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Current time: March 18, 2024, 10:21 pm

Poll: Will the majority of the earth be hostile to human habitation within 100 years?
This poll is closed.
Yes.
60.53%
23 60.53%
No.
18.42%
7 18.42%
I don't know enough to venture an opinion.
18.42%
7 18.42%
Other (specify)
2.63%
1 2.63%
Total 38 vote(s) 100%
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Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
Weather disasters becoming more frequent and costly, UN agency says

Ida's remnants brought six to eight inches (15 to 20 cm) of rain to a swath of the Northeast from Philadelphia to Connecticut and set an hourly record of 3.15 inches for Manhattan, breaking the previous one that was set less than two weeks ago, the National Weather Service said.
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
That makes appropriate technologies more financially sound, makes them cost less. The real tragedy of climate change, assuming we wont prevent it... (lelz)..is if producers see it as punitive rather than opening up new markets. Inverting the relationship with their potentially more lucrative (current) loss leaders, and the big show. If I could convince more people to switch over to sugar production (as opposed to alkaloid production), marine protein (as opposed to ruminant protein)...and eggs(as opposed to N/A)... here in KY, climate change will have been a good thing for the state, not a bad one. It will make us money, not cost us money.

Particularly as we also lose our revenue from fossil fuels.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
(August 26, 2021 at 11:30 am)AtheistQuest Wrote: Happiness has tracked down in the countries because of humans being treated like replaceable machine parts while elites get much wealthier. It's why the rate of depression, anxiety, and suicides have risen. Amazon, Walmart, HP, Dell, Apple, the video game companies, and other companies have caused employees to have degenerated mental health due to sweatshop policies that only benefit antisocial elites, not everyone. Also, America has started to dehumanize lower class citizens through the for-profit prison indsutry that benefits only elites. Crime, poverty, and and misery were the results of that. The U.S. politicians have barred people with high I.Q.s from being cops. Which shows America has a culture based on anti-intellectual fearmongering controlled by modern day nazis who don't want cops being smart enough to question authority. Canada and Europe have decreased free speech, which is why they have brainwashing regimes now. Europe has decreased gun rights to make their citizens become passive-aggressively emasculated by not letting them have power over their governments if they become tyrannical. Human rights are a joke if gun rights aren't protected in the face of tyrants. Most Asian countries continue to treat females like subhuman beings politically, which has caused some Asian females to escape Asian countries where they will be legally protected better and more opportunities. Some Asian females have left Asia to go to America. Because America has higher wages, more entrepreneurs, and wider business oppportunities than Asian countries on average. Because Asian countries have patriarchy and political elitism that make lower class citizens poorer, especially females. There is even political corruption that makes Chinese court systems favor rich and powerful people over normal citizens. That's not a way to make average Chinese people be happy and wealthy. Otherwise, some Asian females have left Asia to go to European countries. Because European countries have stronger social safety nets, infrastructure, education systems, and self-control than America does to prevent greedy degeneracy. Which all of those things make the European countries have less crime, illiteracy, health disorders, personality disorders, poverty, and misery than America on average. But Asian continues to fail at human rights.

There used to be more free speech on popular social media platforms. But now, that has been replaced by closed-minded echo chambers.

You might have some interesting points in there somewhere, but all I see in your post is:

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< There used to be more free speech on popular social media platforms. But now, that has been replaced by closed-minded echo chambers. > 

There's a button called "Enter" on your keyboard. Press it twice after every other full stop. Not trying to be an asshole, but very hard to get enthusiastic about a solid wall of text.

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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
I'm very late to this topic, but here are my thoughts. Let me start by saying I do believe in man made climate change before you misinterpret my musings below.

1. It is unequivocal that temperatures are going up globally at an unprecedented rate. That is a fact.
2. It is also a fact that humans are polluting the atmosphere with emissions that undeniably increase heat retention
3. We can also accurately predict how "runaway" this process will be due to compounding factors such as loss of reflectivity of ice sheets
4. We can also accurately model the number of humans which will likely be affected at certain levels of sea rise / regional rainfall changes and therefore assess the overall cost to humanity of certain outcomes.

