Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble
September 25, 2018 10:22 AM Subscribe
Arctic Cauldron. "Across the Arctic, lakes are bubbling and hissing with a dangerous greenhouse gas, methane, as the Arctic thaws. And one lake is behaving very strangely."
Behold, Another Signal of the Coming Climate Apocalypse That Will Go Ignored by Half Our Political System
Behold, Another Signal of the Coming Climate Apocalypse That Will Go Ignored by Half Our Political System
In 2010, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks posted a video of the media-savvy ecologist standing on the frozen surface of an Arctic lake, then lighting a methane stream on fire to create a tower of flame as tall as she is. It got nearly half a million views on YouTube.
No link, WaPo?? Never mind, here it is!
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:41 AM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
No link, WaPo?? Never mind, here it is!
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:41 AM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
So... they're, like, lighting lake farts?
posted by which_chick at 10:47 AM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by which_chick at 10:47 AM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
Scientists know the permafrost contains an enormous amount of carbon — enough to catastrophically warm the planet if it were all released into the atmosphere.
I can see how it works with the lakes, but are there any areas of permafrost where it's melting, but there's not enough ice to pool? Ie, are there instances where methane is being released without the telltale of a lake above it (making the problem much larger and more difficult in scale)?
[#permafrostnoob]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:53 AM on September 25, 2018
I can see how it works with the lakes, but are there any areas of permafrost where it's melting, but there's not enough ice to pool? Ie, are there instances where methane is being released without the telltale of a lake above it (making the problem much larger and more difficult in scale)?
[#permafrostnoob]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:53 AM on September 25, 2018
Well, if methane instead of carbon dioxide destroys the biosphere, at least it will be an own on the libs.
posted by thelonius at 10:59 AM on September 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 10:59 AM on September 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
At this point, I've found that it helps emotionally to think of fighting climate change not for humans - since any kind of global human civilization after 2100 is probably pretty much a wash, and frankly I'm about out of fucks to give in re human beings in light of our track record - but for the hope that, eg, some whales somewhere, or some dolphins somewhere, or some corals somewhere, or some little lizards somewhere or some bees somewhere will be fine and they'll come back.
posted by Frowner at 11:19 AM on September 25, 2018 [33 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 11:19 AM on September 25, 2018 [33 favorites]
@Frowner: My money's on the dragonflies. 300 million years of existence is a pretty decent track record. Plus, they're pretty.
posted by which_chick at 11:22 AM on September 25, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by which_chick at 11:22 AM on September 25, 2018 [16 favorites]
I feel this has been known for quite a while, but I enjoy the lighter vid, and will use it at work.
posted by mumimor at 11:23 AM on September 25, 2018
posted by mumimor at 11:23 AM on September 25, 2018
@which_chick: there’s a book about that. Tangentially.
posted by mumkin at 11:30 AM on September 25, 2018
posted by mumkin at 11:30 AM on September 25, 2018
I've got my money on the corvids, but we'll see.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:31 AM on September 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 11:31 AM on September 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
(I mean, crows and ravens are carrion eaters, sooo...)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:32 AM on September 25, 2018
posted by tobascodagama at 11:32 AM on September 25, 2018
or some bees somewhere will be fine and they'll come back.
Don't worry, life will exist in the deep thermal vents and cold seeps!
<chokesob>
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:34 AM on September 25, 2018 [11 favorites]
Don't worry, life will exist in the deep thermal vents and cold seeps!
<chokesob>
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:34 AM on September 25, 2018 [11 favorites]
See also John Barnes' Mother of Storms, and the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis for even more doomsday fun.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 11:49 AM on September 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 11:49 AM on September 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
See also John Barnes' Mother of Storms, and the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis for even more doomsday fun.
No.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:51 AM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
No.
posted by schadenfrau at 11:51 AM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
See also John Barnes' Mother of Storms, and the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis for even more doomsday fun.
but yeah. I know its terrible but this stuff is like catnip/porn for me. maybe because the scope is so vast it gives a sort of comfort against the more quotidian threats we face every day here in the Upside Down.
posted by supermedusa at 11:57 AM on September 25, 2018
but yeah. I know its terrible but this stuff is like catnip/porn for me. maybe because the scope is so vast it gives a sort of comfort against the more quotidian threats we face every day here in the Upside Down.
posted by supermedusa at 11:57 AM on September 25, 2018
At this point, I feel like our species is under a collective spell--what else could explain our refusal to confront with any urgency the thing that will almost certainly destroy our civilization, maybe sooner than later? What is going on here? Why are we all sleepwalking? Many people I know who are otherwise very progressive seem to treat climate change as an afterthought, item #17 on the Liberal Agenda rather than the #1 it should be.
