Hard News: Let's lynch the liberals!
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Oh, sure, there are condiitions it could happen under. But as a result of human activity?
Ceres-sized, no, but Chicxulub, oh yes - already, too late and ongoing.
It's not that we shouldn't be investigating it, it's that it needs to be a method of last resort, rather than a handy way to avoid having to cut emissions.
I agree, but I think that on the timescales required to practically and politically avoid having to do so... no. It won't happen for decades yet, but it will have to happen because too many countries will force exemptions in treaties to be "fast followers" or dishonour their commitments. It will be a late measure and doubtless it will be fucked up with unintended consequences, but the optimist in me, who like my inner child, I have not yet succeeded in throttling, says that in balance, it might be better than nothing.
Anyway, I will make one prediction that I am absolutely confident about: the future will be weird, and weird in big ways, and it will happen by steps that taken individually seem only temporary, short term aberrations that somehow accumulate - but that's always been the case.
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A major problem is our species' short life time (compared to, say, a gray whale) and our hysterical awareness that we *are* gonna die...I have no idea whether other species are aware of their incipient mortality - though many many species are aware of death/proximity of death - but an awful lot of our behaviours are mortality-conditioned.
When you *know* you are going to die within the next -50? -10? years,
it really doesnt matter a crap (despite what you may openly state to that nice Green Party researcher or however much you recycle stuff.) -
We all want to think that we care about the deep future, but if we actually had the reasonable prospect of living into it, then I think that things might get a whole lot better.
Doctor Johnson said that when a man knows he is going to be executed in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind marvelously, but perhaps when a man knows that he could live for another century or more, perhaps that might concentrate his mind too...
Nobody wants to die, so if medical technology provided the incentive of having to live long enough to face the consequences of one's actions...
Well, here's hoping. It's that or bloody cold lentils and an early grave and I want neither. I demand chocolate at least.
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Whisky, Isla single malts, for me Kracklite- but these are are our 'hoping' -
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Geeky elaboration: biologists sort reproductive strategies into r and K types, though the two are relative. r-types produce lots of offspring who suffer high mortality rates and as a consequence, decline rapidly under environmental or predatory stress, but recover quickly afterwards whereas K-types produce few offspring, but invest a lot of energy in their upbringing so that their survival rates are very high. K-types are more resilient, but due to their low fertility rates, if they do suffer a dieback, they take time to recover and if they don't recover, they may become extinct.
We're clearly K-types, but perhaps on the verge of becoming a new type, "super-Ks", through the agency of our technological civilisation, who are virtually infertile (many Western countries report birthrates below the replacement level) but also virtually immortal. Already we have invented grandparents, which are remarkable in their own right and serve a vital function in supplementing parents in child rearing and as reposititaries of tribal lore.
Again, I think that longevity could be cause for hope for us as a species and the earth as a whole simply because people will learn - over centuries - that either they die when they could live longer or they live with the consequences of their actions and act therefore to ensure a comfortable old age.
In the short term, I'm afraid that the selection pressure of arrangements created by governments and corporations favour behaviour that is indistinguishable from that of sociopaths and their offspring will prosper.
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Whisky, Isla single malts, for me Kracklite- but these are are our 'hoping'
I'm with you on that for sure! Ah, Laphroaig! Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we will be so hungover, we will wish that we were dead!
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O dear - apropos your last paragraph, for that is my layperson's summation.
On the other hand, I have quite a wee collection of Bowmore, The Frog, Highland Park et al...head south Kracklite when the doom cometh, head south! -
Gladly! While I am indubitably an Arovalleyite for now (and I have had the Kaka perching on my head to prove it), I grew up in Dunedin and the mainland is surely my homeland.
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@Kracklite
Thanks for the back up. If once found a dead dragonfly in a gutter in Titirangi that was 30cm long if it was 6 inches. Big enough for you?
Remember though that when the O2 levels were that high there were also giant scorpions. They seem somehow less cuddly than big dragonflies.
I think that the worst case long term scenarios are in fat unhelpful as a general message. But as a response to those who claim that 3-4C of average temperature rises would be nice and balmy not so much.
I apologise if my reading of Lucy's post did not reflect her views, but I can only go on what you actually write Lucy and you were coming across as very unrealistic about the biosphere's carrying capacity which is why I thought some nasty reality was an appropriate response. Nothing and nobody will come to our aid if we push too hard, our descendants will just have to suck it up, if they can.
