up and you will get the famine that world's history doesn't remember. Since this means that about 3.5 billion people will directly be hit with severe lack of basic resources. After all rice requires plenty of water from what I understand. While local environment practices allow plenty of pollution. This is exactly why the region has started to import plenty of food. Since they base their growth on the dirty and polluting growth. However once they start to run out basic resources they will be in severe problems. I mean where the hell will you find food for billions of people in the world where others also had their glaciers melted ? (While oceans through dissolved CO2 are stopping to support marine life due to increased acidity).

So if climate change gets out of hand you can just forget about Asia. These people are goners in that scenario.

Denial aint just a river in Egypt.
Sometimes the problem can't be fixed by putting it up against the bulkhead and shooting it in the head. Even with hollow tips. (that's gonna make it hard enough to gain traction here)
But some people need the reality of the problem to not be real so badly, that they're willing to believe anything that tells them: "Nothing to worry about here. Hey, you got this." Fear really is the mind killer. Even people who should know better due to all their access to books and the like. But like the man said: There's no real difference between the man who can't read and the one who chooses not to.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Some need it to be real so badly.......

 

[The Cat]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

At least I'm willing to talk.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Avalanches you say? We've got something for that.

A once in 248 million year crisis? Aren't you overstating your case a bit? Bigger than the K-T extinction event 65 million years ago? Or the glaciation that happened 34 million years ago?

This actually nicely proves my point, having cannon beneath every hill in the world isn't exactly practical solution. As a said the problem is in the idea can you really cover the entire problem on the global scale (and in time). The logistics is what is the real problem here. Not the design of means.

Therefore this is the map of extinctions during the times of when life on Earth was complex and multi-cellar. What is basically what interest us, all the bacteria before this doesn't not concern us in this topic. So as you can see the biggest disaster on the map was some 250 millions ago. The reasons for this happening are multiple. However the main reason for this was strong volcanic activity that happened due to complex reasons in what is modern day Siberia. What pumped out plenty of CO2 and made oceans more acid like. Since CO2 in contact with water turns into acid and that is causing food chain collapse in the seas if things go too far. The map is expressed in genera, which is a type of animal. For example all species of goats are one genera, all types of horses are another one, all sharks are another ... etc. What means that in that moment of Earth's history about a half of animal types disappeared. While the ones that made it have lost many species and species that made it were decimated. Plus it is worth saying that large animals had biggest loses, sicne they need more food. As a rule mass extinction tends to cripple the food supply and therefore in mass extinctions the first thing that goes away are the species on top of the food chain. Since all of this completely disruptes the food chains on which such animals stand.


In other words what we are doing is pretty close to what happened then. We are using fossil fuel energy that was under ground for hundreds of millions of years and then we are releasing all of it in the geological blink of 100 or 200 years. While even in the super mass extinction from 250 million years ago the process of pumping out all that CO2 through volcanic activity probably lasted for something like 2 million years. What gave the plants and animals some time to adapt or migrate/spread into some areas that are better for them. While we are doing all of this in the scale of a century or two (and in combination with heavy pollution and killing all animal life that gets in the way). Therefore saying that we are playing with fire is an understatement.


Why exactly all of this should be the worse than K-T extinction ? Because if you look at the world as it was just some 500 years ago it was full of buffalos, bears, dears, rabitts, horses, big cats, wales ... while today all of these populations are decimated. Whales almost extinct in late 20th century but then a few international treaties managed to prevent their outright extinction. In other words we are already living on the planet that was basically hit by an asteroid when it comes to animal populations. While as I have shown before our real problems with climate disruption haven't even started yet. Therfore this will almost surely be worse than the extinction of dinsaurs when you consider how much of life will die out. The rate at which human race cosumes everything is completely unpresidented. What means that the nature's food chains will get heavily disrupted globally and everything will just come crashing down (including our own food supply).


Out of 8+ billion people on the planet something like 5 is fairly heavily dependent on the sea for food. Therefore if you release extra CO2 into the system the oceans in contact with it are becoming more acid like. What harms microoranisms in the sea since this disrupts their bilological processes. What means that oragnisms that eat those starve. While those that eat those organisms starve. And those that eat those are fish, so they starve as well. What means that humans that eat those fish will also starve. While those people that relly more on the agriculture will see their crops decimated by freaky weather and disapearance of glacers. Which are feeding the rives over warm and dry parts of the year. What is a problem that si already starting to bite all across the word. This is why I said that the main problem of climate change is securing food supply for expanding global population. Everything else is basically just a side-story in all of this.


