Nar, the planet will be just fine, and quite honestly it'll be a "happier" place without us.
Global Warming
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
Nar, the planet will be just fine, and quite honestly it'll be a "happier" place without us.
Can we cause a mass extinction?
Do you know why the goldilocks zone is known as that?
Yes, good luck to the forthcoming cockroach civilization.
Because the scientist who said it liked porridge?
Warmer winters. Moscow can be freezing during the winter.
But Russia is huge so I wouldn't want to generalise. But let's just say it *probably* wouldn't be a severe as elsewhere
Yeah, which is why I only spoke about the ones that lie inside the zone. D'uh.
'We' ? We are far from being significant enough to cause any major changes to the course of an entire planet, at least with the current technology. If in future the conditions of Earth stop supporting life - which is pretty much a 100% given - 'we' wouldn't have done much to bring that about. There's a reason astronomers are desperately researching the Goldilocks zone of other stars. That is the only way out.
I am not sure we can even take the planet to that point. We can kill of quite a lot of life but some species even if just microscopic ones will likely find a way.
But isn't Europe actually expected to get colder when the gulf stream gets disrupted due to Greenland melting?
As you say, Russia is fecking huge so hard obviously Siberia etc doesn't really get affected by this, but it is a misconception that Global Warming means hotter temperatures everywhere.
Yes but that is not the same as killing the planet
Nit to pick but shouldn't the title of the thread be "climate change" or "man made climate change"?
The goldilocks zone is where a planet is at the right distance from a star for liquid water to potentially exist on the surface. Venus is almost 500 degrees and with pressure 92 times that of Earth, and thus there isn't going to be liquid water there.
Duh.
Okay, how about maim?
The aphelion of Venus touches the inner edge of the zone.
...and it's still almost 500 degrees with pressure 92 times that of Earth. The "goldilocks zone" is a guideline that astronomers use to discern planets that are potentially habitable, something being in it doesn't mean it is supportive of life.
In Venus' case, it's fecked because of a runaway greenhouse effect.
we need to be investing a lot more in building large, habitable spaceships that go as close to the speed of light as possible, so we can go off and find planets around other stars to colonise. (While obviously being very respectful of any life that is already there.)
Probably, but as I understand it, that's a theory. There is the theory, that this will lead to another ice age. Others don't agree, or maybe it's just a long way off.
But what is happening is the world is getting warmer. That is happening.
Ironically, our ability to gratuitously warm a planet by releasing CO2 would serve us well on Mars. We'd just need to melt the polar caps, which we're good at.
Evolution is also a theory, anything scientific is a theory.
From everything I've read and watched, this is NASAs best model and Europe will get colder if Greenland melts.
That is definitely a big part of the problem, in terms of getting the skeptics on board and motivating even the people who believe in global warming - i.e. normal people - to really change their behaviour, in a way that is going to make enough of a difference. It's the unpredictability of it, and the fact that leads to wildly divergent predictions about what is coming. Scientist A says the world is going to be 5 degrees hotter, Scientist B says there will be an ice age. The fact that they disagree on that point doesnt undermine the case for climate change, except that for some people it does. And for others it makes it seem like nobody knows what the hell is going on anyway and what is the point in doing anything to prevent something happening when we dont even know what it is we are trying to prevent.
Would that this was a genuine question rather than a statement of an ongoing situation.
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It doesn't, true.
Anyway, back to the main point, no one ever considered this planet to hold up for our life forever, so I don't buy into the constant criticism for humans in worsening the situation. The planet will run it's due course, if it looks like it has started to change for the worse, the only option is to get out.
What? How can you not blame humans?
Not only are we causing this, we are the reason for the ongoing 6th mass extinction on this planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_fact_and_theory
I agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolution is a scientific fact.
I don't think you've understood what I'm saying...
The Earth is heating up
The Earth may suddenly cool down sending us spiraling into an ice age.
The Earth may reach a feedback loop where we have runaway greenhouse effect.
Not really. At best, we have merely accelerated it.
I'll try to be brief but the problem is much larger than electricity production.
Almost all transport is currently fossil fuelled. Whilst electrification of cars looks promising there is no chance of aviation or shipping achieving a similar transition. In fact both industries are doing essentially nothing to tackle the problem at the moment.
Meanwhile there are also significant greenhouse emissions from concrete/cement, agriculture (cows) and from change of land use (e.g. deforestation).
From a technology point of view the only real hope is that carbon capture and storage technologies advance to the point that we can suck huge quantities of CO2E out of the atmosphere and store it underground. In fact many current models of climate change assume that we will be able to do just that (net negative emissions from the mid part of this century, despite the technology not yet existing). The Paris agreement is founded upon the belief that we will be able to do just this, otherwise its stated targets and the actual emissions commitments are utterly contradictory.
The facts don't agree with you, look like at the stats on parts per million in the atmosphere and the historical data on that.
What fact is that? That the planet would have remained exactly as it was if humans had not intervened? Okay!
See the XKCD links... That's probably not true at all. Earth's temperature has always meandered about, but we are sole culprit of what is going to happen next
What is going to happen next, that wasn't always known to happen? There was never an option for our species to survive on this planet forever, only difference is that we may have to move away (or die) sooner, that's it.
2 is the most pertinent for you
We are going to have a catastrophic rise in temperatures, displacing billions of people, and simultaneously coinciding latest with the 6th and latest mass extinction on this planet (actually mostly unrelated to global warming).
The big one is cows, isnt it?
If the world went vegetarian we would get right on top of this situation at a stroke.
1. It starts with 20000 BCE, the planet is 4.8 byo.
2. It shows acceleration, which no one is disagreeing. Acceleration != cause.
Very true. That being said it's hard to comment on the tech until it's here. For example nuclear fusion could be used to provide electricity to make hydrogen which could then fuel planes/ships.
And we could all be eating lab grown burgers soon so cut down on the cow farts!
So, I ask again. Did you think we were not going to go extinct?
I say we compromise with synthetic meat
This is bordering on sociopathic.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say
It's the difference between knowing you are eventually going to die, and knowing you're going to be executed tomorrow.
This is a bit like going to court and saying "No, I didn't kill her when I hit her with my car. I just accelerated the speed she was going at, ergo she was going to die anyway."