Climate Emails Stoke Debate

  On 5/28/2019 at 12:12 PM, goDel said:

so, if change in climate is a given, stability is the anomaly. our current hockeystick might not be as unique as assumed.

It's pretty unique from the last several tens of millions of years, at least. Historic atmospheric carbon levels (i.e. CO2+CH4) can be gleaned from lots of different sources in the sedimentary record (shoutout to forams), and you can map out historic fluctuations (inputs or drawdowns of biogenic carbon) using the 13/12C ratios.

You can, crudely, convert this type of data into estimates for the actual CO2 atmospheric ppm, but for our purposes of survivability what is far more important is the rate of change. A high rate of change means a big "spike" or excursion in the 13/12C ratio. There aren't any 13C excursions that stick out against the glacial/interglacial cyclic background, until you get back to the Eocene ~50Ma. 

These tie in with the "hyperthermal" events of the Paleocene and Eocene, the most famous of which is the PETM - these are our best proxies for our current ill-advised atmospheric experiment. They were probably (but not conclusively) caused by magmatic activity in the newly opened north Atlantic, vapourising coal and hydrocarbon deposits.

From the sedimentary record you can see that these correlate with temperature spikes of 5C upwards, rapid onset of a monsoon style hothouse climate across much of the world (mixed in with increased aridity in a few spots e.g. arabia, western-interior north america, central europe), more forest fires, major dieoffs of marine organisms, poleward jumps in ecosystems, and erosion of shallow carbonate deposits (probably caused by shoaling of the lysocline, caused by higher CO2 and also releasing more CO2, lovely feedback). Another odd one is increased insect damage to plants, which can be seen in the fossil record. Possible cause is reduced nutrient content of plant matter in higher CO2 environment (known experimentally). The various negative feedbacks did their work gradually over hundreds of thousands of years following the events.

So, if we were to undergo another hyperthermal today, that's the kind of thing we should expect - with the added complication that we also have ice caps (which didn't exist then), so there's a bonus sea level rise factor for us.

You can also put a rough figure on the absolute amount of organic carbon pumped into the atmosphere. The PETM was about ~2000Gt of carbon, over perhaps 20,000 years. Current human emissions are pushing 10Gt a year (this doesn't take into account the differing effects of CO2 vs CH4 of course). So we're playing out our current shenanigans at hundreds of times the speed of the only remotely comparable event in recent Earth history.

PS any discussion of what is or isn't "normal" is vapid - what matters, surely, is whether it's survivable or adaptable, and are we causing it?

  On 8/21/2019 at 10:20 PM, Tricone RC said:

PS any discussion of what is or isn't "normal" is vapid - what matters, surely, is whether it's survivable or adaptable, and are we causing it?

100% agree - doesn't matter if climate change is man-created or a natural occurrence; what we can do about it is what matters!

I don't disagree. But just to clarify, the whole thing about "normal" was to point to it being arbitrary. It's "our" normal. Or just call it vapid. 

Things are changing. And we might have triggered some of it. Either triggered, or just added to it. (To me, triggering and causing are two very different things, btw. Eg. A person might trigger a snowslide, but think away that person and that snowslide might still happen. The conditions for it to happen were already there. The person did not single handedly cause the snowslide as the snow and the risk for a snowslide were already there.) But even if that is the case, the idea that we can return to a stable situation again is wishful thinking at best, imo. Were not at the point of controlling climate. Influencing at best. And mostly without a clue of where it would be going. Were just guessing at this point.

So yeah. Learn to adapt. And try to better our ways to not fuck it up even more. Things are already put in motion. And there are far too many feedback loops in the system to turn things around in the short term. With plenty parts of the puzzle outside our immediate control. 

  On 8/22/2019 at 8:26 AM, goDel said:

I don't disagree. But just to clarify, the whole thing about "normal" was to point to it being arbitrary. It's "our" normal. Or just call it vapid. 

