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climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby onlooker » Wed 22 Nov 2017, 15:47:55

To make this a binary choice between humanity and the planet is truly absurd. Humanity like all living creatures currently on this planet are exquisitely suited to live here in their particular environmental niches. We humans, being Omnivores and with our tool making abilities and intelligence have demonstrated we can live almost anywhere on this planet.
This planet is a miracle in its capacity to nurture and sustain life. To abandon it or forsake it to go out into the vast and extremely inhospitable cosmos is insanity. We can build colonies nearby in the Solar System but Earth is and should remain our indispensable lifeline. To hear Kaiser speak of us humans like some robots incapable of diversity of behavior and adaptation is really a very limited treatise. Primates are capable of great levels of cooperation and altruism and in fact other animals also display these characteristics. In fact, reading some it seems the Universe has truly favored Cooperation and Interconnection in all its living inhabitants as well as in its basic embedded organization. Life here on Earth is a recurrent display of cooperation and competition. Humanity though on the whole is a stark example of the success of Cooperation as a strategy.
So, yes we are dramatically degrading the life sustaining capacity of this planet. but as others on this site have pointed out this will put us back in balance with Nature . Our dominion here is almost ended. This will entail a big die off of humans but probably not extinction. So, our best hope is that this correction and new equilibrium reached will pave the way for a new era in humanities evolution characterized by a profound visceral and collective understanding and appreciation of Nature and of being in harmony with it and with each other.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Wed 22 Nov 2017, 16:30:26

Although I understand the nature of your resistance to a profoundly disturbing idea, I see no basis for any optimism whatsoever. As has been demonstrated again and again in recorded history, hardship and adversity do not produce enlightenment, they only exacerbate natural greed and other quite natural, quite necessary and baser instincts.

There never before to our knowledge has existed an overshoot population of an intelligent species. If I'm wrong about that, then consider that when they overshot sustainable limits, the destruction was so widespread as to erase all traces of their existence from the planet. I believe that the simpler assumption, the most likely one, is that we are the first such species on this planet, and that the present situation is unique and unprecedented.

You are welcome to an unfounded optimism if it comforts you. However, I don't believe in miracles, dieties, divine guidance, or anything of that nature. I believe that human overshoot - a condition that actually started around 1800 and is still accelerating - is unstoppable, and will lead to resource conflicts up to and including nuclear combat.
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Of course, some people are born optimists.

FWIW, my beliefs are based on observed human behavior and a knowledge of human history. In case it escaped your notice, humans cooperating in an organized manner is what produced this mess we are all in. Nor did anything change in the basic instinctual behavior of the 99+% of humans I referred to before. They are still behaving as apes, enabled by technology, but unchanged in nature. Nor is cooperation - rare but not unknown in "nature", the rule, it is very much the exception. The rule is brutal competition, eat or be eaten.

Your assumption requires a fundamental change in the nature of humans, to become wise and care for the planet. I assume that no significant difference will happen except over a prolonged period of evolution, far beyond the near term FF exhaustion. I also believe that there is no way to prevent the eco system collapse, and that humans acting naturally will complete the destruction until we are - at least on the planet's surface - an endangered species.

If your "happy thoughts" result from anything but unsupported optimism, by all means share the basis for them.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 22 Nov 2017, 22:34:00

ol, you realize you are feeding a troll here, right?

I guess I am, too. :cry:

In local areas, humans have, of course, overshot within specific regions over and over again through history nearly everywhere on the planet. The groups that overshot either completely vanished from history/existence, or very often they set limits on themselves, limits known to anthropologists as tabus, that helped keep them from over-stepping the local natural boundaries.

So in one sense, all that has to happen is that modern global society come to the same conclusion that innumberable small communities have managed to discover with far fewer information gathering tools at their disposal...that we can't exceed the carrying capacity of the area that sustains us, that area now being the whole earth. Though the lesson has to get to an entire planet, we, just in time!, happen to have a pretty much planet wide pretty much instant communication system set up just to do it. So let's get to spreading the word! :)
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby onlooker » Wed 22 Nov 2017, 23:26:29

Yes Dohboi, and admittedly a solution or solutions are devilishly difficult but we ALL owe to posterity to do what we can including engaging our good friend Kaiser ie. the climate troll haha
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Wed 22 Nov 2017, 23:48:55

You two "gentlemen" had best stop calling me a troll, it is inconsistent with both PO Forum rules of online conduct, and with common courtesy. I am a person who does not share all of the same opinions that you have, about a scientific controversy that will not be resolved in any of our lifetimes.

Meanwhile, the situation we are in is not at all similar to local population overshoots that have occurred in the past to isolated populations, and the introduction of tabus, customs, or even laws such as China's "One Child" will not resolve the problem. Apes exist in social groups, which for humans are families and extended families, related by blood and marriage. Unless you have kids and grandkids, you likely do not understand the feelings invoked by offspring. I have one child and two grandchildren, and that is enough, but I was unsatisfied before I had such.

