Some simple facts about the future people would rather not face

[Kai]

Well, it's more like our grandkids are pretty much screwed. It's doubtful that we'll live long enough to see the climate change hit the "irreversible and totally catastrophic to human life" point.

I think we will see it.  The problem is not mere climate change in the "carbon = bad" sense.  It seems to me that recent volcanic activity has far outstripped our industrial activities in that kind of output.  I do not claim to know WHY the climate is changing, but it obviously is, and quickly.

The slow poison released by human industry will bring the human catastrophes.  We have produced compounds and even mutant atoms that nature would never have developed without humanity.  They are part of the systems on this planet now whether or not their introduction was accidental, planned, or incidental.  The impact of these substances is often subtle, but can be dramatic over time.  It is our poisons and the synergistic effect of natural and man made disasters that will bring us down, I think.  I also think some of will adapt in unexpected ways, but that's more of a faith statement.

I hate it when people who know exactly fuck-all about the subject feel the need to throw their two cents in.

Your opinion has been noted and given all the consideration that it merits.

Now, if you want to deal in FACTS rather than your half-baked ill-informed opinions, it's pretty evident given the current data that if something pretty drastic doesn't change in the way our energy economy works, we (that's humans, not volcanoes) will cause atmospheric CO2 levels to rise above 600ppm sometime around the turn of the century. All current scientific models point to 600ppm as being the threshold after which climate change will become a self-sustaining feedback loop ultimately causing an anoxic event to occur in the world ocean and more than likely causing a mass extinction on the level of the Permian-Triassic extinction.

You're right, I'm not totally informed. 
I only seems to me that the changes we WILL face are made much worse by our other forms of waste. 
I think CO2 is a major factor, and I don't know much about this 600ppm feedback and anoxic event you're talking about. 
I'll look into it as well as I can before giving an opinion again. 
Does this data and model you mention indicate increasing weather severity and extraordinary pattern change before the threshold is reached?

You THINK CO2 is a major factor. As in, it could be but I don't really have planetary evidence except maybe you know, VENUS.

Humans are freeing a fuckload of insulating gas into the atmosphere, carbon that has been sequestered for the past 300 million years in rock. This is significantly elevated CO2 levels we're talking about here, carbon that died, flattened beneath rock and would have fucking stayed there if humans hadn't dug it up and started burning it. Carbon dioxide becomes a weak acid, carbonic acid, when in contact with water; so higher levels of CO2 means more acidic water. Hm...I wonder why coral reefs are doing so badly? Oh RIGHT, they're made of fucking BASES. In addition, increased CO2 levels (and this has been shown experimentally) causes increased photosynthesis. Which isn't such a big problem on land, but in water you'll get huge algal blooms, often toxic. Which then seasonally die off, which is where the real problem comes in. Everything gets eaten, yes? Well, all that plant matter gets chowed on by oxygenic bacteria, until the oxygen is depleted (at which point the ocean is essentially dead), and then the anaerobic bacteria start in, with the waste product of sulfur rich gasses. Join that to increased sea level from melting of continental ice caps (mostly Greenland and Antarctica), and other possible suck in the form of shifting climatic patterns, and you've got a whole pile of oh my fucking god just kill me already.

And if you think about it enough, you'll become enlightened, by which I mean, committed. 

Why is SCIENCE both depressing and illuminating?

Because it illuminates where you went wrong. Which is usually somewhere horrendous and depressing.

[BabylonHoruv]

Okay, okay. I admit, I've been getting majorly depressed over this, and it's driving me more than a little nuts.

Worst case scenario: A second Great Dying. Ecosystem recovery doesn't start for 4 million years. Probably full recovery doesn't come until another 25-30, depending on how fast the CO2 levels decrease after industrial civilization falls apart. Previous increases were mostly vulcanogenic, so it's possible the levels will decrease faster.

