Climate Change

[Sniper_of_Chess]

Hello everybody in these hot days (In Europe at least).
30 (or so) years ago, there was conference about climate change, where specialists of this topic has warned people with responsibility that there is probability, that clima starts to change and if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse.. Well.. We all know what most politicans do.. (nothing but talk)
I was always interested in this topic, because well, its our future. Last year's hot waves in summer made me start to think about climate change in a serious way. This year seems to be worse than last and I am asking myself :" Where will we be in 5 years?" and the imagination scares me.. I start to see from news that some neighbours in small villages fights over water well and when I see dry grass when I go home from work, I am kinda afraid where and how this "ends".
So my question is.
What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

[Koub]

So this is the moderator-me writing. The subject is troll and flamewar friendly, besides being totally off-topic, even for off-topic subforum.
If I feel the slightest hint that my fears about trolling and flaming were justified, I'll lock it. Until then, I'll let people express themselves on the subject.

Now the me-me : Climate change - which was still called global warming at the time - does not necessarily mean that every temperature spike is directly the illustration that the thing is happening.
So far, I don't think the current hot temperatures we have in Europe have been proven to be a direct consequence or illustration of the climate change - despite the climate change in itself has reached a consensus in the scientific community. There might even be places in the world where the weather gets colder. That's about all for me, I know I didn't answer OP's question, but I felt it had to be precised

[slippycheeze]

So far, I don't think the current hot temperatures we have in Europe have been proven to be a direct consequence or illustration of the climate change - despite the climate change in itself has reached a consensus in the scientific community.

The whole thing has been decades of the problem that when science uses a word, and when everyone else uses a word, they don't always mean the same thing. Both terms are true, but you are absolutely correct that neither of them can be directly related to any real world weather event in .... I don't quite know how to put it, but let me try...

In a way that has any meaning on a small scale, just as if you survey 100,000 people in a city you get a good basis to predict how people think about something on average. For any individual person, though, that information is useless for predicting what they think. Except about football clubs, of course.


The whole process is just pouring more energy into a set of complicated systems. Now they have more power, as Factorio shows us, they can do more. Not more of a specific thing, just more of whatever. Which is why hotter, colder, wetter, drier, faster, slower, and just plain stranger weather are all possible outcomes. Those are the end products, not the "machine" that makes them.

Strictly accurately, even, weather on the scale of ten years is an intermediate product. The end product is really, really slow to take shape. Which definitely doesn't help understand it all, either, since what I thought 2020 would be like back in the '90s is ... not exactly accurate, it turns out. Bad at seeing what 30 years from now is going to be like.

[mmmPI]

if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse..

That's the opposite i think, if it is worse, it is accordingly because people ARE doing things, doing nothing, like as a collective decision of everyone stop doing anything and just wait for it to stop would work AFAIK. But feel free to prove me wrong.

In another direction :

I am already contributing my share, i do not heat my flat even during winter, it is ok since the other neighboors heat a lot. What do YOU do to make the world a better place ?

Hopefully this is not considered as trolling because i will explain , it is not to be taken literaly, the first part i want to point out that the rethorical way to present the question could be considered falacious, since it implies a feeling of emergency with linguistic expression that include the innocent readers that now HAS to do something; else it is guilty, ( at least of not being the person that is needed to change the things, rather than just expecting oneself to change its own behavior you expect a savior that won't be politicians but someone else sure need to tell you how to live your life).

This way of expressing a problem is not intellectually honnest if your aim is to argue with reason and not feelings. this is my opinion.

What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

This is why i pointed out a second direction, after stating that things are going to be worse unless someone do something, it is weird to ask people their opinion do you mean to ask them if they agree with what you just stated in a tone that doesn't seems like someone is allowed to disagree since those are facts ?

Or more something like, "once we've said that where are we going" ? then you get the "other direction",

i hope when you read the "other direction" you wanted to explain me why it is wrong when i say i am contributing my share, this is not making the world a better place right ? my attitude is just benefiting from others people's heat right ? yet it doesn't not prevent me from asking you "what do YOU do ?", that leaves a weird confuse feeling a little displeasant right ? Like i'm about to tell you how to do stuff, or at least to tell you not to do stuff.

That is kind of what i felt reading your post.

It would a bit the same if you describe how bad it is to get drunk and take random fights in the streets, and then ask people their opinion about it, and also why ? But maybe someone is going to argue that it makes you respected and it boost your confidence.

