Earth Is on the Brink of Breaching a 7th of Nine 'Planetary Boundaries'
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
It’s such an awful tool to discuss the actual very serious issue it underlines. I wish it would just disappear.
Just to be clear, there is nothing magical about most of these boundaries. The situation is not in any way suddenly worse today than yesterday. Some of the axis actually showcases issue which would be a problem at any level. Others are debatable. Thresholds are overall a bad way to think about dynamic systems.
To nit pick, since "correlation isn't causation" is often an internet meme to discredit any science.
Guess that is part of the meme, anybody can say "well correlation isn't causation" and sound kind of smart. Then the onus is on the other to go prove they aren't correlated, when they are not obviously correlated to begin with, so then need to devolve into a deep dive showing percentages of correlation. It's part of the 'easy to produce BS' type argument.
I'd push back and say. Ok, then show how 7 of 9 are highly correlated. Just saying 7 of 9 are obviously correlated so boom, who cares. Is just as invalid as someone saying there is no correlation.
You have to prove it either way. And there is no clear proof. And these aren't obvious.
Just everything going bad at once doesn't mean they are highly correlated thus we really don't have to care about any single item.
They are also directly correlated but still a indicator of a humans condition.
"Now the fire has spread to 90% of the house."
"Meh, the metrics are meaningless because they are correlated. The house is fine."
The correct analogy would be "Fire in the house boundary on the brink of being breached. We can confirm that 49% has already burned and the threshold of 50% will have burned in the next minute. This is the second catastrophic boundary to be crossed: the fume in the house boundary was breached five minutes ago." which is indeed a completely pointless way of looking at the issue.
It's counterproductive: once people see small violations of the boundaries result in only small changes, they start to tune them out. And, with global warming, the accumulated small changes will ultimately result in significant harm, so there's no need to invent fake boundaries.
Instead of trying to scare people with future predictions of doom, talk about what is happening right now, today, and what will continue to happen. Educate, stop trying to shock and manipulate.
The claim at the time was that if nothing was done in the 5 following years, the Arctic would start an unstoppable heating process that wouldn't stop even if we stopped all emissions.
Nowadays, almost all ice and thermoaline specialists work on Antarctica because we already know what will happen with the Arctic, that's why almost nothing new is published. At least new routes will open :)
There, that is boundary. It is not a meaningless line, just that the odds of everything falling down gets high enough.
People fall gradually more as inclinaison rises. There is no arbitrary cliff as 20° is crossed. Plus, minor issues but not insignificant issues like slippage probably started at very low level.
You have artificially transformed a continuous issue into a threshold which is intellectually shoddy.
That absolute is actually intellectually shoddy to me when parent is clearly using "could" and the slope to indicate it's around 20°, not at 20°. It doesn't really matter what the error margin is if it's low enough.
Let's try another analogy: of course the patient looks fine, but he's cancer terminal and in his last weeks. Tests are showing his internals are fucked up beyond certain thresholds. Yeah, they are smiling and talking but it's over, they are dead in two weeks top.
Omae wa mou.
Just in case you were considering taking this seriously…
If so it might not be too bad in practice, but it's still bad science. It's like someone today took planetary epicycles and copied them verbatim into their car physics simulator. Yeah, it probably won't be a material detriment, but why are they in there?
Thus continual sea level rise is going to be a fact of life, possibly for several thousand years, until sea levels are 10 to 25 meters higher than today. Average temperatures will be 2-3C higher than the preindustrial Holocene average, (currently ~1.2C higher) with significant regional variation. Many regions that support large human populations will become inhospitable on a decadal timeline (i.e. it takes about ten years for signal to emerge from noise at current warming rate).
As far as ocean acidification, this is probably the least of our worries, unlike ocean hypoxia and anoxia, which are steadily expanding due to all the organic matter and fertilizer dumped into the oceans by human civilization. Coral reefs were widespread in the Pliocene, and the acidification is just a surface water phenomenon and is fairly minimal - the buffering capacity of the ocean is vast, and it's just a mixing issue as surface water tends to sit on top of the deeper waters.
Atmospheric CO2 levels are at historic lows.[1]
Bivalves have shells and evolved during the Cambrian Explosion. The Cambrian explosion took place around 540 to 520 million years ago (Mya)[2].