Nobody is disputing any of this (or if they are they clearly haven't looked at the evidence)

The fundamental problems with addressing climate change are twofold:

a. It is hard to prove the exact relationship between 2 and 1 above. There are many mathematical models, but they still involve many assumptions and it is hard to eliminate the impact of other potential causes. This fact is being undeniably milked to the max by climate change deniers to poo poo the whole thing.

b. The next point is more subtle and difficult, which involves the whole "how do you prioritise" this vs. other things thing. Assuming you can get enough consensus for a. above, where do you rate this problem vs. other global issues?
  • poverty
  • disease (incl. Covid)
  • food security
  • ageing populations
  • human rights violations
  • pollution / destructions of natural environments
  • water scarcity
  • equality
  • etc...
These are all also really really big problems. The truth is that to address climate change you need to take away resources and in some cases work against solutions to address the above - and how the hell does humanity make these types of moral tradeoffs in favour of addressing climate change globally across all countries with completely disparate and oftentimes opposite cultures, needs, ideologies and economical drivers? 

We're already up shit creek. Not just do we lack a paddle, the boat is made of paper, some shit is already in the boat and rising exponentially fast with each further panel that disintegrates, we have a lot of people in the boat who don't believe the boat is even sinking or don't care enough to read up on what "shit" even is but insist on having as much say as those who have been studying shit and boats all their lives and have years of in-boat shit-line measurements. Some passengers believe that the boat will magically refloat before their feet get dirty and therefore do nothing, and a bunch more think everything will ultimately be alright because people are tough and they personally can swim (even though most can't), 196 different captains are on board (some of which fall into the aforementioned categories) and only their own people listen each one, and all have different ideas on what to do. Sound like a recipe for success?

An activist for a given cause will be extremely passionate about that cause, to the exclusion of everything else, and this is also true for climate change activists, and that is something that Greta doesn't get as she is laser focused to the point of lecturing world leaders who have a much broader range of issues to consider every day.

Do I think we will conquer global warming?  Yes and No.

We won't get there fast enough to counteract all of the negatives predicted. Wealthy people will be OK and can get around the issues by relocating / changing their investment strategies. I suppose in 50 years even the middle classes will be bemoaning the terrible impact on low latitudinal peoples while sipping mulled wine from the balcony of their newly built Quebec condo.

BUT the general mindset of people around the globe is changing. Eventually it will come down to economics and demand. People now increasingly demand electric cars. People want to know that they products and services they buy are carbon friendly. The only way that we will get there is due to changing behaviours and spending habits, and that will take a great deal of time. Technology will also play a role, as we will ultimately invent new ways of doing things.

Do I think this will come about quickly? No. We also can't ignore other global issues to their detriment. I believe we will see a great deal of pain before the climate change oil tanker slowly changes course.
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
(June 28, 2021 at 11:07 am)Angrboda Wrote: By most models, we are or will soon pass the point at which we can't contain global warming and it will become a largely runaway process.

If that happens, it could make the majority of the earth hostile to humans in a relatively short timespan.

Do you think this will happen within 100 years?  Yes or no.

No, although I can't foretell the future.  The biggest variable is how humans will respond in the next several decades.

As for tipping points, different tipping points start at different temperatures and occur within a range of temperatures.  So for instance, melting permafrost will release methane as a positive feedback, and that has already begun in some areas, but won't happen in other areas for decades yet.  The release of methane frozen in the oceans will only happen at much higher and more delayed temperatures.

In other words, since climate change is a slowly moving process, we still have time to halt and reverse it.  We can even build machines which will pull CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it again.  It all depends on how we respond. However, it is likely already too late to prevent sea-level rise at least up to some disastrous point.

