
“Abrupt thaw” of Arctic permafrost releasing more CO2 than predicted - bookofjoe
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/arctic-thawing-ground-releasing-shocking-amount-dangerous-gases/
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agentultra
I agree with Neil Gaiman and the many, many climate scientists watching this
unfold that the Australian, Canadian and Californian fires are only the tip of
a very large iceberg. Policy wise I think politics needs to plan to cope with
living in a 4-5C world and action wise we need to do everything we can to try
and plateau in a 2-3C world.

~~~
nostrademons
I think 4-5C is a pretty reasonable assumption, over the next century.

The thing is that most of our current action plan for climate change consists
of reducing CO2 emissions, and this is woefully inadequate for a world that
the most recent science indicates has already passed the tipping point. Among
the second-order changes that we should be preparing for:

1\. Migration as the new norm. A 4-5C temperature rise will shift equivalent
biomes over 1000 miles northward/southward, and inundate large coastal areas
where major populations are currently located. Major densely-populated areas
will become uninhabitable, and currently uninhabitable areas will become
fertile.

2\. The collapse of governments, and of the nation-state system. When
migration becomes the new norm, borders become irrelevant, as do settled
homogenous populations. What's the new political organization look like?

3\. Large _temporary_ food shortages. Higher temperatures, higher rainfall,
and higher CO2 levels actually mean that in the long-term, plant growth and
agricultural productivity will increase, and the earth's carrying capacity
should go up. But in the short term - a lot of our current crops are hyper-
specialized to their existing climate, and land rights, water rights, &
physical crop location become problematic. Food _distribution_ becomes
critical - we'll likely make enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but
the people who grow it may not want to share (or may have the inability to
trade) with the people who need it.

4\. Expect to see more diseases emerge. Large migrations, changes in biomes,
and increased human habitation of formerly virgin ecosystems all spell chances
for pathogens to jump from animal hosts to people and spread widely.

Overall, I'm a lot more scared of the likelihood that humans will kill each
other than that the environment will kill us. We have a unique tendency to
blame each other for unwelcome changes rather than to adapt to them.

~~~
agentultra
We should also consider that as the ambient CO2 density rises we're also going
to lose a lot of our cognitive function. If we're going to rely on nuclear
energy to see us through we might need to rely on AI to carry on operations
for us.

~~~
ItsDeathball
I'm skeptical of that claim without some good supporting evidence. Submarines
tend to maintain CO2 concentrations 10x higher than atmospheric, and they have
a better reactor safety record than civilian power plants.

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davidw
I am the most worried I've ever been, there's not a lot I can do personally,
since it's such a big collective action problem and it's not a good feeling.

~~~
dougmwne
I am also concerned so I reoriented my career to support environmental
advocacy. Forget sorting your recyclables. Go make a career in alternative
energy, alternative transportation, geoengineering or environmental advocacy.
I guarantee you will be able to do more for this issue than tweeting or
donating online. I have saved my organization more in infrastructure costs
than I will ever earn in my lifetime.

The paperclip maximizers are here and they will turn the entire surface of the
earth into plastic wrap and data centers. Choose to dedicate the productive
capacity of your life to something else.

~~~
triceratops
Can you tell us more? I'm really curious about this.

~~~
dougmwne
Sure! There's many jobs out there that will help solve climate and energy. You
don't have to found the company yourself or personally invent the new battery
technology. Many companies exist already and need all kinds of professionals:
software dev, finance, marketing, data analysis and more. Many companies work
on products that will help us adapt and mitigate climate change. Tesla is the
famous one, but there are entire industries. Then there's the nonprofit space.
There are dozens of green groups working in the USA alone, ones you've
definitely heard of and ones you haven't. Universities are conducting
important research and educating on these issues. And there's government as
well, scientists, regulators and policymakers.

I've been working in the nonprofit space for 10 years and trust me when I say
that we need highly capable and motivated tech professionals. Go here and
start looking at job postings in your country:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_organiza...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_organizations)

No one person will solve a planet-scale issue like climate change, but each
person who decides to pick up a bucket and start bailing water will mitigate
the impact. Be the change.

~~~
mistrial9
More undergraduates emerge each year, with eco-oriented training, than there
are places to fill, in the USA. Good "jobs" in this space are often filled
with people with advanced training and some level of being independently
wealthy, working for below-cost-of-living, no children, etc.. It is ordinary
for big dot-orgs to ask for free work, even when there is a budget, here in
the US. Behind the scenes, certain groups have pooled money and invested it,
while fundraising and asking for volunteers. The truth is, this is partly
necessary, because "money" is not being created, money is being spent. There
is a long-term fundraising need for this work, and it shows in unexpected
ways, sometimes tough to see in action.

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pmoriarty
I wonder why geoengineering proposals, such as seeding the oceans with
iron[1], aren't more often discussed as possible mitigations to climate
change.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization)

~~~
melling
I wonder why we’re still in emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases now
instead of trying to fix the problem later.

40% of the worlds electricity is generated using coal.

If we changed this 10 years ago, we’d have less problems today.

If we change this today we’ll have less of a problem in 10 years.

We’re coming up with all kinds of clever ideas to deal with the problem in
2050. This is a slow train wreck happening over decades.

~~~
jbattle
> I wonder why we’re still in emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases now

Because enough people make a LOT of money from the status quo

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aqme28
The "clathrate gun" is terrifying. If it's happening twice as fast as we
expected, that sounds bad.