So, four million years of shit, and possibly 25-30 more of recovery. Humans are generally ingenious about surviving in various climates, so I expect at least some to survive assuming it's not /worse/ than the P-T.

In my mind, theres a hell of a lot of information that needs to be saved and archived before this happens. Cultural and biological information. Assuming humans have 4 million years to prepare, that's plenty of time to perfect tissue/organismal cloning and biomanipulation. There will still be plenty of solar energy to gather, and wind, assuming the knowledge on building eletromagnets is not lost. Repositories such as archives, libraries, natural history museums, biobanks, these will become extremely important.

And all these thoughts are just to keep my brain from falling apart right now, because I do plan on living forever or to die trying. I do not look forward to 4 million years of desert.


Also, seed repositories. Very very important for continued human survival in various climates.

Deserts are beautiful, and fairly biodiverse.

The biggest issue, IMO, with seed banks is that seeds degrade, we need to actively grow as many things as we possibly can.  We'll want to create artificial environments as much as possible, to keep things alive.  And they'll need to be both compact and diverse.

[Freeky]

A living desert is not the same thing as what desertification turns regular nature into.

Am I right, science people?  Or am I blowing it out my pie hole?

[The Wizard Joseph]

IIRC (and I'm not 100% sure I remember this correctly off the top of my head) we'll start to see some pretty drastic changes at or around 450-500ppm. Hypercanes are a distinct likelihood, as is massive desertification of arable land.

Thanks!  I'll do more research before I try to say something meaningfully relevant, but what I've found so far rules out the volcano crap.  Seems like the flight problems caused by some may have actually reduced the overall emission for a bit by grounding the planes.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Well, it's more like our grandkids are pretty much screwed. It's doubtful that we'll live long enough to see the climate change hit the "irreversible and totally catastrophic to human life" point.

I think we will see it.  The problem is not mere climate change in the "carbon = bad" sense.  It seems to me that recent volcanic activity has far outstripped our industrial activities in that kind of output.  I do not claim to know WHY the climate is changing, but it obviously is, and quickly.

The slow poison released by human industry will bring the human catastrophes.  We have produced compounds and even mutant atoms that nature would never have developed without humanity.  They are part of the systems on this planet now whether or not their introduction was accidental, planned, or incidental.  The impact of these substances is often subtle, but can be dramatic over time.  It is our poisons and the synergistic effect of natural and man made disasters that will bring us down, I think.  I also think some of will adapt in unexpected ways, but that's more of a faith statement.

I hate it when people who know exactly fuck-all about the subject feel the need to throw their two cents in.

Your opinion has been noted and given all the consideration that it merits.

Now, if you want to deal in FACTS rather than your half-baked ill-informed opinions, it's pretty evident given the current data that if something pretty drastic doesn't change in the way our energy economy works, we (that's humans, not volcanoes) will cause atmospheric CO2 levels to rise above 600ppm sometime around the turn of the century. All current scientific models point to 600ppm as being the threshold after which climate change will become a self-sustaining feedback loop ultimately causing an anoxic event to occur in the world ocean and more than likely causing a mass extinction on the level of the Permian-Triassic extinction.

You're right, I'm not totally informed. 
I only seems to me that the changes we WILL face are made much worse by our other forms of waste. 
I think CO2 is a major factor, and I don't know much about this 600ppm feedback and anoxic event you're talking about. 
I'll look into it as well as I can before giving an opinion again. 
Does this data and model you mention indicate increasing weather severity and extraordinary pattern change before the threshold is reached?

You THINK CO2 is a major factor. As in, it could be but I don't really have planetary evidence except maybe you know, VENUS.

