Greenland and Antarctica ice loss accelerating
bbc.com
bbc.com
I'd even go as far as to argue that it's even worse.
[WARNING! Unpopular opinion ahead]
Even those who realise the dangers of climate change and the destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity fall victim to cults of personality and blind (almost Victorian era-) faith in technology.
Instead of reducing consumption and dialling back on wasting valuable resources, they honestly think that driving a luxury sedan will safe the world as long as it's powered by batteries... Always reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnFAAdOBB1c
If you really want to look at the risks, see Eric Rignot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWlsizBRG5w
Multi-meter rise by 2100 is possible. Glacier melting could be very nonlinear.
Even if you have ideological or economical reasons for wanting to believe the climate crisis to be a hoax - at one point or another the drive for self-preservation simply has to kick in, doesn't it?
Ever and ever again when I see some new dire study about how our predatory exploitation of our ecological support system is degrading its capability to actually support us, I think to myself: "This is it. Now they just have to finally start supporting measures to stop killing ourselves." But I always get disappointed - there are still way too many people that absolutely fail to grasp how terminal a situation we're rushing into.
The human capability for self-deception is truly amazing.
My personal cognitive dissonance is the optimism that we'll at least be able to slow climate change despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. If I lose that optimism, I would enter a very dark place in my own mind.
The whole climate denialism machine utilizes the same mechanisms and even the same people as the tobacco one before it.
Eventually it will happen. But then it might already be too late. People live in their filter bubbles and these can be really hard to burst. Especially, when you deal with ideology and an us-versus-them mentality, where the opposite party is for climate protection and you are in the climate change hoax camp.
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyp...
Personally, I don't believe climate change is a hoax. There's ample evidence indicating climate change is real. But I am certainly convinced climate crisis is mostly nonsense. And I believe most "solutions" proposed are an antithesis to individual liberty.
And thus, statements like this one you made, from my point-of-view, are mostly hysterical:
Ever and ever again when I see some new dire study about how our predatory exploitation of our ecological support system is degrading its capability to actually support us, I think to myself: "This is it. Now they just have to finally start supporting measures to stop killing ourselves." But I always get disappointed - there are still way too many people that absolutely fail to grasp how terminal a situation we're rushing into.
I think this is the most telling answer any of us, who stand mouth agape at the inaction, will ever receive: rather than join together in any semblance of community to overcome a common problem, we have to walk headfirst into knowable horrors, so that some can continue with their myth of individual liberty.
All I can think of is the past few weeks where posters here on HN quickly wrote off any mention of covid-19 being anything worse than the common flu that no one ought to worry too much about it.
There’s a reason people insist on societies based around individual liberty and citizen empowerment — they work! They’re what has led to the greatest increase in human well-being the world has ever seen.
Suggesting authoritarianism in response to climate change is simply creating a second problem — and one that’s unlikely to solve the first.
So yes, people resist you trying a repeatedly failed idea again, just so you can be seen to be doing something.
Now what's your solution that doesn't tread on my individual liberty?
According to IPCC 2018, we're CURRENTLY between +0.75 and +1.25°C, with the very real possibility of reaching +2°C by the 2040. These effects are a direct consequence of our dumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
We thought that we had about 30 years to mitigate some of the worst damage. But now - holy shit! - the arctic permafrost is melting, about 70 years earlier than expected. And it's starting to release methane, a way more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Sure, it rapidly decays in the atmosphere, but not before kicking us to about +4°C. This is the temperature range where some Scientists fear that frozen methane from the ocean floor will start to be released.
(Did you know that at about +5°Celsius the phytoplankton will start dying off? )
So, we have a massive temperature increase at an unprecedented speed that makes huge areas of earths most populous regions inhospitable or even inhabitable. Do you think the Syrian refugee crisis was bad? Think about ~1 BILLION PEOPLE on the search for greener (literally) pastures. Do you think they will be welcome with open arms? Yeah, you bet..
Agriculture will be severely impacted. Not only by the heat, but also by the massive die-off that ensues. Most of the animals on earth have a lifecycle that's very closely tuned to the hum of the seasons. At +4°C you can kiss all that goodbye. The only things that will survive are generalist species that have a lifecycle not tied to the seasons. (Cockroaches maybe. Certainly not butterflies. Enjoy them while they last!)