[disentius]

Look here:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
A less disputed hockey stick graph.

My logic bias tells me to assume that human population growth has a specific influence on climate, environment, and other life. (e.g. it would be different if we weren't here in these numbers.)
All life is competing for resources, and humans are very good at finding and using them first.
The population growth rate is declining however. How we can keep sustaining this many people, and what the effects are on the other life on our planet, will be hot topics in the coming decades.
For the foreseeable future, it will be like Factorio: biters fish, and trees decrease in population as the factory grows.

• the evolution algorithm for biters doesn't have a max_sustainable_density_per_chunk limit. overpopulation with only one drain?(the player) urg!:)

• It acts like the biome in the novel Deathworld(Harry Harrison).

[Cudlay]

Hello everybody in these hot days (In Europe at least).
30 (or so) years ago, there was conference about climate change, where specialists of this topic has warned people with responsibility that there is probability, that clima starts to change and if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse.. Well.. We all know what most politicans do.. (nothing but talk)
I was always interested in this topic, because well, its our future. Last year's hot waves in summer made me start to think about climate change in a serious way. This year seems to be worse than last and I am asking myself :" Where will we be in 5 years?" and the imagination scares me.. I start to see from news that some neighbours in small villages fights over water well and when I see dry grass when I go home from work, I am kinda afraid where and how this "ends".
So my question is.
What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

I believe that these changes are mostly irreversible look at what is going on in San Francisco. Look at what happened in Australia several months ago... I believe that we have passed the point of no return. These are one of the reasons why I dream to live in a place with stable climate and permanent weather. I guess this would be perfect. But still I hope that mankind will reconsider their attitude towards nature *fingers crossed*

[Aru]

It's inevitable that ecosystems, along with the natural regulatory systems of our world, will become increasingly destabilized in the coming centuries. The result will likely be extreme weather and temperature, famine, and a rate of mass extinction that puts the current one caused by a century of industrialization to shame, which already puts every one in the history of life on Earth to shame. Yet, most people have no direct evidence of the current extinction event, and can easily ignore it, or even deny it in many cases.

The cost of global warming is almost entirely in the future. Most people alive today will not directly observe any personal consequences for some time to come, perhaps not at all, leaving it for their descendants. It's likely that future humans will look back with some amount of shame at the neglect of society today, once they realize that the cost could have been more efficiently mitigated with earlier actions.

Idealism alone is worthless, in the end. We will take gradually increasing measures to reduce our greenhouse emissions as things get worse, because they will get worse. At this point, the cost is assured to be tremendous. It's a case of, people won't miss what they don't realize they have, until it's gone. I hope that people rein in these exponentially increasing problems, become more conscious of these consequences, sooner rather than later, though that is relative. We're borrowing against the future with an untenable interest rate.

[TommyJ]

Climate change is not really about warming. Rather, it is about sharper seasons. Even in belts with soft transitions now in the future, we will have a cold/hot change in one day. (this is just one of the manifestations) The consequences of this are not obvious to politicians. But they are quite obvious, for example, to all those who have grown at least something in their lives.
Now we are all distracted by the ahem-ahem virus. But before it began, some governments were still worried enough to set up tracking teams, launch satellites for ocean mapping, and other changes. I don’t think all is lost. Although every year I am more and more disappointed in humanity as a species.

[starlinvf]

Hello everybody in these hot days (In Europe at least).
30 (or so) years ago, there was conference about climate change, where specialists of this topic has warned people with responsibility that there is probability, that clima starts to change and if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse.. Well.. We all know what most politicans do.. (nothing but talk)
I was always interested in this topic, because well, its our future. Last year's hot waves in summer made me start to think about climate change in a serious way. This year seems to be worse than last and I am asking myself :" Where will we be in 5 years?" and the imagination scares me.. I start to see from news that some neighbours in small villages fights over water well and when I see dry grass when I go home from work, I am kinda afraid where and how this "ends".
So my question is.
What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

I believe that these changes are mostly irreversible look at what is going on in San Francisco. Look at what happened in Australia several months ago... I believe that we have passed the point of no return. These are one of the reasons why I dream to live in a place with stable climate and permanent weather. I guess this would be perfect. But still I hope that mankind will reconsider their attitude towards nature *fingers crossed*

I'm sure its reversible.... After all, it went from space dust to lava ball, to rock ball, to bunch of organics messing up the place for millions of years to get to where we were in the 1980s in the first place.

