Climate Emails Stoke Debate

[prdctvsm]

^ what he said.

[Tricone RC]

On 9/24/2019 at 1:33 PM, caze said:

not really

https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/famine/

It'll probably start happening again in 50 or so years if we don't do anything about climate change now, but at least mass starvation is not one of our current problems.

didn't realise the Edwardians had such a good crack at alleviating famine. Pax Britannica?

[caze]

It think it was more that all the people that were going to die had died already. The following uptick coincided with a lot of war too, which is the main driver of famine (I think all of the current famines in the world today are due to war).

[may be rude]

if i were 16 i would feel the same way.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by very honest

[prdctvsm]

“For capital, and therefore for capitalists, the human species has become a means to the end that is this very mode of representation and visualisation engaging therefore in the practical deconstruction of being itself. The species as a whole has become the means of representation, which is to say, the means of capitalist informatic management. This de-essentialising instrumentalisation of the species of course resonates with Debord: “in the spectacle all that was once lived has moved into mere representation.” But now representation is really an end in a double sense. First as the drive to which all human production accedes …, but second, as a new order of alienated production that results (in) “the loss of reality.” Today, in the near total saturation of mental life by distributed capitalist media, representation is the denial, indeed the negation, and finally the impossibility of reality. 

Its functioning is, in short, the very definition of psychosis. Representation wholesale is now the active production of non-being. Like the state and the banks that are themselves constituted in it, representation, visual and linguistic, is structured by a matrix of pathologistical processes, and is today totally bankrupt. And this bankruptcy unfolds even as it mounts various exploits and derivatives—abstractions—to stave off a final accounting. If in service of the preservation of the historically and now evermore precariously constituted ego, psychosis entails the denial of reality, then speaking at all today may be its number one symptom. 

Because the reality is that, at least as far as capital is concerned, we do not exist. Shall we prove otherwise?”  

- Jonathan Beller,  “PATHOLOGISTICS OF ATTENTION”, p155, Psychopathologies_of_Cognitive_Capitalism1.pdf

 

“The root of our problems with the environment comes from a lack of constraint on the growth of population. There is no single right number of people that we can have as a goal: the number varies with our way of life on the planet and the state of its health.”         

- James Lovelock, “The Revenge of Gaia”, p206

“If we can overcome the self-generated threat of deadly climate change, caused by our massive destruction of eco-systems and global pollution, our next task will be to ensure that our numbers are always commensurate with our and Gaia's capacity to nourish them. Personally I think we would be wise to aim at a stabilised population of about half to one billion, and then we would be free to live in many different ways without harming Gaia. At first this may seem a difficult, unpalatable, even hopeless task, but events during the last century suggest that it might be easier than we think. Thus in prosperous societies, when women are given a fair chance to develop their potential they choose voluntarily to be less fecund. It is only a small step towards a better way of living with Gaia, and it has brought with it problems of a distorted age structure in society and dysfunctional family life, but it is a seed of optimism from which other voluntary controls could grow and surely far better than the cold concept of eugenics that withered in its own amorality.” - ibid, p207 

 

 

 

[caze]

that's some genocidal ecofascism right there.

[caze]

there's nothing to suggest the planet couldn't easily handle 10 times it's current population in theory, even though that's unlikely to happen in the near future as population growth is slowing and will probably go into reverse by the end of the century.

[chenGOD]

Looks like it (global population) will probably plateau around 9 billion.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/

An aging population in the future will bring about some very important shifts in economics, none of us will be around to see them of course, but hopefully work on post-scarcity economic models continues.

[YEK]

Good stuff

Edited October 5, 2019 by yekker

[caze]

Extinction Rebellion are filled with utter mongs, she's not even the worst of them

[may be rude]

the 2019 Arctic Report Card, a major federal assessment of climate change trends and impacts throughout the Arctic region, shows the arctic is possibly already a net emitter of atmospheric carbon comparable to the country of japan, due to thawing permafrost, accelerating climate change. the rate of greenhouse gas emission from melting permafrost will only increase, forming an accelerating feedback loop.

