This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Most problems would simply not be a problem if we drastically reduce the human population. Which would not only avoid the issues caused by climate change but also would prevent further increases in pollution and CO2 emissions.
I don't know why the best solution is often the less talked about. Just stop having so many children. We don't have 70% infant mortality rate like we used to, there's no need to have 4 kids to preserve your legacy.
Startups are developing a whole suite of technologies to try to help
Do not think that they are seriously trying to save the planet.
(If they had wanted that, they should have done it 30-40 years ago)
They just want to make money, like everybody else.
I mean, the whole “startups are doing x” is really code for “venture dollars have been made available for entrepreneurs to explore x”. Startups these days are chasing fields which have investment dollars, so this means the rich are starting to invest in the tech a little more earnestly
Do people seriously think we could "reverse" climate change?
That's not how the climate works.
We just change it to something else.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Glaciers formed over millennia. If they melt, they’re gone, even if we drop CO2 to pre-industrial levels. The Antarctic ice sheet is millions of years of snow that fell at the rate of a few inches a year and just didn’t melt. If significant portions of that fall off and melt, it’ll be millions of years more for the water it adds to the oceans to cycle back to the ice sheet again. The changes we have made will not be reversed automatically or in many cases at all.
It's because I didn't go on a rant about capitalism.
Remember it used to be called global warming, because that's what's actually happening. But morons thought a cold winter day disproved global warming, so it was renamed climate change.
And yes we can reverse global warming, but obviously that won't recreate polar or mountain ice, or lower sea levels quickly, but we can get the temperature down to stop it first, which will also curb the increase in natural disasters, then the restoring of sea levels and ice will take at least decades and probably centuries.
Hm I always remember hearing this:
In a confidential memo to the Republican party, Luntz is credited with advising the Bush administration that the phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of "climate change", which he called a "less frightening" phrase than the former.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't renamed because people were morons about child weather, at least not completely. It's always been "climate change", because that's a better representation of what is happening.
The climate is changing, and one is the main side effects it's global warming... But there's extra fun side effects, like ocean acidification, that aren't because of the warning
Global warming is the driver of climate change.
My point is that slowing down the heating of the planet is doable (though you'd need the majority of the world contributing, which is highly unlikely to happen), but we can't reverse the damage that has already been done, which some people seem to think is possible.
We're not as powerful as we think we are.
There are gasses and particles that can be released into the atmosphere that will reflect sunlight and warmth away from earth. In theory that could be done very quickly.
We’re not as powerful as we think we are.
We could cause a new ice age easily. Just fire off a few percent of the nukes, and we will revert to an ice age almost immediately.
Of course a side effect would be massive starvation.
There are gasses and particles that can be released into the atmosphere that will reflect sunlight and warmth away from earth. In theory that could be done very quickly.
As far as I remember, that was tried with ships and it has some collateral effects that cause different damages to the oceans.
How is that relevant to ships? It's released to high in the atmosphere.
Tipping point has tipped?
The one I remember scaring the hell out of everyone is the permafrost melt.
Thaw out enough permafrost and it releases enough greenhouse gasses to self perpetuate. No human interaction required.
https://www.space.com/methane-beneath-arctic-permafrost-climate-feedback-loop
Yeah and it was pretty much going once we hit the twenty teens but took awhile to notice. At this point its about slowing things down as much as possible.
Two types of people reading this:
"Oh no! We should do everything we can to mitigate the damage."
and
"Fuck it, might as well keep doing what I'm doing."
And it's the latter that got us here in the first place.
It's the parable of office pizza: some people take 1 slice because there are many people to feed.
some people take 3 slices, because there are many people to feed.
Two types of people reading this, the cannibals, and the cannibees
And now I’m just picturing myself cracking open a can of beer only for bees to start flying out!
It doesn’t make any difference what got us here in the first place. What matters now is what options are the best from now moving forward.
These scientists seem to say that trying to reverse climate change isn’t the right path forward. I wonder why.
edit: I wonder what makes them think that reversing climate change won’t work.
Someone was so offended by their misreading of my comment that they went through and downvote-bombed every comment in my history.
One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive. -- Hannah Arendt
What they're saying is that trying to reverse climate change won't be enough. It doesn't mean it isn't the right path, just that it won't go far enough.
Because it won’t work? That’s what I got from the article. I’m not sure what else you’re implying.
I mean why think it won’t work.
The article is literally right there. Why are you being weird about this?
“Fuck it, might as well keep doing what I’m doing.”
And that last group is going to be angry when they can't keep doing their stuff when insurance rates go insane so they can't buy houses or cars, or when food prices keep going up even faster than they are now.
And industrialists!
Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes.
!