The Climate Change Thread: Or The Perils of Carbon

[Scomagia]

The rundown: the vast majority of scientists across disciplines agree that our climate is drastically changing and it is human caused. What is murkier is just what's to come and how we may deal with it:
https://www.wired.com/story/climate-cha ... ertain/amp

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Alright we all know what climate change is and some of the predictions but what are your thoughts on the future? Are you a doomer who believes we're already screwed? Are you somewhat more optimistic that we'll be able to slow down carbon output and avert total catastrophe? Are you more optimistic still and believe climate change will be near totally averted by technology? Are you a skeptic who sees all this talk about climate change as a lot of hokum? Or are you totally indifferent?

I'm cautiously optimistic that we will be able to avert the worst possible outcomes (though I'm skeptical of doomsday models anyway) by sequestering the existing carbon or otherwise easing the problem with technology.

Post any cool technology you think has promise in climate change mitigation or methods you think will help remove or reduce our current carbon consumption catastrophe.

Have at it, NSG!

[-Ocelot-]

We'll get what we deserve.

Climate change is not going to be avoided, in my opinion. The chaotic, reactionary free market doesn't like solutions, it likes problems. The average plebeian will have to migrate to other countries and be gunned down in the process, be poorer or simply die because of climate change but the rich will be fine and may even find more ways to profit off the misery of people and exert greater control over them. This is what matters in our world. Climate change a crisis that will have to be solved and solutions can be very profitable.

Of course, governments will implement carbon taxes (EU will by 2020), renewables will replace dirtier forms of energy and billions of additional trees will be planted in the near future. But believing that our declawed governments can do anything meaningful to stop the endless march of the free market is unhinged optimism.

[Cekoviu]

Given the current trends, I'm a full-on doomer. The most promising technology is carbon capture and storage, but it requires a shitload of manpower and storage space.
10 years ago, carbon taxes and increases in renewable energy would've helped. But with the biggest contributors to climate change (China, USA, Russia, Japan) not on board with those things then and still not on board now, we're pretty fucked. The even worse thing is that third-world countries are still contributing a metric fuckton of babies every year and the higher population means a) more people to pollute, and b) even more overpopulation, worsening starvation and overcrowding.

[Scomagia]

We'll get what we deserve.

Climate change is not going to be avoided, in my opinion. The chaotic, reactionary free market doesn't like solutions, it likes problems. The average plebeian will have to migrate to other countries and be gunned down in the process, be poorer or simply die because of climate change but the rich will be fine and may even find more ways to profit off the misery of people and exert greater control over them. This is what matters in our world. Climate change a crisis that will have to be solved and solutions can be very profitable.

Of course, governments will implement carbon taxes (EU will by 2020), renewables will replace dirtier forms of energy and billions of additional trees will be planted in the near future. But believing that our declawed governments can do anything meaningful to stop the endless march of the free market is unhinged optimism.

Blaming it all on capitalism is pretty sketchy. I seem to remember the various Socialist states pillaging the land, as well.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

While visiting CA, I saw a lot of houses with solar panels on the roofs. Looked nifty.

[Cekoviu]

We'll get what we deserve.

Climate change is not going to be avoided, in my opinion. The chaotic, reactionary free market doesn't like solutions, it likes problems. The average plebeian will have to migrate to other countries and be gunned down in the process, be poorer or simply die because of climate change but the rich will be fine and may even find more ways to profit off the misery of people and exert greater control over them. This is what matters in our world. Climate change a crisis that will have to be solved and solutions can be very profitable.

Of course, governments will implement carbon taxes (EU will by 2020), renewables will replace dirtier forms of energy and billions of additional trees will be planted in the near future. But believing that our declawed governments can do anything meaningful to stop the endless march of the free market is unhinged optimism.

Blaming it all on capitalism is pretty sketchy. I seem to remember the various Socialist states pillaging the land, as well.

Yeah, I really doubt the outcome would be terribly different if socialism were the way of countries.
The only way it can be avoided is with (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ 【ａｎａｒｃｈｏ　ｐｒｉｍｉｔｉｖｉｓｍ】 ♥

[Scomagia]

While visiting CA, I saw a lot of houses with solar panels on the roofs. Looked nifty.

Yeah. Solar panels have come a long way.

[Chan Island]

While visiting CA, I saw a lot of houses with solar panels on the roofs. Looked nifty.

If only that was all it took. Truly, the biggest tragedy of this entire sorry saga has to be the way in which corporations managed to convince everyone that individuals are responsible for climate change, not them.

Oh, and that war somehow doesn't contribute to it too, but that's a lesser aspect.

[EastKekistan]

I think climate change is not going to be stopped because humans (and non-human animals) find it hard to cooperate without an external enemy.