During the early history of bivalves atmospheric CO2 levels were around 4,000-5,000ppm. Current levels are around 400ppm.
References:
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmo...
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmo...
I do not think it means what you think it means
("conventional" in meaning 1 of the word as per Wordnik, namely that it's in accordance with general practice, before we start another such discussion...)
1 - https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/cost-to-end-climate-chang...
What we're going to extract value from in the meantime would be the question or, rather, problem
I thought I made it very clear the historic period I was referring to. Questioning the relevance is indeed apropos. However, the semantics, I do not understand.
Regarding the last 60 years, I think it is very unlikely that the earth has not had a period where atmospheric CO2 concentrations have not rose as quickly. The volcanism, planetary impacts, and die offs of the past had to have had similar impacts. Yet, shelled creatures survived to the extant that they are ubiquitous in the earth's waters today.
There indubitably have been extinction events and perhaps some of them have been caused by ocean acidification.
We could do it rapidly and with very little inconvenience and everyone can have a nice standard of living while repairing the ecosystem.
We just have to notice this and get on with it.
Debatable whether that is completely walking back the headline, but the headline is clearly trying to give the impression it's irreversible without actually making a claim that could thereby be defeated: “brink”, “breaching”, “boundaries” “support life” are all very suggestive of irreversible doom, and yet…
How else would you phrase it? “About to cross a line indicating serious danger”? Maybe “approaching a scientific benchmark tied to catastrophic risk”?
Seriously though, this is some really depressing stuff :/
Compare and contrast to "Climate Week New York City" this week and the passenger miles involved with that. Hint- there is no "truth" in the analysis.. it is reactive and exaggerated on all sides.
It's just crazy how well-off we are compared to so many people around the world in not just low- but also middle- income countries. We really could do well to take a small step back and get everyone onto some fair middle ground while we fix these emissions
Edit: found the source: Polymatter's video "Why there are no flights between India and China" from earlier this month, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuWAdYl5icY at 16:32
And to those that read this and just give up: please don’t. We’ve done incredible things as a species, and today’s world is not based in unchangeable natural constants, but rather social constructs. We can win. And assuming we can’t is, frankly, immoral. What will you tell your grandchildren?
People who go to a museum and throw paint at a work of art (which is protected behind glass) are routinely condemned and sent to jail. But even if they were actually destroying art, their point is that many extractive industries are actually destroying the environment and killing off whole species, damaging human health etc., and not only does society tolerate this, in many cases it subsidizes it. We choose instead to condemn the people who draw attention to this.
They're condemned because their way of protesting is worthless. Protesting only works if it either inconveniences people enough to trigger action or if it targets the people actually responsible. If they truly believed that climate change was a critical issue, then they should take a page from how union strikes used to work.
The movement was characterized by nonviolent mass protests and civil disobedience following highly publicized events such as the lynching of Emmett Till. These included boycotts such as the Montgomery bus boycott, "sit-ins" in Greensboro and Nashville, a series of protests during the Birmingham campaign, and a march from Selma to Montgomery.
Re:JustStopOil, they also regularly target banks and private jets. It's just that those protests get much less attention in the press, and draw harsher criminal punishments. How else do you make progress on changing laws other than convincing voters that it's a problem?
Assuming we can't just do what the US did for civil rights and rely on an unusually powerful judiciary to save the day via anti-democratic fiat ;)
You do realize that said protest caused mass inconvenience, right? It was upending a lot of the racist norms at the time which in turn triggered waves of violence against black protesters which is what started the ball rolling. Said waves of violence also lead to the creation of the Black Panthers which actively scared many parts of the government at the time.
I think there's a better argument around the approach of Act Up, which focused attention on AIDS. [1] Many people were offended by their tactics, which were directed (again) at specific people, organizations, and media who were relevant to the topic. They were very effective. They targeted the root cause.
[0] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/montgomery-bus-boycott
Occupy Wall Street for example had two of the three, but ultimately failed in most of its goals because it didn't have a concrete demand. And that was an example of a protest on a far larger scale.
They're hoping to force change in government policies. This is obviously not happened yet, though they claim a success in halting the issue of new oil and gas exploration licenses in UK territorial waters.
I think their explicit demands are extremely obvious, right there in the name of the organization 'Just Stop Oil.' A visit to their website (cryptically named https://juststopoil.org) lays out 3 simple demands:
Demand 1: No New Oil and Gas Licences – WON!