I just don't get it.
posted by whistle pig at 12:19 PM on September 25, 2018 [16 favorites]
I just don't get it.
posted by whistle pig at 12:19 PM on September 25, 2018 [16 favorites]
I didn't like Sorry To Bother You as much as I was hoping I would, but one line in particular has really stuck with me. I can't find it online, but it's something about how when people can't perceive a solution to a problem, no matter how big it is, eventually they just learn to live with it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:39 PM on September 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:39 PM on September 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
aside: wtf is going on with WaPo's rewriting the URL to just washingtonpost.com after the page loads?!
posted by slater at 12:40 PM on September 25, 2018
posted by slater at 12:40 PM on September 25, 2018
.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:55 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 12:55 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
the ignition of all nuclear stockpile could potentially ignite the atmosphere, which could certainly threaten a lot of the life on earth. I believe something like that is surmised to have happened with Chicxulub, which only killed off a lot of terrestrial life...
posted by supermedusa at 1:12 PM on September 25, 2018
posted by supermedusa at 1:12 PM on September 25, 2018
"But it will take more study" - We urgently need a way out of the endless more study loop. There will be thousands of knowledgeable folk across the Arctic seeing this stuff on a daily basis - science will prove / is proving to be too slow for the emergency we'e facing.
Our governmental systems of only responding to long-term threats via a a chain of Peer reviewed science, then to policy, and later on, way down the track to actions. We have to find a way to short-circuit this.
I don't know what the (Planet) safe solution is (and whether that is direct response / geoengineering or targeting large carbon emitters or simply preparing a global culture for survival - probably all three).
Maybe a network of anecdote circles where anecdotal knowledge is assessed and rapidly moved to action, or snowballing as a means to prove that tacit, grass-roots and so-called anecdote is as real as peer-process, as a way of getting people knowledge into public discourse, policy and action.
posted by unearthed at 1:37 PM on September 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
Our governmental systems of only responding to long-term threats via a a chain of Peer reviewed science, then to policy, and later on, way down the track to actions. We have to find a way to short-circuit this.
I don't know what the (Planet) safe solution is (and whether that is direct response / geoengineering or targeting large carbon emitters or simply preparing a global culture for survival - probably all three).
Maybe a network of anecdote circles where anecdotal knowledge is assessed and rapidly moved to action, or snowballing as a means to prove that tacit, grass-roots and so-called anecdote is as real as peer-process, as a way of getting people knowledge into public discourse, policy and action.
posted by unearthed at 1:37 PM on September 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
supermedusa, as far as I’ve read it is extremely unlikely that we could start a chain reaction and ignite the atmosphere. At best:
“if the Earth’s oceans had twenty times more deuterium than they actually contain, they could be ignited by a 20 million megaton bomb (which is to say, a bomb with the yield equivalent to 200 teratons of TNT, or a bomb 2 million times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba’s full yield). If we assumed that such a weapon had even a fantastically efficient yield-to-weight ratio like 50 kt/kg, that’s still a device that would weigh around a billion metric tons. To put that into perspective, that’s about ten times more mass than all of the concrete of the Three Gorges Dam.
So there you have it — it can be done! You just need to totally change the composition of the oceans and need a nuclear weapon many orders of magnitude more powerful than the gigaton bombs dreamed of by Edward Teller, and then, maybe, you can pull off the cleansing thermonuclear fire experience.”
posted by Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer at 2:16 PM on September 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
“if the Earth’s oceans had twenty times more deuterium than they actually contain, they could be ignited by a 20 million megaton bomb (which is to say, a bomb with the yield equivalent to 200 teratons of TNT, or a bomb 2 million times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba’s full yield). If we assumed that such a weapon had even a fantastically efficient yield-to-weight ratio like 50 kt/kg, that’s still a device that would weigh around a billion metric tons. To put that into perspective, that’s about ten times more mass than all of the concrete of the Three Gorges Dam.