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Just to wildly retangent back to the original topic, Trotter is exactly the kind of fuckhead who kept me from becoming interested in the Labour party as a young'un.
Yes, I remember those sexist pricks who wouldn't hire me when I wanted to get into the printing trade (I eventually got there another way). I remember the old school wankers who didn't want the women in their union chapels.
I remember all that class war shit that went on about elite "identity politics" while denying the fact that, hello, there are working class women and gays as well. And some people wonder why I ran off into the middle classes as soon as I could get my aspirational butt onto that slippery pole.
Um. In the metaphoric sense, of course. Good lesbians didn't do that kind of thing in the mid-80s. *cough*
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I'd put it in the same place as worrying about a Ceres-sized asteroid crashing into the planet - could happen, maybe even will happen but a) we don't have the faintest idea of how to definitively stop it and b) there are a number of much more immediate dangers which need to be addressed first.
Niven and Pournelle lied to me about the need for space exploration to avoid asteroid strikes? Lucy, you're destroying all my childhood beliefs.
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Niven and Pournelle lied to me about the need for space exploration to avoid asteroid strikes? Lucy, you're destroying all my childhood beliefs.
Yeah, well, tough. ;)
More seriously, it's something we absolutely need to be concerned about, but funding for good telescope coverage will do way more than manned exploration, as sad as I am to say it. Of course, we're still pretty much screwed for ways to stop anything sizeable - or most things that aren't - but forewarning is a nice first step.
I can only go on what you actually write Lucy and you were coming across as very unrealistic about the biosphere's carrying capacity which is why I thought some nasty reality was an appropriate response
As I have repeatedly said, I do not disagree that climate change is serious or that we could do some very grim things to the only planet we've got (grim from our perspective, anyway.) Thanks for the education, but I do actually know a wee bit about past climate change.
Which is why I say that your Venus and Younger Dryas scenarios are vanishingly improbable, without other factors at play, and not at all what we need to be most concerned about when there are so many other effects of climate change that are perfectly motivatory (and less likely to give people disaster-movie flashbacks.) Call that unrealistic if you will.
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Sorry for my PAS-posting-crush interruption, but Lucy: how is it that you are, like, four years old or something, yet you know more useful things than I have ever known or am likely to know?
(Generation Y is clearly kicking Generation X's ass.)
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What Danielle said.
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I apologise ...why I thought some nasty reality was an appropriate response.
No apology necessary amongst this crowd as I perceive the exchange of informed opinions as opposed to the exchange of offence, surely - if I can call you Shirley (damn, that doesn't work in text).
And:
there are so many other effects of climate change that are perfectly motivatory (and less likely to give people disaster-movie flashbacks.) Call that unrealistic if you will.
Strategically, yes, argument focussed on relatively mild[sic!] scenarios probably works in the medium term. What I think will happen longer-term and what could be done now, realistically exist at different levels and timescales, so I don't disagree with you.
And:
Of course, we're still pretty much screwed for ways to stop anything sizeable - or most things that aren't - but forewarning is a nice first step.
There are some technologies that are potentially feasible for smaller-scale stuff, but the realistic ones do require forewarning, indeed.
funding for good telescope coverage will do way more than manned exploration, as sad as I am to say it.
"Back up your hard drive" should be a principle for civilisation, I feel. You can't live on Mars without a spacesuit or a couple of millennia of terraforming (that's about how long it will take to thaw the permafrost even if you import a nice cosy atmosphere), but how many Inuit (a) are nudists or (b) move to Tanzania (the natural home of humanity)?
When you consider timescales, a lot of strategies are less opposed than complementary - some are proper and politically feasible medium term and others are good long-term investments that deserve a steady lifeline of funding too.
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While I'm busily avoiding work:
Just to wildly retangent back to the original topic, Trotter is exactly the kind of fuckhead who kept me from becoming interested in the Labour party as a young'un.
As a straight white middle-aged (in denial) male, the phallocephalic Trotter is certainly the sort of... sort of... um... mammal that puts me off the "official" left. Whenever he bleats "solidarity", he means "you will show solidarity with me and I will not bother showing solidarity with you - splitter!" If that's the road Goff's Labour party is going to follow, then I bid adieu.
The behaviour of the local People's Front of Judea/Worker's Party recently showed that they're just a pack of self-aggrandising bigoted wankers too, the Greens are shocked that we have genes, water is a chemical and want to ban the sun because it's nuclear powered (OK, mild hyperbole... but it's only mild, alas).
What's left now? Or what's Left now?