Things are changing. And we might have triggered some of it. Either triggered, or just added to it. (To me, triggering and causing are two very different things, btw. Eg. A person might trigger a snowslide, but think away that person and that snowslide might still happen. The conditions for it to happen were already there. The person did not single handedly cause the snowslide as the snow and the risk for a snowslide were already there.) But even if that is the case, the idea that we can return to a stable situation again is wishful thinking at best, imo. Were not at the point of controlling climate. Influencing at best. And mostly without a clue of where it would be going. Were just guessing at this point.

So yeah. Learn to adapt. And try to better our ways to not fuck it up even more. Things are already put in motion. And there are far too many feedback loops in the system to turn things around in the short term. With plenty parts of the puzzle outside our immediate control. 

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this is the most galaxy brain take lmao. Hope you're prepared to die in an overcrowded disaster slum while Jeff Bezos n the boys emigrate to Mars, cause that's where us working class people are headed with this kind of shit.

  On 8/22/2019 at 8:26 AM, goDel said:

I don't disagree. But just to clarify, the whole thing about "normal" was to point to it being arbitrary. It's "our" normal. Or just call it vapid. 

Things are changing. And we might have triggered some of it. Either triggered, or just added to it. (To me, triggering and causing are two very different things, btw. Eg. A person might trigger a snowslide, but think away that person and that snowslide might still happen. The conditions for it to happen were already there. The person did not single handedly cause the snowslide as the snow and the risk for a snowslide were already there.) But even if that is the case, the idea that we can return to a stable situation again is wishful thinking at best, imo. Were not at the point of controlling climate. Influencing at best. And mostly without a clue of where it would be going. Were just guessing at this point.

So yeah. Learn to adapt. And try to better our ways to not fuck it up even more. Things are already put in motion. And there are far too many feedback loops in the system to turn things around in the short term. With plenty parts of the puzzle outside our immediate control. 

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Really don't get how that's your takeaway. We've not triggered or added to anything, we're directly causing warming, totally overriding natural forcings which presently would actually be causing a very slight cooling. We're swinging atmospheric chemistry around to a level hundreds of times more extreme than anything that's happened naturally since that big space rock fucked the dinosaurs

this girl is awesome

She needs to calm down

  On 9/23/2019 at 11:03 PM, drillkicker said:

She needs to calm down

???

  On 9/23/2019 at 11:03 PM, drillkicker said:

She needs to calm down

lol yeah no... stuff like this is critical right now

Seems like she's just getting angry at people.  That's neither healthy nor productive.  Think about the resources that were wasted to fly her that far when they could have gotten any kid from the local school.

  On 9/24/2019 at 1:14 AM, drillkicker said:

Seems like she's just getting angry at people.  That's neither healthy nor productive.  Think about the resources that were wasted to fly her that far when they could have gotten any kid from the local school.

She sailed on a boat to get to the usa

no fossil fuels

She's also autistic, no joke. Slight joke.

  On 9/24/2019 at 1:14 AM, drillkicker said:

Seems like she's just getting angry at people.  That's neither healthy nor productive.  Think about the resources that were wasted to fly her that far when they could have gotten any kid from the local school.

^lol nice

  On 9/24/2019 at 1:14 AM, drillkicker said:

Seems like she's just getting angry at people.  That's neither healthy nor productive. 

lol she's like 11 or something. at least she's trying.

But why did they take some 11 year old from a different continent to go and give a speech about climate change ?   She even points out the absurdity of that in the beginning of the video.

  On 9/24/2019 at 2:24 AM, drillkicker said:

But why did they take some 11 year old from a different continent to go and give a speech about climate change ?   She even points out the absurdity of that in the beginning of the video.

They probably want to include in the video someone it is more likely to affect than us elderly boomers in their 20s-40s. A big theme in the climate debate is how it's mostly going to affect future generations. 

Even though my house has now flooded twice in record breaking storms in the past 2 years. First from Hurricane Harvey and now Tropical Storm Imelda. PROBABLY JUST A COINCIDENCE.

