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Planet At Risk of Heading Towards Irreversible 'Hothouse Earth' State (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: What we do in the next 10-20 years will determine whether our planet remains hospitable to human life or slides down an irreversible path to what scientists in a major new study call "Hothouse Earth" conditions. Hothouse Earth is an apocalyptic nightmare where the global average temperatures is 4 to 5 degrees Celsius higher (with regions like the Arctic averaging 10 degrees C higher) than today, according to the study, "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene," published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sea levels would eventually be 10-60 meters higher as much of the world's ice melts. In these conditions, large parts of the Earth would be uninhabitable. Cutting carbon emissions to limit climate change to 2 degrees C, as proposed in the Paris climate agreement, won't be enough to avoid a "Hothouse Earth," said co-author Johan Rockstrom, executive director of Stockholm Resilience Centre. The reality is that global temperatures aren't driven by human emissions of carbon alone, says Rockstrom -- natural systems such as forests and oceans also play a major role. If global warming reaches 2 degrees C it could trigger a feedback, or "tipping element," in one or more of our natural systems and drive further warming, Rockstrom told Motherboard. To put that into perspective, the recent heat waves and wildfires are being linked to climate change that has raised the global average temperature 1 degree C. The researchers conclude the study on a more uplifting note, saying: "We have the knowledge and ability to act. This is within our control." There are three main areas of action that need to be taken within the next two decades. "The top priority in the coming decade is to aggressively cut carbon emissions and decarbonize our energy systems as quickly as possible," reports Motherboard. "The second priority is to halt deforestation and conversion of nature areas into agricultural production. Forests and other natural areas currently absorb 25 percent of our carbon emissions and this needs to grow." The third action is "to continue to develop technologies to pull carbon from the atmosphere and safely store it for thousands of years." While this last action can be costly, we're starting to see some companies give it a try. A startup called Climeworks recently inaugurated the first system that captures CO2 from the air and converts the emissions into stone, thus ensuring they don't escape back into the atmosphere for the next millions of years.
you have to take care of their basic needs first. In America 80% of us live paycheck to paycheck. When you're living hand to mouth you don't really care about 20 years from now.
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The direction doesn't matter much, for the USA is still a bigger "carbon pig" per capita than those countries. The fact your linked article failed to disclose that makes me reluctant to trust their objectivity, being it's a key metric when comparing countries.
Table-ized A.I.
That so-called "apocalyptic nightmare" is actually the warm, wet, and mild conditions that existed through most of the past 50 million years, the climate that led to the spectacular success of mammals and primates. Not only is it "hospitable" to human life, it is more hospitable than the cold and dry climate we have had over the last million years and that climate activists want to perpetuate.
Short of global thermonuclear war, there is nothing we can do over the next 10-20 years that will have any appreciable impact on long term climate: there is no conceivable political or economic way that China, India, or African nations would agree to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, developed nations are already eliminating dependence on fossil fuels as fast as possible for economic reasons.
US externalities are way up
It was much warmer than this before. Then it cooled. Therefore the "irreversible" claim has already been falsified.
facts win.
Unless the mods can hide them before anyone finds out.
The upside is it will be so obvious that Republicans cannot deny it's happening.
However, they'll probably blame it on Democrats somehow, maybe claiming that catering to LGBTQ made God angry, who then baked Earth as punishment. You think I'm joking, don't you?
Table-ized A.I.
US outsources not only production but also polution.
We've had 5-10 years left to save the planet for the last 30 years or so... The numbers may change, but the — unsubstantiated — message is always the same...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
i.e. rplacing fossil fools with fossil farts. What the US should be doing is building nuclear power plants and electrifying roads ("Supercharger" stations every few miles) and railroads. Get rid of fossil fool use for transport.
the Environmental Protection Agency reports that the U.S. reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 2 percent in 2016.
You may want to consider it's not 2016 now, with a different policy approach to the climate.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
That is what literally every person on the leftist side says in attempt to justify any of their non-justifiable proposals. Ban gasoline cars. It wont solve the problem, but it's a start. Ban straws. It wont solve the problem, but it's a start. Ban AR-15's. It wont solve the problem, but it's a start . Tax the rich. It wont solve the problem, but it's a start. Subsidize semi nationalized healthcare. It wont solve the problem, but it's a start. The bottom line is it's all BS, and in each case, it ISN'T even "a start," as each has been proven to not have the desired effect. This is simply emotion disguised as argument, which defines the entire leftist movement to its core.