But I think your assumption that "the majority of the earth could be made hostile to humans" is overstated.  Some areas, certainly.  Other areas, like Canada and Russia, could benefit from climate change in the short run. And remember, at a point we simply run out of affordable fossil fuels to burn, likely within this century. We will be forced into renewables even if we didn't want to transition voluntarily, by economics alone.

A lot can happen in 100 years, and people will not remain idle.
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
If by 'we' you include me, probably not.

With a bit of luck I will be dead before climate change becomes personally inconvenient.

But for people say my nephews age or younger, (he's 25) I think you're fucked.

In around 1982, I had a brilliant but odd friend whose main concern for the world was global warming. I forget from whence this came, but it was a warning that if we did not reduce our use of fossil fuels by 15% now (as in 1982) it would soon be too late. I suspect that is where we're at .

We've seen the melting of glaciers and the permafrost (releasing billions of tonnes of methane into atmosphere). This week I read of loss of farmland in Bangladesh due to salinisation of a river. That country, and others, is flat. I expect Bangladesh to be flooded within 10 years at the latest.

Perhaps not in my lifetime, but not too far away, many of the world's coast lines will change with many of the coastal cities lost.

Right now, there is insufficient political will to take urgent action about this most pressing issue for the whole of humanity .

Every time I think of those stupidly corrupt fools, I think first of rich, white and privileged Boris Hooray Henry Johnson and then of High Brasil. May their prostates explode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-HOYTz-rs
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
(November 6, 2021 at 9:53 pm)Alan V Wrote:
(June 28, 2021 at 11:07 am)Angrboda Wrote: By most models, we are or will soon pass the point at which we can't contain global warming and it will become a largely runaway process.

If that happens, it could make the majority of the earth hostile to humans in a relatively short timespan.

Do you think this will happen within 100 years?  Yes or no.

No, although I can't foretell the future.  The biggest variable is how humans will respond in the next several decades.

As for tipping points, different tipping points start at different temperatures and occur within a range of temperatures.  So for instance, melting permafrost will release methane as a positive feedback, and that has already begun in some areas, but won't happen in other areas for decades yet.  The release of methane frozen in the oceans will only happen at much higher and more delayed temperatures.

In other words, since climate change is a slowly moving process, we still have time to halt and reverse it.  We can even build machines which will pull CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it again.  It all depends on how we respond.  However, it is likely already too late to prevent sea-level rise at least up to some disastrous point.

But I think your assumption that "the majority of the earth could be made hostile to humans" is overstated.  Some areas, certainly.  Other areas, like Canada and Russia, could benefit from climate change in the short run.  And remember, at a point we simply run out of affordable fossil fuels to burn, likely within this century.  We will be forced into renewables even if we didn't want to transition voluntarily, by economics alone.

A lot can happen in 100 years, and people will not remain idle.

Sure - I agree with the bold point above. However it also happens that almost all of the 3rd world happens to live nearer the equator as opposed to in temperate zones. The historical reason for this is simple - you don't need as much science, infrastructure, technology, and ultimately stuff to survive in a warmer climate. This segment makes up the vast majority of people that will not be able to relocate when their village / farm / settlement is under water or doesn't see enough rain to self sustain agriculture. 

The biggest problem is that those governments of countries most affected don't have the resources to help their own population, and the richer, more temperate lying countries will have exactly zero incentive to do so, in particular when the people most needing help will be from "Shithole Countries" (Donald Trump TM) containing colored people with different ideologies and religious beliefs which existentially threatens the white, conservative, Christian mind. 

Assuming that the friendly world will come together to help those in need is inherently bullshit.

Look at the shambles across most of Europe when you have just a single digit million people displaced from Syria. Some rich countries took more than their fair share (eg. Germany) but by far the most refugees were stuck in Turkey for both geographical and geopolitical reasons.

