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Preparing for An Unfriendly Future (Climate Change, Authoritarianism, etc)


Maithanet

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10 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

what? am i misunderstanding or are you saying a 2.5 temperature increase is a good thing for the worold or not that bad as it sounds?

No. I'm saying that despite 2.5 not being good the fact is that the near-term future of humanity looks to be incredibly positive and that the negatives of a 2.5 increase don't erase that, much less reverse it as many seem to believe.

ETA: To add a representative quote, from a piece in The Atlantic from last year:

Quote

So what does this SSP 2 world feel like? It depends, O’Neill told me, on who you are. One thing he wants to make very clear is that all the paths, even the hottest ones, show improvements in human well-being on average. IPCC scientists expect that average life expectancy will continue to rise, that poverty and hunger rates will continue to decline, and that average incomes will go up in every single plausible future, simply because they always have. “There isn’t, you know, like a Mad Max scenario among the SSPs,” O’Neill said. Climate change will ruin individual lives and kill individual people, and it may even drag down rates of improvement in human well-being, but on average, he said, “we’re generally in the climate-change field not talking about futures that are worse than today.”

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The residents of Elysium will have a wonderful quality of life after their successful extraction of human, ecological, and political power. Things may be worse for those baking and thirsting to death in the ghettos and favelas but the highs will be so high.

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I like the fact that people embrace what climate scientists are saying, until they say what they don't like, then it's giggles and rolling eyes. Shows who is actually a serious person.

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14 minutes ago, Ran said:

No. I'm saying that despite 2.5 not being good the fact is that the near-term future of humanity looks to be incredibly positive and that the negatives of a 2.5 increase don't erase that, much less reverse it as many seem to believe.

ETA: To add a representative quote, from a piece in The Atlantic from last year:

The hurricanes man. The hurricanes. 

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Just now, Ran said:

I like the fact that people embrace what climate scientists are saying, until they say what they don't like, then it's giggles and rolling eyes. Shows who is actually a serious person.

I giggle and rolls eyes. 

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1 minute ago, Ran said:

I like the fact that people embrace what climate scientists are saying, until they say what they don't like, then it's giggles and rolling eyes. Shows who is actually a serious person.

Nothing to worry about. The biodiversity loss at even +2.0 is what, only staggering, ie: 70 - 90% of insects? Just one example. No knock on there. Just bugs.  

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Just now, JGP said:

 

Nothing to worry about. The biodiversity loss at even +2.0 is what, only staggering, ie: 70 - 90% of insects? Just one example. No knock on there. Just bugs.  

Where do you get that figure? Per NASA's account of the IPCC report from 2019, at +2.0C, geographic ranges of 18% of insect species are believed to be impacted by more than half, but no one's talking of the disappearance of 70-90% of insects. I doubt the latest IPCC changed that figure very much.

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Out of my head, which of course could be wrong or errantly cross referenced. I'll look for supporting data, or retract. 

And I don't know if I'd rely on the IPCC report verbatim. That thing goes through commitee, Nations can petition to edit [which happened last round, iirc] It gets watered down.  

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6 minutes ago, JGP said:

Out of my head, which of course could be wrong or errantly cross referenced. I'll look for supporting data, or retract. 

I think, looking at IPCC stuff, that you may be thinking of the IPCC's estimate that 70-90% of the tropical reefs will be wiped out even at 1.5% climate change. This certainly has diverse negative impacts to regions adjacent to those reefs, due to their role in dampening waves, in tourism, and so on, but I get that there's a sense that tropical reefs are systems somewhat isolated from the greater ocean biosphere, i.e. their vanishing doesn't necessarily mean... I don't know, plankton are going to disappear or whatever.

6 minutes ago, JGP said:

And I don't know if I'd rely on the IPCC report verbatim. That thing goes through commitee, Nations can petition to edit [which happened last round, iirc] It gets watered down.  

The quote from earlier cites a climate scientist speaking directly about the fact that most climate scientists aren't seeing doomsday scenarios in the range covered by the IPCC. If you want to believe that the IPCC is wildly wrong, you'll have to provide some credible sources.

 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Ran said:

Where do you get that figure? Per NASA's account of the IPCC report from 2019, at +2.0C, geographic ranges of 18% of insect species are believed to be impacted by more than half, but no one's talking of the disappearance of 70-90% of insects. I doubt the latest IPCC changed that figure very much.

Idk what the correct figure is, but everything I've read and heard from entomologists suggests a fairly large decline has been taking place and that it will only get worse over the coming decades. Costa Rica is an interesting example. 

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Losing coral reefs is still going to cause the extinction of a bunch of species, that's horrible in its own right.  And to stop warming at 1.5 we need to hit zero emissions by 2050 and then go negative for a bit.  We are nowhere close to being able to that, and there is almost zero political will across the globe to make that happen.   

Losing the reefs is the best case scenario.  

I don't really give a fuck if my wages go up a few cents along with average temperature increasing if it means mass extinctions caused directly by humans destroying the planet, which believe it or not, all of us live on.  We are making this place uninhabitable for ourselves and thousands of other species, and we are for the most part doing absolutely nothing to stop it.  