So tell us, which one of your doomsday scenarios have come truth yet? Ice Caps should have been melted like two times over, a couple of cities are supposed to be under water by now, and little baby seals should be clubbing themselves due to going nuts from all the extra heat they have to experience.
If you believe those were actual scientific predictions you're just listening to hyperbolic rants from climate science deniers, not any actual scientific predictions.
We already have an alternate power source to avoid this - nuclear power. But rather than use this pre-existing power technology which solves the problem, environmentalists insisted that we dismantle that existing solution, and roll the dice on hopefully developing new and untested power sources in time to avert disaster.
Nuclear power doesn't have to be the end-game. All we need to do is to replace our fossil fuel power plants with nuclear plants to arrest CO2 emissions and buy us more time. Then we can develop renewables at our leisure, and use those to phase out nuclear power as they (and battery technology) become capable of handling our base load requirements.
The low range of the time estimate (10 years) is coincidentally about the amount of time it takes to complete construction of a large nuclear plant. Let's see if environmentalists read this news about the coming doomsday scenario, and take it a a sign to drop opposition to nuclear power. Or if they'd rather let all life on Earth go extinct, than let renewable power temporarily take a back seat to nuclear power.
It's only a matter of time, we're well past the point of no return.
Really? Well someone should have told that to the planet in the early Eocene then when temperatures were +12-14C above current levels . Somehow it reversed that trend and cooled down considerably.
Global warming is a serious problem and we absolutely do need to combat it because if we don't it will cause massive political destabilization as food production changes, populations move, water resources change, cities flood etc. However, claiming that it's the "end of the world" because it is irreversible and will make the planet inhospitable to human life is complete crap and counterproductive because it leads to dispair rather than action.
+1 for entropy (no pun intended), but I think a technical solution won't be about reducing the amount to heat people are generating. The sun is by far the dominant energy driver in this system; the heat generated by people is miniscule by comparison. Any solution will have to be one that alters the equilibrium point between energy absorbed and energy radiated. That's how we got here, and that's our only proven technology for altering the balance.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
I've read that a human population with all modern technologies is fully sustainable to a limit of 500 million. How far past that sustainable limit are we now, and still living in denial of this 800-pound gorilla sitting on top of the solution to nearly all the problems of human civilization?
Good luck with that denial, people. The population reduction is coming one way or another....
Just read the comments here and realize we have arrived at stage 3 of the 4-stages of climate disaster denial:
1: "Oh, there is no such thing as a climate change!"
2: "What you see there is just a variation in weather, not climate!"
3: "Well, yes, there is a change, but it's natural, nothing human makes."
4: "Ok, the change is real and we're fucked, but it's too late to do anything anyway."
The great thing about any of those 4 steps is that you needn't change anything in your behaviour. The only thing that kinda bugs me is how quickly we arrived at 3, I was hoping that I'd at least be on my way out before we arrive at "we're fucked", because back in stage 1, I did actually care about the planet. In the meantime I stopped caring. What for? I am old. I have no kids. And if you can't be assed to keep this planet able to sustain life so your kids can live, why the fuck should I care?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nuclear isn't the answer.
Then I'd like to hear what is the answer. Think quickly because the clock is ticking.
It was promised to be too cheap to meter, instead it is the most costly to generate.
That's kind of irrelevant now, no?
Every plant has lost money and could not have operated without being subsidized, and they all have opened years behind schedule.
Then get GE and Westinghouse on it. They build a handful of reactors for the US Navy every year for submarines and aircraft carriers. Release the plans for others to copy and keep digging for uranium. I know they run on highly enriched uranium, so put the first one off the assembly line on spinning those centrifuges and crank out some uranium.
There hasn't been a new plant to come online in the last 20 years.
That might have something to do with those unwashed hippies that have been trying to "save the planet". The planet's fine, it's us humans that are fucked if we don't do something.
