
Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release - sohkamyung
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01313-4
======
Daishiman
For those who haven't been watching this topic for the past few years:
permafrost melt is the most probable factor for the possibility of a near-term
extinction event.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
I'm pretty sure it's well known that we're currently in one of the largest
extinction events.

~~~
mirimir
From another perspective, we _are_ "one of the largest extinction events".

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FeepingCreature
To the meat:

> We estimate that abrupt permafrost thawing in lowland lakes and wetlands,
> together with that in upland hills, could release between 60 billion and 100
> billion tonnes of carbon by 2300.

~~~
lixtra
Is this unique to human caused climate change or does it happen each time
earth heats up?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
That doesn't feel particularly relevant to the possibility of destruction of
our species. Regardless of whether or not this has happened before, it is
unprecedented in human history.

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lixtra
It is super relevant if it happened before because, even if no human witnessed
it, there could be proxy data that shows how this unfolds. It could explain
past sudden changes in climate change (and accompanying mass extinctions) that
are not yet well understood for example.

~~~
flukus
Most sudden changes were long enough ago that continents were in a different
configuration at different latitudes, so it's not very prescriptive. It's
almost definitely played some role but past climate change has almost always
been the result of a number of factors coalescing, we have to estimate it's
effects on our specific conditions.

~~~
jamesblonde
This is pure speculation. Configuration of continents has no affect on a
warming ocean releasing large amounts of methane trapped as methane ice
(methane clathrates).

You then set some arbitrary condition on us understanding the current
configuration of continents and how that would interact with the release of
methane clathrates based on warming. Sorry this is denialism mascarading as
evidence-based requirements. The analysis must be risk based - without
requiring absolute certainty. Currently, scientific consensus is there is a
risk of large releases of methane from melting Arctic sea ice.

~~~
flukus
> This is pure speculation. Configuration of continents has no affect on a
> warming ocean releasing large amounts of methane trapped as methane ice
> (methane clathrates).

TFA is about permafrost and not all clathrates, the word isn't even mentioned
in the article and if you bothered to look at a map
([https://geology.com/articles/methane-
hydrates/](https://geology.com/articles/methane-hydrates/)) you'd see they're
virtually all on continental shelves or the continents themselves.

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bayareanative
The recommendation for arboreal permafrost is to remove all the trees because
grassland tundra hard freezes easier than forests, and this is necessary to
maintain soil stability in the summer months. And to do so, reintroducing
large megafauna herds that destroy trees are necessary, potentially with a
mammoth/elephant hybrid; or with logging.

Interestingly, large managed herds of grazing animals is a solution to
grassland health for avoiding and reversing desertification.

~~~
mceoin
Allan Savory talks about the use of intensive grazing as a method for
combatting desertification in Africa [0]. Herd fertilize while eating grasses
that would otherwise fall into senescence and create pockets of erosion.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI)

~~~
pas
Alas their experiment concluded without significant difference between the
treatment and non-treatment zones. Basically the guy (and holistic grazing) is
a quack(ery). :/

[https://www.truthordrought.com/holistic-grazing-
myths](https://www.truthordrought.com/holistic-grazing-myths)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic_management_(agricultu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic_management_\(agriculture\)#Criticism)

~~~
flukus
Thanks for that, I believed this. I've got to stop trusting TED talks.

~~~
pas
I loved TED Talks, but .. it turns out 20 minutes is rarely enough to get new
and complex issues topped out with very unheard of solutions across. [0] And
it became a ripe ground for crackpots and PR stuntfolk.

There are great and amazing TED talks, and Chris Anderson and the whole team
seems to be able to pick great stories. But they probably lacked a scientific
review panel back then. (They have a guideline nowadays:
[https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-
term...](https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-
science-standards) and it talks about advisors and a science curator, etc.)

They would probably go a long way to supporting real proper 100% real world
science by having a redactions list. (So a list of talks that turned out to be
completely wrong or partially flawed.)

[0] topics like cosmology, quantum-computing-anything, artificial
intelligence, energy (carbon capture, nuclear [especially thorium]),
bio/sustainable/green/animal-friendly anything (recycling, food, plastics,
construction, energy again), medical/health, and of course psychology (also
behavioral economics) are all very much still work in progress, so accurately
reporting on them would require at least 1-2 hours. unless we're talking about
something very concrete like a picture of a black hole 53 million light years
away reconstructed from petabytes of radio interferometry.

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bryanlarsen
A practical plan for limiting carbon emissions:

1\. Carbon tax 2\. Import tariff at the border equivalent to the carbon tax on
carbon used in production, plus an admin fee. But only on products from
countries without their own carbon tax or equivalent.

1\. This can be adopted unilaterally, but would probably work best if adopted
by a group of nations at the beginning.

2\. Does not require the near impossible task of requiring world wide
agreement at the beginning. The hope is that it will encourage everybody to
join the club eventually

3\. Structuring as a tax rather than quotas mostly eliminates the fairness
problem between developed / developing

~~~
pas
The important thing is, that to make the tax a pure carbon-negative incentive,
that the revenue from the tax should be simply paid back to the taxpayers (of
course divided into equal parts).