So, yes, there are many other consequences of our predatory exploitation of our ecosphere. Many that are almost as pressing as the climate crisis. But just almost.
And this is where this disconnect is. For every point you can produce, I can produce a counter point.
> And it's starting to release methane
Methane has been getting released for millennia (if not much, much longer) from the ocean floor.
> we have a massive temperature increase
I object to this statement.
> at an unprecedented speed
I also object to this statement.
> Think about ~1 BILLION PEOPLE on the search for greener
We're building a wall.
No, you cannot. This is scientific consensus, there's nothing to debate about it. Even if your 2 year-old denies shitting their pants; you can smell it. You are the authority on changing diapers, not them.
With climate change you are not the parent, you're the smelly two year old. You don't get to decide what's scientific fact, proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
Now, if you go ahead and actually produce valid criticism on the current climate models and their predictions, have some valid credentials with regards to climate modelling and have some credible research to show for, I'll take everything aforementioned back and put on the dirty diapers myself.
> I object to this statement.
If you want to raise an objection, you have to make an argument for _why_ you're raising an objection. Otherwise it doesn't count.
> Methane has been getting released for millennia (if not much, much longer) from the ocean floor.
There is drinking from a glass and drowning in a pool.
> We're building a wall.
Unfortunately, no empire in the history of mankind was ever able to hold back a migrating population with walls. Ask the Romans, ask the Chinese.
This is where you're wrong.
> proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
You're not the arbiter of what's reasonable doubt. It's not unreasonable to say that we used to have an ice age, now we don't, world was already warming, humans had little impact. You can stamp your feet all you wish, but nobody's buying it, except for a small vocal minority. Newsflash: you're not smarter than everyone else, we're perfectly capable of reaching our own conclusions.
> if you go ahead and actually produce valid criticism on the current climate models and their predictions
You should spend some of your own time researching both sides of the argument, like some of us had, and draw your own conclusions. Here's some basic facts: 1) Earth has been hotter in the past. 2) CO2 levels were much higher in the past. 3) There is evidence that CO2 lags temperature increase, thus isn't causative. 4) Solar output is highly correlated with temperature fluctuations.
We can get down into debating the temperature data itself, the revisions, for or against. To me, it comes down to some basic scrutiny. How accurate were the instruments used 100 years ago to record temperature? How often were the instruments calibrated? How much of the Earth's surface did we record the temperature for? How much mass of the Earth's temperature was recorded? For example, how much stratification in temperature is there in the ocean, and which depths were measured?
> If you want to raise an objection
You used non-specific and exaggerating terms to describe recent temperature changes. You have no factual basis for asserting that the temperature change is 'massive' nor that the speed of change is 'unprecedented.' First, a massive change would be more than a couple percent. Second, even without human induced warming, the models predict warming. What's the delta? As for 'unprecendented,' there's simply not enough data here. This all also implies that you trust the data, which many of us don't. At best, the data is a loose approximation, not a concrete set of facts.
> There is drinking from a glass and drowning in a pool.
Feel free to backup this claim.
You are attacking a strawman, and boy, you are attacking it hard. I never said that I'm the arbiter of what's reasonable doubt is. I said that this is scientific concensus.
> You should spend some of your own time researching both sides of the argument [..]
At one point in time, there actually was a debate and I did research both 'sides'. But there are no two sides to the argument anymore. There is the scientific fact of climate change, that's it. There's nothing to debate about it. Let me put it that way; do you think you have to seriously argue with someone who says that the earth is flat? Because that's where you're currently standing, from a scientific view; denial of antropogenic climate change has about as much standing as a flat-earther. It might work as a hobby or a party-gag, but certainly not as an informed basis for policy decisions.
> To me, it comes down to some basic scrutiny.
It doesn't really look like that, to me. Because all of your points are either irrelevant or disproven. They instead sound like the typical sound-bites of deniers of antropogenic climate change.
> 1) Earth has been hotter in the past.
Yeah, so what? At some point in time, Earth did not exists. How are any of those two things relevant to antrophogenic climate change?
> 2) CO2 levels were much higher in the past.
See above.
> 3) There is evidence that CO2 lags temperature increase, thus isn't causative.
