Salon sez - Earth Still Doomed

[el_bryanto]

Yep - no matter who wins in November, no matter what the Supreme Court decides this week, No matter when the economy turns around, human civilization has a shelf life of about another 88 years, give or take. Most of us will be dead before then, but I gather we'll feel the shocks well before earth actually becomes uninhabitable. Here is the article.

Honestly, I never know exactly how to respond to that sort of article. Is it supposed to inspire us to great efforts? Because what it actually says to me is go back to playing video games, nothing you can do matters all that much anyway. Oh and stock up on guns so that when the opportunity to reenact Red Dawn/Warriors/The Walking Dead comes along, you'll be ready.

Bryant

[deutsey]

1. It reads almost like an Onion article

only without the humor or satire.

[daaron]

2. Ugh. We're screwed. Republicans have screwed us, all.

Pareene writes:

With the global average temperature already .8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, it is exceedingly unlikely that humanity will manage to keep the planet from warming by less than 2 degrees, which most scientists predict would be fairly disastrous for many people, even if Antonin Scalia writes a very strongly worded dissent to their models.

That's it, exactly.

Think "President Romney" sounds bad? If we continue to ignore climate change, we'll have bigger problems than Citizen's United, high poverty rates or even illegal wars for oil. We'll have abject poverty and starvation, civil war and chaos, and geologically long-term environmental devastation including mass extinction of species as our children and grandchildren consume what's left after we piss on everything else.

[coalition_unwilling]

11. Grammar Nazi here. I wish the author of the article understood the

difference between 'less' (non-countable) and 'fewer' (countable). Pet peeve of mine.

Now back to the original programming.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Temperature (and warming) is 'non-countable'

in the sense that it is continuous variation, with a scale that gets measured in fractional or whole numbers. "The planet will warm by less than it did in the 10th century" is grammatically fine; so is "...less than 2 degrees" or "less than 2.4 degrees" and so on. I would say that is preferable to "...fewer than 2.4 degrees".

'Fewer' should be used when something is measured only in non-negative whole numbers.

[coalition_unwilling]

21. Yeah, in retrospect and upon reflection, I think you are right. N.B. "Less than 2 degrees"

is gramatically fine. I think it was more a question of usage, but I think your point about fractional numbers using 'less' is well taken.

Thanks for weighing in. What got me on this kick are the incessant diet soda commericals, constantly touting 'less calories'

My wife is giggling with glee as she sees me having to eat grammar crow!

[Selatius]

3. It's one reason not to have children.

I swore off children a good while ago precisely because of what I'm seeing on the horizon, and it's nothing to look forward to. There is no need in my mind to bring more people into this miserable world.

[Javaman]

4. This was the one article that made me throw up my hands

and basically give up.

Carbon is forever
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html
Carbon dioxide emissions and their associated warming could linger for millennia, according to some climate scientists. Mason Inman looks at why the fallout from burning fossil fuels could last far longer than expected.

And if that's not enough...

Carbon Dioxide Duration in Atmosphere
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00296.htm
The duration period for carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere is somewhere between 100 and 500 years. Obviously, not all carbon dioxide molecules will stay in the atmosphere that long, but on average the duration may be around 200-300 years. Some scientists believe that it could be longer than that, others believe that the duration is shorter. Presently, there is some uncertainty in those figures.

-----------------------------------
I try to live my life with as low a carbon foot print as I can, why? because of my own set of morals and ethics. Beyond that, there are enough morons out there that don't care and usurp my morals and ethics with their greed and stupidity.

[el_bryanto]

5. How do other people usurp your morals and ethics?

Or do you simply mean that your efforts aren't going anywhere because your neighbors are mostly greedy and stupid?

Bryant

[Javaman]

7. I see what you mean, yeah that was poorly worded...

what I meant was no matter what morals and ethics I observe to try an do my best to live a low carbon lifestyle, there are the right wing no nothings who do all they can to usurp the message that the world is warming and actively pour money into propaganda to keep the mouth breathers of this nation ignorant and to pay no mind to climate change.