But I'm not convinced humans can enough harness energy, or direct it with enough precision, to pull it off without sloppy side effects. well... and/or take longer then the number of life times the species has left to work with.


Which is why we need space ships, and a nanoforge so we can craft red science packs on new planets.

[starlinvf]

It's inevitable that ecosystems, along with the natural regulatory systems of our world, will become increasingly destabilized in the coming centuries. The result will likely be extreme weather and temperature, famine, and a rate of mass extinction that puts the current one caused by a century of industrialization to shame, which already puts every one in the history of life on Earth to shame. Yet, most people have no direct evidence of the current extinction event, and can easily ignore it, or even deny it in many cases.

The cost of global warming is almost entirely in the future. Most people alive today will not directly observe any personal consequences for some time to come, perhaps not at all, leaving it for their descendants. It's likely that future humans will look back with some amount of shame at the neglect of society today, once they realize that the cost could have been more efficiently mitigated with earlier actions.

Idealism alone is worthless, in the end. We will take gradually increasing measures to reduce our greenhouse emissions as things get worse, because they will get worse. At this point, the cost is assured to be tremendous. It's a case of, people won't miss what they don't realize they have, until it's gone. I hope that people rein in these exponentially increasing problems, become more conscious of these consequences, sooner rather than later, though that is relative. We're borrowing against the future with an untenable interest rate.

There was a whole episode of South Park about that. And its extra ironic that I don't think most people realize just how on point using Red Dead Redemption 2 as an allegory might actually be.

[TommyJ]

Hello everybody in these hot days (In Europe at least).
30 (or so) years ago, there was conference about climate change, where specialists of this topic has warned people with responsibility that there is probability, that clima starts to change and if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse.. Well.. We all know what most politicans do.. (nothing but talk)
I was always interested in this topic, because well, its our future. Last year's hot waves in summer made me start to think about climate change in a serious way. This year seems to be worse than last and I am asking myself :" Where will we be in 5 years?" and the imagination scares me.. I start to see from news that some neighbours in small villages fights over water well and when I see dry grass when I go home from work, I am kinda afraid where and how this "ends".
So my question is.
What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

I believe that these changes are mostly irreversible look at what is going on in San Francisco. Look at what happened in Australia several months ago... I believe that we have passed the point of no return. These are one of the reasons why I dream to live in a place with stable climate and permanent weather. I guess this would be perfect. But still I hope that mankind will reconsider their attitude towards nature *fingers crossed*

I'm sure its reversible.... After all, it went from space dust to lava ball, to rock ball, to bunch of organics messing up the place for millions of years to get to where we were in the 1980s in the first place.

But I'm not convinced humans can enough harness energy, or direct it with enough precision, to pull it off without sloppy side effects. well... and/or take longer then the number of life times the species has left to work with.


Which is why we need space ships, and a nanoforge so we can craft red science packs on new planets.

An interesting conclusion. But I would not say that terraforming Mars is a good way out of this situation. Maybe something like Io would be worth considering.
In fact, the contribution of human activity to global warming may be very small. But this requires large-scale controlled research. Will the countries be able to agree between themselves to conduct satellite studies of the entire planet?

[Challenger007]

Hello everybody in these hot days (In Europe at least).
30 (or so) years ago, there was conference about climate change, where specialists of this topic has warned people with responsibility that there is probability, that clima starts to change and if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse.. Well.. We all know what most politicans do.. (nothing but talk)
I was always interested in this topic, because well, its our future. Last year's hot waves in summer made me start to think about climate change in a serious way. This year seems to be worse than last and I am asking myself :" Where will we be in 5 years?" and the imagination scares me.. I start to see from news that some neighbours in small villages fights over water well and when I see dry grass when I go home from work, I am kinda afraid where and how this "ends".
So my question is.
What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

I believe that these changes are mostly irreversible look at what is going on in San Francisco. Look at what happened in Australia several months ago... I believe that we have passed the point of no return. These are one of the reasons why I dream to live in a place with stable climate and permanent weather. I guess this would be perfect. But still I hope that mankind will reconsider their attitude towards nature *fingers crossed*

I'm sure its reversible.... After all, it went from space dust to lava ball, to rock ball, to bunch of organics messing up the place for millions of years to get to where we were in the 1980s in the first place.

But I'm not convinced humans can enough harness energy, or direct it with enough precision, to pull it off without sloppy side effects. well... and/or take longer then the number of life times the species has left to work with.