Demand 2: Just Stop Oil by 2030.
We need a Fossil Fuel Treaty.
In all honesty, I find it hard to believe you are as mystified as your post suggests.
We condemn them because what they do is dumb not because they draw attention to climate change. It’s the same thing as glorifying a teenager skipping school. Climate activists are incredibly good at killing their own credibility. That’s why most people don’t bank on them to change anything.
> But all the 'yay humanity let's all cooperate in pursuit of a solution' thinkers are demonstrably failing, because selfish people make up the largest bloc (though still a minority) of humanity.
It’s a useless way of tackling the issue. You won’t magically convince the global population to have a worse life especially considering inequalities are so high. You go tell the Nigerian that they should accept to die of starvation (the country feeds itself through oil export and its population is booming) because sadly the USA polluted too much. It’s all for the greater good after all.
Meanwhile, people actually tackling the issue are making impressive strides in the right direction. You want to solve global warming? Go do research on cleaner tech. Throwing soup at paintings is a pointless waste of time.
You go tell the Nigerian
This is trying to displace responsibility for fossil fuel extraction to some remote place with different incentives. Climate activists like Just Stop Oil are concerned with the policy choices, lobbying, subsidies, infrastructure, and overconsumption of fossil fuels in the developed countries where they live. Demanding those change is a valid political position.
That seems meaningless to me. You can’t displace responsibility for a global problem. You do realise extraction is massively done by national companies in countries which hold the ressource and not by developed countries. The days Big Oil dominated the market are long gone.
That’s the core of the issue. You won’t magically convince countries which are entirely dependent on fossil fuels for their prosperity to stop. That’s why tackling production is missing the point. Unless you find alternative to consumption and develop capture, you are bound to fail.
Ahem, https://scientistrebellion.org/
> It’s a useless way of tackling the issue. You won’t magically convince the global population to have a worse life especially considering inequalities are so high. You go tell the Nigerian that they should accept to die of starvation (the country feeds itself through oil export and its population is booming) because sadly the USA polluted too much. It’s all for the greater good after all.
These things are going to happen unless we transi... no, wait, that's too late... unless we learn to adapt and actually adapt.
How does trashing art actually solve the problem? It just makes people with normal level of concern who are actually trying to do something look as if they are in cahoots with people who are bonkers.
The “activists” doing the chucking are either intentionally self-sabotaging, or are doing the slightly harder version of shit-posting on social media. It’s useless, irrelevant, and easily ignored. But it’s also easier than voting, running for office, or getting new laws passed, which would require time, effort and actually being slightly serious about solving problems. So I get why they don’t bother.
The noise a small group can make is not to be underestimated. Even though I have no idea what a largest bloc that is a minority means. Either they are the largest group or not. This I think is even more confused than minority majority which is absolutely an arrogant/racist way of thinking.
The question stands: what will you tell the kids visiting us in the nursing home?
Climate already saw a lot of improvements during the 2020 lockdowns.
2020 showed that we can have remote work as the primary method of work for a vast majority of jobs. The government could’ve mandated that if your company’s work could be done remotely, remote work has to be an option.
The amount of emissions to support daily commute of this many people (especially with commutes getting longer and longer) is insane.
>> I hope not all here are brainwashed and understand what I'm saying.
So if someone doesn't agree with you, they are brainwashed?
What if it is just a slow degradation in myriad aspects of quality of life only felt over the course of decades?
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-activists-disasters-fir...
Did upvote your comments btw because your general point about the world not having been going to shit is underrepresented and was, to me, very important to learn about (about five years ago now)
Even some of the worst predictions for where temperatures are headed before we get close to Net Zero emissions don't put us above historical averages.
To be clear, if the worst predictions come to light, that will be bad for people. But the planet will be fine.
I doubt some extra solar radiation will turn the Earth into Venus or Mars.
Venus seems more in reach but I don't know the specifics. Will continue researching in my evil scientist retreat
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/venus-could-have-b... and other articles make that case. I don't know if that's still current information (heard it a while ago and just looked up a random article as reference now, so this might be akin to cherry picking or confirmation bias), I'm not an expert on this particular topic, but that claim is what I had in mind when saying Venus' conditions are more attainable for earth
Blurb from that article
> Venus was downright Earth-like for 2 to 3 billion years and didn't turn into the violent no-man's land we know today until 700 million years ago.
