[onlooker]

Thought this not too long article was very well written about the case for collapse and especially with its emphasis on our insecurities as a basis for the path that have led us to this impasse. Thoughts?
http://expressiveegg.org/2016/08/27/end-of-the-world/

[AdamB]

Thought this not too long article was very well written about the case for collapse and especially with its emphasis on our insecurities as a basis for the path that have led us to this impasse. Thoughts?
http://expressiveegg.org/2016/08/27/end-of-the-world/

Yes. Claims of collapse are nothing new. Arguably anything written before the internet allowed every unemployed momma's boy to post their thoughts (or more likely regurgitate someone else's) on a blog should be considered suspect until you are familiar with the training and expertise of the author.

In the meantime, examples of the all OTHER folks who were doing the same thing, and were discredited through the same mechanism that wiped out the internet's peak oil presence...time.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_pr ... _the_world

[onlooker]

Oh come on, people are always saying ‘It’s the End of the World’.
They’ve been saying it since the world — meaning civilisation — begun, some ten or twelve thousand years go. Eight thousand years ago the virgin forests of China and Central Asia were being felled, five thousand years ago mankind got to work turning the ‘fertile crescent’ into the dustbowl it is today, three thousand years ago we started on Europe, then the rest of the world. During all this time people have been saying ‘this is insane — we’re going to destroy ourselves.’ And they were right. All civilisations have fallen for the same reason — over-exploitation of resources and over-extension of social systems — as ours. Doomers, ancient and modern, are notoriously flaky about details, but civilisation is inherently self-destructive; it’s only a matter of time before this civilisation, the first world society, destroys itself for the same reason all the others did. In fact those notoriously alarmist, left-wing lunatics the British government, predict the end will come before 2040.

[onlooker]

I may add that our level of damage and interference with the natural systems is unprecedented in scope and in intensity. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/prog ... on_crisis/. Yes, we are in the midst of the 6th Mass Extinction and caused mainly by us. What is more is that our over exploitation is worldwide so no new lands or resources for our huge population

[Plantagenet]

If the world's going to end soon, we might as well enjoy ourselves in the little time we've got left.

[onlooker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI2fRPmEZ6A

[Ibon]

I cant get it up anymore over collapse and the end of the world

[AdamB]

I may add that our level of damage and interference with the natural systems is unprecedented in scope and in intensity.

If by "damage" you are referring to just change, you are sorely mistaken. Typical "I am human, I rock!" routine, very few ever take the time to learn the history of their planet (let alone species) when it comes to other biologics that changed made the planet unrecognizable. We haven't even come close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

Human hubris, pure and simple.

[onlooker]

I may add that our level of damage and interference with the natural systems is unprecedented in scope and in intensity.

If by "damage" you are referring to just change, you are sorely mistaken. Typical "I am human, I rock!" routine, very few ever take the time to learn the history of their planet (let alone species) when it comes to other biologics that changed made the planet unrecognizable. We haven't even come close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

Human hubris, pure and simple.

Sorry, not in this short a time scale except for a meteor strike

[AdamB]

I may add that our level of damage and interference with the natural systems is unprecedented in scope and in intensity.

If by "damage" you are referring to just change, you are sorely mistaken. Typical "I am human, I rock!" routine, very few ever take the time to learn the history of their planet (let alone species) when it comes to other biologics that changed made the planet unrecognizable. We haven't even come close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

Human hubris, pure and simple.

Sorry, not in this short a time scale except for a meteor strike

Obviously there is no way to make this claim, because the time resolution of our methods looking into the past aren't near as good as modern times. And let us mention things we do know, for example, humans did okay through the +15C change coming out of the Younger Dryas, AND the resulting cooling afterwards. Yet somehow the climb out of the LIA (similar to climbs out of the Medieval Warming, Roman Warming, Minoan Warming, and Holocene A and B warmings), because we are myopic, is somehow far different, and of course it can only be humans doing it. And a fact that is indisputable, is that the prior biologics did FAR MORE damage to the planet in terms of changing the climate, short changes (human based or not) aren't just the purview of meteor strikes.

https://www.wunderground.com/climate/volcanoes.asp

I imagine there are others, but again, your perspective is species specific, when obviously other biologics have done far worse. The good news being we probably can't hurt the environment as much as a fern already did, regardless of the rate of change over short periods of time, for any reason.

[Plantagenet]

the time resolution of our methods looking into the past aren't near as good as modern times.

There is annual and even seasonal resolution in climate records from ice cores, tree rings, and some lake records. That is more then enough resolution to show that the current rate of change is unprecedented.

humans did okay through the +15C change coming out of the Younger Dryas, AND the resulting cooling afterwards.