So there you have it — it can be done! You just need to totally change the composition of the oceans and need a nuclear weapon many orders of magnitude more powerful than the gigaton bombs dreamed of by Edward Teller, and then, maybe, you can pull off the cleansing thermonuclear fire experience.”
posted by Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer at 2:16 PM on September 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
what else could explain our refusal to confront with any urgency the thing that will almost certainly destroy our civilization, maybe sooner than later?
The same thing that explains why even deer who have witnessed other deer get run over by cars continue to cross roads and get run over. The fundamental nature of the problem is entirely unlike any normal survival scenario for individual humans since the very earliest hominids. Factor in magical thinking where we believe things like droughts and famines and blights happen outside our control, and you have a handy shortcut to political inertia.
Add in a motive to protect the wealth of those who profit from causing the very problem that faces us and it may yet prove insurmountable. We have to have both the educational background to understand it and the lack of strong political faction adherence to allow ourselves to even conceive of taking action.
Of course we're doomed.
posted by tclark at 2:23 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
The same thing that explains why even deer who have witnessed other deer get run over by cars continue to cross roads and get run over. The fundamental nature of the problem is entirely unlike any normal survival scenario for individual humans since the very earliest hominids. Factor in magical thinking where we believe things like droughts and famines and blights happen outside our control, and you have a handy shortcut to political inertia.
Add in a motive to protect the wealth of those who profit from causing the very problem that faces us and it may yet prove insurmountable. We have to have both the educational background to understand it and the lack of strong political faction adherence to allow ourselves to even conceive of taking action.
Of course we're doomed.
posted by tclark at 2:23 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm reminded of the words of philosopher William Hudson who said, "Well that's great. That's just fuckin' great, man."
posted by ob1quixote at 2:43 PM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 2:43 PM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
There's no channel by which people can act - that's a big part of the problem. Think about times when there's been some kind of massive mobilization to achieve a political end - either there has been relatively little organizing (Arab Spring, the protests in S. Korea) but the political end is fairly clear and immediate or there's an enormous amount of careful, policy-oriented organizing and behind the scenes planning to achieve a complex plan (bus boycotts, union organizing, creation of the National Health Service, etc). Imagine the type of organizing that would have to take place to mobilize enough people to have an effect around the world - because that's what would have to happen, mass protests, boycotts and general strikes all pushing toward a common goal. And it would have to go on for a long time.
That itself is a channel problem - conceivably if we lived in the spherical cow version of democracy, where there was some way to test for and then implement the will of the majority, and where everyone who was old enough to vote was allowed to vote, and where everyone was roughly economically equal, then you could get a clear majority to vote for anti-climate-change measures to be taken even if they were expensive and inconvenient. But we live in pseudo democracy where most people either can't vote or are discouraged from voting and where the things that people actually want are only ever implemented either to prevent mass upheaval or if they align with the interests of the very rich.
So that means that to achieve actual change, your channel is basically "give us change or we'll burn everything down, we have millions of people and you are the .01%". Which means that to get change, you need millions of people who are all pretty committed.
That's why it took two world wars and the Russian Revolution to create social democracy. I suppose the optimistic scenario is that we should all hope for some huge disaster to open the door to change - if there's, eg, a global pandemic and the elites fuck up the response such that half the population dies, for instance, or if there's some kind of small scale nuclear exchange.
The best case scenario is a global disaster so profound that our political masters are afraid of the populace, and that comes with a few obvious drawbacks.
posted by Frowner at 2:54 PM on September 25, 2018 [19 favorites]
That itself is a channel problem - conceivably if we lived in the spherical cow version of democracy, where there was some way to test for and then implement the will of the majority, and where everyone who was old enough to vote was allowed to vote, and where everyone was roughly economically equal, then you could get a clear majority to vote for anti-climate-change measures to be taken even if they were expensive and inconvenient. But we live in pseudo democracy where most people either can't vote or are discouraged from voting and where the things that people actually want are only ever implemented either to prevent mass upheaval or if they align with the interests of the very rich.
So that means that to achieve actual change, your channel is basically "give us change or we'll burn everything down, we have millions of people and you are the .01%". Which means that to get change, you need millions of people who are all pretty committed.