What altogather is basically why there is such a mess in the media over the topic. Since pretty much everything suggests that there is a fair amount or people that couldn't take this topic in it's raw form. People went bonkers over COVID and COVID is kinergarden party next to this topic once you go really deep into it.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

This actually nicely proves my point, having cannon beneath every hill in the world isn't exactly practical solution. As a said the problem is in the idea can you really cover the entire problem on the global scale (and in time). The logistics is what is the real problem here. Not the design of means.

Therefore this is the map of extinctions during the times of when life on Earth was complex and multi-cellar. What is basically what interest us, all the bacteria before this doesn't not concern us in this topic. So as you can see the biggest disaster on the map was some 250 millions ago. The reasons for this happening are multiple. However the main reason for this was strong volcanic activity that happened due to complex reasons in what is modern day Siberia. What pumped out plenty of CO2 and made oceans more acid like. Since CO2 in contact with water turns into acid and that is causing food chain collapse in the seas if things go too far. The map is expressed in genera, which is a type of animal. For example all species of goats are one genera, all types of horses are another one, all sharks are another ... etc. What means that in that moment of Earth's history about a half of animal types disappeared. While the ones that made it have lost many species and species that made it were decimated. Plus it is worth saying that large animals had biggest loses, sicne they need more food. As a rule mass extinction tends to cripple the food supply and therefore in mass extinctions the first thing that goes away are the species on top of the food chain. Since all of this completely disruptes the food chains on which such animals stand.


In other words what we are doing is pretty close to what happened then. We are using fossil fuel energy that was under ground for hundreds of millions of years and then we are releasing all of it in the geological blink of 100 or 200 years. While even in the super mass extinction from 250 million years ago the process of pumping out all that CO2 through volcanic activity probably lasted for something like 2 million years. What gave the plants and animals some time to adapt or migrate/spread into some areas that are better for them. While we are doing all of this in the scale of a century or two (and in combination with heavy pollution and killing all animal life that gets in the way). Therefore saying that we are playing with fire is an understatement.


Why exactly all of this should be the worse than K-T extinction ? Because if you look at the world as it was just some 500 years ago it was full of buffalos, bears, dears, rabitts, horses, big cats, wales ... while today all of these populations are decimated. Whales almost extinct in late 20th century but then a few international treaties managed to prevent their outright extinction. In other words we are already living on the planet that was basically hit by an asteroid when it comes to animal populations. While as I have shown before our real problems with climate disruption haven't even started yet. Therfore this will almost surely be worse than the extinction of dinsaurs when you consider how much of life will die out. The rate at which human race cosumes everything is completely unpresidented. What means that the nature's food chains will get heavily disrupted globally and everything will just come crashing down (including our own food supply).


Out of 8+ billion people on the planet something like 5 is fairly heavily dependent on the sea for food. Therefore if you release extra CO2 into the system the oceans in contact with it are becoming more acid like. What harms microoranisms in the sea since this disrupts their bilological processes. What means that oragnisms that eat those starve. While those that eat those organisms starve. And those that eat those are fish, so they starve as well. What means that humans that eat those fish will also starve. While those people that relly more on the agriculture will see their crops decimated by freaky weather and disapearance of glacers. Which are feeding the rives over warm and dry parts of the year. What is a problem that si already starting to bite all across the word. This is why I said that the main problem of climate change is securing food supply for expanding global population. Everything else is basically just a side-story in all of this.


What altogather is basically why there is such a mess in the media over the topic. Since pretty much everything suggests that there is a fair amount or people that couldn't take this topic in it's raw form. People went bonkers over COVID and COVID is kinergarden party next to this topic once you go really deep into it.

I think a better tack to take here would be to ask, what's your solution? (by which I don't mean to short change your thought out post {I'm well aware of the flood basalt eruptions and the deccan/siberian traps } )

I get the feeling we could go back and forth infinitely discussing the nature, immediacy and scale of the problem which would probably not do much besides wear out our keyboards.

We may disagree as to the severity of the problem but can both agree that it is one. What really matters is what's to be done about it (and on what sort of timeline).

I think that might be much better ground to mine.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I think a better tack to take here would be to ask, what's your solution? (by which I don't mean to short change your thought out post {I'm well aware of the flood basalt eruptions and the deccan/siberian traps } )

I get the feeling we could go back and forth infinitely discussing the nature, immediacy and scale of the problem which would probably not do much besides wear out our keyboards.

We may disagree as to the severity of the problem but can both agree that it is one. What really matters is what's to be done about it (and on what sort of timeline).

I think that might be much better ground to mine.

The solutions is that we at least stop ignoring the problem, since the problem is evidently there even if the scope isn't 100% known. Especially since that depends on what we will do. However the problem isn't trivial and that is certain. All of this is why I disagree with you that we need more children in the world. Just in India there is something like 600 million minors. Something like 1.5 to 2.0 children per mother is more than enough on the global level. So that population decreases but not in a way that it crashes. We simply don't have the space or resources for the world with 10+ billion people (which we should get around middle of the century). Therefore If we go in that direction there is no way that any realistic new tech will save us.


