
The toll climate change is taking on oceans - codermobile
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/see-the-drastic-toll-climate-change-is-taking-on-our-oceans
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roenxi
Articles like his do a great job of communicating change, but a very poor job
of communicating threat. I'm going to be unpopular and say I still can't see
why the metrics being listed here rate higher consideration than all the
threats that could reasonably be imagined over the next 40 years. The risk of
running out of fossil fuels without being prepared is much more threatening
than the statistics listed.

I'm going to single out "Sea levels are rising." for special mention - entire
cities can be constructed in 40 years (I'm thinking Shenzhen); 9 inches over a
century isn't that scary in context of all the other radical change that has
happened over the same period. There was a period in there where nuclear
annihilation was an imminent threat. Nuclear annihilation is still a concern.

It is obvious the situation is changing, it is not obvious in this article
that any of the changes are important over the timeframe given. There is
always going to be radical change over a 20 year period that we have to roll
with.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Easy to focus on "how can people escape the change". Not so easy, for coral
reefs that take 100 years to regrow, and the fisheries that utterly depend on
them in a food chain. And the billions worldwide that eat those fish. We're
all safe here in the West, but billions may die worldwide.

Unless the refugees overrun us all. Like they did in the 'ring of fire' years,
back when Ur and Hammurabi were writing. A chain reaction of failed crops,
refugee migrations and overloaded ecosystems culminated in Egypt being nearly
destroyed by the 'sea people', a flotilla of desperate refugees. It only ended
when Egypt armed everybody and defeated them (killed them all).

~~~
roenxi
1/7 of the world population wiped out by a 9 inch change in water levels over
100 years? Seems a little unlikely. My point today is there isn't anything in
the article that supports your comment.

Nothing in that article is a risk to billions of people. Look at what is
happening with Swine Flu in Asia right now - there is always a risk of a given
food source collapsing; climate change or no climate change.

I get that this is interesting, I don't get how we can link a 0.04 change in
pH to requiring action to avert the apocalypse. The 'drastic toll' they are
presenting isn't very expensive. This article is a call to inaction rather
than action.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
To inform: Reefs are on sloping continental shelves. Reefs grow at exactly a
depth, temperature and clarity of water. Change the water depth an inch, the
optimal location moves by feet or yards. Reefs are not ambulatory. Reefs take
decades to regrow.

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mehrdadn
Related: GoogleX co-founder Tom Chi gave a _fantastic_ talk on carbon debt
(with a rather depressing 238 views at the moment; I hope more people
watch...):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyQvfaW54NU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyQvfaW54NU)

~~~
symplee
Agreed, this is an excellent talk.

Main takeaway is to view the problem as debt which has to be paid off. Simply
stopping new purchases will not pay off the debt.

Above point summarized here, timestamp 22:15 -
[https://youtu.be/QyQvfaW54NU?t=1335](https://youtu.be/QyQvfaW54NU?t=1335)

We currently have a one trillion ton carbon debt. As a though experiment, for
a starting solution to iterate upon, this can be "paid off" with 20 billion
trees / year, for 50 years. It would take 9000 drones, 450 staff, $80
mil/year. And a total land area half the size of Brazil. Using current
technology. Compare this with alternative approaches being thrown around with
price tags of 1 trillion+.

~~~
mehrdadn
Man I'd hate people to just read this summary and not actually watch the talk.
There's just so many important points in it and it's laid out so well that it
just doesn't do it justice to summarize it here. Like just to give an example,
here's another one:

> _Even if we emitted no more carbon from this point on_ , the planet would
> continue to warm on average and destabilize for about another 500-800 years.

Please go watch it. It's just 30 minutes of your time and it's very unlikely
you already know everything he's about to mention.

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sehugg
_In the past 200 years alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more
acidic—faster than any known change in ocean chemistry in the last 50 million
years._ [https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-
acidific...](https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-
acidification)

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konschubert
Climate change is not only a threat to the nature around us, it’s a threat to
us humans. It’s an international security issue.

~~~
jsilence
While I agree with your general sentiment, I fail to see why 'national
security' would trump 'destruction of habitat'. When my house is burning down
I don't give diddly quak whether the doors are locked.

~~~
mathgeek
When it’s your neighbor’s house, most people tend to care somewhat less than
if it was their own. At least until your now-homeless neighbor notices how
nice your house is. Climate change will affect some people more than others in
at least the short term.

~~~
jsilence
Short term thinking is not going to solve the global climate crisis.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Politicians are mainly incapable of thinking beyond their term - the next
election. Just look at politician's willingness to commit deliberate national
suicide via Brexit. All the current Tory leadership candidates are now trying
to out-extremist all the others. There was no plan B, there remains no plan B.

National security is perhaps the _one_ issue that can partly escape being
expressed solely in economic and short termism of this administration's term
only.

Now whether politicians can start to believe climate actually is an issue of
security remains to be seen.

~~~
jsilence
There is no solution in building walls and upping border security. That is
expensive fighting against the symptoms, draining resources and attention from
the real issue at hand. Trying to trick politicians and decision makers into
at least some action will not solve anything. On the contrary, it is going to
be harmful for the overall cause.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Eh? What does building walls and border security have to do with solving the
climate crisis? Nothing at all. Nor is it a case of tricking anyone.

I'm talking in terms of treating it as an existential threat to national (and
global) security. As it is for some countries already, and will inevitably
become for all if we don't move orders of magnitude faster. Which deserves a
reaction akin to the existential threat nations faced in WW1 and WW2.

Directed production, rationing, war economy budgets, a long term view as well
as short term tactics etc. If the world leaves it long enough conscription
too.

Right now we're in the equivalent of the appeasement years of the 30s. Cutting
budgets that should be raised, tokenism, and ignoring the problem.

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cfarm
These articles always leave me wondering what I can do today to contribute.
Not money, not scientific research, just daily change like not using plastic
bottles (or something).

This problem is always presented as a massive unsolvable thing that the
government or someone with deep pockets needs to contribute focus to.

~~~
mehrdadn
A few weeks ago I was outright downvoted right here on HN (edit: and also
right now, within literally the first 30 seconds of posting this very
comment!) for merely suggesting people start by getting their companies and
coworkers to see business travel as a carbon liability to be minimized rather
than a work perk to be maximized. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions
as to how much we're genuinely willing to even _consider_ entertaining the
remote possibility of sacrificing from our own lives.

~~~
ripsawridge
i upvote you because i agree with you.