That's why it took two world wars and the Russian Revolution to create social democracy. I suppose the optimistic scenario is that we should all hope for some huge disaster to open the door to change - if there's, eg, a global pandemic and the elites fuck up the response such that half the population dies, for instance, or if there's some kind of small scale nuclear exchange.
The best case scenario is a global disaster so profound that our political masters are afraid of the populace, and that comes with a few obvious drawbacks.
posted by Frowner at 2:54 PM on September 25, 2018 [19 favorites]
I'm reminded of the words of philosopher William Hudson who said, "Well that's great. That's just fuckin' great, man."
and next it will be 'game over'...
posted by supermedusa at 2:57 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
and next it will be 'game over'...
posted by supermedusa at 2:57 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
> Our governmental systems of only responding to long-term threats via a a chain of Peer reviewed science, then to policy, and later on, way down the track to actions.
Hi, I would like to move to the universe where governments act based on peer reviewed science, thanks in advance.
posted by lucidium at 3:37 PM on September 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Hi, I would like to move to the universe where governments act based on peer reviewed science, thanks in advance.
posted by lucidium at 3:37 PM on September 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Trump Just Made It Easier for Frackers to Leak Methane While Drilling on Federal Land
posted by homunculus at 6:33 PM on September 25, 2018
posted by homunculus at 6:33 PM on September 25, 2018
and next it will be 'game over'...
also, "why don't you put her in charge?"
(and there will be much rejoicing)
posted by entropicamericana at 6:50 PM on September 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
also, "why don't you put her in charge?"
(and there will be much rejoicing)
posted by entropicamericana at 6:50 PM on September 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
I made a FPP on this phenomenon back in 2011. The first comment was "Ahahahaha we're so fucking doomed hahaha", which I now think showed commendable stoicism.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:07 PM on September 25, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:07 PM on September 25, 2018 [12 favorites]
So, what? Am I now going to have to live through the apocalypse?
I’ll be honest, I was hoping not to live through the apocalypse.
That sounds so flippant, but every word is true.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:09 PM on September 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
I’ll be honest, I was hoping not to live through the apocalypse.
That sounds so flippant, but every word is true.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:09 PM on September 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Our governmental systems of only responding to long-term threats via a a chain of Peer reviewed science, then to policy, and later on, way down the track to actions. We have to find a way to short-circuit this.
Huh? The problem isn't that we're waiting around for the science to finally tell us that global warming is a threat. The science has been telling us that for decades. It's only the details that are scientifically controversial.
The problem is that doing something about it will cut into the profits of those in power, and they have downplayed, obfuscated, and denied. If you think that the problem is the science being unclear, that's just more evidence that the misinformation campaign has worked.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:18 PM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
Huh? The problem isn't that we're waiting around for the science to finally tell us that global warming is a threat. The science has been telling us that for decades. It's only the details that are scientifically controversial.
The problem is that doing something about it will cut into the profits of those in power, and they have downplayed, obfuscated, and denied. If you think that the problem is the science being unclear, that's just more evidence that the misinformation campaign has worked.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:18 PM on September 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
It's not as if we can even do anything about this. It's subject to positive feedback; it's all coming out. The only question is how much methane is down there.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:27 AM on September 26, 2018
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:27 AM on September 26, 2018
Since this is the Very Depressing thread, I'll add something else that I find helps me a bit in a horrible way: When I consider the way the world is going politically, or when I think about how apparently at least half of all humans are irredeemably cruel and start to feel really bad, I remind myself that climate change is coming. We only have to tough it out for however long it takes for some kind of global pandemic or huge crop failure, or for something that knocks down the supply chains, and then we're done.
After humans, there won't be any more prisons, or deportations, or war, or starvation wages, or abused children or people dying of treatable illnesses because care is withheld. The other kinds of creatures are not failed moral agents like humans, able to understand what's right and how to do it but persistently doing what's wrong and horrible.
And even if some humans do survive, we've mined and used all the readily accessible stuff so they'll have to scavenge. Once industrial civilization is interrupted, it's down for the count.