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2 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

We are making this place uninhabitable for ourselves

Not true, according to current models.

2 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

and thousands of other species

Unfortunately true.

2 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

, and we are for the most part doing absolutely nothing to stop it.  

Not true.

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20 minutes ago, Ran said:

I think, looking at IPCC stuff, that you may be thinking of the IPCC's estimate that 70-90% of the tropical reefs will be wiped out even at 1.5% climate change. This certainly has diverse negative impacts to regions adjacent to those reefs, due to their role in dampening waves, in tourism, and so on, but I get that there's a sense that tropical reefs are systems somewhat isolated from the greater ocean biosphere, i.e. their vanishing doesn't necessarily mean... I don't know, plankton are going to disappear or whatever.

No, wasn't thinking of that, though after reflecting on it I think I've probably conflated other issues into the 2c 70 to 90% insect loss. Habitat loss, agricultural practices, pesticides, mean temperature, etc. I'm prepared to take the L on that [not yet, mind] but:

 

20 minutes ago, Ran said:

The quote from earlier cites a climate scientist speaking directly about the fact that most climate scientists aren't seeing doomsday scenarios in the range covered by the IPCC. If you want to believe that the IPCC is wildly wrong, you'll have to provide some credible sources

Keywords were verbatim, and watered down

I'll be digging into this because you're stubborn as fuck [don't get bent because we disagree or I laugh-reacted at your post, I respect your mind] but I can't do that right now. I got 4 girls coming over in less than an hour and a drastic change to my environment like that needs to be considered and prepared for. :p

Hopefully Rip doesn't wade in during the interim.  

 

 

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@Ran, I think the biggest problem with the above is assuming ssp2 (things go along as they have been) is the most likely outcome. Ssp3 (resurgent nationalism) or ssp4 (increasing inequality) seem far more rational to bet on.

Here's a nonpaywalled article on them:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-shared-socioeconomic-pathways-explore-future-climate-change/

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34 minutes ago, Ran said:

Not true, according to current models.

Unfortunately true.

Not true.

Do the models account for ripple effects from mass extinctions?  

What are we doing that is putting us on track to prevent a 2c increase?

Eta: when I say uninhabitable I'm not just talking strictly temperature.  I'm talking about environmental destruction and pollution as well; loss of freshwater, desertification, the amount of resource extraction required for a growing world and the habitat destruction that goes along with it.

Wind and solar are great but do we even have enough materials to solve the temperature issue that way?  

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10 minutes ago, KalVsWade said:

@Ran, I think the biggest problem with the above is assuming ssp2 (things go along as they have been) is the most likely outcome. Ssp3 (resurgent nationalism) or ssp4 (increasing inequality) seem far more rational to bet on.

Here's a nonpaywalled article on them:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-shared-socioeconomic-pathways-explore-future-climate-change/

Very useful article, thanks! I have to say that it notes all the SSPs envision greater global prosperity, which is what the quote from The Atlantic also noted. Some are simply more positive than others. 

I certainly think SSP5 is very unlikely, just because we're not acting that way. We'll see whether SSP3 or SSP4 is likelier than SSP2 down the road... but I will say, those rooting for the end of globalization are rooting for SSP3, it seems.

@Larry of the Lake The IPCC summary for policy makers notes that "[p]rogress in adaptation planning and implementation has been observed across all sectors and regions, generating multiple benefits (very high confidence)." So... stuff is happening, pretty obviously.

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19 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Do the models account for ripple effects from mass extinctions?  

What are we doing that is putting us on track to prevent a 2c increase?

Eta: when I say uninhabitable I'm not just talking strictly temperature.  I'm talking about environmental destruction and pollution as well; loss of freshwater, desertification, the amount of resource extraction required for a growing world and the habitat destruction that goes along with it.

Wind and solar are great but do we even have enough materials to solve the temperature issue that way?  

The models in general do not presuppose any kind of global catastrophe or some kind of runaway system. 

The middle of the road view as of ipcc 2022 is a 2.7c increase by 2100. This will result in somewhere between 20 and 40% of the world to be unusable at higher Temps for good chunks of the year, as well as add massive flooding and coastal destruction. And that's the good news. 

Note also that ssp2 assumes a slower population growth than has already been seen, with only 8.5bn by I believe 2040. That isn't a realistic projection without a massive catastrophe in human life given that we are already at 7.96b right now.

ETA - if you're expecting a runaway behavior of regional exploitation and more selfish goals, ssp3 or 4 are where it's at, especially ssp3. With ssp3 we are looking at close to 4C by 2100, and at that level you are seeing a 5x increase in extreme weather events, 200m people regularly malnourished, and up to 250 days a year where working outside is dangerous for half the population. This does not predict any overall biome failure or anything like that, mind you - that's outside the realm of predictive modeling to think a CTE will happen, but it is definitely getting into a we have no idea and hope for the best kind of approach.

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Who has the most optimistic vision of the quite near future, those who believe in tolerance or those who believe in white supremacy?  Wonder how, say, o, the Chinese see these matters . . . .

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