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The world came tantalizingly close to a deal to phase out fossil fuels
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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40 years ago i had a t-shirt that said the world was running out of time...
Time won't help any more
I mean, we aren't totally screwed. Just climate will get worse and worse until we stop burning fossil fuels. It will eventually stabilize at whatever amount of carbon we end up at when we stop. It's just, how bad will it get in the meantime.
Won't stop us from mass migration, and deaths on an order of magnitude that makes covid look like a blip, and also mass extinction of a large majority of the species on earth. But, we can pull through (I think, maybe)...
Earth isn’t screwed. Humanity is.
Is it supposed to be comforting knowing that a mostly lifeless husk of a planet will exist after we kill off basically every known species? There's such a thing as too much optimism you know. It's OK to let the unnecessary death of everything you've ever seen be the point of the conversation.
I disagree with your prognosis. The earth has been hit by massive meteors, or huge volcanoes erupted - plenty of species survived. Your ancestors, in fact. There’s radiotrophic fungus growing in the Chernobyl reactor. The earth will be fine, as will many of the lower species.
We’re fucked if we don’t change our ways, though.
Again, "the Earth will be fine" is not a comforting statement when it is immediately followed by "but anyone and everything you know will die". I don't know why someone always insists on making that distinction. It's not meaningful to anyone reading it.
It's not meant to be comforting, it's supposed to be tongue in cheek.
The idea that humanity could kill everything on earth forever is laughable. Sure, we can fuck up the earth, but a million years from now it will be full of life. A million years is nothing for a planet.
You're still not getting the point. In what way is that a comforting thought to you? In more simple terms, why does it make a damn bit of difference to you what happens in a million years?
In this potential future you, your family, all your friends, and everyone you've ever met are dead for no better reason than unchecked human greed and when confronting that possibility all you want to talk about is hypothetical flora and fauna. You're disassociating from the actual problem to the point that I don't think you're truly processing what it means for you.
I believe humanity is a disease on this planet. We have never done anything good for it. Our existence will be a minor blip in its history and completely unnoticed in the universe.
Ok, well maybe you should lead with that next time so people will know you're coming at it from a wildly different angle than most.
I wouldn’t say most. I think most people understand humanity, like all life, is a temporary species. I’m not really sure what issue you have with that fact.
Humanity is bad. Maybe not you specifically. Not me. But as a species, a group, we have been destroying the only home we will ever have since we picked up tools ~50,000 years ago. Think of all the extinct species that are our fault.
This point you think I’m trying to get at is simple, you think earth will be some kind of lifeless husk. And that’s not remotely possible. New life will emerge that can adapt to the damage we have done and thrive while we slowly fade away. This won’t be in our lifetime, but… a few hundred? A thousand? Totally extinct.
So yes, that’s comforting. All our hate, our greed, our destruction… gone. And the planet returns to normal after having a virus (humanity) for approximately 0.00125% of the ~4 billion years since it had life.
Nothing has ever done anything good if you view things like that, what good has an ant or a flower done?
The universe doesn't mind us modifying this rock to our needs, it doesn't even really mind our pollution either really it's only us that have that romantic desire for certain types of beauty - the universe churns up and burns down anything it feels like on its ballet, the moments of novelty and beauty are magnificent and destructive.
We are a part of nature, just as volcano and tree take over and change the landscape so do ant and human. It is all beautiful and all filled with wonder.
It took great upheavals and vast destruction to ready the world for us, endless apocalypse such as the replacing of the atmosphere with oxygen or invasive species colonising every last inch of soil and sea. It would be a tragedy if we were extinct, one we must fight to avoid just as trees fought to survive and ants. That is what this world is and what all worlds are.
Our extinction is no more tragic than the extinction of a volcano.
Maybe, we are a lot rarer though and much more complex. The universe has to work much harder to create a thing such as us
That’s only relative to our current understanding of the universe. We think we are complex because we don’t know anything more complex. I’d say we aren’t that far away from most creatures on earth.
True but we're by far the most complex and unique thing around here, every flower is beautiful and every being is a new type of fascination to the universe.
Viruses don’t know they’re viruses. We aren’t unique. We are just like every other thing. An animal who is concerned with preservation who hasn’t evolved very far beyond the greedy hunter-gatherer.
And the universe, btw, doesn’t know we exist.
That's where you're wrong, part of the universe knows you exist, loves you, and is very amused by your opinions - I know because I am that bit of the universe.
By stating that we're like every animal you prove that we are not, do you think a snail pities it's existence or has that intellectual curiosity to question it's worth and insult the value of its being?
Humans are fascinating and adorable, especially the grumpy emo ones who use the magnificence of their intellect to construct vast and woeful towers of logic from which to decry their own being.
Some flowers smell like smell like condescending shit. 
I mean, the species on the planet, and the climate kind of is, so yeah, it kind of is. What's your definition of screwed that says the planet itself will be just fine?