Understand, humans will reproduce until the ecology breaks down on multiple fronts. This will not necessarily be fatal, to a species that understands DNA, animal husbandry/zookeeping, and genetic engineering, and which has access to seed banks and the stored genetic material of thousands of animal species. Likely we can keep the ecology teetering along, at least well enough for a good enough sample of the range of human diversity to survive.

It's not like we have a choice. I keep hearing fools spouting foolishness, about how we (i.e. the human race) will acquire wisdom and act to heal the planet. It's not happening, not ever, because healing the planet means eliminating 90% or more of the humans alive, and managing our population below the sustainable limit, whatever that is. That's not happening, either.

Something else we cannot agree upon, I suppose. Eventually you will have to consider the one viable path we have: as long as we all can't live on Earth, let's find new homes off the Earth, where there is for all practical purposes unlimited space, unlimited raw materials, and unlimited power. Enough of each to support TRILLIONS of humans.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 23 Nov 2017, 00:17:10

Maybe troll's the wrong word, KJ.

But you must admit that you pretty consistently try to steer nearly every conversation on these threads toward your sci-fi fantasy of life in space.

I have repeatedly invited you to open your own thread on just this topic and talk to your heart's content about whatever space oddity you want to opine about. Everywhere else, the subject is off topic, boring, and annoying.

Note (from CoC): "...limit "off-topic" posts as much as possible so that the threads stay informative and clear..."

3.1.6 [avoid] Repetitive messages...

3.1.8 [avoid] off-topic posts, threadjacking ... and trolling...

the-peakoil-com-code-of-conduct-t40311.html
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 23 Nov 2017, 02:37:00

No, I don't admit that, because it's not true. But I do believe that your delusion of CC doom dominates your mind, and inhibits your ability to reason on other topics.

Both CC and FF depletion are mere symptoms of human overshoot. Whatever flavor of doom you favor, the space colony does not solve. Most of the 7.5 Billion die here on Earth in either doom scenario. The only difference is whether we preserve the human species and the knowledge base against all possible harm, which would be done by taking both off the planet.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 03 Dec 2017, 09:47:34

Off topic posts moved to correct thread HERE

I would appreciate it if you folks would at least pretend to stay on topic.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sun 03 Dec 2017, 10:29:00

Tanada wrote:Off topic posts moved to correct thread HERE

I would appreciate it if you folks would at least pretend to stay on topic.

:oops: Yes master. We can do better, If we have to. :)
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 25 Mar 2018, 14:56:54

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2 ... ide-000511

The great nutrient collapse
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 25 Mar 2018, 15:51:47

Looker – IMHO whatever changes have or have not developed in the nutrient value as a result of increased atmospheric CO2 it’s a long way from the top of the list of problems facing mankind today. For instance, making poor food choices, such as those which have led to rampant obesity in the US, is much higher on that f*cking list. LOL.

I made bad food choices in my youth. Now, as a result of my wife’s demands, the nutrient value of my diet is much higher then at any other time in my life. For instance I eat more f*cking seeds and weird grains then a bird. LOL
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 25 Mar 2018, 16:13:56

ROCKMAN wrote:Looker – IMHO whatever changes have or have not developed in the nutrient value as a result of increased atmospheric CO2 it’s a long way from the top of the list of problems facing mankind today. For instance, making poor food choices, such as those which have led to rampant obesity in the US, is much higher on that f*cking list. LOL.

I made bad food choices in my youth. Now, as a result of my wife’s demands, the nutrient value of my diet is much higher then at any other time in my life. For instance I eat more f*cking seeds and weird grains then a bird. LOL

True Rock. Some of the effects of climate change will come later. The most immediate deadly will be crop failures I think. So, it will be overkill to a certain extent. But I just see it as compounding negative impacts like sea level rise and wet bulb temps. So, all together is what makes CC so scary in my opinion
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby jupiters_release » Mon 26 Mar 2018, 02:06:01

onlooker wrote:https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

The great nutrient collapse
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.


Wow that totally debunks the global greening argument.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 28 Mar 2018, 13:56:34

A Boston judge just acquitted 13 pipeline protesters on the grounds that the climate crisis made it necessary for them to commit civil disobedience.

The Boston climate trial that might have been
Climate activist Marla Marcum and others were poised to test a 'necessity defense'
The prospect of a jury trial was rendered moot when prosecutors reduced the defendants’ charges from criminal misdemeanors to civil infractions (like a parking violation). Interestingly, the decision came after the prosecutors saw the list of expert witnesses prepared to testify for the defense—folks like world-renowned climate scientist James Hansen, former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute, and [Bill] McKibben.