Once advanced human civilization is gone, the world will be at peace. In nature there may be an abundance of horror, but there is no good and no evil. I imagine the world in a few hundred years - a world of little lives that come and go, a world genuinely without history, and I find it extremely comforting.
posted by Frowner at 7:14 AM on September 26, 2018 [13 favorites]
After humans, there won't be any more prisons, or deportations, or war, or starvation wages, or abused children or people dying of treatable illnesses because care is withheld. The other kinds of creatures are not failed moral agents like humans, able to understand what's right and how to do it but persistently doing what's wrong and horrible.
And even if some humans do survive, we've mined and used all the readily accessible stuff so they'll have to scavenge. Once industrial civilization is interrupted, it's down for the count.
Once advanced human civilization is gone, the world will be at peace. In nature there may be an abundance of horror, but there is no good and no evil. I imagine the world in a few hundred years - a world of little lives that come and go, a world genuinely without history, and I find it extremely comforting.
posted by Frowner at 7:14 AM on September 26, 2018 [13 favorites]
Frowner, that calls to mind a passage from Zhuangzi, speaking of an idealized past (and, because time in Taoism is cyclical, an idealized future):
In the age when life on earth was full, no one paid any special attention to worthy men, nor did they single out the man of ability. Rulers were simply the highest branches on the tree, and the people were like deer in the woods. They were honest and righteous without realizing that they were "doing their duty." They loved each other and did not know that this was "loving thy neighbor." They deceived no one yet they did not know that they were "men to be trusted." They were reliable and did not know that this was "acting in good faith." They lived freely together giving and taking, and did not know that they were generous. For this reason their deeds have not been narrated. They made no history.posted by ragtag at 9:58 AM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]
I imagine the world in a few hundred years - a world of little lives that come and go, a world genuinely without history, and I find it extremely comforting.
And the really nice thing about this is it means one doesn't actually have to get involved. Get out the vote? Sign petitions? Make five calls? What's the point? Humanity is doomed and everyone is going to die horribly. So why bother trying to make anything better, whether in the world at large or in personal relationships? Don't get involved, just watch the world die.
The next time someone brings up something like being sexually harassed out of a job, or children being kept in cages, one can simply point out that civilization is going to die off in the next couple decades and that's better for the world, so why get upset? I guarantee that will shut them up.
posted by happyroach at 3:33 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
And the really nice thing about this is it means one doesn't actually have to get involved. Get out the vote? Sign petitions? Make five calls? What's the point? Humanity is doomed and everyone is going to die horribly. So why bother trying to make anything better, whether in the world at large or in personal relationships? Don't get involved, just watch the world die.
The next time someone brings up something like being sexually harassed out of a job, or children being kept in cages, one can simply point out that civilization is going to die off in the next couple decades and that's better for the world, so why get upset? I guarantee that will shut them up.
posted by happyroach at 3:33 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
No, it's much more that what I see is that in spite of our best efforts - and that includes mine, over at this point thirty years of activism - I think we're sliding irrevocably into the dark. There are too many things happening at once - from really big problems like climate change, antibiotic resistance, the rise of fascism and the inevitable eventuality of one of the bird flus becoming highly transmissible between humans to the small ones that will make the big ones worse, like the aging and collapse of our road, rail and water systems and the dismantling of our food safety processes. I don't think we're going to beat all those problems. I think that things are going to get worse, first slowly and then all at once.
That has nothing to do with fighting for amelioration in the moment, but what we're fighting for is amelioration before the dark. I think we kid ourselves a lot about what's possible.
posted by Frowner at 3:52 PM on September 26, 2018 [10 favorites]
That has nothing to do with fighting for amelioration in the moment, but what we're fighting for is amelioration before the dark. I think we kid ourselves a lot about what's possible.
posted by Frowner at 3:52 PM on September 26, 2018 [10 favorites]
For the first time, scientists prove human activity is the top cause of warming Antarctic waters
posted by homunculus at 4:15 PM on September 26, 2018
posted by homunculus at 4:15 PM on September 26, 2018
This thread is going a bit Children of Men. Certainly Gaian methane burping is a huge worry and we can't stop processes that are in train, but is there anything we (scaling to global) can do collectively to shut down things making situation worse?