The only plant currently being built (Georgia) is 5 years behind schedule and double its original cost.
Then throw some more money at it. The alternative is potential extinction.
There isn't any place for the spent fuel.
Here's an idea, hollow out a mountain of granite and put the radioactive shit inside. Oh, wait, that was the plan for decades but the Democrats kept fucking that up. Here's an idea, put the radioactive shit in the mountain then shove Democrats in on top to plug the hole.
Used fuel sits on plant grounds until the facility is decommissioned, then moved to a temporary (but long term) home which is a Superfund site. Every decommissioned nuclear plant is a Superfund site. Even the decommissioning facilities for nuclear powered naval vessels is Superfund.
Then super fund it. Unless you have a better idea. I've seen a lot of "better ideas" come and go for years and decades now. Seems like nuclear power has been the lowest CO2 output solution we've had so far. I don't care how much it cost at this point, or how many Democrats we have to pile on top to contain the radiation, let's get this done.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
US emissions are down. But they are 'down' to twice the level of China and even higher still than the EU.
Follow the lead of America if you don't give 2 shits about what happens to the planet.
Wind, solar and grid storage have already trashed coal and are in the process of out competing natural gas.
Then why, in spite of your country's massive spending and subsidies on wind and sun, its carbon output crept steadily upward as coal and Russsian gas replace nuclear? By now, the sheer weight of Euros was supposed to be making the sun shine all winter.
Nuclear isn't the answer. It was promised to be too cheap to meter, instead it is the most costly to generate.
Translation: we've spent decades demonizing and regulating nuclear to the point where it's too expensive to generate. We've made sure it can't be the answer.
Well done guys. The planet thanks you.
We already have an alternate power source to avoid this - nuclear power.
Solves one problem but causes others. And it is a political non-starter. Fortunately solar and wind + batteries can take up most of the slack if we push them hard enough.
But rather than use this pre-existing power technology which solves the problem
Have you solved the nuclear waste problem? Do you have a reactor design that cannot render a large area uninhabitable in a serious failure? Have you figured out how to get the cost down to competitive levels without requiring government insurance guarantees? Have you figured out how to restore areas contaminated by the occasional but inevitable containment failures (ala Chernobyl and Fukishima)? Have you proven that new reactor designs are safer/cheaper/reliable? I'm just playing devil's advocate here but there are some serious issues with nuclear power which you can't just hand wave away.
You're quite right that nuclear in theory takes care of a good chuck of the carbon emissions problems but let's not pretend nuclear power doesn't bring it's own set of scary problems to the party. I actually agree that it's probably the least worst near term option but there are some pretty serious downsides to it which render it politically impossible in most places. And it isn't just environmentalists who have a problem with nuclear plants. Nobody really wants them nearby. NIMBY is pretty strong when it comes to something that carries even a small risk of catastrophic contamination.
roll the dice on hopefully developing new and untested power sources in time to avert disaster.
??? Any nuclear reactor design that improves on existing reactors is by definition new and untested because they haven't been deployed. Nuclear power in general is pretty well understood but new (and hopefully improved) reactor designs that we would likely want to use are still just past experimental. If you are referring to wind and solar those aren't new and untested so it's not clear what you are talking about.
Nuclear power doesn't have to be the end-game. All we need to do is to replace our fossil fuel power plants with nuclear plants to arrest CO2 emissions and buy us more time.
Nice theory. Probably even correct. But since it won't happen what is your next option?
So it needs to be 100% or nothing? Incremental progress isn't good enough, so why bother at all?
You are part of the problem here.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Well obviously only per capita is a useful measure.
Otherwise global warming would be solved by splitting up the big countries into smaller countries.
Please stop this childish bickering about who is the real boogeyman. Truth is, this is a global problem and it needs a global solution. Everybody has to start working together to fix civilization, or the planet will break us.
Yes, it's not about saving the planet, it's about saving human civilization. The planet doesn't care and will recover. Hundreds of thousands or millions of years aren't much in astronomical scales. Evolution will do it's thing, life will go on, but it will happen without us because we are not destroying the planet - we are destroying the environment that made it possible for humans to thrive.