This is an old one, often explained. https://realclimatescience.com/2019/04/does-co2-lead-or-lag-....
4) Solar output is highly correlated with temperature fluctuations.
Yeah, this is an old one too; https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2910/what-is-the-suns-role-in-...
To quote myself;
> Now, if you go ahead and actually produce valid criticism on the current climate models and their predictions, have some valid credentials with regards to climate modelling and have some credible research to show for, I'll take everything aforementioned back and put on the dirty diapers myself.
What you bring up is not valid criticism of the models or the approaches of climate science but often and long discarded interjections that border on "But if the earth is round, what's keeping them on the ground on the other side of earth"?
> You have no factual basis for asserting that the temperature change is 'massive' nor that the speed of change is 'unprecedented.'
Yep, I do. There are many studies about it, i.e. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20530196166880... just to pick one. The change in atmospheric composition and temperature is unprecedented. Usually, these things take place over hundreds and thousands of years (yeah, there are super volcanoes and asteroid impacts that wreck havoc. But do you really want to compare humanity with a cataclysmic event?).
> Feel free to backup this claim.
This is pretty much self-evident, there's nothing to prove. Res ipsa loquitur.
> I simply fail to understand how, despite the rising mountain of evidence, some people still are able to deny the reality of the climate crisis we're facing.
> Even if you have ideological or economical reasons for wanting to believe the climate crisis to be a hoax - at one point or another the drive for self-preservation simply has to kick in, doesn't it?
I'll be there with you, on that day when you realize that this all isn't a hoax, that the climate scientists are not just in for the money and that humanity really is badly fucked. I'll be there with you, in that moment and I'll say to you;
Good that you see it. Now let's get to work and let's try to fix it, for all our children's sake.
Your consensus has been disputed elsewhere.
> denial of antropogenic climate change has about as much standing as a flat-earther
I strong, but ill-fated tactic. It's plainly obvious that the bulk of climate change has nothing to do with humans.
> It doesn't really look like that, to me. Because all of your points are either irrelevant or disproven
Right, because you disagree with them, they must be untrue.
> How are any of those two things relevant to antrophogenic climate change?
Based on your own statements that the temperature increase is 'massive' and 'unprecedented' it should be plainly obvious to you that there are mechanisms other than human which increase the global temperature. I realize you're not willing to consider all data available, climate change proponents never are.
> Yeah, this is an old one too; https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2910/what-is-the-suns-role-in-....
So convenient where the graph ends there.... so convenient. It's almost like there was a cool period right before hand, which would show rising temperatures over a longer period.
That's fine. Not every one and last climate scientist has to agree to this consensus. It's enough that the vast, overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree.
> It's plainly obvious that the bulk of climate change has nothing to do with humans.
If we're talking about the climate change that's been happening in the last 150 years, that's not what the scientific consensus is. Going back even further it becomes more obvious that humans have a massive impact on climate and weather. Did you know that the whole southern Mediterianian coast used to be woodland?
> Right, because you disagree with them, they must be untrue.
No, they are untrue because they are not supported by facts. They are irrelevant because they don't provide information to explore the topic. I don't have problem changing my conclusions when new relevant data are provided that would necessitate that. But your points are all either disproven or irrelevant.
> So convenient where the graph ends there. [...]
What data would you convince you otherwise?
See, that's what I mean. You give me some hand-wavy arguments why climate change is not related to CO2 or why the sun is the culprit or whatever else. Even if I refute your points, you just give more vague excuses without actually entering into a discussion about the points provided.
To me this feels intellectually dishonest.
What we're currently doing is externalization of costs on a gargantuan scale. We're dumping humongous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and are ignoring the problems that causes for the whole ecosystem.
I fail to see how you can try to defend our current climate regime from a libertarian perspective. A libertarian should be outraged by this appropriation of the common good, an infraction on the freedom of us all.
And the damage done to our biological life support system is devastating!
We've wiped out 60% percents of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since the 1970 (https://s3.amazonaws.com/wwfassets/downloads/lpr2018_summary...).
We've killed about 30% of the insect population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations
Phytoplankton has been reduced by 50% since the 1950s https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 . You know, that's the stuff that produces our oxygen (https://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-...). An increase in temperature of about 5°C and more will probably kill off most phytoplankton.