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My theory is that Lucy is the first visible manifestation of some emergent Iain Banks-style AI, like HAL, but nicer.
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Just to wildly retangent back to the original topic, Trotter is exactly the kind of fuckhead who kept me from becoming interested in the Labour party as a young'un.
It certainly doesn't surprise me that so many "young'uns" are apathetic and cynical about politics, full stop.
I remember all that class war shit that went on about elite "identity politics" while denying the fact that, hello, there are working class women and gays as well. And some people wonder why I ran off into the middle classes as soon as I could get my aspirational butt onto that slippery pole.
Um. In the metaphoric sense, of course. Good lesbians didn't do that kind of thing in the mid-80s. *cough*
Heh... but seriously, I get where you're coming from. I eventually decided that I wasn't interested in living up to anyone else's bizarro standards of "authenticity," or being told that your issues are somehow "irrelevant". I'm here, I'm queer, a devout Catholic and a Tory. I don't care whether you get used to it or not, but I'm not going to fuck off because my life doesn't suit your idea of how the world should be.
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Climate Change does not exist.
Ming the Merciless does!
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Ming the Merciless does!
Heh... If that film doesn't reduce you to a softly giggling mess, you have no soul. :)
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We all need T-shirts with our own names on them too.
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God you're all so gloom and doomy it's a wonder you have any survival instinct at all.
How about we throw in some uncertainty principles like, technology and aliens, or alien technology:)
It's fairly obvious voluntary reduction isnt going to stop global warming and trading in carbon credits is only going to make some rich fucker even richer and more likely to either survive the climate change or at least be the last ones standing.
So on a personal level as a somewhat cynical and apathetic *youngun* what should i be doing? Is deferring responsibility to the govt and mutinational corporations about it ? Should i be thinking about self sufficiency at higher altitude ?
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My theory is that Lucy is the first visible manifestation of some emergent Iain Banks-style AI, like HAL, but nicer.
As long as you're lulled into a false sense of security, it's all good.
Strategically, yes, argument focussed on relatively mild[sic!] scenarios probably works in the medium term. What I think will happen longer-term and what could be done now, realistically exist at different levels and timescales, so I don't disagree with you.
One day, of course, the sun's going to expand and the planet will be left to the microbes (and then not even them). That's the really depressing long-term. Hopefully we'll be out of the solar system by then; as you say, it's the only long-term survival strategy. But it'd be nice if we could keep this planet habitable for our species for a while first.
How about we throw in some uncertainty principles like, technology and aliens, or alien technology:)
Since it's Friday, apropros of this, did anyone watch V on Wednesday (Firefly alumni!)? Was anyone else gobsmacked at the amount of conservative propaganda crossed with wingnut conspiracy theories?
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Since it's Friday, apropros of this, did anyone watch V on Wednesday (Firefly alumni!)? Was anyone else gobsmacked at the amount of conservative propaganda crossed with wingnut conspiracy theories?
Yes, I did. But seriously... anti-Obama propaganda? To get all William Shatner for a moment, some people really need to get a fraking life. Not quite as dumb as the endless arguments on BSG fanboards that Ron Moore was pushing an emasculated femi-Nazi pro-terrorist, anti-Christian, anti-military "Hollyweird liberal" agenda (are we watching the same show?), but damn close.
Back on Reality World, if I was an evil alien overlord looking to beguile the monkeys into becoming complicit with their ultimate doom "universal healthcare" would be a damn good place to start. Yes, Morena Baccarin can rock a pixie do and a well-cut power suit but that's only going to take you so far -- mostly with teh gayz. :)
Meanwhile, my biggest beef with V so far is that Logan Huffman has done the impossible: There is a more irritating child/teen actor alive than Dakota Fanning! I'd also say the show has some pretty weird pacing issues, which I hope will get ironed out when it returns in April from a four month hiatus (after four episodes!) with a new showrunner and head writer for the back nine.
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Since it's Friday, apropros of this, did anyone watch V on Wednesday (Firefly alumni!)?
I was quite disappointed with the lack of subtlety of the whole thing. From my vague memories of the original V miniseries, the first hint of the aliens not being what they appeared was when one of them caught and downed a mouse from a dumpster, a fair way in.
In the remake, there's exploding floaty things and one of them gets whacked with a stick and is all lizard underneath less than an hour in.
Which made me wonder why they didn't just grab the nearest lizard, rip off it's skin, and point it at the nearest TV camera. Could have cut it back to a made-for-TV movie.
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