
What we’re doing to the Earth has no parallel in 66M yrs, scientists say - jdnier
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/21/what-were-doing-to-the-earth-has-no-parallel-in-66-million-years-scientists-say/
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pdkl95
> ... and major die-offs of some marine organisms followed due to strong
> acidification of the oceans.

This is the part that I'm worried about. Regardless of what happens to global
_temperature_ or _climate_ , the damage we've done to the oceans is insane. As
Alex Cannara explained[1],

    
    
        In 150 years we have brought the chemistry of oceans to
        a point not seen in 300 million years.
    

He is referring to the large shift in ocean pH caused by our release of over
30x the amount of carbon than the ocean can sequester. This is particularly
bad problem because the process that sequesters atmospheric CO2 is based on
marine life shells/skeletons being sinking and ending up as limestone.

We have already disrupted that process, with some areas (such as the north
Atlantic) are already seeing species starting to fail from the acidity. At
some point in the next few decades, the pH will be sufficiently acidic that
CaCO2 becomes soluble and any species with a shell goes extinct. Never mind
the massive food change disruption, this stops the main CO2 sequestration
process.

I don't think we can stop this; it's already too late. While there are ideas
about how this could be fixed, we aren't going to accomplish any of them. So
maybe we should start getting ready for another event like the
Permian–Triassic (P-Tr) extinction.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ)

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crygin
James Hansen is somewhat controversial, but this paper has been reviewed and
accepted for publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, and it's very
serious:
[https://app.box.com/s/i4u002tbpcvkamj9wq4n8t1u8wxsjhis](https://app.box.com/s/i4u002tbpcvkamj9wq4n8t1u8wxsjhis)

I'd summarize but anyone interested in the near-term (this century) effects of
climate change and already on HN should be willing to read the actual paper.

~~~
alatkins
I'm not familiar with Hansen, can you give an idea of how he's been
controversial?

~~~
crygin
Sorry for the next-day response, went to bed shortly after posting that.

Long story short, this paper received a lot of press attention when it was
published to the ACPD last summer for discussion:
[http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/whiplash-
warnin...](http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/whiplash-warning-when-
climate-science-is-publicized-before-peer-review-and-publication/?_r=0)

Which led to a fair number of climate scientists upset about what they saw as
the press reporting on preliminary results. It's linked in that article but
the key point is that Hansen has spent the last ~10 years calling out what he
sees as a reticent attitude among climate scientists towards (what he feels is
justified) alarmism:
[http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/2/024002/fulltext/](http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/2/024002/fulltext/)

~~~
alatkins
Thanks, good to be able to put this and the author in some context, though the
science should stand for itself.

------
taurath
If you take the title completely at face value, it seems like an absolutely
obvious statement. At no point have there been this many humans on the planet,
so of course there is no parallel to what we're doing.

~~~
x5n1
We went from less than 5 million humans on the planet to more than 7 billion
in 10,000 years. That's a 1,400x increase. So yeah, we're pretty much already
breaking all the rules. What's one more. We will pay for it, but we'll deal
with it how we deal with these sorts of things, as problems to be solved. And
we'll find solutions, but the Earth will be a totally and irreversibly
different Earth. Less life, less biomass, more difficult and unhappier place.
But we'll make rhetoric about how everything is much better than it used to
be, and prescribe more and more drugs and alcohol to help people deal with it.
It's how we live, how we have lived... it's the end of the world as we know
it, and I feel fine.

~~~
duaneb
A little late, but is this any worse than humanity going out in a blaze of
hedonistic glory?

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raddad
I suspect this is why there is such a push for space travel these days. Those
with the means will journey off to some habitable place or one they can make
habitable, and leave everybody else behind in the toxic wasteland. All those
sci-fi movies might be predicting the future of planet earth; they have
before.

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Nutmog
This is great news but somehow presented in a negative tone. The slow (4000
year duration) PETM release had no lag before temperature increased. Our
release is much faster and according to the article, the faster the release,
the greater the lag. So we should expect to see a lag. I wonder how long -
hopefully on the order of magnitude of the duration of the last release -
1000s of years or perhaps the current release - 100s of years.

The problem with climate change isn't what it might change into, but how fast
it happens. It's quite already to have a change slow enough for societies,
farmers, migration of species and geoengineering technology to adapt. We don't
need enough time for evolutionary adaptation because we've actually got
considerable control over our environment, unlike all species before us.

~~~
sbov
But if you're not feeling your current effects until 1,000 years in the future
you may be completely screwed before you end up doing something about it.

~~~
Nutmog
Why would it happening later be more trouble? At best we'd see it coming and
have 1000 years to prepare. At worst it'd happen just as suddenly as people
already expect it to. In either case, we'll probably have better technology to
manage it in 1000 years than we do today.