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gdubs
Melting permafrost is the thing that terrifies me. For a long time now
scientists have been warning of the potential bomb lurking there. But, my
understanding is it hasn’t factored heavily in the IPCC reports because
feedback loops have historically been difficult to quantify. Anecdotally, the
trend seems to be that when it comes to Climate Change, things rarely break in
our favor and those “worst case scenarios” seem to be coming up frequently.

I’m a pragmatist, I remain optimistic (foolishly, perhaps), but I think it’s
fair to say that society isn’t sufficiently grappling with the potential
catastrophe on the horizon. In particular I don’t think enough attention is
given to the possibility of climate dynamics at some point rapidly flipping to
some new normal.

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ForHackernews
This is an emergency; it's well past time we started acting like it:
[https://rebellion.earth/](https://rebellion.earth/)

~~~
subsubsub
It may well be an emergency, but inconveniencing [1][2] the very people you
are attempting to persuade (the voting public) is not a strategy that is
likely to work. In my opinion it will make them deaf to the underlying message
(Although, I can provide no suggestions for strategies that might work!).

[1] e.g. preventing them getting to work or flying to a holiday [2] Extinction
Rebellion Protests: What happened? - [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
england-48051776](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-48051776)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
> inconveniencing [1][2] the very people you are attempting to persuade (the
> voting public) is not a strategy that is likely to work

Funny. Seems like it's working, _remarkably quickly,_ to me:

Michael Gove, the current Environment Minister, met with the protesters and
accepted the need for urgent action, and other points. Far more than might be
expected from the rather extremist position of today's Tory party.

The opposition have acknowledged all their points, and pledged to make climate
emergency policy. They are currently trying to force a vote on calling a
climate emergency in the Commons.

The organisers have turned up for interview on most of the UK's serious news
outlets, including, I think, twice on the Today programme. Even those who've
studiously avoided the topic are now talking about it.

Oh, and public opinion of ER appears to have _risen_ since the Easter
protests. On that basis, I sincerely hope ER continue, and can step up their
actions to more locations and companies too.

~~~
LoSboccacc
> need for urgent action

funny because most contaminants in water and air come from China and India

what is the UK environmental minister going to do about that?

unless the rest of the world agrees on the need on both regulate local
industry and heavily tax import from unregulated countries nothing is going to
change for the planet situation

the rest are mostly feel-good measures that carry increased cost on the
population without shifting the global scenario very much.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
> come from China and India

Utterly irrelevant. Everywhere needs to take action to solve the issue, USA,
China and India especially. Both China and India are investing heavily in
renewables, though clearly they have some way to go. The odd one out,
presently, is the USA. I expect that to change soon enough.

Doesn't matter who goes first, who does more, or when, just that everyone
takes enough action.

You'll be able to level the same criticism against any of the first countries
that start inching toward acknowledging and starting to change the system.
Still doesn't matter. Even if it's not yet enough. Only the end result does.
Maybe it will eventually come to sanctions and closing trade to nations that
aren't doing enough.

Simply put, someone has to go first, the first step is never enough.

~~~
LoSboccacc
> someone has to go first

but that's the point, European countries have done _a lot_ and the only result
was most pollution intensive production was pushed abroad while destroying
local productions chains, the lower classes and raising the cost of living to
the point the middle class is unable to build the saving to promote healthy
growth, meanwhile the planet is still as fucked as it were

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ThomPete
Again a speculative article. “Might” is the important word in that article and
Might” is not the word you use in scientifically demonstrated claims.

This debate have become so ideological that all reason has left the room a
long time ago.

Show me scientifically demonstrated consequences not just speculated
consequences we cant deal with, then ill rally behind you until then i am
quite confident in my non-alarmist position.

~~~
freeflight
You are asking for absolutes in science, which is something that does not
exist because science is not dogma, thus open to corrections, which is
inherently opposed to making absolute statements.

That's why scientific statements use probabilities and words like "might", it
has nothing to do with "not demonstrated" but everything with admitting that
humans are fallible beings and there's always a margin of error.

