
Alaska’s Permafrost Is Thawing - DiabloD3
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.html
======
acomjean
My understanding of the attempts to bring back the mammoth from extinction is
partially driven to preserve tundra permafrost. The mammoth removes the
insulating snow layer.. seems like there might be easier ways, but it might
work...

[http://reviverestore.org/projects/woolly-
mammoth/](http://reviverestore.org/projects/woolly-mammoth/)

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AaronFriel
News like this piques my existential dread over things like the "Clathrate gun
hypothesis".

I really would not like to check if that hypothesis is true the hard way.

~~~
adwhit
I think we can all agree that the _conservative_ thing to do is carry on like
we are and see if we destroy the planet.

~~~
spaceseaman
We wouldn't want to _waste_ our time and do something productive like
encourage renewable forms of fuel would we? (via things like taxation which
could account for the real external costs of fossil fuels). That would be
ridiculous. Let's just keep using these things that will run out and are
clearly bad for our environment. There's just no point to making the world a
little better if it's going to hurt those oil and gas companies!

(sarcasm of course)

~~~
Shywim
What should we do? What should _I_ do? When I look through my window, nobody
cares. I do waste sorting while none my neightbors care, what should I do? I
don't throw waste on the street and nature while most of my compatriot don't
care, what should I do? I try to use "clean" and expensive resources like
eletric cars while "bad" resources are cheaper because my government keep
promising to make taxes on these but don't do anything, what should I do?

Why should I waste _my_ time trying to change the world, thinking about it
when I'm just a randon civilian that have barely enough to donate to an ONG?
Why should I waste _my_ life for other people that don't care at all and enjoy
theirs?

~~~
comicjk
The most efficient things you can do are 1) vote, 2) contact your elected
representatives 3) donate money, say 3% of your income. These steps will have
minimal impact on your personal quality of life compared to their impact on
the world. Personal lifestyle changes like using an electric car are secondary
- as you mention, it's better to change the incentives.

~~~
abawany
Re. vote, too often people forget (in the US) to vote in the primaries of the
dominant political party in their area. Given how gerrymandering ensures that
a given political party nearly always wins a given region, voting in the
primary is your best option to vote out the crazies.

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bryananderson
I've become convinced that decisive action will never be taken as long as it
requires a decrease in the standard of living (that is, less energy use).

I am out of ideas for how to convince the world to drastically draw down our
fossil fuel use. Everything has been tried.

It has become a cliche that our problems cannot be solved by technology alone,
but this one really may be up to technology alone. Human nature is not going
to change.

~~~
Recurecur
My stance is that if society has decided it's serious about CO2, it is
necessary to put a whole lot more effort into next-gen nuclear than has been
done so far. Even so, small companies like ThorCon, Terrestrial Energy and
others are making good progress. The next step is a plan for a major,
worldwide rollout of (mostly modular) nuclear reactors.

That avoids the issue of a possible decrease in the standard of living, and
provides an affordable mechanism that doesn't involve coal for India,
Indonesia and other countries that need to build out their electric grid.

Lots of good info here:
[http://thorconpower.com/news](http://thorconpower.com/news)

Video from ThorCon CEO making his case:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4xjQWBw7i0&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4xjQWBw7i0&feature=youtu.be)

~~~
StillBored
Why wait for next gen nuclear?

I will eat my words if in a few days South Texas Nuclear generating station
melts down (because its being hit by a category 4 hurricane as I type this)..
But right now the technology we _HAVE_ is sufficiently safe.

~~~
flgb
But not sufficiently cheap, compared to alternatives.

~~~
PeterisP
Fossil fuels are cheaper than nuclear only if you treat the (huge)
environmental effects as costing nothing.

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edejong
I wonder if an expert could chime in on why this land (and carbon) would not
be taken up by larger, more developed plant life, such as larger shrubs or
trees. It seems conditions would be ideal: fresh, bacteria rich soil, high
CO_2 levels and plenty of water.

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yostrovs
I find it odd that all the reported consequences of global warming are
negative. Why wouldn't a modest rise in temperature do some good in at least
some ways? I suspect that that would not advance the demanded panic, and is
therefore ignored.

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yequalsx
Do you really believe there is a conspiracy amongst the experts who study
these things? Are there other areas of science in which scientists conspire to
withhold information? If not why would you think this is the unique area of
science that withholds information?

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nnfy
Even a cursory literature review will show you that there are almost no
positive articles published regarding climate change, and it is patently false
that not a single place or peoples on this planet could benefit from a warmer
climate.

There may not be an explicit conspiracy, but there is an emergent, cultural
force which has lead to the politicization of sciences, and I imagine you are
aware that scientists have quite a bit of leeway in what they choose to
study/report.

Anecdote, I know, but I say this as someone who went to school with future
climate scientists, and their minds were made up long before they made it to
grad school.

Whether you think climate change is catastrophic or not, you must agree that
there is not enough skeptical literature available, and that makes it
difficult for me personally to swallow the narrative without hesitation.