Humans are freeing a fuckload of insulating gas into the atmosphere, carbon that has been sequestered for the past 300 million years in rock. This is significantly elevated CO2 levels we're talking about here, carbon that died, flattened beneath rock and would have fucking stayed there if humans hadn't dug it up and started burning it. Carbon dioxide becomes a weak acid, carbonic acid, when in contact with water; so higher levels of CO2 means more acidic water. Hm...I wonder why coral reefs are doing so badly? Oh RIGHT, they're made of fucking BASES. In addition, increased CO2 levels (and this has been shown experimentally) causes increased photosynthesis. Which isn't such a big problem on land, but in water you'll get huge algal blooms, often toxic. Which then seasonally die off, which is where the real problem comes in. Everything gets eaten, yes? Well, all that plant matter gets chowed on by oxygenic bacteria, until the oxygen is depleted (at which point the ocean is essentially dead), and then the anaerobic bacteria start in, with the waste product of sulfur rich gasses. Join that to increased sea level from melting of continental ice caps (mostly Greenland and Antarctica), and other possible suck in the form of shifting climatic patterns, and you've got a whole pile of oh my fucking god just kill me already.

And if you think about it enough, you'll become enlightened, by which I mean, committed. 

The reasoning behind my uncertainty revolves around the money involved on both sides of the coin.  The status quo is worth a lot to the folks on it's current receiving end.  The potential cash and global financial influence available to the folks pushing for carbon taxes is on the other side.  I am quite sure the path we're on is ultimately destructive and the carbon and other emissions need to drop, but I'm skeptical of the motives behind the policies that may be  implemented. Power and money tend to make folks drop objectivity.  

The truth of the matter is something I don't know yet, but when I am convinced of a way forward that will not get us all dead unto the last monkey I'll be REALLY committed. Maybe. No promises.  

[Cain]

Deserts are beautiful, and fairly biodiverse.

Only because those species have adapted over millions of years to exist in them.  A new desert, appearing in 50 years or less, is going to be a desolate wasteland.

And are they biodiverse enough to support a population of 10 to 12 billion humans?  Maybe it's just me, but while I would mourn the destruction of the natural environment and so on, I'm rather more concerned with the continued survival of the human species first.

[BabylonHoruv]

Deserts are beautiful, and fairly biodiverse.

Only because those species have adapted over millions of years to exist in them.  A new desert, appearing in 50 years or less, is going to be a desolate wasteland.

And are they biodiverse enough to support a population of 10 to 12 billion humans?  Maybe it's just me, but while I would mourn the destruction of the natural environment and so on, I'm rather more concerned with the continued survival of the human species first.

That first is spot on, what we'd have would be wastelands rather than proper deserts.

As to the second, not without a LOT of technological help.  We can see that just by looking at population densities in desert areas currently, those few that do have big cities in them are almost entirely dependent on shipping in food and water from more hospitable areas.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Deserts are beautiful, and fairly biodiverse.

Only because those species have adapted over millions of years to exist in them.  A new desert, appearing in 50 years or less, is going to be a desolate wasteland.

And are they biodiverse enough to support a population of 10 to 12 billion humans?  Maybe it's just me, but while I would mourn the destruction of the natural environment and so on, I'm rather more concerned with the continued survival of the human species first.

Nail on the head! You're not alone. I reckon it's fast approaching the stage where nature needs to take a real fucking low priority, compared to humanity. If we need to eat every last panda to feed the people then so be it. A lot of people seem to be obsessed with preserving some uninhabitable wet marshy shithole, just cos some dumb bird lives there. Fuck it. Take a DNA swab, stick it in a database an, if it's so fucking important, we can clone a couple after we fix IMPENDING DOOM!

[Cain]

I don't think the two are incompatible, in the long term especially.  And certain environmental protections certainly would have helped to moderate the crisis we are currently in.  But I think it has to be understood in a "means to an end" sense.  The problem is, a lot of people are, when confronted with the coming ecological crisis, shrug and say "what do I care about X species" without considering the wider implications.  Equally, preserving biodiversity without taking into account the 12 billion apes who need saving also is a sin some are guilty of (Bohdi comes to mind).  If there has to be a choice, obviously humans win, hands down, but I think it is a false dilemma, that there has to be a choice made.  But in terms of ordering priorities, it is a helpful way to think, I believe.