In the end, nobody will want the extra burden on their own population, will claim they have their own problems, and protect their own people, to the detriment of hundreds of millions of vulnerables.
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
There are literally hundreds of "points of no return" or tipping points in climate change:

They are the temperature increases beyond which these changes become inevitable:
The Amazon Rainforest will turn into a savanna
The western United States will desertify
The ice at the north pole will completely melt in summers
The Greenland ice sheet will completely melt
The West Antarctic ice sheet will completely melt
The East Antarctic ice sheet will completely melt
The various corals will die (depending on their locations and the species of coral)
The ocean will become acidified to the point that shellfish can no longer make shells
Various major cities around the world will be flooded (depending on their locations)
Various species will become extinct (depending on their vulnerabilities)
The Gulf Stream will largely shut down
The glaciers will melt (depending on their location)
Permafrost will melt and release CO2 and methane (depending on its location)
Ocean clathrates will melt and release methane (depending on their depth and location)
And so on....

Scientists believe that most of these tipping points will happen at various degrees of warming above 2C, which is why the goal has long been to keep warming below that point. But tipping points would likely happen at all sorts of different temperatures at different times, and many may happen across a range of temperatures. Plus even when certain changes have become inevitable, many will take decades and even hundreds of years. So even the experts can only estimate when they occur.

However, from what I have read, we have already passed at least certain tipping points (unless we actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it again). For instance, the sealevel will inevitably rise much higher over many years, and Miami and New Orleans inevitably will be flooded. Also, the permafrost in certain areas is already melting.

The single biggest unknown variable of climate change is how people will act in the coming years. And people are notoriously unpredictable.
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
(November 6, 2021 at 9:03 pm)slartibartfast Wrote: b. The next point is more subtle and difficult, which involves the whole "how do you prioritise" this vs. other things thing. Assuming you can get enough consensus for a. above, where do you rate this problem vs. other global issues?
  • poverty
  • disease (incl. Covid)
  • food security
  • ageing populations
  • human rights violations
  • pollution / destructions of natural environments
  • water scarcity
  • equality
  • etc...
These are all also really really big problems. The truth is that to address climate change you need to take away resources and in some cases work against solutions to address the above - and how the hell does humanity make these types of moral tradeoffs in favour of addressing climate change globally across all countries with completely disparate and oftentimes opposite cultures, needs, ideologies and economical drivers? 
IMO, as long as people believe that addressing the climate issue is detrimental to addressing those...we won't even begin the process.  

Sustainable local agriculture is premised on getting more people housed and working on their own farms which benefit their own communities.  This immediately and intrinsically addresses the first three in one go.  Combined with the fact that contemporary ag exploits it's labor uniformly and on a global scale as well as destroying communities, the environment, wasting water, and concentrating wealth....just one small piece of the push to address climate change, as simple as getting people to garden... touches on the rest.  

Not just for us.  The reason that people starve, today, boils down to the fact that wealthier markets are more lucrative to producers.  The places where the majority of our food is grown also just so happen to hold the poorest and most malnourished populations who are powerless precisely because of this to stop the profligate human rights abuse inflicted upon them as a matter of course, a large majority of whom actually work in the fields to grow the food they can't afford to buy which will be shipped thousands of miles in refridgerated containers to..ultimately, spoil unsold and outcompeted on docks, shelves, or in our homes.  The amount of food that ends up in landfills in the us alone is more than enough to address hunger...and note that this food is sitting in a landfill, not being composted, which necessitates the mining and refining of fertilizers to cover the loss of fertility in production as practiced - one giant extraction industry.

An industry..it deserves mention, that goes full on gangster when anyone points this shit out and offers an alternative. They'll just starve us to death, if we don't let them exploit us and our environment to death, they say.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Global warming: Are we doomed? A poll.
I actually don't know because I know very little about Global Warming or Climate Change. Folly to being raised in a christian-conservative household. I'd like to learn more about it when I have the time. I have noticed an increase in weather during times where it's usually cold and I noticed that we don't get snow up here in Kansas as often as we used to back when I was a kid. I don't know if those things are connected to Global Warming or not.
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