~~~
yequalsx
Yes there is a paucity of articles on the benefits of climate change. Is it
because of conspiracy or because the effects are overwhelmingly bad?

Overwhelmingly physics grads enter grad school believing that the Earth
revolves around the sun. There's a lack of articles in physics journals to the
contrary. There's a lack of skeptical literature.

The lack of articles touting the benefits of climate change do not indicate
there is a conspiracy nor should one think that there should be such articles
in any but a small amount. This is especially so given the political climate
in the U.S. where people are skeptical of climate science.

~~~
nnfy
This phenomenon is circular. There is a void of publications on the subject,
therefore, scientists and laymen begin to believe that there is no second
side, and, combine that with politics, we end up with a seemingly settled
science when, in truth, the process has not been scientific for at least a
decade.

It is also absurd to be so certain about our potential impact on something as
complex and chaotic as climate. Especially considering we also rely on trends
on the order of millions of years, and we are making a judgment based on many
orders of magnitude less time. Is it a bet worth making? Sure, in my opinion,
but without some published skepticism, climate science may as well be
propaganda when it comes to convincing people to act.

~~~
yequalsx
"It is also absurd to be so certain about our potential impact on something as
complex and chaotic as climate."

This is where you are wrong. You may not understand it but the science is
solid. It is well known what happens when too much green house gases occur.
The physics is indisputable.

~~~
_Tev
It is never only about physics when we talk about impact of climate change.
Even if you talk about catastrophic runaway warming, it is caused by
ecosystem-level feedback loops.

The question raised is what are the possible net-good feedback loops? Will
flora benefit from it widely and expand everywhere? Will that be a good thing?

To paraphrase: This is where you are wrong. You may not understand it but the
science is far from solid. It is not well known what happens when ecosystems
react to too much greenhouse gases. "The physics is indisputable." is a hollow
statement.

disclaimer: I am for active prevention of such things occurring, just for
strategic reasons like "we don't have a clue what we're doing and we are
apparently doing SOMETHING". But to claim it is obvious and "indisputable"
sounds like dangerous propaganda to me.

~~~
yequalsx
I was responding to this statement:

"It is also absurd to be so certain about our potential impact on something as
complex and chaotic as climate."

It is possible to be certain about impacts on climate. Increase CO2 in the
atmosphere by a factor of a trillion. There will be runaway warming in the
immediate term. This is known and well understood. I'm not claiming we are
near this point but the suggestion that we can't know some effects because
climate is hard is absurd.

~~~
_Tev
Certain aspects can be certain, sure, but overall effects are beyond our
understanding. We just have too small sample size ...

But while we disagree on what we know you're right that it's not clear cut and
one can argue we already know quite a bit - e.g. those immediate effects is
something I can imagine we have good grasp on, I've not studied that in depth
as most debates are about ultimate consequences.

Thanks for new PoV!

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eagsalazar2
Is there a site out there that details what the actual scenarios are and how
to survive them (if at all possible)? I mean if there is a giant methane burp
from the ocean floor, can I and my family survive by wearing gas masks for 7
days? I honestly have NO IDEA. Just curious if anyone has gone through this
methodically and developed survival plans.

~~~
stcredzero
If we get to 6 degrees global warming, it's probably into the mass extinction
realm. (As in the Permian–Triassic (P–Tr or P–T) extinction event)

[http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm](http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm)

~~~
jackmott
humans have already caused a mass extinction. so it would be like....double
secret mass extinction.

~~~
ansible
My favorite bit about this is from a lecture by Daniel Dennett. 10K years ago,
Humans and their associated animals (livestock, pets) accounted for less than
1% of the land animal biomass. Now, we account for 98% (mostly cattle).

This has had a drastic effect on the biosphere.

~~~
mikeash
Should that be 98% of land mammals? Because I think the insects still outweigh
us by quite a lot.

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Gustomaximus
I looked it up as the 98% felt quite wrong. Amazed to see the amount
earthworms made up.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_\(ecology\))

~~~
mikeash
I had no idea either. I guess earthworms are mostly beneath (heh) our notice.