Activism is a riskier business now but by parcelling out tasks to folk with different levels of riskier acceptance and and focusing on - especially - large carbon emitters I feel we could at least buy ourselves some time, and show the corps there's a real cost to business as usual. I'm finding more and more folk liking this, I don't know if it's being done tho'. Does anyone here know of anything, pls PM me.
posted by unearthed at 8:23 PM on September 26, 2018
Activism is a riskier business now but by parcelling out tasks to folk with different levels of riskier acceptance and and focusing on - especially - large carbon emitters I feel we could at least buy ourselves some time, and show the corps there's a real cost to business as usual. I'm finding more and more folk liking this, I don't know if it's being done tho'. Does anyone here know of anything, pls PM me.
posted by unearthed at 8:23 PM on September 26, 2018
Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100
"But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed."
posted by homunculus at 9:21 AM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
"But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed."
posted by homunculus at 9:21 AM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Some humans will probably survive for a while but I'm not that concerned about us. I worry about the rest of animal life's fate on a planet with only a couple hundred million years left of the ability to support multicellular life, and no easy mineral resources left. There's not much time or material for rats or crows to evolve and develop a spacefaring civilization. It feels exceptionally cruel to trap all remaining life here to be eaten by the sun because of our own suicidal impulses.
I seriously think that the most moral course of action for humanity now is to start tinkering with animals that are likely to survive. Give raccoons a few grey parrot genes and make their little hands a bit more nimble, and leave them instructions to build starships. It's the least we can do in the time we have left.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:34 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I seriously think that the most moral course of action for humanity now is to start tinkering with animals that are likely to survive. Give raccoons a few grey parrot genes and make their little hands a bit more nimble, and leave them instructions to build starships. It's the least we can do in the time we have left.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:34 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100
And the warming won't magically stop at 2100, even if later this century we finally start doing something meaningful about emissions. Long term predictions are difficult, but models currently suggest that we will reach ~12ºF/7ºC above pre-industrial levels by 2200, even assuming a complete halt to greenhouse emissions.
Two or three generations from now much of the world will either be uninhabitable or only borderline habitable. The agricultural, energy, and trade networks that make the current population possible will collapse. The deaths will number in the billions, with the end result being a return to subsistence farming in the few places still capable of supporting it.
Kavanaugh is worse in the near term, but 7 degrees of warming marks the end of complex human civilization within the next 200 years or so.
is there anything we (scaling to global) can do collectively to shut down things making situation worse?
If you live in a developed country, don't have children. If you have children, don't have any more. It is the single most effective thing you can do to limit your carbon footprint.
posted by jedicus at 9:36 AM on September 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
And the warming won't magically stop at 2100, even if later this century we finally start doing something meaningful about emissions. Long term predictions are difficult, but models currently suggest that we will reach ~12ºF/7ºC above pre-industrial levels by 2200, even assuming a complete halt to greenhouse emissions.
Two or three generations from now much of the world will either be uninhabitable or only borderline habitable. The agricultural, energy, and trade networks that make the current population possible will collapse. The deaths will number in the billions, with the end result being a return to subsistence farming in the few places still capable of supporting it.
Kavanaugh is worse in the near term, but 7 degrees of warming marks the end of complex human civilization within the next 200 years or so.
is there anything we (scaling to global) can do collectively to shut down things making situation worse?
If you live in a developed country, don't have children. If you have children, don't have any more. It is the single most effective thing you can do to limit your carbon footprint.
posted by jedicus at 9:36 AM on September 28, 2018 [7 favorites]
The oncoming climate change apocalypse is the clearest, most irrefutable, most urgent, and most globally relevant rebuke of capitalism we've ever seen, and my hope is that as its effects become more widely apparent, we may see a worldwide transition to something better.
Believing the world will be better without humans makes you... part of the death cult. Humanity, flawed as it is forced to be by the prevailing forces of global capital, is the most advanced, intelligent, moral form of life we know about, and we need to preserve it.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:44 AM on September 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
Believing the world will be better without humans makes you... part of the death cult. Humanity, flawed as it is forced to be by the prevailing forces of global capital, is the most advanced, intelligent, moral form of life we know about, and we need to preserve it.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:44 AM on September 28, 2018 [5 favorites]
We are a planet brimming with weapons and methods of transportation and lightly peppered with all forms of surveillance. The death throes of our population's will strip bare the whole of the earth every edible animal will be hunted down or trapped and killed all of the edible plants will be picked clean all of the accessible insects will be scoured and taken. 7 billion or 10 billion people will not sit quietly and starve when there is only enough food to feed 6 billion or five or four. All of the most competitive predatorial aggressive militaristic ethnocentric nationalist atrocities of our past will be unleashed as people fight for their very survival in a literally zero some food situation. So between then and now decide how you want to live with yourself and with others and how you would like to die. About 10 years ago I decided that I'd like to spend my time gardening and hiking and camping and living a materially lean life. It won't save the world, it won't save me, it won't inspire others. but I didn't see being miserable in an office for 60 hours a week telling myself that someday I'll have a vacation being the way I wanted to stumble into the apocalypse.