Which is why we need space ships, and a nanoforge so we can craft red science packs on new planets.

An interesting conclusion. But I would not say that terraforming Mars is a good way out of this situation. Maybe something like Io would be worth considering.
In fact, the contribution of human activity to global warming may be very small. But this requires large-scale controlled research. Will the countries be able to agree between themselves to conduct satellite studies of the entire planet?

I think that agreements are possible if several countries reach approximately the same level of development of the aerospace industry and are able to make an equal contribution to research. It seems to me that we are still on the way to this, because more and more new companies appear that are actively developing, using the accumulated knowledge and bringing their innovations into development. I have been watching with interest the rocket building ccompany from the UK lately. They express non-trivial ideas and offer unique opportunities.

[starlinvf]

Hello everybody in these hot days (In Europe at least).
30 (or so) years ago, there was conference about climate change, where specialists of this topic has warned people with responsibility that there is probability, that clima starts to change and if nobody does something, it would be worse and worse.. Well.. We all know what most politicans do.. (nothing but talk)
I was always interested in this topic, because well, its our future. Last year's hot waves in summer made me start to think about climate change in a serious way. This year seems to be worse than last and I am asking myself :" Where will we be in 5 years?" and the imagination scares me.. I start to see from news that some neighbours in small villages fights over water well and when I see dry grass when I go home from work, I am kinda afraid where and how this "ends".
So my question is.
What is your opinion in this topic? and WHY do you have this opinion?

I believe that these changes are mostly irreversible look at what is going on in San Francisco. Look at what happened in Australia several months ago... I believe that we have passed the point of no return. These are one of the reasons why I dream to live in a place with stable climate and permanent weather. I guess this would be perfect. But still I hope that mankind will reconsider their attitude towards nature *fingers crossed*

I'm sure its reversible.... After all, it went from space dust to lava ball, to rock ball, to bunch of organics messing up the place for millions of years to get to where we were in the 1980s in the first place.

But I'm not convinced humans can enough harness energy, or direct it with enough precision, to pull it off without sloppy side effects. well... and/or take longer then the number of life times the species has left to work with.


Which is why we need space ships, and a nanoforge so we can craft red science packs on new planets.

An interesting conclusion. But I would not say that terraforming Mars is a good way out of this situation. Maybe something like Io would be worth considering.
In fact, the contribution of human activity to global warming may be very small. But this requires large-scale controlled research. Will the countries be able to agree between themselves to conduct satellite studies of the entire planet?

I wouldn't call it small when you factor in the kind of cumulative and/or exponential growth patterns we're capable of. Its never been a question of IF theres an impact..... its merely a question of where on the curve we're currently at.

[Challenger007]

I agree with you. The overpopulation of the planet, the huge scale of production, the insane number of cars and the monstrous volumes of emissions - this cannot be a "small impact". What to do with overpopulation is not clear. Birth control is radical, but it is a violation of human rights. What about overproduction and emissions? God knows.

[NotRexButCaesar]

I agree with you. The overpopulation of the planet, the huge scale of production, the insane number of cars and the monstrous volumes of emissions - this cannot be a "small impact". What to do with overpopulation is not clear. Birth control is radical, but it is a violation of human rights. What about overproduction and emissions? God knows.

I don’t believe overpopulation is or will be a long lasting problem. There is already a trend towards people having fewer and fewer children as time goes on and the world becomes more developed.

[Koub]

I agree with you. The overpopulation of the planet, the huge scale of production, the insane number of cars and the monstrous volumes of emissions - this cannot be a "small impact". What to do with overpopulation is not clear. Birth control is radical, but it is a violation of human rights. What about overproduction and emissions? God knows.

I don’t believe overpopulation is or will be a long lasting problem. There is already a trend towards people having fewer and fewer children as time goes on and the world becomes more developed.

Actually, overpopulation is already a thing. Not that it's impossible to feed the current world population, but it's impossible to feed (and to dress, and give a home, ... ) sustainably the current population. And according to the UN's studies, it's highly likely world population will keep growing until at least 2050, and probably until 2100 (source) ... if some unwanted event doesn't force the world population to stabilize or even shrink (war, disaster, ...).

[NotRexButCaesar]

I don’t believe overpopulation is or will be a long lasting problem. There is already a trend towards people having fewer and fewer children as time goes on and the world becomes more developed.

it's impossible to feed [...] sustainably the current population.