Think of climate change like you would of nuclear weapons.  I find that focuses the mind tremendously.

[Golden Applesauce]

We have produced compounds and even mutant atoms that nature would never have developed without humanity.

"Mutant atoms" (by which I'm assuming you mean the superheavy artificial elements) all have ridiculously short half-lives.  They aren't in our environment.

[Elder Iptuous]

I don't see any way out beyond draconian control measures or a massive population decrease.
it is not difficult to imagine someone willing to enact that, but it would certainly be better for the psyche of mankind if nature would take care of the unpleasant necessities...

[BabylonHoruv]

I don't think the two are incompatible, in the long term especially.  And certain environmental protections certainly would have helped to moderate the crisis we are currently in.  But I think it has to be understood in a "means to an end" sense.  The problem is, a lot of people are, when confronted with the coming ecological crisis, shrug and say "what do I care about X species" without considering the wider implications.  Equally, preserving biodiversity without taking into account the 12 billion apes who need saving also is a sin some are guilty of (Bohdi comes to mind).  If there has to be a choice, obviously humans win, hands down, but I think it is a false dilemma, that there has to be a choice made.  But in terms of ordering priorities, it is a helpful way to think, I believe.

Think of climate change like you would of nuclear weapons.  I find that focuses the mind tremendously.

TITCM

[Cain]

IIRC (and I'm not 100% sure I remember this correctly off the top of my head) we'll start to see some pretty drastic changes at or around 450-500ppm. Hypercanes are a distinct likelihood, as is massive desertification of arable land.

Yup. 

Here is the breakdown, based on global average temperature rises, in celsius:

1 degree rise:  desertification of the Great Plains.  Possible interruption of the Gulf Stream and the cooling of Europe by -2 degrees, creating a "Little Ice Age".  Increased rainfall in the Sahel and West Africa, followed by severe droughts.  Bleaching of coral reefs, stronger hurricanes which may possibly extend into the South Atlantic (problems for Brazil's future oil extraction there), atolls start sinking.

2 degree rise:  Floods in the South of China, drought in the North (though the Yangtze River Project may mitigate both of these).  Increased ocean acidity, depleting global food supplies.  Plankton ecosystems will fail, and as these absord CO2, that wont be good at all.  Mediterranean Europe will turn to a more North African climate.  Greenland's icecaps start melting.  Lakes in North America will start to vanish, as will permafrost.  The Arctic will eventually become ice-free in the summer, intensifying geopolitical competition in the North.  Drought in California.  US food production will hold steady, so long as it moves towards the Great Lakes and into the west, yields increase in Scandanavia and Russia, Europe treads water (though there will be country-level variation), but most of Africa outside of the central Congo region will decline massively.  A large number of species are expected to become extinct due to this, mostly insects.

3 degree rise:  The Sahara Desert moves south.  The Kalahari moves north.  Botswana is covered in dunes in its entirety, as is much of Zambia, Angola, Namibia, western Zimbabwe and northern South Africa.  East Africa gets more humid – increased rainfall in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique etc, results in more flooding and malarial infestation.  The Australian interior and south become practically inhabitable.  General agricultural collapse is likely.  A permament El Nino effect may come into being, causing more floods and storms off the coast of Peru and California.  Drought increases in the Amazon region (which will almost certainly collapse once this temperature is reached, becoming desert), the US has milder winters, Europe has drier winters and Atlantic hurricanes become milder.  Central America will suffer further droughts, the Indian subcontinent's monsoons will become much more violent, the Indus River will dry up during the summer and collapse the Punjabi agricultural economy - probably causing Pakistan to instigate a nuclear war with India.  New York City will become more vulnerable to catastrophic flooding.  London and the Netherands at risk due to storm surges.  Rainfall shifts from PNW in the US to Canada and Alaska.  Between the previous stage and this one, a global food shortage is inevitable, causing massive global migrations which will have massive negative political effects. 

