Environmental Mega-disaster within 100 years

[applecorped]

 

[xjx388]

I tend to listen to the scientists.

So do I. That's not the point. My argument is that if you want to reach the average person, then you aren't going to do that by reporting these same kinds of alarmist stories in the popular press that have been reported for the last few decades.

They report large timescales because they are reporting what the scientists find. Climate events take place over large timescales.

Science doesn't talk in the kinds of terms that the popular press does. You'd be hard pressed to find apocalyptic predictions in climate change research. THEY talk about probabilities of temperature change, sea ice change, CO2 levels, etc. it's the popular press that reports the apocalypse.

It is scary tho. Not because you are being manipulated, but because it's rational to be scared of what's about to happen to the planet we live on.

I'm not scared. As I said and has been confirmed in this very thread, it isn't likely to affect me, my kids or even my kid's kids very much. I don't think most people are scared because we've all heard about the coming apocalypse for most of our lives and somehow it never comes. Life Magazine said it was coming soon; NY Magazine is doing much the same.

The truth is that science can only predict what the climate will likely be like in 100 years given current conditions. They cannot predict all the complexities that will unfold as a result of that climate change.

 

[uke2se]

Science doesn't talk in the kinds of terms that the popular press does. You'd be hard pressed to find apocalyptic predictions in climate change research. THEY talk about probabilities of temperature change, sea ice change, CO2 levels, etc. it's the popular press that reports the apocalypse.

Scientists don't normally use words like "apocalyptic" in scientific papers. Instead they speak about "so and so many meters of sea-level rise" and "so an so much less fertile soil". This is then described as apocalyptic - rightfully so.

I'm not scared. As I said and has been confirmed in this very thread, it isn't likely to affect me, my kids or even my kid's kids very much. I don't think most people are scared because we've all heard about the coming apocalypse for most of our lives and somehow it never comes. Life Magazine said it was coming soon; NY Magazine is doing much the same.

That you aren't scared is because you don't give a damn about what the Earth will be like in 50 years. This is a fault in your character, not a fault in the reporting of science.

The truth is that science can only predict what the climate will likely be like in 100 years given current conditions. They cannot predict all the complexities that will unfold as a result of that climate change.

No, that's not true at all.

 

[Venom]

Is that a yes or a no?

Could the ethical choice be to let all humans die rather than kill most of them? That can't be right.

I would like to see widespread birth control education.

I would like to see a state sanctioned 2-child policy for much of the world.

Better education = quality > quantity

 

[Skeptic Tank]

There is no solution, because humans always want more, not less. The only way the solution will present itself is if we can sequester carbon from the atmosphere somehow (like planting 50 billion trees or something), or if the population of earth is dramatically reduced. I vote for the second.
The ecosystem will survive, albeit with some extinctions, I think.

Agreed. I have some very clear ideas about who should go, too.

We can use them as fertilizer to plant some of those trees anyway. Why not combine these two methods? Genocide and trees go well together.

Ideally, by controlling birth rates, which to a large degree requires education and better economic situations, which in turn leads to greater use of technology and pollution. Otherwise you actively have to kill people.

I don't think the severity of the issues and the timeline and the existing trends allow for any sort of "oh let's try to delicately get people to bring their birth rates down voluntarily!" type of scenario. Actively killing people, probably almost ALL people, is the only hope, I fear.

Well, yeah. My suggestion is only for an extreme scenario. Hopefully it won't get to that, but I suspect that it'll happen on its own anyway (wars, famine, etc.) But in extreme circumstances sometimes ethics have to give way to a greater principle.

Word. I used to be a hardcore pacifist / egalitarian and even went so far as to say dumb things like:

"I'd actually rather be killed than take a life to defend mine" (really, I said this.)
"I can't wait until we all mix so there's no more racism!" (really, I said this too.)

Now in the span of a few short years, I'm entirely at peace with the idea of 6 billion deliberately caused deaths. It's amazing what actually considering the implications of things, and learning certain harsh realities, can do to you. Others can be made to undergo this same sort of mental preparation for what must be done, too.

 

[uke2se]

Agreed. I have some very clear ideas about who should go, too.
We can use them as fertilizer to plant some of those trees anyway. Why not combine these two methods? Genocide and trees go well together.

Me too. Nazis and other extremists.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

Me too. Nazis and other extremists.

Well, there certainly aren't enough Nazis for that to be anywhere near sufficient to help the planet.

I can think of 1.5 billion "extremists" who'd make a good start, though.

 

[uke2se]

Well, there certainly aren't enough Nazis for that to be anywhere near sufficient to help the planet.

I can think of 1.5 billion "extremists" who'd make a good start, though.

There aren't that many extremists either. But getting rid of Nazis and right wing extremists, like the "racially awakened" would go some way to address the issue, and it would rid us of a slew of other problems as well.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

There aren't that many extremists either. But getting rid of Nazis and right wing extremists, like the "racially awakened" would go some way to address the issue, and it would rid us of a slew of other problems as well.

And what if we're correct about everything? Then you've just made your problems worse.

 

[Belz...]

Agreed.

<snip>

Word.

Don't pretend for a second to agree with me. I was discussing a hypothetical, and I find any idea out of your head vile and offensive.

 

[uke2se]

And what if we're correct about everything? Then you've just made your problems worse.

You aren't.

 

[Belz...]

You aren't.

But what if unicorns exist? What if pigs fly? What if Zeus is the one true god?

 

[Distracted1]

It always seems to be the "other guys" who need to go when it's time to throw people off the lifeboat.

 

[Myriad]

I don't think the severity of the issues and the timeline and the existing trends allow for any sort of "oh let's try to delicately get people to bring their birth rates down voluntarily!" type of scenario. Actively killing people, probably almost ALL people, is the only hope, I fear.