 

Quote

There has been concern throughout the scientific community that the approximately 1,460 billion to 1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon stored in frozen Arctic soils, almost twice the amount of greenhouse gases as what is contained in the atmosphere, could be released as the permafrost melts.

Warming temperatures allow microbes within the soil to convert permafrost carbon into the greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide and methane — which can be released into the air and accelerate warming. Ted Schuur, a researcher at Northern Arizona University and author of the permafrost chapter, said the report “takes on a new stand on the issue” based on other published work, including a study in Nature Climate Change in November.

Taking advantage of the new studies — one on regional carbon emissions from permafrost in Alaska during the warm season, and another on winter season emissions in the Arctic compared to how much carbon is absorbed by vegetation during the growing season — the report concludes permafrost ecosystems could be releasing as much as 1.1 billion to 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. This is almost as much as the annual emissions of Japan and Russia in 2018, respectively.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/12/10/arctic-may-have-crossed-key-threshold-emitting-billions-tons-carbon-into-air-long-dreaded-climate-feedback/

[may be rude]

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/02/07/antarctica-just-hit-65-degrees-its-warmest-temperature-ever-recorded/

 

Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded

 

Quote

...

The Antarctic peninsula, on which Thursday’s anomaly was recorded, is one of the fastest-warming regions in the world. In just the past 50 years, temperatures have surged a staggering 5 degrees in response to earth’s swiftly-warming climate. Around 87 percent of glaciers along the peninsula’s west coast have retreated in that time, the majority doing so at an accelerated pace since 2008.

...

 

i'm sure it will be fine

[whosebrian]

 

[Nebraska]

 

[dingformung]

9 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

 

Oh man. AfD. So much to say about them. One of their bosses is the grand child of Hitlers finance minister. Lots of their party leadership is in direct lineage to the real Nazis who killed 6 million Jews.

They get roughly 10%. It's been relatively stable for the past 3 years. It's a fairly new party, got strong in 2015 when a large refugee wave from Syria entered the country. The real danger isn't this party, the danger is the conservatives finally forming a coalition with them for maintenance of power since they are declining.

[ignatius]

we're pretty much fucked. i'm half way through this doc about how renewables and green energy is intertwined and reliant on fossil fuels.  bit of a reality check.

 

[may be rude]

^ thanks

solar and wind are ready to boom, the technology has matured. it's a massive economic opportunity, in many places, like texas. the greenhouse effect is not remotely in question. it's incredibly simple: some gases absorb more light. that's it.

• A report released last year by the International Renewable Energy Agency predicted that electricity generated by onshore wind and solar will be consistently cheaper than any fossil fuel source starting 2020
• What Is the Greenhouse Effect? | NASA Climate Kids

[caze]

that documentary is garbage

[caze]

https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/decarbonization-and-discontents

[ignatius]

25 minutes ago, caze said:

that documentary is garbage

does the link you posted explain why? the doc was linked to me by a friend. i take all things w/a grain of salt and i'm not evangelizing it.  i know a lot of people are pissed off about the doc. is it not something worth watching?

edit: read your link and honestly it all seems like just a difference of opinion. i think both things can be true.. if that makes no sense.. then i think there is reason to be apocalyptic and also reason to accept the facts of big business doing big things and making money.. but the fossil fuel industry intertwined in green energy is obvious in a lot of places. there's still a lot to figure out about a path forward. I can be critical of the doc but accept part of the reality it presents. 

after watching the Attenborough doc on netflix it's hard not to be apocalyptic at times and realize what it will take to change things in a real way. it's a big ask for a lot of americans and the developed world. it's hard not to imagine the world in the future with comfortable mega rich people and everyone else surviving on food pellets dropped by drones.