We are car driving the wrong direction and accelerating and that wrong direction it's true everything we do to slow the car down to try to hold it and tried to turn it around is an improvement it is also true that our hope is an opiate that has prevented us from demanding of our leaders the affordable interventions of yesteryear or the expense of interventions of the present that would be needed. We may or may not be past the point of Geo physical impossibility whereby no existing technology could be deployed fast enough and add a large enough scale to alter our terrible trajectory or we may not be there yet.
do not spend your time in despair in fatalism in depression whether the end is our doom or our survival spending it in those saddened states in mourning for a future of security of prosperity of continuity that was never to be . Find meaning in fighting this mess, find meaning in accepting the loss of everything we know, we made, we "had". It is too late to win, to avoid the pain, to "solve" the problem.... its not too late to help someone or something survive, and its never too late to be kind to each-other, comfort each-other and distract each other from the death that was inevitable from our birth.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 10:26 AM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
We are car driving the wrong direction and accelerating and that wrong direction it's true everything we do to slow the car down to try to hold it and tried to turn it around is an improvement it is also true that our hope is an opiate that has prevented us from demanding of our leaders the affordable interventions of yesteryear or the expense of interventions of the present that would be needed. We may or may not be past the point of Geo physical impossibility whereby no existing technology could be deployed fast enough and add a large enough scale to alter our terrible trajectory or we may not be there yet.
do not spend your time in despair in fatalism in depression whether the end is our doom or our survival spending it in those saddened states in mourning for a future of security of prosperity of continuity that was never to be . Find meaning in fighting this mess, find meaning in accepting the loss of everything we know, we made, we "had". It is too late to win, to avoid the pain, to "solve" the problem.... its not too late to help someone or something survive, and its never too late to be kind to each-other, comfort each-other and distract each other from the death that was inevitable from our birth.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 10:26 AM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Consider having no additional children or if you have none already, consider having one or no children.
Consider not using airplanes for yourself and your cargo.
Consider not eating red meat, and fruits from distant locations.
Consider allowing your clothing to keep you warm instead of your home, and allow more sweat too keep you cool.
Consider not buying new things, and if you need a thing, finding it used.
Consider using your money, your votes, your social prestige and ability to shame and praise to demand of your friends, family, politicians and business that they take action: switch to carbon neutral energy sources, begin removing carbon dioxide from the air, reduce the heat absorbtion of himan strucutres by white-washing, plant out as much available land as possible, begin fertilizing farming the seas for plants, end commercial fishing, logging and grazing, end pesticides, end war, end slavery, end inequality, end greed, end poverty.
Or we could just keep partying as the deck tilts and the ice cubes slip by us... the band played on.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 10:35 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Consider not using airplanes for yourself and your cargo.
Consider not eating red meat, and fruits from distant locations.
Consider allowing your clothing to keep you warm instead of your home, and allow more sweat too keep you cool.
Consider not buying new things, and if you need a thing, finding it used.
Consider using your money, your votes, your social prestige and ability to shame and praise to demand of your friends, family, politicians and business that they take action: switch to carbon neutral energy sources, begin removing carbon dioxide from the air, reduce the heat absorbtion of himan strucutres by white-washing, plant out as much available land as possible, begin fertilizing farming the seas for plants, end commercial fishing, logging and grazing, end pesticides, end war, end slavery, end inequality, end greed, end poverty.
