Climate Change

[Emotion Flux]

Ok, so, I've been wondering about this for a while. Do y'all think it's too late to fix the effects of climate change? Or is there still some way we can save our planet? Personally, I think it's too late and the planet can't be changed to what it was... I mean, that's sad, but it seems to be the direction it's going. Of course I don't have any bright ideas, but there are people who are easily smarter than me that have come up with a few ideas (like solar powered electronics). 

So, what do y'all think? Is it too late to save our planet, and we're all doomed to endure the constantly rising tides and melting ice caps? Or do you think that somehow, some way, we can still combat climate change and it's not too late?

[animechat]

There always hope in future be technology, that helps fix problems.

 

[Emotion Flux]

51 minutes ago, animechat said:

There always hope in future be technology, that helps fix problems.

 

I hope it will. It'd be a shame if we wrecked our own planet.

[efaardvark]

19 hours ago, Rebel Spirit said:

Ok, so, I've been wondering about this for a while. Do y'all think it's too late to fix the effects of climate change? Or is there still some way we can save our planet? Personally, I think it's too late and the planet can't be changed to what it was... I mean, that's sad, but it seems to be the direction it's going. Of course I don't have any bright ideas, but there are people who are easily smarter than me that have come up with a few ideas (like solar powered electronics). 

So, what do y'all think? Is it too late to save our planet, and we're all doomed to endure the constantly rising tides and melting ice caps? Or do you think that somehow, some way, we can still combat climate change and it's not too late?

This is one of those loaded questions like "do you believe in aliens" so let me take a moment to make my position clear.

First, yes, climate change is a thing.  Certainly some and perhaps most of it is caused by humans.  It isn't just CO2 either.  We've diverted and/or polluted most of the fresh water on the planet, paved over, burned, or otherwise molested huge tracts of natural biomes that might have otherwise offset the CO2 emissions and taken care of at least some of the pollution, and come up with stupid schemes like consumerism that trade the planet's life-support infrastructure for quick but unsustainable profit.  If we're supposed to be the caretakers of this planet then we're doing it all wrong.

Second, we barely know anything about how all this is going to turn out.  We started this grand experiment without the faintest clue, and the people making money off it have used their wealth to hinder the people trying to figure out which levers have what effect in controlling - or at least predicting - the outcome in detail.  We're making progress, but it is an uphill battle against the moneyed interests and their pet political rodents.

But I don't think the planet is doomed.  In fact, "the planet" will do just fine in a physical sense.  It won't go back to the way it was, true, but that's always been the case.  Long ago a bit of biology discovered photosynthesis and released huge amounts of a toxic gas called oxygen into the planet's atmosphere.  It killed off 99% of the species alive on the planet back then and "the earth" has never recovered.  Fortunately for us.  To be sure, the current life inhabiting the planet is having quite a lot of problems of course, but there were pre-historic episodes that were even worse and life survived, (re)diversified, and bounced back after adapting to the new conditions.  I'm sure it wasn't fun for the species that lived through those times either but the physical earth is certainly not in jeopardy.  Nor will it turn into another Venus, or Waterworld, or another iceball.  Life in some form will certainly continue on no matter what we do, and for better or worse it will just as certainly include a large number of humans.  The changes we've made so far just aren't extreme enough to kill us all.  If you want to do that it would take an asteroid, or at least a full-scale nuclear war/winter.

What is likely to happen is that we will continue down a path of economic and ecologic chaos caused by shifting weather patterns.  We won't be able to grow food where we used to.  With our current lack of understanding of the changes we're making right now it'll have to be a somewhat inefficient trial-and-error process to find the new places where our staples like corn, rice, and wheat will be able to grow well.  Until we figure that out our crop yields will be lower and so food will be less available and more expensive.  Animal species that used to live in certain areas will also have to move with the climate to new places to live.  This includes humans.  Islands will disappear.  Water will disappear from some areas and become overabundant in others.  We'll likely find that a lot of us won't be able to take ready availability of necessities like food and water for granted.  (It doesn't help that idiots like the Russians are deciding now is the time to attack a place like Ukraine and taking most of the wheat production for eastern Europe offline.  Crazy Eddie lives in Putin.)  We likely will wind up with less land to share among us to live upon.  We'll lose a lot of economic value (houses, bridges, roads, power lines, etc.) as well as human lives to more extreme "natural" disasters such as floods, hurricanes, disease, and droughts.  Even famines will be a thing, especially for the less well off humans who won't have the economic means to move or adapt.