You don't know what you are talking about. The Younger Dryas was a big climate event but it didn't produce +15 C of global warming. In fact the Younger Dryas produced COOLING not a warming, and it was followed by warming---not a cooling as you wrongly claim. You've got everything backwards, i.e. 100% wrong.

somehow the climb out of the LIA (similar to climbs out of the Medieval Warming, Roman Warming, Minoan Warming, and Holocene A and B warmings), because we are myopic, is somehow far different, and of course it can only be humans doing it.

Of course it is different. Atmospheric CO2 levels haven't been this high in millions of years---and yes humans are doing that.

Sheesh---what a collection of mis-statements followed by a claim that makes it clear you don't even know that humans are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Wow---thats a new low, even for this site

Cheers!

[AdamB]

the time resolution of our methods looking into the past aren't near as good as modern times.

There is annual and even seasonal resolution in climate records from ice cores, tree rings, and some lake records. That is more then enough resolution to show that the current rate of change is unprecedented.

When I was talking past, I was referring to the more rigorous methods of measuring temperature. Ever since Mann demonstrated the survivor effect with particular proxies, I have been a bit leery of those who don't stick with the best, longest, and rigorous long term temperature sets, which are ice cores of course.

Now I know people tend to discount them as a global proxy, but that could be because it doesn't tell the story that some folks want. And then when Kobashi uses them to calculate quite the uncertainty band for natural variability, you can understand why folks aren't thrilled to discuss that kind of quantification. As we all know from Schneider's famous quote from the late 80's, we need cool and neato alarming sounding stuff to get people to do what the scientists tell them. The instant you let the idea slip that maybe the uncertainty is mixed in here somewhere, well, we can't have that can we?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 4/abstract

humans did okay through the +15C change coming out of the Younger Dryas, AND the resulting cooling afterwards.

You don't know what you are talking about. The Younger Dryas was a big climate event but it didn't produce +15 C of global warming. In fact the Younger Dryas produced COOLING not a warming, and it was followed by warming---not a cooling as you wrongly claim. You've got everything backwards, i.e. 100% wrong.

So I'm not sure why the Younger Dryas is marked as it is, you could be quite right, I was of course referring to the +20C warming coming into the current inter-glacial. I thought the entire thing was called the Younger Dryas? In any case, people certainly made it through that one! And my point stands, we are getting our panties in quite the wad over the demonstrated variability since the inter-glacial started.

somehow the climb out of the LIA (similar to climbs out of the Medieval Warming, Roman Warming, Minoan Warming, and Holocene A and B warmings), because we are myopic, is somehow far different, and of course it can only be humans doing it.

Of course it is different. Atmospheric CO2 levels haven't been this high in millions of years---and yes humans are doing that.
[/quote]

Of course we are pumping out CO2. It is what we do. Don't know about you but I can't stop emitting CO2 for ore than a minute or so!

Sheesh---what a collection of mis-statements followed by a claim that makes it clear you don't even know that humans are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Wow---thats a new low, even for this site

Cheers!

Hopefully my clarifications have helped? But I am the first to admit that my expertise isn't in the field of climate science, but if oil-amateurs can have their fun speculating poorly on their geology understanding, geologists can do the same in some of these climate debates?

Still, some geology comes in handy in understanding climate, particulularly when we aren't just talking about the rebound out of the LIA. Needless to say, until you speak to the editor of this one, you just don't appreciate the levels of uncertainty involved on all of the estimates involved. In the past of course, modern temperature extrapolations, interpolations, correlations and "corrections and adjustments" to thermometer records are wholly another topic.

http://dpa.aapg.org/gcc/

[Plantagenet]

The instant you let the idea slip that maybe the uncertainty is mixed in here somewhere, well, we can't have that can we?

?????

If you look at scientific data and even GCM projections of future climate change, the estimates always come with a +/- and a number appended at the end. The number after the +/- sign IS the uncertainty. Its the variability, usually reported at one standard deviation, inherent in the numerical data.

Get it now?

So I'm not sure why the Younger Dryas is marked as it is, you could be quite right

Of course I'm right. Please go back and figure this out---you've got things reversed.

we are pumping out CO2. It is what we do. Don't know about you but I can't stop emitting CO2 for ore than a minute or so!

All animals emit CO2----its what animals do. All plants absorb CO2----its what plants do.

Now for your homework please explain in one paragraph why the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere has dramatically increased since the industrial revolution. HINT: fossil fuels.


atmospheric CO2 concentrations