But why did they take a kid from a different continent instead of a local kid ?  How does that make a more compelling case ?

  On 9/24/2019 at 2:57 AM, drillkicker said:

But why did they take a kid from a different continent instead of a local kid ?  How does that make a more compelling case ?

because she's not some random kid....? she's been making a deal speaking out against inaction around climate change for like the last year or two i think. 

  On 9/24/2019 at 2:57 AM, drillkicker said:

But why did they take a kid from a different continent instead of a local kid ?  How does that make a more compelling case ?

this thread is almost 10 years old, in retrospect I'd be really happy if we had 10 years of no technological change in terms of consumer technology, in return for 10 years of politicians locking down hardcore on the environment and fixing it through taxes, geopolitical weight-throwing, etc.  look what we got instead, thanks obama

i want the governments of the world to temporarily seize the means of production through their violence monopoly and redirect it all towards fixing climate change ASAP but it aint gonna fucking happen

  On 9/24/2019 at 3:09 AM, auxien said:

because she's not some random kid....? she's been making a deal speaking out against inaction around climate change for like the last year or two i think. 

 

she's a distraction that mainstream media is letting us talk about because they aren't holding real power accountable with their global information broadcast network, they're useless fucks, she's not going to do shit, it's not even her fault, she's great, but the phenomena of her is a fucking joke.  how about mainstream media talk about who's really responsible for this as much as they talk about this girl and hold their feet to the fucking fire

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/d7rx2e/climate_change_accelerating_say_scientists/f14tt9f/

  Quote

America is not alone by any means (and it certainly isn't the first time), but The United States has become a textbook victim of

 Regulatory Capture.

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.

Arsonists have been hired to the fire department in almost every sector:

•Rick Perry - The Secretary of Energy. Rick Perry is a longtime proponent of corporate deregulation and tax breaks, and once said he wanted to abolish the Department of Energy.

In a CNBC interview on June 19, 2017, he downplayed the role of human activity in the recent rise of the Earth's temperature, saying natural causes are likely the main driver of climate change.

•Scott Pruitt - Former Head of The Environmental Protection Agency - An oil lobbyist who had personally sued and fought the EPA for years in the interest of fossil fuel entities. He resigned in shame, and under multiple investigations.

•Andrew Wheeler - Pruitt's successor at the EPA - Worked for a coal magnate and frequent lobbyist against Obama's regulations.

•Ryan Zinke - Former Secretary of the Interior. A fervent deregulation proponent. Zinke opened more federal lands for oil, gas and mineral exploration and extraction than any previous secretary. He resigned in disgrace, and under many investigations.

•David Bernhardt - Zinke's successor at the Interior. An oil industry lobbyist who was under investigation only days after his confirmation. Bernhardt, when asked about climate change (something that directly affects the lands he is in charge of) dismissively quipped "It doesn't keep me up at night."

If you really want a scary sight, check out Trump's deregulation list, which includes:

-Methane Emissions
-Clean Power Plan
-Endangered Species Act
-Waters of the U.S. Rule
-Emissions for Coal Power Plants
-Waste Prevention Rule
-Coal Ash Rule
-Chemical Release Prevention
-Scientific Transparency Rule
-Pesticide regulations
-Livestock regulations
-Oil gas and Fracking
-Power Plant Water Pollution
-Clean Air Act
-among many, many others..

This is especially worrying when scientists are ringing alarm bells about climate change:

-The U.S. Government's Fourth National Climate Assessment (Made during the Trump admin, no less)

Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities. The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future..

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities will continue to affect Earth’s climate for decades and even centuries.

-The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

NASA's website on scientific consensus regarding climate change

It's also alarming in a time when 1,000,000 species are at risk of extinction (making this time period the 2nd-fastest extinction event on the planet by some metrics)

Our planet, on terms of biological timescales, is being hit with a sledgehammer by this administration.

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I want the governments of the world to temporarily seize the means of production through their violence monopoly and redirect it all towards creating a new Autechre album