Damages like these are infractions on our freedom to live healthily, they even encroach on our most basic right; the right to reproduce, endowed to us by our nature as biological organisms.
I don't think inaction on the climate crisis is supported by a libertarian worldview.
You're creating a false choice - support action as you define it or be in favor of destroying Earth.
Indeed, if action only comes in the form of massive taxation and central control then yes, I'm willing to take my chances.
I believe any solutions that involve massive taxation and central control will result in massive warfare. Taxes and regulation might mitigate pollution in the first-world if you manage to get your way, but what about China? What about India? What about other emerging players?
Are you prepared to force China to dismantle its coal plants? Are you prepared to force India to cripple its means of production? Are you prepared to force Iran and Russia and Saudi Arabia to stop using petroleum? And if you are, how much destruction will be wrought in the process?
In summary I believe solutions that involve massive taxation, central control, and forcefully curbing human behavior will end in more misery than doing nothing at all.
Given that, of all the possible solutions I've heard curbing human behavior is the least likely to succeed. If a savior is necessary, it will be technology or nothing.
First, although it's besides the point, I never said that we're destroying the earth by inaction on the climate crisis. Earth will be fine. Life on earth will be fine. Earth has seen much worse and will see much worse in the future, so there's nothing to worry about when it comes to Earth.
What I'm worried about is that we're destroying our life support system by willful neglect and even malice.
But inaction on the climate crisis doesn't even necessarily have to damage the fundamental requirements for our own survival for a libertarian to be abhorred.
Let me put it into a libertarian parable.
Say we both own land, next to each other. We are both homesteading, can support ourselves and our families.
Suddenly, one day, you build a shit house on my ground. Sure, it's far enough from my house so I don't have to smell it. But still; you are shitting on my land! You don't get to shit on my land! Even if you claim that it's not as bad as I make it out to be and and that I don't even have to face the stink; you don't get to shit on my land!
It's the same with the atmosphere. It's a common good, so it belongs to all of us dependent on it. So you just don't get to dump CO2 into it. It's warming my planet, it's melting my antarctic, it's killing my corrals in my oceans. You just don't get to do that kind of things. As a libertarian I say; you must not infringe on my freedoms and my property.
Next, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, India: hey, these are good questions worth discussing. First, let's point out that each signed on the Paris Agreement. To put that in other words; every country you list has made public commitments to action on the climate crisis. These commitments are not sufficient, by far. Put in contrast to say - the USA - whose administration made no such commitment and that is actively trying to undermine federal actions and scientific discourse on the topic (not very libertarian, btw.)
Now, if for some weird reason the USA suddenly starts to take the climate crisis serious, there are many ways she could go about. Together with the EU it has the largest market for consumer goods. That's something we could leverage.
Beyond that; it's good that we started talking about how to address the problem and start having a discussion about feasible approaches!
Mercy.
The Paris Agreement is non-binding, has no enforcement clauses, it is voluntary and simply a statement of willingness to action.
It is so primarily because the US was unwilling to sign anything binding.
Here's a map pointing out the parties responsibilities for anthropogenic atmospheric CO2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_responsibility_1950-2...
So, it looks like the ball is firmly in the USA/EU/Russland/Canada/Uk corner. Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, India; not so much.
For comparison, what are examples of actual crisis (sic), past, present, or future?
"And I believe most 'solutions' proposed are an antithesis to individual liberty."
Do you oppose China's handling of COVID-19? Italy's?
If yes, how would you handle it?
As a thought experiment, consider what would happen if a planet-killing asteroid were inbound. The doom-sayers would still sound like cranks ("in the 1970s they said the population bomb would kill us all") and normal life would continue right up until the point that everyone died.
Humanity is arrogant about its ability to survive crises because it has taken action and survived previous major crises, but the first time we get it really wrong will also be the last time.
We rely on a thing. As a society our entire society is built around it. Regardless of why.
We later find out that thing is bad.
Lots of rich people will lose money and entire cultures have to change. This won't work. Deny.
If the problem will hit us in 50 years then we can procrastinate till we're dead. Then someone else will panic and deal with it.
The problem is there's no easy solution to this. None. It all takes decades to have an effect. And thus the problem.
