Plan B Forum

This article is from summer 2017. It is interesting to read in light of the catastrophic evidence of climate crisis we have experienced in the few years since then, and the ever more alarming reports from climate scientists as they express shock at how quickly predicted scenarios are coming to pass.

The Uninhabitable Earth, Annotated Edition

. . . when it comes to the challenge of climate change, public complacency is a far, far bigger problem than widespread fatalism — that many, many more people are not scared enough than are already “too scared.”

I am curious to know where other posters stand on the climate crisis issue - do you think somehow we will solve it in time to preserve human life as we know it?

Or are you, like me (and a great many climate scientists) convinced we will see the end of human life as we know it, if not entirely, within the next hundred years or so?

I have two children (but no grandchildren), so I have to remain hopeful.

Also, as a life-long science fiction fan, I have to observe that most science fiction written in the past 100 years has *NOT* been of the dystopian variety. That's probably influenced my worldview quite a bit.

Yes, I believe in the near un-limited ability of humans to adapt and we shall survive global warming.

But to quote another cliche from another medium: "it's life, Jim, but not as we know it."

snailgate

We have survived considerable ebb and flow as the earth changes but we are long overdue for an extinction level event so....

I doubt that I'll see it

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 25, 2021 5:44 pm

Or are you, like me (and a great many climate scientists) convinced we will see the end of human life as we know it, if not entirely, within the next hundred years or so?

I doubt anyone on this board will see it.

The good news is that we don't have to worry any more about the end of democracy in the USA

MajGenl.Meade wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:23 pm

The good news is that we don't have to worry any more about the end of democracy in the USA

I hope you’re being facetious.

If democracy ends in the USA, any hope of doing the necessary things to slow the climate crisis and prepare our cities and people for the continuing catastrophic weather of decades to come will be gone.

The lunatic oligarchs who would control entirely after the rise of fascism clearly don’t grasp the science and have some delusional belief that their bunkers in New Zealand will protect them and their families from the coming horrors. Perhaps temporarily - but their continued pillaging of the natural world and insistence on endless economic growth will destroy this whole world so that there is no place safe, never mind beautiful, for their grandchildren to live. The only logical conclusion is that they love their money more than their children and grandchildren.


I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by the trite responses. Rather illustrates the problem of why we will never get the kinds of sacrifices and changes necessary to save the planet for our posterity. As someone who has no children yet feels deep concern about this issue, I struggle to understand how so many parents and grandparents go blithely disregarding the issue. As the article discussed, far too many people aren’t scared at all by what is unfolding in front of our eyes and what the science is telling us will come next. I honestly don’t see why there isn’t greater urgency - why people aren’t marching in the streets for months about this as they did about George Floyd.

A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news

Anyone planning to still be here in 20 years?

Anyone remember carbon paper? How we used to do copies before copiers became cheap and commonplace; and if you wanted five copies you made a paper / carbon / paper / carbon / paper / carbon / paper / carbon /paper sandwich and hoped the typewriter would stand up to the vicious hammering it would take to make the keystroke show up on that last page.

Somewhere in a box in my basement is an almost illegible 5th (??) level copy of an application to the student union for funding (I'll guess around £20 which seemed like a fortune in those days) for a UC Swansea (Gob's home town) student society called SURVIVAL! which competed with the likes of the Chess Club and the Socialist Workers and the Rugby Club and the Mountaineers for cash and members. 1973 at best guess. From what I recall - it's almost 50 years since I typed it* and maybe 35 since I last saw it - we were worried about overpopulation**, overuse of the world's resources, loss of topsoil, and water pollution. Climate change was not then on our agenda.

* I was treasurer - whenever I get involved with any volunteer group of that sort I seem to end up as treasurer. My wife rightly does not trust me to be sensible with money so I am not the treasurer in my own house. Works for me.

** We were then at 4 billion - now we are a year or so away from 8 billion.

The initial warnings about climate change and the contributions of industrially derived CO2 to a runaway greenhouse effect came from Svante Arrhenius around 1900, who understood what might happen. Unfortunately and based on an unreasonably sunny prediction about the rate of utilization of fossil fuels, Arrhenius calculated that it would be 3000 years before the effects became significant. It was around this time that scientists got into the finer detail and decided that we were a lot closer to disaster than previously thought.

I am much less optimistic that I was even a few years ago. My optimism was based on (a) science will figure out a way to lessen the effects or so that we have more of a chance of living with it (b) people are not stupid and once they understand the details they will modify their lifestyles accordingly and (c) we all work together toward a common good against a common enemy once it is identified.