[Scomagia]

I think climate change is not going to be stopped because humans (and non-human animals) find it hard to cooperate without an external enemy.

If only Captain Pollution was real...

[EastKekistan]

I think climate change is not going to be stopped because humans (and non-human animals) find it hard to cooperate without an external enemy.

If only Captain Pollution was real...

Yeah. Or we can cook up some fake alien invasion.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

While visiting CA, I saw a lot of houses with solar panels on the roofs. Looked nifty.

Yeah. Solar panels have come a long way.

They have. I just wish they were a bit more affordable to some people. We’ve considered a full solar roof for our future home. But then again, I think this is a technology that suits places with weather like AZ or CA more than where I live currently.

[-Ocelot-]

We'll get what we deserve.

Climate change is not going to be avoided, in my opinion. The chaotic, reactionary free market doesn't like solutions, it likes problems. The average plebeian will have to migrate to other countries and be gunned down in the process, be poorer or simply die because of climate change but the rich will be fine and may even find more ways to profit off the misery of people and exert greater control over them. This is what matters in our world. Climate change a crisis that will have to be solved and solutions can be very profitable.

Of course, governments will implement carbon taxes (EU will by 2020), renewables will replace dirtier forms of energy and billions of additional trees will be planted in the near future. But believing that our declawed governments can do anything meaningful to stop the endless march of the free market is unhinged optimism.

Blaming it all on capitalism is pretty sketchy. I seem to remember the various Socialist states pillaging the land, as well.

There's more than 2 extremes out there. And we are currently heading towards the other extreme. How about you focus on our current system instead of one that's been dead for decades?

There is no 21st century socialism to make a real comparison. 20th century socialist states were in a relentless financial war against the west and were severely limited, especially compared to modern countries. It's not like they could choose between investing in solar arrays and sustainable agriculture instead of "pillaging the land" because these things didn't even exist when socialism was a real thing. How about we focus on the unsustainable practices real, existing private corporations choose to do, even though they could afford an alternative instead?

At some point we must stop blaming everything on a non-existent socialist boogeyman.

[Chan Island]

Blaming it all on capitalism is pretty sketchy. I seem to remember the various Socialist states pillaging the land, as well.

There's more than 2 extremes out there. And we are currently heading towards the other extreme. How about you focus on our current system instead of one that's been dead for decades?

There is no 21st century socialism to make a real comparison. 20th century socialist states were in a relentless financial war against the west and were severely limited, especially compared to modern countries. It's not like they could choose between investing in solar arrays and sustainable agriculture instead of "pillaging the land" because these things didn't even exist when socialism was a real thing. How about we focus on the unsustainable practices real, existing private corporations choose to do, even though they could afford an alternative instead?

At some point we must stop blaming everything on a non-existent socialist boogeyman.

Nah, but it's totally right for someone to blame socialism for climate change because Cuba is still calling itself socialist!

[Northern Syria]

I don't think technology can cut it; to combat climate change, we need to seriously reevaluate our economic system which relies on continuous growth and rewards environmentally irresponsible behavior.

[Cameroi]

well we are all going to die.

but in terms of the extinction of the human species, ignorance, indifference and hatred of logic are a real threat of that happening.

probably not immediately, and that is what enables people to deny probability.

what is immediate, within the next decade, is whether when the ecopocalypse really hits, as much as several decades latter, or as little as a very few years,
there will be a scattering of human survivors, or none at all.

we've passed the tipping points, i believe, that would have enabled us to avoid catastrophy entirely,
but that doesn't mean its too late to insure something human, or at least something human descended, will survive,
in the post ecopocalyptic rebirth.

much of what we will have to do then, because what we take for granted now will simply no longer be,
we could, by doing now, prevent most of the harm.

then of course there's the dice of the universe. there's no guarantees of anything.
but there are probabilities, and how our choices and actions affect them.

it isn't just climate and it isn't just carbon, though these are both central to the issue.
the warming itself accelerates the spread and mutation of disease, and affects weather PATTERNS in often unexpected ways.

but that's just the first phase, and almost mild enough to be ignored, denied and go unnoticed.

the second phase, and its a slow one, is the ice melts and the oceans rise.
by itself, that's not then end of anything unless you live on a small low lying island.

populations can and will, simply move inland as shores intrude.
but that is what will begin the second stage, the saline inundation of croplands with resulting widespread malnutrition,

which also increases suseptability to illness, while at the same time, these lost croplands, become breeding grounds
for the further rapid acceleration of disease mutation and the vectors which carry it.

the end point is everyone 'enjoying' long, lingering slow deaths for illnessess too new, to as yet have even names, let alone cures.