Plus we also don't have the time for wars, even if wars are exactly how the world is reacting to resource problems. War simply consumes way too much energy and in the end offers little in most case. I am fully aware that this is very idealistic take but lowering the political temperature across the world would really help in getting various trends back on track.


Also we evidently need more investment into research and infrastructure. Since without that it will be very hard to turn the ship around. Especially since the climate system is pretty inert and it will take a while before we could see turning of various trends and general stabilization. This is like debt, while the feedbacks that start to kick in eventually are basically interest rates. So if you don't act on time the numbers will work against you more and more. So if things go far enough you will lose control over the situation. Therefore no solution scenario is fully possible here. Especially since the inertia of the system and all feedbacks make it somewhat uncertain how close you are to the various red lines.


So I am not going to pretend that I think that solving the problem will be easy. Fixing this will be the largest endeavor the humanity as ever done. In the case that we acted in the 60s as was originally planned this wouldn't really be the case. But with current cards on the table this we be saga to remember.

 

[Red Herring]

On civility

I have been increasingly annoyed by some comments here over the last few months, maybe even years. So let me try to explain my thoughts on this and get it off my chest. Maybe some of them are very German, I don't know.

"This issue is so important that we can't afford civility", "These people are so evil that they don't deserve basic human respect", "Civility only prolongs this state of injustice, the cause demands that some teeth get kicked in".... statements and thoughts like that all serve to relativize the core value and the very foundation of liberal democracy and modern Western* civilization - the inalienable dignity and worth of human life.

One reason the death penalty is morally wrong and politically unwise is because by killing a killer the state sends the message that killing is actually okay under certain circumstances and that human life is only sacred under certain circumstances. That the value of human life is conditional and relative. This weakens the very foundation of modern civilization. Prisoners should still be treated with digity and not suffer further punishment in prison beyond the (temporary) withdrawel of their freedom for the same reason. To mistreat them is to dehumanize them. To allow for the dehumanization of some, be it prisoners or political enemies is to accept that human value is relative, that civilization is frail and not really worth protecting and ultimately that civil war, progromes and similar bloodshed with all the rape and torture and dehumanizing of both the victim and the perpetrator that go with them are simply a given part of human existence.

Few people walk on the face of the earth going "oh, what fun it is to be the villain of the story, I think I'll have some baby blood for breakfast just for lolz". Some, probably most of the most gruesome wars, bloodiest revolutions, the most aweful lynchings have started and do start with well-intentioned people deciding to stand up against an evil and fight those who are not just opponents but creatures no longer deserving of their lifes.

I am not going to defend Kissinger, but all the memes about literally peeing on his grave make me nautious exactly because of this.




*The fact that the West doesn't always live up to its ideals and has committed terrible atrocities and still does a lot wrong is irrelevant in this context. Frankly I am sick and tired of intellectually lazy knee-jerk bashing of the West. Show me a better foundation of ethics than humanism and the enlightenment. I'll wait.

 

[Virtual ghost]

On civility

I have been increasingly annoyed by some comments here over the last few months, maybe even years. So let me try to explain my thoughts on this and get it off my chest. Maybe some of them are very German, I don't know.

"This issue is so important that we can't afford civility", "These people are so evil that they don't deserve basic human respect", "Civility only prolongs this state of injustice, the cause demands that some teeth get kicked in".... statements and thoughts like that all serve to relativize the core value and the very foundation of liberal democracy and modern Western* civilization - the inalienable dignity and worth of human life.

One reason the death penalty is morally wrong and politically unwise is because by killing a killer the state sends the message that killing is actually okay under certain circumstances and that human life is only sacred under certain circumstances. That the value of human life is conditional and relative. This weakens the very foundation of modern civilization. Prisoners should still be treated with digity and not suffer further punishment in prison beyond the (temporary) withdrawel of their freedom for the same reason. To mistreat them is to dehumanize them. To allow for the dehumanization of some, be it prisoners or political enemies is to accept that human value is relative, that civilization is frail and not really worth protecting and ultimately that civil war, progromes and similar bloodshed with all the rape and torture and dehumanizing of both the victim and the perpetrator that go with them are simply a given part of human existence.

Few people walk on the face of the earth going "oh, what fun it is to be the villain of the story, I think I'll have some baby blood for breakfast just for lolz". Some, probably most of the most gruesome wars, bloodiest revolutions, the most aweful lynchings have started and do start with well-intentioned people deciding to stand up against an evil and fight those who are not just opponents but creatures no longer deserving of their lifes.