4 degree rise:  The West Antarctic Icesheet could become detatched from the mainland and become "uncorked" - resulting in much faster glacial outflow and adding 5m to global sea levels within decades.  If the East Antarctic icecap also melts, it will be closer to 50m.  Bangladesh, Holland and Egypt would be at risk, as would almost all coastal cities.  Agriculture would move to higher, marginal land, lowering yields.  Hundreds of millions would be displaced and the destruction of coastal cities would cause economic shocks that mean these refugees will have nothing provided for them.  China's food production collapses by 40% at this temperature, the Great Plains, the western US, the Pacific coast of S. America, southern Africa, the western Indian subcontinent and Australia all see major declines. Droughts will prevail in US south west, Central America, the Mediterranean, Southern Africa and Australia, South East Asia during the winter, and the Amazon, Siberia and West Africa during the summer.  Increased yields in Russia, Canada and Scandanavia will not close this gap.  At this point, global civilizational collapse becomes a very real possibility outside of the above named three areas.  Deserts will be present in Europe.  London and Zurich will see North African temperatures.  Flooding will devastate the South East of the UK, while the North West, in Scotland, will see milder weather.  If Scotland has not exited the Union already, expect it to once this starts.  Extremist and apocalyptic socio-political and religious movements will gain ground in this period, increasing the possibility of nuclear war, insurgency, terrorism and so on.  Melting ice will cause massive infrastructure damage in Russia, Canada and Alaska - diverting rivers and increasing flooding.  Mossy tundra will turn into bogs, increasing the release of methane - speeding up the process of global warming.

5 degree rise:  The Arctic is now permamently ice-free.  Two globe-girdling belts of perennial drought appear – encompassing the central Americas, southern half of Europe, the Sahel and Ethiopia, southern India, Indochina, Korea, Japan and the western Pacific in the north; southern Chile and Argentina, eastern Africa, Madagascar and Australia in the south.  More intense monsoons increase the flow of Indian and Chinese rivers.  Methane hydrate releases increase, compounding global warming and possibly causing tsunamis and similar effects in low-lying northern coastal regions.  The only habital regions will be the former polar strips, and refugees will overwhelm them if those nations let them - therefore expect fascist ideologies concerning lebensraum to be popular among the invading refugees, while a contra-fascist movement to keep the foreigners out to take hold among the remaining powers.  War is inevitable.  Global population loss can be counted in the billions.

6 degrees rise:  Deserts go as far north as the Arctic circle.  Killer "hypercanes" increase in frequency and ferocity.  Methane releases from collapsed methane hydrates will dissolve throughout the water column over time, each successive layer of water gradually reaching saturation point and priming the explosive. Assuming a trigger event, this drives a parcel methane-gas-saturated water, which releases a cascading stream of bubbles as the dissolved gas fizzzes out because of the falling hydrostatic pressure. This makes the parcel of water still more buoyant, accelerating its rise through the water column. As the water surge up, it drags the surrounding water up with it, spreading the process across the whole water body. At the sea surface, water is ejected hundreds of meters into the air as the released gas blasts into the atmosphere. This may generate a supersonic shockwave that ignites the exponentially growing methane blanket, pushing out an explosive front at speeds of 2km/second. This could release more energy than contained in the world's nuclear stockpiles by orders of magnitude, resulting in nuclear winter followed by renewed warming.  Global ocean convection shuts down, creating the aforementioned anoxic event.  This will build up hydrogen sulphide levels which be lethal to anything caught in it, while also helping to break down the ozone layer. 

[Elder Iptuous]

where is that from?

[Cain]

Based on Mark Lynas' Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet.  I did some checking around - climatologists seem to agree with him, despite some non-climatologist reviewers calling the book "alarmist".