[raouldukelives]

18. Its a wacky world out there.

The right wing bozos are all over the place. I saw a truck yesterday with a big homemade Romney sticker covering the rear window, one that read "Bigot. What a conservative is called when they win an argument with a liberal." and another big homemade global warming is a myth sticker. Seriously, these people are beyond reach.
The ones that throw me off the most though are the ones who ask me if I read some new climate change article and how dire it sounds and then watch them turn around and check how the Dow is performing. I'm not sure which is the most unreachable.

[Javaman]

23. I know what you mean.

Which is worse, the ones that refuse to believe or those who believe but refuse to pay attention.

The root of both these groups problems is their inability to embrace change. So they just keep doing what they are doing and damn the information because it would be beyond their ability to drive a little less, eat a little less meat or try using less plastic items (for starters).

When I was a kid, I lived on Long Island. We would go to the beach a lot. The southern shore has large breakers. If you timed them right you could ride them out without going under or pulled into a rip tide. Without fail, there were always people who either didn't time them right or wouldn't pay attention, thus pulling them under and having the life guard run out to save them.

What we are facing as a world will not have the help of a life guard.

[hobbit709]

6. The only thing doomed is us as the dominant species. The earth has seen worse disasters than us.

[IDemo]

9. We're taking plenty of other species down as well

The acidification of the oceans due to CO2 absorption is wreaking havoc on the biosphere, not to mention "dead zones" - areas of the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere where oxygen depletion occurs from algal blooms fed by nitrogen fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi River. Not to mention the Corexit or the crude oil...

[hobbit709]

10. How many mass extinctions in the history of the planet?

The biggest ecological disaster in the history of the planet was when the methane breathers almost wiped out every species at the time with their waste product-Oxygen.

[IDemo]

13. I'm sure the scale of previous disasters has been worse

But it's utterly mistaken to suggest that humans are the only thing threatened by our actions.

[hobbit709]

15. Humans have already been responsible for the extinction of species.

Nature has tried many things in 4 billion years, this time intelligence may well prove to be a failure too.
There are some species that couldn't survive without us around, they have adapted too well-like certain parasites qand symbiotes.

I'm just tired of the "The planet is doomed" claims. Earth survived for 4.5 billion years without us and it will survive another 4 billion + without us again.

[el_bryanto]

16. If humans aren't around than I'm pretty sure I don't give a damn about what comes next

Why would it matter?

Bryant

[IDemo]

19. Because humans possess the intelligence to know they aren't the only thing worth saving

Or are supposed to.

Anthropocentrism has been a pox, literally, on the biosphere. The attitude that we should consume all of the fresh water we haven't yet poisoned; that the oceans are Humanity's toilet; that plant and animal species are only as valuable as they are useful, is what will take us to the brink of extinction and drag other life forms along for the ride. What did they do to deserve us, anyway?

[el_bryanto]

22. Well i guess they didn't do anything to deserve us.

But I like humans. So I want them to continue existing. I'm not capable of liking plants and trees and ecosystems and animals the same way I like humans. No tree has ever been Shakespeare. Or Mark Twain. Or Van Gogh. Or Neil Young.

Bryant

[jwirr]

8. Doom here may just be earth as we know it. I believe that we in for a die-off and warmer climate

as well as problems with water, food shortages, over population and other expected issues but that does not mean the END. Just more suffering. And that is the fault of the people who have always overused what we have as if there is no tomorrow.

[coalition_unwilling]

12. Everyone would be well served to read Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations." Aurelius,

credited with being a founding influence on the philosophical school of Stoicism, basically argued that nothing we as individuals do will make any difference in 200 years anyway, so why get our knickers in a knot? Relax and don't sweat the small stuff. That is a (very) rough paraphrase of the first Latino philosopher, so my apologies in advance to any Aurelius experts reading this

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. "There is no safety in the cosmos." - Alan Watts

[whatchamacallit]

17. DU itself proves this true

Deep down most of us understand we face a future where survival is the only issue. Yet, here we are burning up precious cycles bickering about PC language and which megalomaniac gets to preside over the fall.