i am aware of the argument that cures for anything can eventually be found. and they could, given the 15 or 20 years it might take to do so,
but at this point, those years become simply no longer available.
(not when they're all mutating rapidly, and i mean very rapidly, into new and not yet treatable forms)

now some of the children who are born to their dying mothers might be born with immunities to some of these new diseases,
and eventually a new population of a new resulting species might stableize,

but these same mutations which might give that immunity,
are also likely to result in the viable human offspring, looking nothing like what humans expect humans to look like.

also in that process of course, the sapient population gets reduced to the point, that it no longer generates the carbon and other pollutants,
to the level they are now causing the problem.

so then nature will recover and enjoy a new springtime, this is the same way it corrects for any species that gets out of balance with its environment,
the only thing is, for humans, we may very well no longer be any part of that new environment.

so that is what we're getting to choose now, if there will be anything human or human descended, after that eco-pocalypse, or none at all.

the technologies to avoid doing things the environmentally dumb ways we're doing them now, and still be able to enjoy most of what we're familiar with,
already exist. many of them not even new. but we do need to shift incentives, to make that transition as immediate as possible, away primarily,
from fossil fuel dependence and consumption, and even nuclear, though in some ways a potential improvement, is not without its own problems.

energy and transportation technologies are part of the equasion, but population itself is also. these are the big three. deforestation is in there as number four.
and loss of species diversity from human habitat encroachment is right in there too, but all of these are driven by human population growth which needs to be curtailed and reversed.

a lot of attention has been given to the energy sector and that's fine, it needs to be. but not nearly enough is being paid to transportation, which i'm sorry, but as long as the automobile is the god of transportation policy, even if you could make all of them run on batteries, you still have the problem of the climate effects of too much pavement. so people times burning things is the problem. burning things not just to make power, but just as much burning things to propel transportation.

everything humane that lowers the human birthrate across the board without demographic bias or exception, is going to help, and that includes the acceptance of alternative sexuality, as well as birth prevention methods old and new, even as drastic as abortion. that and the other big one, not yet adiquitely addressed, is transitioning away from the automobile, and that means public transportation propelled by clean energy, and not just where there is traffic to justify large form factor systems, but diminutive form factor technologies applicable to the smallest communities and connecting them.

[Kowani]

In order to avoid death by climate change, we need real reform, and that cannot be left to the market. By the time the market shifts, it will be too late to avoid the effects. The Earth moves slowly. But, when it does finally move, it devastates.

[Chan Island]

In order to avoid death by climate change, we need real reform, and that cannot be left to the market. By the time the market shifts, it will be too late to avoid the effects. The Earth moves slowly. But, when it does finally move, it devastates.

And the Earth is moving suspiciously fast right now.

[Northern Syria]

In order to avoid death by climate change, we need real reform, and that cannot be left to the market. By the time the market shifts, it will be too late to avoid the effects. The Earth moves slowly. But, when it does finally move, it devastates.

And the Earth is moving suspiciously fast right now.

That's how we end climate change! Just push the Earth farther back from the Sun, and it's cooler. Problem solved.

[Cameroi]

And the Earth is moving suspiciously fast right now.

That's how we end climate change! Just push the Earth farther back from the Sun, and it's cooler. Problem solved.

nice try, but among other nagging little details, easier said then done.

[Kowani]

That's how we end climate change! Just push the Earth farther back from the Sun, and it's cooler. Problem solved.

nice try, but among other nagging little details, easier said then done.

I believe that was a joke.

[Imbalistan]

There is no way to beat climate change. We can try to control it and try to prevent us from going underwater, but climate change is not a win-lose scenario.

[Magocratic Aidonaia]

Just start growing green stuff on all of our surfaces.

[Neutraligon]

I think we need to incentivize not only people but also companies to make changes. We need to make it worth their while. We particularly need to look into things like nuclear. Solar farms and panels are great and all, in the right locations,but there are far to many places where they are simply too inefficient. In addition we need to make things like recycling easier. One of the reasons people don;t is partially because it is simply way to easy to throw things out. Many places do not have recycling bins and the such. Further, it would be nice if we had bins for compost, where people can throw away food. I do not know the regulations on restaurants giving away unused food at the end of the day, but it would be nice if we could incentivize them giving it to various shelters.

[Novus America]

Just a reminder Richard Nixon had a plan for the US to be air pollution free by 19 fucking 80!
Seriously fuck the anti-nuclear fanatics. Hope they feel good knowing this is all their fault.

We had the technology and ability to resolve this for decades.

But nah, fuck the environment in the name of radiophobia.

Oh and check this out.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

Had California invested in nuclear instead of “renewables” they would be air pollution free too.

But again fuck the environment because nuclear scary.