The carbon sequestered in the earth in the form of coal, oil and gas hasn't always been in the earth. After all, hydro carbons are in fact hundreds of millions of years of dead trees buried under mud sequestering atmospheric CO2. Which implies there was a time with all that CO2 in the air yet still trees to capture it. By releasing it all, we reset the biosphere's clock to about a time when earth supported a different kind of life (one without us in it), but life nonetheless.
Frankly, the comparisons to Mars and Venus seem a bit overblown.
Maybe, maybe not. We're dealing with extremes that are accelerated here that have never been seen before in earths history, except when the dinosaurs went extinct, and I think 4 other very sudden climate changing events. But this one being human driven is unique, bcz all other events were naturally occurring (except the meteor impact of course). Species don't have time to adapt to sudden changes in climate like this. We are very likely killing all life on earth right now, and it's possible it will never recover.
Life will adapt and rebuild.
You assume it will get better when we stop burning fuel but many things dont just get better when you stop doing what is bad. A lot of things have a point of no return, where you can't just undo all the damage that has been done
I'm not assuming, that assumption is rooted in science. I'm also not saying things will get better. What I am saying is that the climate will stabilize at whatever new normal there is with the amount of carbon in the carbon life cycle, that means whatever extremes exist at that point, will continue to exist.
mmmnope. Heard of the clathrate bomb?
There is a fuckton of methane locked in permafrost soils.
Once they start to melt, you get a chain reaction.
Methane is very potent, and will cause issues for sure. You're absolutely right about that. But it also has a much shorter half life than carbon does, so it doesn't have the same kind of long term effects as carbon does.
It has a much shorter half life but what does it degrade into?
Does science say when things will stabilise after we stop using coal and oil? I bet it's not immediate. I bet it will take a lot longer than many think if not hundreds of years just to stabilise into something that maybe isn't even liveable.
Yes, something like a hundred years or so before it stabilizes. I forget what the models are saying, bcz I don't do climate science, my fiance does, so I usually ask her these queations.
Also though there are already products being made in carbon negative processes including sequestered jet fuel and various building materials. The cost (economic and ecological) of power generation has fallen dramatically and continues to do so while design tools continue to improve, this enables better and more ecologically' sustainable infrastructure which will help increase the rate of transition to ecologically' sustainable living.
We absolutely will be pulling significant amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere in twenty or thirty years from now, both from bio processing (algae to plastic for example) and direct capture.
It's hard to guess what the world will look like in a hundred years but any model that assumes things will stop changing is just being silly.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of research on carbon sequestration, and I've not seen anything actually promising on it. We can't rely on processes that aren't in place, and aren't proven to work to pin the hopes of our species, when the real solution is right in front of us. Stop burning fossil fuels
Have you now? A lot of research, and nothing promising?
Tell me about the things you've seen research on, like the closest to being promising but not thing that you've read research on...
Should be easy because you're basically an expert in the tech, right?
I'm not am expert in it, my partner does research in climate adaptation, and there are people who do that research in her department. As far as I've heard, there isn't anything that promising on the horizon. And I can't stress this enough, we should not be relying on tech to try to save us when all we have to do is stop burning fossil fuels. It's really that simple. But everybody wants business as usual, so we're putting our hopes in pipedream technology that doesn't exist hoping it will save us from ourselves. Seems pretty stupid to me.
Ha ok, changed a bit now hasn't it? So you talk to your partner in depth about these subjects but can't ask about it to help you answer the questions because of reasons...
What you actually mean is without doing any research you assumed something that fits with your preconceived dislike of technology solutions? Or maybe you just saw someone else say it so repeated it with a slightly exaggerated truthiness tone to and make it seem more believable.
Stop burning fossil fuels isn't something we can just do over night, especially when people fight against good alternatives - and double especially when people fight against them based on knee jerk emotional response without really knowing much about it...
Carbon based efuels are going to be a huge part in the transition to an ecologically sustainable society, the model using sequestered carbon and renewable power generation is just one of several incredibly promising areas of chemistry at the moment.
Exactly, everybody thinks technology is going to save us from ourselves, and that's why we are fucked.
And for the record, I didn't ask my partner about any of this bcz she was out of town at a conference. Why would I bother her while she's working to settle a dumb internet argument?
Of course she was.
And now we see the real emotion behind your desire to dismiss tech solutions.
It's sad but I really think a lot of people would rather feel smug about the world burning than put out the fire.
I genuinely think a lot of the resistance to renewable adoption comes from people scarred that it'll work. Modern chemistry is absolutely amazing, for some reason their successes upset people - you see it everywhere, did you go as far to reject the vaccine? That's the same 'it must be bad it's science' thinking.
The USAF have performed huge studies on SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) and have concluded they're effective, reliable, and economically competitive - this isn't some hippy idealism or scientific fanboyism it's the cold calculated reality of the most advanced war machine in the world.