I am not going to defend Kissinger, but all the memes about literally peeing on his grave make me nautious exactly because of this.




*The fact that the West doesn't always live up to its ideals and has committed terrible atrocities and still does a lot wrong is irrelevant in this context. Frankly I am sick and tired of intellectually lazy knee-jerk bashing of the West. Show me a better foundation of ethics than humanism and the enlightenment. I'll wait.

Since I am probably the author of some of those posts that annoyed you I will add a few things to your post. I think I never called for explicit violence but if you read between the lines I evidently did that (and I said that this is for the greater good). Therefore I am getting impression that here you basically talking about people like me (or at least similar to me for the most part). From what I understand you unlike me never had a direct contact with war or dictatorship, and therefore in my opinion you don't understand a few things in this story.


For me the obvious example of you having the wrong picture about the subject is that you seem to be putting death penalty and ethnic conflicts into the same pot. In my book these two are two pretty different things in the terms of logic and consequences. The main difference is the scale and that is very important. In the terms of death penalty you basically have individual case which you can let slide for the sake of higher principles. However when a dictator gathers half a million men, arms them and sends them over the border that is completely new level. Especially since stopping this will surely require spilling of tons and tons of blood. This is exactly why I said here a while ago "As long as calling 911 solves your problem you weren't really in danger". The real show starts then calling 911 doesn't do a dam thing, even if authorities are trying really hard to make something happen.


Therefore I don't really agree about your lines that people who want innocent blood on the concrete are actually pretty rare. Or that everything is just a misunderstanding. The good example of this is probably what we have today , Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of troops are destroying cities in Ukraine for almost 2 years. What is evidently way too long that you can say "oops" or "I didn't really mean it like that !". The winter has started and now again they are targeting power grid and heating infrastructure in the middle of the winter. What is simply because they want to see as much death as possible. Since death makes their progress much more easy, since it removes people and it causes disintegration of the opposition (physical and emotional). Therefore this is where I think that in your best wishes you made a mistake. What is because you are presuming that everyone has as high moral standard as you. What simply isn't true. Something like a year ago EU foreign policy chief said something among the lines "EU is nicely organized garden and the most of the rest of the world is basically a jungle". What is the statement that was slammed all over the place as well as abroad. However the real question was is this really that wrong as a statement? For a hint take a look at my new global stability map in the cold war thread. Therefore by watching that you should quickly realize that country like yours is more of an exception than a rule (plus your entire part of the world is the most stable one). While the bulk of the world is almost nothing like the place you live and thus it doesn't share a bulk of your worldviews.



Also people who never experienced large scale violence are constantly repeating this idea that violence is coming out of dehumanizing. What is actually wrong assumption, since good chunk of the violence is based exactly on what the person is. The fact that you find this concept foreign or repulsive doesn't make it fundamentally wrong or untrue. In other words you can consider yourself to be lucky in the big picture, since you haven't been proven wrong in your daily life. However if someone were to use artillery against your home with your entire family inside I am pretty sure that you would change your mind. If things would get bad enough I am even sure that you would kill some of those people in order to save your daughters. However you wouldn't do it because you dehumanized them, you would do it exactly because of what they are. The same works for petty crimimals as well. Therefore if all of this is a little bit too abstract for you feel free to look some news from the wars that happening at this point (it isn't that aren't any around). In those places people have to make these kinds of decisions on daily basis. So to them this isn't some abstract debate. It is easy to moralize when no one is shooting at you.



So to warp this up: I fully understand and even support your idea that there should be some higher goals and principles. However in the same fashion you must understand that sometimes that simply can't be maintained. In other words it takes two to have peace. So if there is no consensus on that there will be no peace. What means that you have to be ready that things may not go by the rules and that you have to act accordingly. In other words people that are pushing peace at all cost in the end are only creating power vacuum that someone will exploit. Since there are people out there that aren't interested in peace at all. This is exactly why German defense spending is such a controversy for years. The gang of half a million people is killing innocent people every day just a few hundred miles eastward and most of western Europe acts as if international law will protect them in all scenarios. What is nonsense because if that law is truly worth something this wouldn't be happening in the first place. In other words the law is basically USA, therefore if USA finds that it has something smarter to do than stablity of Europe we should be ready for some very unpretty scenarios. In other words rule of law is basically 1th world invention, while in good chunk of the world this isn't how things works. Therefore it is important to realize that moralism has it's limits and that in some situations you just have to adapt to the situation no matter how gross it is. Because if you don't there are good odds that you wouldn't make it through them. What in a way will be the end of your values. Which is excactly why some think that violence is the ultimate solution to their problems.