Or we could just keep partying as the deck tilts and the ice cubes slip by us... the band played on.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 10:35 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is not an individual problem that can be solved or even meaningfully impacted by individual decisions. This is a collective problem that requires collective action to solve. Instead of fretting over your personal carbon impact, consider joining the DSA or another anti-capitalist organization that is working to organize the masses to oppose the forces that keep our society from making the changes we need to.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:56 AM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:56 AM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
E.P.A. to Eliminate Office That Advises Agency Chief on Science
"The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dissolve its Office of the Science Advisor, a senior post that was created to counsel the E.P.A. administrator on the scientific research underpinning health and environmental regulations, according to a person familiar with the agency’s plans. The person spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public."
posted by homunculus at 12:50 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
"The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dissolve its Office of the Science Advisor, a senior post that was created to counsel the E.P.A. administrator on the scientific research underpinning health and environmental regulations, according to a person familiar with the agency’s plans. The person spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public."
posted by homunculus at 12:50 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The flip side is, well ... Can anyone imagine a world without oil anymore? Imagine the oil suddenly stopped flowing. Like, pipelines are cut, the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, the oil just isn't available to be burned.
What happens when every supply chain breaks down? It staggers the fucking mind.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:26 PM on September 28, 2018
What happens when every supply chain breaks down? It staggers the fucking mind.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:26 PM on September 28, 2018
We Can Run (but We Can't Hide) - Grateful Dead, 1989-OCT-09, Set 1.
posted by mikelieman at 12:54 AM on September 29, 2018
posted by mikelieman at 12:54 AM on September 29, 2018
Alex Scarrow's plausible novels helps you "Imagine the oil suddenly stopped flowing", it also explores ways which might bring this about. Quite horrifying though, but realistic, characters well-drawn (to this non-writer) and most characters have committed murder within a month of the oil flow stopping.
posted by unearthed at 2:16 AM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by unearthed at 2:16 AM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
For more near-future dystopian forecasting: The Water Knife (PB's Windup Stories; Goodreads; Amazon) by Paolo Bacigalupi (previously)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:21 PM on October 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, leg-breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her luxurious developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get dust.And more scientific-minded planning -- New Climate Debate: How to Adapt to the End of the World -- Researchers are thinking about social collapse and how to prepare for it. (Christopher Flavelle for Bloomberg, September 26, 2018)
At the end of 2016, before Puerto Rico’s power grid collapsed, wildfires reached the Arctic, and a large swath of North Carolina was submerged under floodwaters, Jonathan Gosling published an academic paper asking what might have seemed like a shrill question: How should we prepare for the consequences of planetary climate catastrophe?Looking back a mere 5 years ago, the first comment was that "The Windup Girl was so much fun" -- Bacigalupi's work is feeling more realistic and less fantastic, and as such, I wouldn't call his works so much "fun" as "viable pre-planning reading".
“If some of the more extreme scenarios of ecocrisis turn out to be accurate, we in the West will be forced to confront such transformations,” wrote Gosling, an anthropologist who’d just retired from the University of Exeter in England.
Almost two years later, as the U.S. stumbles through a second consecutive season of record hurricanes and fires, more academics are approaching questions once reserved for doomsday cults. Can modern society prepare for a world in which global warming threatens large-scale social, economic, and political upheaval? What are the policy and social implications of rapid, and mostly unpleasant, climate disruption?
Those researchers, who are generally more pessimistic about the pace of climate change than most academics, are advocating for a series of changes—in infrastructure, agriculture and land-use management, international relations, and our expectations about life—to help manage the effects of crisis-level changes in weather patterns.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:21 PM on October 1, 2018 [4 favorites]
The U.S. Defense Department Is Losing the Battle Against Climate Change
posted by homunculus at 1:25 PM on October 1, 2018
posted by homunculus at 1:25 PM on October 1, 2018
Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:43 PM on October 4, 2018
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:43 PM on October 4, 2018
Elsewhere in the Arctic... near the end of this Deutsche Welle science television program (in English, direct .mp4 link, from a couple of months ago) there's a story illustrating scientific research that the sea floor in the Arctic (north of Europe specifically, I think?) is one of the marine regions most polluted by plastic waste in the whole world, around the same level as the Mediterranean. The suspicion is that the cause is due to circulating ocean currents from the Atlantic collecting the waste from elsewhere around the Ocean.
posted by XMLicious at 3:17 PM on October 5, 2018
posted by XMLicious at 3:17 PM on October 5, 2018
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posted by The Card Cheat at 10:36 AM on September 25, 2018 [31 favorites]