Like Reflect Orbital [1]? In which case do not worry, they did not think that through, the amount of energy they can deliver is noise compared to the noise in solar radiation.
Technological civilization is undergoing a chaotic growth and reshaping process that will end up thrashing the container it lives in to an unknown and catastrophic degree. There's no known ultimate boundary to this process. Or the only really known ultimate boundary, a completely dead planet, is very far away. We cannot know exactly what will happen but we have a lot of power to shape this process and limit the damages.
The process will continue. There's no going back. There's no stopping. Only a multitude of ways to affect the outcome. Some of those ways can limit the destruction. Some of those ways can shape the process to something that can live and let live.
I’m not worried about science boundaries and all that. I’m worried about civilization going tits-up once some places get too affected. For example, we are probably less than a decade or so away from certain places with lots and lots of people living there becoming inhospitable. Either they will die, or run into some other country/region that can’t support them, or disperse around the world (most unlikely).
Will habitable zones change? Yes. Will migrations occur? Yes. Will there be unrest leading to disease, famine and death? Yes, for sure. And we could get all those things from war, a major natural disaster or an extraterrestrial event. Just take war for example. War promises to bring all of those changes too, that hasn't stopped human beings from fighting. If anything, destroying our economies to deal with the climate threat will inevitably lead to war, and then the resulting outcome will be the same: Death, famine, unrest, change/loss of habitable zones. What would we have gained?
Without agriculture there is no human civilization, no nation states, no institutions. We go back to being hunter gathers.
With an unstable climate agriculture disappears. Billions will dies, life expediencies will crater, the modern world you know will no longer exist.
Yes, the planet will be fine, at one point it was a giant snowball, humans are fucked.
The average global temperature in the Jurassic era was 16.5C, which is 2.5C higher than the current average global temperature. Average CO2 levels in the atmosphere were as high as 2000 ppm. The planet was teeming with life, an abundance of flora and fauna. While dinosaurs were the apex predators, mammals flourished as well.
> Without agriculture there is no human civilization, no nation states, no institutions. We go back to being hunter gathers.
Since the first part is false, the second part is moot. It also supposes we would have trouble adapting whereas humans are ingenious at finding ways to survive.
> With an unstable climate agriculture disappears. Billions will dies, life expediencies will crater, the modern world you know will no longer exist.
See previous argument.
> Yes, the planet will be fine, at one point it was a giant snowball, humans are fucked.
Yet here we are. Our ancestors survived the Ice Age. Their distant ancestors survived the Jurassic era. My bet is on humans.
Have you ever been in a stuffy meeting where brain fog sets in or you start to feel tired? That’s around 2k ppm where that sets in. Humans don’t like that much co2. No offense, but your argument doesn’t seem thought through.
The planet as a patient is a problematic metaphor. What does this mean? A human patient in critical condition is at risk of dying. But the planet is not going to "die", though many species will.
We need better ways of talking clearly (not with hyperbole) about the current situation and the stakes. Even with serious and aggressive policy changes, we'd still be on a track for key measures to get worse for some time, and we're bad at discussing "under costly policy A, X will be k% worse than today with expected outcome Y, but without adopting policy A, X with be (k+l)% worse than today expected outcome Z." So people end up saying "we're doomed regardless, so why should I have to pay/change/act?"
There only one resolution to this big conundrum and that is to make technological society to not compete with the biological ecosystem of earth.
This is a leading science publication reporting on an apparently notable finding about how serious the current situation is, but the actual information presented is either vague or hyperbolic.
Note, I'm not saying the situation isn't serious, or that drastic action isn't warranted. I'm saying this piece, discussing this work, is at minimum sloppy and unclear, and I think this is at the level of being counter-productive. When the situation is serious, try speaking clearly rather than in shrill metaphor.
Or something more concrete than "we're headed to a bad state."
But mother nature always wins in the end regardless of your politics, and now mother nature wants you dead.
Primarily, the sun warms the surface of the Earth, and the Earth itself generates heat.
What WE are doing is reducing the amount of heat radiated from the surface of the Earth until atmospheric expansions reaches a new equilibrium. In other words, we're affecting the radiative cooling equilibrium of the Earth. We are not heating it in any way.