Are you so sure? I'm not just being nitpicky about "impossible". Even with current technology, there definitely seems to be enough land for farming.

[Challenger007]

I agree with you. The overpopulation of the planet, the huge scale of production, the insane number of cars and the monstrous volumes of emissions - this cannot be a "small impact". What to do with overpopulation is not clear. Birth control is radical, but it is a violation of human rights. What about overproduction and emissions? God knows.

I don’t believe overpopulation is or will be a long lasting problem. There is already a trend towards people having fewer and fewer children as time goes on and the world becomes more developed.

Well, maybe in Europe and America it is decreasing, but look at India and China. If China is still moving forward in its development, jobs are being created for the population, but in India poor people are en masse. Look at their incidence rates in the provinces due to poverty and unsanitary conditions. There is real overpopulation.

[Koub]

Are you so sure? I'm not just being nitpicky about "impossible". Even with current technology, there definitely seems to be enough land for farming.

Disclaimer : I'm not an expert, I just got very interested in the subject as time passed, and I documented myself on trustworthy sources (which exclude social networks, and medias, both conventional and web based)

If only accounting for the surface, yeah, sure. But when accounting for :
- the agriculture induced deforestation that lowers the ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 paired with the release of the carbon stored in the trees into the atmosphere
- the fact that our agriculture relies massively on nitrogen based fertilizers, for which industrial processes use ammonia as compound, which in turn is mass produced by reforming methane (methane CH4 is broken into H2 and carbon, which pairs with oxygen from the air and is emitted as CO2)
- the fact that those same nitrogen based fertilisers release afterwards nitrous oxide in the air (very potent greenhouse gas)
- the whole logistic chain that starts on the actual crop in the field and ends in people's plate, mostly fueled by fossile fuels (tractors, lorries, harvesters, ...)
- And when it's not C02, it's methane, a very potent greenhouse gas (and byproduct of cattle and rice fields), 1/3 of the methane emitted in the atmosphere, and 2/3rds of the anthropic emissions, come from agriculture

All in all, agriculture + food industry account for about 1/4 of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

So yeah, "impossible" might seem excessive, but it's just not realistic to consider current world population living sustainably, even for only the most basic survival needs (food, basic clothing, basic habitat).

Sources :
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ (chapter 4 for the deforestation part, chapter 5 for the food industry greenhouse gas emissions, but the whole page has a lot of information)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospher ... hane_cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_o ... use_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#Fertilizer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_p ... ing_plants
http://www.carbone4.com/?lang=en

[Challenger007]

Are you so sure? I'm not just being nitpicky about "impossible". Even with current technology, there definitely seems to be enough land for farming.

Disclaimer : I'm not an expert, I just got very interested in the subject as time passed, and I documented myself on trustworthy sources (which exclude social networks, and medias, both conventional and web based)

If only accounting for the surface, yeah, sure. But when accounting for :
- the agriculture induced deforestation that lowers the ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 paired with the release of the carbon stored in the trees into the atmosphere
- the fact that our agriculture relies massively on nitrogen based fertilizers, for which industrial processes use ammonia as compound, which in turn is mass produced by reforming methane (methane CH4 is broken into H2 and carbon, which pairs with oxygen from the air and is emitted as CO2)
- the fact that those same nitrogen based fertilisers release afterwards nitrous oxide in the air (very potent greenhouse gas)
- the whole logistic chain that starts on the actual crop in the field and ends in people's plate, mostly fueled by fossile fuels (tractors, lorries, harvesters, ...)
- And when it's not C02, it's methane, a very potent greenhouse gas (and byproduct of cattle and rice fields), 1/3 of the methane emitted in the atmosphere, and 2/3rds of the anthropic emissions, come from agriculture

All in all, agriculture + food industry account for about 1/4 of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

So yeah, "impossible" might seem excessive, but it's just not realistic to consider current world population living sustainably, even for only the most basic survival needs (food, basic clothing, basic habitat).

Sources :
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ (chapter 4 for the deforestation part, chapter 5 for the food industry greenhouse gas emissions, but the whole page has a lot of information)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospher ... hane_cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_o ... use_effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#Fertilizer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_p ... ing_plants
http://www.carbone4.com/?lang=en

And what's interesting is that if humanity refuses to use fertilizers in favor of organic fertilizers, then the result will change little. After all, organic matter also contains nitrogenous compounds and the process of decay may even produce more carbon dioxide than artificial fertilizers.