If the Trump phenomenon has taught us anything it is that (b) and (c) above are woefully naive. COVID too. Brexit. Politicians lie. We need a new Manhattan project which needs funding and buy-in if (a) is any kind of prospect.

I'm sorry that my first response struck you as "trite", BSG. It wasn't meant that way.

I can't say I believe in the impending (collapse, survival) of human civilization or the (extinction, continuation) of humanity for the same reasons I can't say I believe in a god or in life after death. There is just too much that is unknown and even unknowable. But unlike Faith, which one can't just wish into existence, the other two "theological virtues" of Hope and Charity can be deliberately constructed and practiced by mere humans like you and me without relying upon a deity who may or may not exist.

Humanity has survived a great deal — including all the war, famine, and plague of the 14th century — with none of the scientific knowledge and technological skills we have now...so if I had to guess I'd say that Homo sapiens sapiens will somehow muddle through it all, again. The main areas of uncertainty are (a) how many will survive and (b) how long will it take for civilization to recover. (My most optimistic guesses: (a) not more than 90% and (b) not less than a century. And since I'm already 74 years old...no, I'll never find out how good my guesses are. )

At least 85 wildfires torch 1.5m acres across drought-hit US west

I went out with the dog this evening before sunset and was shocked by the haze - it was like a day in fire season in Montana, just without the acrid woodsmoke stench. No blue sky visible to speak of, and haze so thick it seemed to be settling into the neighborhood like fog.

Really loving the climate crisis.

BoSoxGal wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 27, 2021 2:44 am

At least 85 wildfires torch 1.5m acres across drought-hit US west

I went out with the dog this evening before sunset and was shocked by the haze - it was like a day in fire season in Montana, just without the acrid woodsmoke stench. No blue sky visible to speak of, and haze so thick it seemed to be settling into the neighborhood like fog.

Really loving the climate crisis.

What would you be willing to do to fight climate change? Would you be willing to pay more taxes? Would you be willing to work twenty hours a week free building wind chargers? How about banning civilian jet air travel? How about requiring all civilian ships to be solar-powered?

Remember when acid rain was going to make the planet uninhabitable by the year 2000?

Remember the 1985 Helsinki Protocol on the Reduction of Sulphur Emissions, the 1991 U.S.–Canada Air Quality Agreement, and the 1994 Oslo Protocol on Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions?

Exactly.

Exactly what? Are we scoffing at the legitimacy of air quality concerns when 4.2 million people die per year due to air pollution, or are we scoffing at the climate crisis in general?

Gob wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:05 am

Remember when acid rain was going to make the planet uninhabitable by the year 2000?

No. I don't recall any consensus among scientists that acid rain would make the planet uninhabitable within a few years. I do recall a consensus among scientists (i.e., people who take the trouble to actually try and understand this stuff) that if nothing was done some lakes and rivers in some areas which were particularly exposed to acid rain due to geography and weather patterns, and which for geological reasons had little or no buffering capability, might no longer sustain the flora and fauna they once had. This was particularly true of the Adirondack region (upstate NY) - and at one point something like 20% of the region's 2500 lakes were severely affected (i.e., had measurable declines in their pH and biota).

Engineering controls on sources in the US and Canada have improved the situation somewhat but much remains to be done. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation monitors the area and things are demonstrably getting better. The graph below shows how deposition of sulphate (sulfate if you prefer) (precursor to sulphuric acid) has decreased in four selected lake watersheds.



It's called whataboutery, Gob. And fake whataboutery, to boot.

ex-khobar Andy wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 27, 2021 1:08 pm

No. I don't recall any consensus among scientists that acid rain would make the planet uninhabitable within a few years.

But you do remember that acid rain was going to be a major polluter and source of deforestation, exceptionally dangerous to human life right?

For instance;

The most comprehensive study was commissioned in 1980 by US president Jimmy Carter. The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Programme (NAPAP) examined the damage caused by acid rain and recommended solutions. In 1982 president Ronald Regan raised the annual budget for NAPAP to $100 million. The final cost of NAPAP, the most costly environmental study in US history, was $537 million.

So, obviously it was taken seriously as a problem.

It's my belief that, through the efforts of scientists and government, that we will one day control, then reduce global warming. I just hope we do it in time.

Would anyone here be willing to give up jet air travel to reduce CO2 emissions? How can you expect something to happen if you are not willing to do something?