We Had All Better Hope These Scientists Are Wrong About the Planet's Future (washingtonpost.com)

Less than 24 hours since we read this dire climate study, an anonymous reader writes from a Washington Post report about several more concerning things: James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, says his new study suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned. The research invokes collapsing ice sheets, violent megastorms and even the hurling of boulders by giant waves in its quest to suggest that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would be far too much. Hansen has called it the most important work he has ever done. "I think almost everybody who is really familiar with both paleo and modern is now very concerned that we are approaching, if we have not passed, the points at which we have locked in really big changes for young people and future generations," Hansen said.

Comments

I don't understand the deniers

[SecurityGuy]

I tend to be a skeptic myself, so my reaction is far from panic, but this seems like something we should be studying very objectively. It's a shame so few people are capable of doing it.

Re:What else is new?

[rockmuelle]

Ignore peak oil, you've hit the real problem: large intelligent, underemployed, and underfunded populations.

Thanks to basic math, it's happening already with the royal family in Saudi Arabia. Up to a point, populations grow exponentially (S-curves rather than real exponential curves). When the Sauds took over, they were essentially a small tribe with a leader and a few princes. Fast forward a number of generations, and guess what, now you still have one leader but tens of thousands of princes (ever wonder why so many people have met Saudi princes? there happen to be many of them).

I had the privilege of working with a prince during a stint in the Kingdom. This was his biggest concern for their future: the royal family was too large and budget could not keep up with the cost of the entitlements. And, unlike welfare recipients in America, these really were entitled people. They all saw the previous generations living like, well, kings. They still do OK, but must live more modestly and are encouraged to work to supplement their income.

My friend was very concerned that most of the other princes would have difficulty transitioning and that the next generations (which, thanks again math, will be even larger) will have no social or economic system to fall back on.

Regardless of when peak oil happens, peak prince has already occurred.

-Chris

Re:Screwed

[a_mari_usque_ad_mare]

Slashdot has more scientifically literate people than alot of other sites, but its been dominated by American right-wing grievance politics for a awhile now, and its only getting more extreme.

These global warming threads have been a bell weather for the site's decline. If you read one for each year going back, you see would see more intelligent comments and less denial the further back you go.

This place used to be for college-age computer geeks and STEM majors, now its for middle-aged Trump voters.