Overall humans will have it much easier than most other species but because of the speed of the changes that are occurring the normal pace of evolution and migration will have to be assisted for non-humans.   Us humans have made things even harder for natural adaption by erecting barriers like cities, roads, fences, and farms to plant and animal migrations.  We'll have to take a more active hand in things if we want to avoid losing a lot (more) of the species that we share the planet with.  Whether we are smart enough, or care enough, to provide that assistance is something we'll have to find out about ourselves.  We'll also have to  deal with "unexpected" problems like disease migrations as climate changes allow disease-causing organisms to move into new breeding grounds where already-stressed plants and animals (including humans) are less able to defend themselves from infection.

A lot of that is already happening.  It will get worse before we can possibly understand things enough to start making it better.

I could go on.  The rabbit hole on this one is deep and we're only just beginning to understand what effect the physical changes that we've made and continue to make will have.  The good news is that we actually are starting to understand things, and with understanding will come the ability to make the necessary social, legal, and economic modifications to the way we live to undo - or at least mitigate - the changes that we have brought about.  NASA and other scientific agencies worldwide have a whole fleet of spacecraft and many programs designed to monitor current conditions worldwide and feed data to thousands of scientists worldwide who are working to fix the problem(s).  I'm sure we'll figure something out.  In the meantime, blame people like the Koch brothers and their minions for profiting from the activities causing the changes and hindering the process of understanding and mitigation.

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by efaardvark

[Lone Lancer]

Not to sound rude but, an anime board is not really the proper place to discuss saving the world. A much more appropriate topic on here would be how Western Television can be redeemed and made suitable for watching with kids again. If you want to seriously discuss hot button issues then please take it to other boards that are geared more to that sort of thing. Okay?

If the possible effects of carbon emissions terrify you that much then I know a very good place for you to start...

 

Spoiler

plant trees - preferably evergreen conifers. This is something simple that almost anybody can do to help with carbon offsets. The Boreal Taiga Forests of the Northern Latitudes make up the world's largest carbon sink. If you plan to do this on a mass scale, great care needs to be taken to select from the appropriate seed stock to make sure that you don't just end up planting a bunch of monoculture clones that are genetically identical to one another ( like rooted cuttings from the same individual ). Too often these "plant 10 million trees" challenges overemphasize quantity without placing enough emphasis on quality. Planting legions of trees that are clones leads to eventual problems like sterility and susceptibility to disease - you don't want that. Although it takes longer to do it the proper way, it will pay rich dividends in the long run. You will likely need to build deer cages around many of them to protect them from herbivory - only a few trees are resistant to deer browsing. When choosing tree types, do your homework on the type of climate zone and soil culture that they need to thrive - they aren't all the same. Most importantly, planting trees on an industrial scale is not something that anybody should attempt unless they have their heart in it...you have to be dedicated to it and love doing it. The seedlings will need to be pampered and babied until their root system becomes established. One of the things that I try to do to make this type of work feel less tedious and boring to others is to make them care about the different types. One thing I always say, is that anybody who thinks that trees are merely boring objects in the background that never move around just hasn't seen the right ones yet. There are many unusual types which are very eye-catching. Ideally, endangered trees which are under pressure in the wild and need to get their numbers up, should be preferred for conservation purposes. Take care to avoid planting any trees with high invasive potential or that have been genetically modified ( GMO ) in labs ( "Frankentrees" ).

For further reading, I recommend this article...

https://www.jardin-florilege.eu/en/blog/wild-34-conifers-are-process-extinction

 

[Emotion Flux]

2 hours ago, Kōyamaki said:

Not to sound rude but, an anime board is not really the proper place to discuss saving the world. A much more appropriate topic on here would be how Western Television can be redeemed and made suitable for watching with kids again. If you want to seriously discuss hot button issues then please take it to other boards that are geared more to that sort of thing. Okay?

