The Great Oxygenation Event
bigthink.com
bigthink.com
† https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691145020/ox...
I'd rephrase what you wrote with our current technical limitations make it more feasible to detect life by finding something that would make astrobiologists say woah, how can that possibly happen?
I believe you're talking about Earth, and the person you're responding to was talking about Mars. At least I don't think Mars had an oxygenation event or fossils?
Science very thoroughly follows the drunkard principle, because there is no sense in looking at places were you unable to find anything. Science is looking for what it can possible see. It cannot see a bacteria under ice of Enceladus, so it doesn't even try. But it can see sometimes gases around Enceladus, so it looks for them.
To have a good biosignature, you want a signal that cannot be explained by anything other than life. Of course, that means that there might be planets with life that we do not notice, because all of the observables we have access to have an abiotic explanation. Not much you can do about that other than a bunch of science.
Its just weird to not discuss the evolutionary lineage that still uses pre-oxygenation event hardware (with some extreme bug fixes to deal with oxygen) to fix nitrogen.
It's helpful to recognize that we're not the first organism to risk undermining the conditions that made us successful by altering the gas mixture in the atmosphere, and that 400 million years of ice is the sort of consequence that we're playing with.
We need something different (or perhaps something additional) which can motivate those people to pull their heads out of the sand and quit chasing profit for profit sake and change the status quo.
To reduce pollution, factory owners would need to use less polluting means (i.e. less profit) and produce less (again less profit).
What happens if 999 factory owners do adhere to pollution-reduction, while 1 of them is polluting a bit more than others? (Answer: The polluter increases his share of the market, as more profits can be reinvested; and with more market share the profit will grow even more)
The point: consumers incentivize factory owners to polute, if consumers buy stuff despite polution.
This exercise ignores legislation, but law will not change until enough of consumers/voters start to care of the topic and will be ready to pay more for less and demand for it.
The scenario above, describes the dynamics of how incentives work.
As long as consumers expect stuff to be cheap, somebody will step up to provide that (reaping profits). Only highly conscious society or totally authoritarian one can make these changes (though probability of dictator caring about environmental effects is low, and probably not sustainable).
Edit: guilt/innocence are irrelevant in the sense that they do not change the outcome. If human gets into a tigers cage and gets eaten (or seriously injured), outcome was predictable without the need to know who is at fault (tiger or human).
A part of the general public is only whipped into a frenzy against these measures by vested interests.
But I doubt that it’s majority.
Whatever policy you implement, end result must be that stuff costs more and people live with less: virtually no personal cars, no for-fun-flights (vacation), force people to wear same pants for years and repair them when they get damaged.
That is hard pill to swallow for many, even for somewhat environmentally-aware beings.
Assuming no free energy is invented.
Related: exponential growth (x % each year) is not sustainable (approx 2500 years to consume whole universe converted to energy on 5% yearly growth); effectivity increases only multiply exponential function by a constant.
> That is hard pill to swallow for many, even for somewhat environmentally-aware beings.
You’re not wrong but I think adding some context would be helpful here.
That appears to be the situation now but it didn’t necessarily have to be this way. If effort in earnest was started earlier to develop the technologies necessary for transitioning off hydrocarbons, develop renewable energy generation, and so on the transition may not necessarily be so severe. And the policy which enabled this delay did cost consumers any way due to the active funding of a pro hydrocarbon influence campaign. Though I would guess the total cost of that policy is still much lower than actually trying to transition.
I think transitioning is a much easier pill to swallow if you realize that the decision will be made one way or another eventually and that it’s better to be proactive rather than reactive when trying to solve such an existential issue. That is, if one believes the science and cares about the future beyond just one’s self. Unfortunately that influence campaign I was mentioning earlier did a good job of denying the issue, used bad science to deceive, delayed climate action, degraded efforts of those fighting against it, etc. However I do acknowledge the ability to care beyond just one’s self is, to a certain extent, a financial privilege.
Incentivizing having less children is also another long term approach to limit emissions as technology becomes more efficient. Though it seems this has already been accomplished unintentionally in many places.
I’ve gone on kind of a rant but my point is yes the necessary policy decisions are more severe today but it absolutely did not have to be this way. And that is important to keep in mind because that campaign is still actively at play today.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/3/20/harvard-geoengi...
There is no known CO2 removal or capture technology currently capable of reducing levels faster and with less energy inputs than simply shutting down the current emitters.
Geo-engineering is essential, but stopping emissions is even more so.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/28/oil-and-...
Quote: "World’s fossil-fuel producers on track to nearly quadruple output from newly approved projects by decade’s end, report finds."