Not to be dissuaded, Judge Driscoll went ahead and found the defendants “not responsible” for the infractions—“by reason of necessity.” That decision in itself may be unprecedented, but it hardly carries the same weight as a jury’s verdict in a criminal trial.
...

“The community that was fighting this pipeline jumped through all the regulatory hoops. The Boston City Council unanimously opposed this pipeline. The city of Boston is still in federal court, having sued FERC, asking them to reconsider the permit. Congressman Lynch was out in the streets with us a number of times. Senator Markey and Senator Warren have been vocally opposed to the construction of this pipeline. The state senator and the state representative for the folks in West Roxbury were actively opposed. Every elected official representing West Roxbury—except for Charlie Baker, the governor—was in active, ongoing opposition to this pipeline for years, and it didn’t matter. The community was against it. It didn’t matter.” ...
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/opinio ... have-been/
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Wed 28 Mar 2018, 19:59:16

dohboi wrote:A Boston judge just acquitted 13 pipeline protesters on the grounds that the climate crisis made it necessary for them to commit civil disobedience.

So if someone is worried enough about a problem, or a judge is sympathetic enough to a problem via his political lens, we should just throw established law, property rights, and decent behavior out the window?

Look, I'm an AGW alarmist. However, letting protesters do what they want instead of moving toward better policy for major components of humanity isn't going to make any measurable difference.

To me this is just another example how the courts have become too much about politics, and too little about logic and principle, and the established rule of law.

....

What's next? Rioting and burning down a city is OK, if one or two cops behave badly? (i.e. instead of firing them, taking away their pension, and jailing them if appropriate -- i.e. operating within the law and reason?)
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby GHung » Wed 28 Mar 2018, 20:41:32

Outcast_Searcher wrote:
dohboi wrote:A Boston judge just acquitted 13 pipeline protesters on the grounds that the climate crisis made it necessary for them to commit civil disobedience.

So if someone is worried enough about a problem, or a judge is sympathetic enough to a problem via his political lens, we should just throw established law, property rights, and decent behavior out the window?

Look, I'm an AGW alarmist. However, letting protesters do what they want instead of moving toward better policy for major components of humanity isn't going to make any measurable difference.

To me this is just another example how the courts have become too much about politics, and too little about logic and principle, and the established rule of law.

....

What's next? Rioting and burning down a city is OK, if one or two cops behave badly? (i.e. instead of firing them, taking away their pension, and jailing them if appropriate -- i.e. operating within the law and reason?)


Meh..... no harm done. What the Judge did was avoid another giant shit sandwich for a court system already stressed out and over-booked by people like your President.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby phaster » Wed 28 Mar 2018, 21:01:55

onlooker wrote:https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

The great nutrient collapse
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.


interesting,...

...Goldenrod, a wildflower many consider a weed, is extremely important to bees. It flowers late in the season, and its pollen provides an important source of protein for bees as they head into the harshness of winter. Since goldenrod is wild and humans haven’t bred it into new strains, it hasn’t changed over time as much as, say, corn or wheat. And the Smithsonian Institution also happens to have hundreds of samples of goldenrod, dating back to 1842, in its massive historical archive—which gave Ziska and his colleagues a chance to figure out how one plant has changed over time.

They found that the protein content of goldenrod pollen has declined by a third since the industrial revolution—and the change closely tracks with the rise in CO2.


just happens last week end started pondering how to build a few solitary bee homes for my garden

(so thought I'd ask if anyone here is into bees???)

basically need some guidance to see if an idea I came up w/ for combining material(s) for a solitary bee "nesting tube" works (came up w/ something I have not see on any other web site)

pictures as they say are worth a 1000 words

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz8IS ... Q3aUFDcVFn
truth is,...

www.ThereIsNoPlanet-B.org
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby dohboi » Wed 28 Mar 2018, 23:40:45

OS...how often have officers been put in jail for 'behaving badly' no matter how much protest such 'bad behavior' sparked?

ph...I love both bees (even though I am allergic to their sting) and goldenrod (which, despite popular misconceptions, do not cause allergies!). Your ideas seem sound, but I'm not any kind of expert on apiculture.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 29 Mar 2018, 12:56:30

dohboi wrote:OS...how often have officers been put in jail for 'behaving badly' no matter how much protest such 'bad behavior' sparked?

It's true that cops don't get jailed or sanctioned enough.

That doesn't give protesters a free pass. That was just an example, and I admit I should have used a better one.

If you google "protesters jailed" you'll get a LOT of hits. If you google "laws against protesting" you get this:

http://civilrights.findlaw.com/enforcin ... state.html
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: climate change "existential" threat to humanity

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 29 Mar 2018, 13:41:18

About this particular development, all I will say is that I feel a distaste and a modicum of contempt when a sitting judge, whose sworn oath is to dispense impartial judgement, makes a political statement.

Open political debate is the arena of both other branches of our government, and judges who indulge in politics are abusing their office IMHO.
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