~~~
throwaway5752
We'll all die. It's not so terrifying as depressing. Clathrate gun means death
for essentially everyone. Maybe Bezos and Musk are right to make off planet
life temporarily viable. Modern society is based on relatively predictable
large scale agriculture being able to redistribute goods (transportation
infra, tech to support distribution). We simply, as a society, are not capable
of adapting to those circumstances. Most humans would die and the survivors
would not enjoy a modern lifestyle.

~~~
jobseeker990
The nice thing is I'm not saving anything for retirement since the world is
ending soon. I'm laughing at all my coworkers worrying about their 401K
matches.

~~~
throwaway5752
That's not smart. Just look at the simplified game tree. What's your utility
of what you're putting in a 401k? If we save the world you won't be destitute
in old age.

~~~
herogreen
Not op but I'd be very happy to be destitute in old age just by knowing
humanity saved the world.

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vzidex
I feel like I keep seeing articles covering climate-related events/disasters
happening Sooner Than Expected™. I'm already doing my best to reduce my
personal impact and raise awareness in my social circle, but it's worrying
that the biggest doomsday predictions might actually come true.

~~~
themagician
The change needs to be systemic, which is the problem. Logistics, industry and
agriculture make up the vast majority of emissions. But for these things to
change prices will have to rise probably quite dramatically.

We’ve gotten so used to not paying for the externalities associated with
emissions it’s damn near impossible to shift gears. Even at the individual
level people are often only willing to do it when the cost increase is
marginal.

If we taxed emissions at every level things would get so expensive people
would riot.

I think we just have to accept that our society is not designed in a way that
we can deal with this. We will have to let the catastrophe happen before there
will be any real change. Even then their may not be change. We just have to
wait for enough people to die for the system to fall back into balance.

~~~
specialist
Upvoted.

Your observations, calculus, and conclusions are correct.

I'd only suggest that we're already paying for those externalities. It's just
that those costs are off book. So the feedback loops are broken. Making
improvements all but impossible.

A carbon tax would update our accounting rules to capture those costs in a
direct and efficient manner.

~~~
jandrese
The fundamental problem with the Carbon Market is that we are missing the
entire second half of the equation. There is no viable large scale carbon
removal technologies that would allow us to set a price per ton of carbon
released. The market doesn't work because it is all supply and no demand.

If we were serious about this there would be hundreds or thousands of
companies competing on the most cost effective way to remove carbon from the
atmosphere. All companies would be required to buy enough carbon removal to
make them zero net emissions. When you buy a gallon of gas it would have
whatever the current market value of 5.5lbs of carbon removal factored in
right at the pump. Or that would happen at the refinery and be reflected in
the final price of the gas.

Unfortunately if you wanted to jump start this market it would be very
disruptive to the global economy. Governments worldwide (it's too easy to
export pollution, this needs to be a worldwide solution) would have to agree
on a very high price to get the market started to avoid undercutting companies
wanting to get into it and let the money start forming a pile so terrifically
large that people would be scrambling to develop carbon capture technologies
faster and cheaper than the competition. There would be a lot of cheating and
lying that would need to be policed worldwide. Our current system of
governments is not capable of pulling this off.

Carbon markets are something people try to entice capitalists with, but only
because they don't think people will look at the details. To actually
implement them would send those same capitalists howling and screaming to
their nearest governmental body with exceptions and rollbacks in hand.

~~~
hcknwscommenter
Most serious carbon market proposals are not primarily related to
removal/sequestration. They are related to reducing emissions. You get credits
for emitting less and/or producing low emission technologies (solar panels,
EVs, etc.), and can sell them or use them to reduce your tax burden.

This type of thing works, when done right.

~~~
thinkcontext
Its not that they aren't primarily related to it, most proposals are neutral
as to whether a ton of CO2 is avoided or sequestered. It just so happens to be
the case that its relatively expensive to capture and sequester CO2 from the
atmosphere compared to emissions avoidance. The lowest hanging fruit is
efficiency (better insulation, more efficient appliances, cars, etc), followed
by lower carbon forms of electricity, etc.

We'll likely need to do sequestration but, assuming a gradually rising carbon
price, it won't make economic sense to do it at scale until we've done the
more cost effective things first.

~~~
jandrese
The nice thing about working markets is that it would naturally pressure
people to do the cost effective stuff first. If buying carbon offsets is
appropriately expensive you have a major incentive to avoid buying them.

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pier25
I've been reading about and following climate change daily since 2012 and
every damn year it's the same thing:

 _Worse Than Expected™_

~~~
macinjosh
It is because the flow of money that powers climate research, green industry,
and climate activism is largely dependent on stirring up fear in the public to
garner acceptance and support. Climate change is a real problem but so are the
perverse incentives in our research institutions.

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WhompingWindows
With the rapidly declining costs of getting payloads to outerspace, I think we
should discuss blocking radiation from the sun in some way. We clearly are not
going to transition our entire energy system fast enough, but using
mirrors/reflectors is a reversible and reasonable way to slow the warming of
the planet.

Let's say we take rockets from SpaceX out to 2050: wouldn't that be ample time
for cost declines to make trillions of small mirrors possible?

~~~
dcsommer
This might help contain temperature changes, but it won't prevent ocean
acidification due to rising CO2 levels. I'm curious what percent of the damage
is done by CO2 levels vs directly by temperature.

~~~
herogreen
But which metric do you use for "percent of damage" ?

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anonsivalley652
ESAS/methane gun hypothesis: hold my clathrates.

If you want more, current scientific analyses and surveys of CC
literature/papers/talks/conferences, I would look at Dr. Paul Beckwith's
channel on YT.