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minikites
I often wonder if this type of thing is an answer to the Fermi Paradox, that
complex societies inevitably destroy themselves by failing to solve fatal
problems requiring collective action.

~~~
jandrese
I don't buy it. Even if we do fuck this up royally and cause a mass extinction
event (which seems increasingly likely), humans will survive. There may
(probably will) be a loss of population, but it's the sort of thing humans can
definitely recover from given time. At the timescales of the Fermi Paradox
this shouldn't be an issue. It's barely a blip.

~~~
zzalpha
The Fermi paradox still applies if, every time society reaches a point of
advanced development, it sets itself back to the stone age by triggering an
extinction level event.

~~~
jerf
The problem with this answer to the Fermi paradox, along with many others, is
that it can't just be "very likely". It has to be essentially 100% likely. And
while I'm sure a lot of people are ready to believe "very likely", "literally
zero civilizations out of millions manages to survive ecological catastrophe",
despite those millions of civilizations having fundamentally different mental
architectures, ecologies, circumstances, time scales, and difficulties in
spreading out into space is really a tough sell. You're really telling me the
sentient Bee People of Madeupertrus XIII, whose singular queen dominates all
decisions on the planet in the universal hive mind, couldn't figure out they
needed to stop burning anthracite coal if they wanted to live?

Personally, I think "it's just inevitable that all civilizations die from
ecological collapse" takes some of the emotional _frisson_ out of the doom and
gloom as well; if it's just that inevitable, you can't really blame anyone,
can you? If it's inevitable, it isn't really "fossil fuel's" fault (after all
it is likely that many civilizations never even _had_ fossil fuels, or lacked
an oxygenated environment or similar that makes combusting them so easy), or
careless use of farm land, or anything else... it's just the inevitable
workings of the impersonal universe.

As with many other putative answers to the Fermi paradox, I don't think this
one is powerful enough to explain it.

~~~
minikites
>despite those millions of civilizations having fundamentally different mental
architectures, ecologies, circumstances, time scales, and difficulties in
spreading out into space is really a tough sell

Absolutely, which is why I said "an answer" as opposed to "the answer".

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stcredzero
What is the likelihood of our precipitating a "methane gun" event?

~~~
PeterisP
100% ? IIRC we might have prevented it with serious changes a couple years
ago, but now it's going to happen and is already happening.

~~~
stcredzero
If that's true, then my understanding is that 4 degrees of warming is
inevitable, and 5 degrees is likely. 6 degrees probably isn't ruled out.

~~~
Diederich
Do you have children? I have a teenage son. A heretofore normal lifespan for
him will bring him to the late 21st century.

I can hardly think about what things will be like then.

~~~
saalweachter
When my daughter is the age of my grandmother, it will be the 22nd century.

~~~
Diederich
That's incredibly sobering.

~~~
saalweachter
... and I'll probably be 20 years in the grave.

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anorphirith
unfortunately it's been thawing for a very long time just like the permafrost
in siberia. it only comes back up in the news once in a while. it's
exponentially increasing global warming

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VeronicaJJ123
Does this mean we will have more agricultural land in Alaska over time? This
might be a great news in that sense.

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knowaveragejoe
But I thought climate change was a ruse perpetrated by liberals looking to
find another way to tax? Just think of the jobs that would be lost if we were
to take actually decisive action about this!

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Pigo
So are we made at China for continuing to use both barrels on the environment?
Trump, for being in office a few months? Or is this existential hate we all
have for ourselves?

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mudil
In his book "The Beginning of Infinity", David Deutch gives a hypothetical
example of a technologically advanced space ship arriving to an empty spot in
space, a cube the size of the solar system. It is such an inhospitable spot,
and yet this civilization can create everything to live there. There are
billions of tons of hydrogen atoms in that "empty" space, hence fusion is
harvested, new elements created, etc etc. The point that Deutch is making is
that problems are inevitable, and they can be solved by use of knowledge. It's
not the end of world, people.

~~~
sqeaky
We don't have that level of tech, you may as well have provided a story about
merlin or gandalf.

It may well actually be the doom of civilization as we know it, and should be
treated as the existential threat it might be. We should be funding science,
legislating environmental protection and doing whatever else we can think of
until we have magic or know this is safe.

~~~
sametmax
+1. Besides even if we had the tech and knowledge, we need the resources,
time, dedication and will to apply the solutions. Not to mention the ability
to carry it out, and together no less.