Same deal really - we are so comfy deluding ourselves, have so very much forgotten that we are subject to the laws of nature, we have become unable to reject the delusions of infinite growth, infinite resources, perpetually funded pension systems - all pyramid schemes of lies perpetuated for generations now.
Covid19 is running for president by sending a reminder that reality still exists, outside of our carefully constructed fantasy of an economy and society.
The best cure for disappointment and despair is action. Go out, join like-minded people, and rebel.
We try to keep it 'local' so people realize that it actually concerns them.
I assume there will be a lot less flights, cars on the road etc. when cities start getting shut down.
It's not something to be gleeful about, but could be a silver lining in case of a recession.
These complacency patterns (and their counterpart) may go deeper than one specific event, like the coming epidemic. For example, the survivors of WWII seem to have been an unusually serious bunch: they put a lot of effort into building global infrastructure to protect against all kinds of disasters.
I don't know if this epidemic we're about to have will change things here. But I'm hopeful. Maybe some folks will wake up and start to adjust their perception of risk more broadly.
Edit: Reference: https://www.businessinsider.de/international/coronavirus-air...
Thumbs up for the 21st century what a corker.
Why the downvotes?
https://i1.wp.com/ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/osisaf_...
For the years from 2016 to 2020 there's an about sigma 4 deviation to the mean of 1981 to 2000 Do you know how unlikely this makes this curves to just be random variation?
There's an about 11% degradation in surface area, in just about 20 years.
Sad.
At least the prognosticators are getting smart enough to make sure their predictions can't be assessed until after they're gone. Means no egg on your face like all the doomsayers of times past...
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyp...
And the lede, "give more money to programs I think are important", is buried:
His particular concern is to see successors to the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite and the American space agency's IceSat-2 platform.
These models observe more of the ice sheets than other satellites because they fly orbits that go very close to the north and south poles.
"I fear we will soon be back to the situation of the early 2000s when we had to make do with missions that were not really designed to look at polar regions. We'll be doing our best despite the absence of the data we really require - unfortunately. But we've been there before."
My reflexive skepticism at the climate panic du jour aside, if you're convinced disaster is certain if we don't do something and if that something necessarily reduces the quality of life of everyone around you, you will fail. I, and billions of others, will refuse to go along.
All reasonable, sensible, attainable solutions are technological.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_cont...
> In July 1977, a senior scientist of Exxon James Black reported to company's executives that there was a general scientific agreement at that time that the burning of fossil fuels was the most likely manner in which mankind was influencing global climate change
Take it from the horse's mouth; these guys had no reason to propagate some kind of hoax, quite the opposite. We've known that since the 1970s that climate change is the likely outcome.
And you know what; climate change has arrived and - surprise! - it's a climate crisis!
According to IPCC 2018, we're CURRENTLY between +0.75 and +1.25°C, with the very real possibility of reaching +2°C by the 2040. These are undeniable facts.
So, the people that have been warning us for 50 years were .. actually correct. Who would have thought that science could work!
No, they weren't. We didn't end up in a mini ice-age. The glaciers in Glacier National Park did not disappear. The polar ice caps did not melt. Widespread famine did not occur. Widespread destruction did not occur.
Instead, humanity has experience it's greatest period of prosperity in the same period prophets like Ehrlich assured us of our impending doom.
Doom is always right around the corner.
Who would have thought that science could work!
Science always works. But scientists get things wrong frequently.
Let's start with Global Cooling. Although popularized by the media, this theory was very fringe and not accepted scientific consensus. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling)
The glaciers in Glacier National Park; they are melting. And melting fast (https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm)
The polar ice caps are melting. We've had a 11% reduction in are in about 20 years. (https://i1.wp.com/ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/osisaf_...)
If we continue like that, widespread famine and destruction are just around the corner. We're currently running into that, head first, full speed ahead.
1. Only a small fraction of scientists predicted an ice age.
2. Those predictions were based on the assumption that we wouldn't do anything to seriously address the increasing release of particulates into the atmosphere. Particulates have a cooling effect.
The models predicting an ice age predicted that the particulate cooling effect would be enough to overcome the warming effect from greenhouse gas emissions.
3. We in fact took particulates seriously, leading to a massive decrease in particulate emissions, thereby invalidating the assumption that led those models to forecast that the cooling effect would overcome the warming effect from greenhouse gases.