~~~
sbov
At worst we wouldn't do anything for 1,000 years because there's been little
effect. In the meantime we've built up another 1,000 years we're going to have
to deal with, which might be impossible at that point.

In comparison, if we instantly felt the effects we could obviously see we're
causing specific problems, and react appropriately. With the lag it's a
crapshoot and deniability can creep in.

------
EGreg
This sounds really scary!

I think it's a safe bet we'll use up all the fossil fuels we can find, and
release the carbon into the atmosphere, regardless of the carbon taxes and cap
and trade. And even after that, we'll continue to boil water with nuclear rods
to generate electricity with tons of heat waste. Where does all that go?

The best we might hope to do is somehow capture the carbon in the air and put
it back underground... trees and seaweeds seem to do that. And then we mighy
try to capture all the plastic we dumped in the pacific ocean...

Seriously doesn't think make you think twice about the future for our
grandchildren?

~~~
godzillabrennus
We are a fairly intelligent species capable of doing great things when
motivated.

My bet is we can do a lot to slow the damage and then reverse it.

Things like this give me hope:
[http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/print/volume-16...](http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/print/volume-16/issue-5/bioenergy/a-new-
win-win-co2-eating-microalgae-as-a-biofuel-feedstock.html)

~~~
bluejekyll
I might be misunderstanding that article, but it sounds like the company
captures the co2 and then converts that to fuel. Then they sell the fuel,
which I assume will be burned.

It definitely reduces total co2 released, but sounds more like recycling than
actually improving the existing problem. Did I understand that correctly?

------
rcthompson
Maybe we'll get lucky and the fossil fuels will run out before we make the
planet completely uninhabitable.

~~~
Nutmog
Are there any serious predictions that the planet will become uninhabitable,
even a little bit? People can live in a huge range of climates, far more
extreme than global warming predictions. Plants also grow well in high
temperatures and with artificial irrigation, don't require regular rainfall.

~~~
ghshephard
Parts of the world currently inhabitable will become unlivable. In particular,
Dubai, which is one of the most inhospitable places I've ever been on earth
(combination of humidity + high temperature) - becomes lethal by 2100 in some
projections - [http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/world/persian-gulf-heat-
cl...](http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/world/persian-gulf-heat-climate-
change/)

Hot temperatures are much more difficult to handle than cold temperatures for
humans. With proper clothing/goggles/face masks, I've been downright cozy at
-43 celsius in northern British Columbia - spent hours completely comfortable.
In Dubai, on a hot, humid day in September, I can manage maybe 15 minutes of
exertion before I have to escape back to air-conditioning.

~~~
ryandvm
So a city that runs on oil revenue and has literally no natural attractions
becomes the equivalent of death valley. Meh. Let's pick a different worst case
scenario...

~~~
undersuit
Not just the city. Pretty much all of northern Africa and the Arabian
peninsula become uninhabitable. Can you find another 17839048.21 km² to
replace it?

------
intrasight
If I and others succeed in getting ourselves cryogenically frozen in a couple
tens of years, then we'll be able to come back (unfrozen) in a couple hundred
years and say "wow, they were right".

~~~
Nutmog
What makes you expect them to be right instead of wrong? Couldn't you also
wake up and say "wow, they were wrong"?

If you know they're right, then everyone else can too and there's no need for
anyone to worry about what's right or not.

~~~
hyperbovine
If you accidentally thaw in a couple of decades then they were definitely
right.

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dbpokorny
Don't say "we", say "a few very wealthy and powerful individuals who do not
represent anyone other than themselves"

~~~
x5n1
I used to blame the rich, but the fact is that they are through Capitalism
only feeding human desires. In this case I think it's not them, it's human
beings with unlimited desires and all these other behaviors tuned for maximum
exploitation of the environment, combined with a highly efficient system which
encourages just that. People in general are to blame for the way we are acting
on this planet. Creating more and more people, being irresponsible, etc. We
all do it together, every time we do anything we are partaking in the human
conspiracy to destroy the environment, or as we like to call it the economy.

------
ivanca
What we need is some effective marketing against the causes of climate change.
People don't watch documentaries, people don't read studies, truth is to to
really make an impact you have to use the same shady tactics politicians and
media outlets use, it's sad but that's the way it is. For example we need to
start calling all companies associated with coal extraction climate-
terrorists, we need to commercials of averages Joe's grandchildren being
slowly roasted alive (movie-like not any gore. As a fear inducing warning
about climate change over the next decades). All the hate people have for
Mexicans and Muslims should be redirected to oil companies, to coal mining
companies, to stop government subsidies for those, for their employees. To do
anything that increases the price of dirty energy sources and related
practices, then after the price is higher than the alternative capitalism
should take care of the rest.

~~~
rewqfdsa
Guilting people into reducing emissions has been ineffective. Better would be
to embrace geoengineering.