That's not how history (including natural history) works.

If we all lined up on the Plains of Meggido to be judged by God, God better be able to judge 2,400 of us or more per second, otherwise the queue will be getting longer rather than shorter.

At no time during World War II did the earth's human population decrease.* Do you have a plan to do "better?" Forget about any kind of selective genocide. On that scale, only the most indiscriminate slaughter will suffice.

My advice is to let the microbes handle it, as they always do in the end. They don't need help from your bombs or gas chambers, and they don't read your leaflets.


*Unless one focuses in on very short time intervals, such as the heat of certain major battles, or the hours the atomic bombs went off. Even in those cases, by the end of the day, those losses were made up.

 

[xjx388]

Scientists don't normally use words like "apocalyptic" in scientific papers. Instead they speak about "so and so many meters of sea-level rise" and "so an so much less fertile soil". This is then described as apocalyptic - rightfully so.

They don't even do that. The scientific papers give a range of possibilities -the further out, the greater the range. Then the media gets a hold of it and reports the worst outcomes in the range and then misleadingly say something like, "Scientists predict an Environmental Mega-disaster within 100 years!" But scientists have "predicted" nothing of the sort. Then they get some popular scientists who they can count on to paint a vivid picture of the disaster -et voila! The NY Mag piece is born.

That you aren't scared is because you don't give a damn about what the Earth will be like in 50 years. This is a fault in your character, not a fault in the reporting of science.

It's a fault in all our characters then. Here we all are, wasting energy on arguing with each other on the internet while sitting in our AC cooled homes/offices. I don't see anyone actually scared of the world 50 years from now. Like I said, the popular press has cried wolf for so long that no one cares anymore.

No, that's not true at all.

Of course it's true. You've already admitted that scientific papers don't predict apocalypses. They only give a range of possibilities.

 

[carlvs]

That's not how history (including natural history) works.

If we all lined up on the Plains of Meggido to be judged by God, God better be able to judge 2,400 of us or more per second, otherwise the queue will be getting longer rather than shorter.

At no time during World War II did the earth's human population decrease.* Do you have a plan to do "better?"...

It would not surprise me if Mr. "Tank" idea is the one used in the "novel" The Turner Diaries:

"...one of the most sickening scenes in the book, exceeded only by the epilogue, is "The Day of the Rope", a mass lynching where all white women who married black and Jewish men are hanged in public. Liberal Hollywood actresses and politicians are lynched. New York City, Baltimore, and Los Angeles are nuked, and Jews flee to Toronto, which is also nuked. Tel Aviv is nuked. Earl Turner carries out his suicide mission, flying an aircraft into the Pentagon with a nuclear bomb, which is where the diaries end.

An epilogue describes Turner's suicide mission as the turning point, but with several more years of guerrilla war degenerating into complete genocide, in which cities are taken one by one and their leaders, white or not, "liquidated" to establish the Organization's control. Food being scarce, it is rationed in such a way that "it was no longer sufficient to be merely White; in order to eat one had to be judged the bearer of especially valuable genes." North America is ethnically cleansed, with genocide committed against anyone not white and even "lesser" whites. The revolution spreads to Europe, sweeping across it in just a few months and blood "ankle deep". This leaves what the epilogue calls the "Chinese problem", which is "solved" using chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks leaving all of Asia uninhabitable for hundreds of years. What happens to Africa is left unsaid, except earlier the book says the "Negro race" suddenly disappears during the revolution."

 

[wobs]

There aren't that many extremists either. But getting rid of Nazis and right wing extremists, like the "racially awakened" would go some way to address the issue, and it would rid us of a slew of other problems as well.

And rid of all those telephone sanitisers, and management consultants.

 

[uke2se]

They don't even do that. The scientific papers give a range of possibilities -the further out, the greater the range. Then the media gets a hold of it and reports the worst outcomes in the range and then misleadingly say something like, "Scientists predict an Environmental Mega-disaster within 100 years!" But scientists have "predicted" nothing of the sort. Then they get some popular scientists who they can count on to paint a vivid picture of the disaster -et voila! The NY Mag piece is born.

But they do. You are apparently unaware of it, but the predictions are pretty dire.

It's a fault in all our characters then. Here we all are, wasting energy on arguing with each other on the internet while sitting in our AC cooled homes/offices. I don't see anyone actually scared of the world 50 years from now. Like I said, the popular press has cried wolf for so long that no one cares anymore.

I care, as do the leaders of my country. We're on our way to a fossile-free society by 2050.

Of course it's true. You've already admitted that scientific papers don't predict apocalypses. They only give a range of possibilities.

Ranging from pretty goddamn bad to apocalyptic.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... Now in the span of a few short years, I'm entirely at peace with the idea of 6 billion deliberately caused deaths. It's amazing what actually considering the implications of things, and learning certain harsh realities, can do to you. Others can be made to undergo this same sort of mental preparation for what must be done, too.

Best idea is to start a Big Guy club in every country, asking volunteers to come in to sign up as Cleansers, offering an exclusive, free "spiffiest gun," license and ammo clips included. Put a picture of a nude woman holding a shotgun in the back of the building's entrance foyer, and below it a box of tissues. In the middle of the room, a gravity-actuated sliding trap door to the "spike a braindead imbecile" chamber. It's a start.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The idea that the problems of the world can be solved by somehow "removing" a percentage X of the total population show an astonishing lack of grasp of the power of exponential growth.
If tomorrow we turned half of all humans on earth into Solyent, we would be exactly were we are today in about 2060, given normal birthrates.