Edited November 1, 2020 by ignatius

[caze]

17 minutes ago, ignatius said:

does the link you posted explain why? the doc was linked to me by a friend. i take all things w/a grain of salt and i'm not evangelizing it.  i know a lot of people are pissed off about the doc. is it not something worth watching?

yes, it's a review of the film. you've already watched half of it, you might as well finish it off and read the review. 

the TL;DR: it's dishonest neo-Malthusian doomerism. there are legit problems with solar and wind, and definitely with biofuels (though this film lumps them together in a dumb way), but it totally overstates the problem and dismisses (or completely ignores, in the case of nuclear) all of the many possible solutions at hand.

Edited November 1, 2020 by caze

[ignatius]

4 minutes ago, caze said:

yes, it's a review of the film. you've already watched half of it, you might as well finish it off and read the review. 

the TL;DR: it's dishonest neo-Malthusian doomerism. there are legit problems with solar and wind, and definitely with biofuels (though this film lumps them together in a dumb way), but it totally overstates the problem and dismisses (or ignores, in the case of nuclear) all of the many possible solutions at hand.

i watched the whole thing and i expected it not to mention nuclear since it's still on a lot of people's shit list but for me it only makes the argument stronger for modern nuclear power to exist.  the doc is a little hacky but i don't see doomerism as far off from what reality to be so perhaps it's hard for me to discount that since i'm not overly optimistic about things. and i do check that in myself all the time and say "hold on.. shit doesn't have to go that way" but there's so much supporting evidence for things being really super fucked and waiting for humans to wake up in a real way and recognize the problems we need to solve and everyone needs to get on board and go all in. 

edit: after watching docs like Kiss the Ground (hollywood hippie doc about soil that has some good interesting science put into practice) and the attenborough doc on netflix.. there are a thousand different solutions that will have to be rolled out and they'll sometimes be different in different places and that's good because local/regional solutions will fit better.. and i think all this stuff can happen if/when people wake up but the fight against the big dollar industries will be a struggle to put it simply and what are the odds of the future winning? 

Edited November 1, 2020 by ignatius

[caze]

2 minutes ago, ignatius said:

but there's so much supporting evidence for things being really super fucked and waiting for humans to wake up in a real way and recognize the problems we need to solve and everyone needs to get on board and go all in. 

supporting evidence for what? climate change, total collapse, or the failure of technological solutions to either of those two issues? there's of course plenty of evidence for the first of those three things, far less evidence for the second, and very little evidence at all for the third - which is the main point of this film. blaming population growth, focusing on de-growth, radical economic/social change, is not going to fix anything, will just lead to very messy chaos, make everything worse if anything. there are obvious and proven technical solutions to these problems, we just need to take the finger out and implement them.

[ignatius]

14 minutes ago, caze said:

supporting evidence for what? climate change, total collapse, or the failure of technological solutions to either of those two issues? there's of course plenty of evidence for the first of those three things, far less evidence for the second, and very little evidence at all for the third - which is the main point of this film. blaming population growth, focusing on de-growth, radical economic/social change, is not going to fix anything, will just lead to very messy chaos, make everything worse if anything. there are obvious and proven technical solutions to these problems, we just need to take the finger out and implement them.

i see. i do think the problem is people more than anything. not that there's too many of them but that they refuse to recognize the problem or are unwilling to make changes. so, imo it will be hard to maintain the current standards of living w/o those big social changes.. more than just banning straws and plastic bags in some cities. the government and industry can lead but they don't seem entirely motivated currently.. even if there are a lot of individual people and companies looking for solutions w/lot's of passion. 

the netflix attenborough doc is far more in the doomerism camp than the planet of the humans doc.. but the evidence attenborough presents is undeniable.  we really are on a cliff in a many ways. 

i do agree there are a lot of solutions and changes that can reduce the effects of climate change and slow it down.  I'm not sure i agree that it will happen. some of it will. some of it won't. I hope it does and I try to live in that place but it isn't easy. 

[zlemflolia]

11 years later and the problems just worse. maybe our ancestors have a solution if the future doesnt seem to...

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by cyanobacteria