They already work, they tested them in all their engines and decided that an e-fuel made from sequestered carbon is the best solution - other saf have been used in transatlantic flights by commercial airlines for a while now, generally in a blended mix with kerosene but pure saf flights have been made.
It's not common yet because we don't have the infrastructure established to make them in significant quantities, this is changing with various facilities being built but it could change a lot quicker if there was a push to support transition technologies rather than a knee jerk anti science sentimentalism wrapped in fraudulent pretence of 'but I read all the research...' - this isn't a flat earth, vaccines aren't from the devil, and we're not going to drop oil use without a viable replacement.
We need carbon sequestration, we need to support research into that rather than pretending to care about the plant as some form of dunk on progress. It's just like the train line we tried to build in the UK, it would have cut down the ecological cost of cargo transport hugely and reduced the amount of lorries on the road significantly but eco warriors waged war on its construction attacking machinery, blocking it's path with tunnels, and endless propaganda against it that got pushed by people who hate progress in any form.
And remember this is only one of the promising technologies, I don't think it's even the most promising tbh but its one of the easier to explain and is incredibly promising. You of course know know all this because of the regular in detail conversations you have about it with your double doctor scientist partner who has a very busy schedule.
Dude, I have an aerospace engineering degree. Excuse yourself for making dumbest assumptions. I have not rejected any science. Are you like a troll or bot farm, or just bored? Yes, my partner was at a conference until last Wednesday. She's no longer at a conference, but I'm not going to go bother her with this frivolous internet argument. Eventually, yes, we will talk about this conversation I've had with you. I have talked about this very thing in the past, and she has said we need carbon sequestration at this point to stave off the worst effects of climate change, but at no point has she said we have a scalable solution to do it, or that she thinks we will do anything. Her research takes a very pessimistic viewpoint that we aren't going to do jackshit about climate change, so we are just going to have to try to adapt to it, which honestly, I agree with. Humans showed through the pandemic that they weren't up to the task of helping their fellow humans by doing something even as simple as wearing a piece of fabric over their face.
But, by all means, continue to make assumptions, and make yourself look like a presumptuous ass.
Ok so you don't have any substantive arguments but a lot more calls to unverifyable authority - your wife is welcome to take whatever stance she wants but if the core assumption of her work is that no solutions to climate change will prove effective then yes that's useful for understanding those eventualities but it's not a good way of evaluating potentially effective solutions or determinng what is likely to happen
And yes of course I already know you're going to claim that it's exactly what she does and that she a triple doctor in advanced whatever helps your cause this time... Ok. It's a shame she lost her voice and can't help you provide any meaningful arguments....
I'm in a poly relationship with all of NASA and they published a series of studies on the chemistry and economics of carbon sequestration which said carbon sequestration is a vital part of combatting climate change - though I'm sure your dad works for double NASA
I already said what she does, climate adaptation. Why would I say she does anything else? You're just being obtuse now.
I mean, I do. But it's in a completely unrelated field to climate stuff, so doesn't really matter in this argument.
Ok well you're clearly the world authority on this, shame you can't give any meaningful arguments...
Right... where did I say anywhere in this comment chain that I was the world authority on the subject? Did you want to have a discussion with someone, or are you just bored and wanted someone on the internet to argue with?
I wanted a discussion but what I got was someone making up reasons they totally know I'm wrong but can't provide any argument more compelling than 'my wife said...'
And who lets remember lied in the first comment and claimed to have read lots of research into this but has now totally backtracked from that.
Where did I lie? Do you think I sit around reading research papers all day, or that I just read articles about it for the most part, the same way you do? I've looked up research on these subjects, and frankly, most of them are behind paywalls, bcz journals don't allow people to access them without a subscription, or an affiliation with a university. So, no, I most just read paper abstracts bcz I'm not a climate scientist. That doesn't mean I'm lying when I sat I've seen a lot of research on the topic. In any case, this is getting dumb. Have a nice weekend, thanks for wasting both of our time.
I don't know but the effort you've put into making claims about your totally real and deep understanding of this subject you could probably have read one and actually learnt something.
You've so far made exactly zero statements that demonstrate any knowledge at all of anything related to the subject at hand, you've however written pages about how qualified you or your absent wife supposedly are on the subject... Do you really not see how this looks exactly like the behaviour of someone that doesn't know what they're talking about but wants to convince people of the thing they feel should be true because it confirms their other biases?
Do you think people don't notice when you ignore every technical or fact based point I raise and instead focus on trying to bulster your precueved authority status? When you ignore the statements of genuine authorities in the field like the USAF and NASA do you really think people are going to see it and say 'well his quadruple doctor wife who's away at a conference said nuh so two of the most respected aviation authorities in the world probably don't know what they're talking about...'
And based on your claims this is the part of the argument which should be easiest for you to show knowledge in, easiest for you to construct an argument about - and no you can't pretend you don't have the inclination if you're going to write so much about your wife's credentials to try and convince me instead.
Wow, you really are a fucking troll.