Or do what the EU did and introduce regulations like RoHS and include carbon emitted overseas in the manufacture of goods for the US market when calculating carbon taxes etc.
We just told the Chinese that we weren't allowing lead in most products solder here any more, and they stopped using lead in those products and manufacturing processes.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Additionally, if it's all about "ZOMG WE'RE GOING TO DIE!!!" climapocalypse kind of talk, the ONLY measure that matters is total emissions. Bickering over how much per capita or unit GDP is superfluous, if people care about restricting CO2 in the first place. IF they want to talk about a world-wide problem, then the issue is total emissions, rather than who gets to emit how much and when. The fact it always breaks down to "you get too many CO2s for your people/GDP" shows it's more about controlling economies and societies than actually worrying about the supposed problem.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Therein lies the problem. No one will work together as long as it is beneficial to offload costs to the commons for their own selfish interests and economic advantage. Those countries that do work together to clean up their act will be outstripped by cheap energy/polluting countries.
When you get right down to it the main problems are globalization and population. That you can "make" goods cheaper on the other side of the world and ship them to the opposite side of the planet "cheaply" completely ignores the environmental cost of all of the vessels used to provide that logistical train, fuel it, support it, etc.. Furthermore, that goods need to be shipped in to support the population of a certain area just means there are too many people in that area.
A globally competitive market destroys the world. Take a look at this map: https://www.marinetraffic.com/...
Zoom out if necessary, and really look at that shit. Its fucking nuts. It can't be sustainable.
I have a sneaking suspicion that if any other species in the history of this planet achieved "intelligence" similar to humans they realized their threat to the existence of life on the planet and quickly re-engineered themselves back into a state of balance with nature, self-consciousness ejected from the corpus like a possessing demon.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Well if you can figure out a way to reduce regulations on nuclear power without the cost cutting resulting in corner cutting and eventually a catastrophe then please share.
It's not an either or situation; even if we reduce regulation to the point that we have one fukushima-scale disaster every decade it would still be better than the amount of harm we're causing with fossil fuels. This is a case of selective risk aversion; you would rather have more cumulative harm caused on a daily basis than have one really big disaster every generation or so. It's stupid.
Luckily we don't even need to lower regulation that much though; there are plenty of things which could be done to massively reduce all the regulatory and legal hurdles without compromising safety.
Nuclear power is heavily regulated because it's really f***ing dangerous if you aren't watching it very carefully. The problem with fission reactors is that even the safest designs we know of require considerable oversight and regular expensive maintenance by very imperfect humans.
This is simply not true. The safest designs we have all default to a failsafe mode which requires no human intervention whatsoever. We just haven't been building any of those. The ones which ARE currently being built aren't quite as safe, but still orders of magnitude safer than the designs we've successfully been operating for 5+ decades.
Not to mention the waste problem, the nuclear weapons problems, the insurance problems, etc. Nuclear has some great benefits but it has some serious problems too which cannot be easily dismissed.
Waste is a solved problem which is again only being held up due to idiotic bickering and bungling by bureaucrats. Yucca mountain was designated in 1987. It took 15 goddamn years for the government to finally approve it, only for Obama to shitcan it another 9 years later. We are now at the 21 year mark - that's 2 DECADES that we could have been safely storing waste - all derailed thanks to politics.
On top of that, existing "waste" can be used as fuel for new generation reactors. You don't even have to move it to yucca; you can literally build a new reactor at the same site as an existing one, do an in-situ decommissioning of the existing reactor, and start feeding the waste into the new reactor. Instead of wasting money moving and buying it you get free fuel for decades.
Weapons have no relevance to reactors, and insurance is a non-issue. If you think either of them is some big impediment you'll have to explain why.
Any more complaints?
Well if you use meaningless measurements like that I guess you're technically right.
Technically correct is the best kind of correct. When you make decisions, you make them based on facts, not on wishes.
But with more than 4x the population and less than twice the CO2. Anyone with a handful of working neurons will understand China is cleaner than America when it comes to CO2.
No, that is the opposite of what it says. If China emits more CO2, then China is dirtier than America when it comes to CO2. You might claim that the average Chinese citizen is cleaner, but that would be a meaningless claim, since most pollution is emitted by industry and not by individuals.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"