If the possible effects of carbon emissions terrify you that much then I know a very good place for you to start...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

plant trees - preferably evergreen conifers. This is something simple that almost anybody can do to help with carbon offsets. The Boreal Taiga Forests of the Northern Latitudes make up the world's largest carbon sink. If you plan to do this on a mass scale, great care needs to be taken to select from the appropriate seed stock to make sure that you don't just end up planting a bunch of monoculture clones that are genetically identical to one another ( like rooted cuttings from the same individual ). Too often these "plant 10 million trees" challenges overemphasize quantity without placing enough emphasis on quality. Planting legions of trees that are clones leads to eventual problems like sterility and susceptibility to disease - you don't want that. Although it takes longer to do it the proper way, it will pay rich dividends in the long run. You will likely need to build deer cages around many of them to protect them from herbivory - only a few trees are resistant to deer browsing. When choosing tree types, do your homework on the type of climate zone and soil culture that they need to thrive - they aren't all the same. Most importantly, planting trees on an industrial scale is not something that anybody should attempt unless they have their heart in it...you have to be dedicated to it and love doing it. The seedlings will need to be pampered and babied until their root system becomes established. One of the things that I try to do to make this type of work feel less tedious and boring to others is to make them care about the different types. One thing I always say, is that anybody who thinks that trees are merely boring objects in the background that never move around just hasn't seen the right ones yet. There are many unusual types which are very eye-catching. Ideally, endangered trees which are under pressure in the wild and need to get their numbers up, should be preferred for conservation purposes. Take care to avoid planting any trees with high invasive potential or that have been genetically modified ( GMO ) in labs ( "Frankentrees" ).

For further reading, I recommend this article...

https://www.jardin-florilege.eu/en/blog/wild-34-conifers-are-process-extinction

 

Yeah, I just wanted a serious discussion about something that I'm fearful of. I'll avoid serious discussions if I can help it, but I can't make any promises. After all, I'm only human.

[animechat]

14 hours ago, Kōyamaki said:

Not to sound rude but, an anime board is not really the proper place to discuss saving the world. A much more appropriate topic on here would be how Western Television can be redeemed and made suitable for watching with kids again. If you want to seriously discuss hot button issues then please take it to other boards that are geared more to that sort of thing. Okay?

If the possible effects of carbon emissions terrify you that much then I know a very good place for you to start...

 

  Hide contents

plant trees - preferably evergreen conifers. This is something simple that almost anybody can do to help with carbon offsets. The Boreal Taiga Forests of the Northern Latitudes make up the world's largest carbon sink. If you plan to do this on a mass scale, great care needs to be taken to select from the appropriate seed stock to make sure that you don't just end up planting a bunch of monoculture clones that are genetically identical to one another ( like rooted cuttings from the same individual ). Too often these "plant 10 million trees" challenges overemphasize quantity without placing enough emphasis on quality. Planting legions of trees that are clones leads to eventual problems like sterility and susceptibility to disease - you don't want that. Although it takes longer to do it the proper way, it will pay rich dividends in the long run. You will likely need to build deer cages around many of them to protect them from herbivory - only a few trees are resistant to deer browsing. When choosing tree types, do your homework on the type of climate zone and soil culture that they need to thrive - they aren't all the same. Most importantly, planting trees on an industrial scale is not something that anybody should attempt unless they have their heart in it...you have to be dedicated to it and love doing it. The seedlings will need to be pampered and babied until their root system becomes established. One of the things that I try to do to make this type of work feel less tedious and boring to others is to make them care about the different types. One thing I always say, is that anybody who thinks that trees are merely boring objects in the background that never move around just hasn't seen the right ones yet. There are many unusual types which are very eye-catching. Ideally, endangered trees which are under pressure in the wild and need to get their numbers up, should be preferred for conservation purposes. Take care to avoid planting any trees with high invasive potential or that have been genetically modified ( GMO ) in labs ( "Frankentrees" ).

For further reading, I recommend this article...

https://www.jardin-florilege.eu/en/blog/wild-34-conifers-are-process-extinction

 

Sometimes need to serious discussion even in anime forums.

[Emotion Flux]

On 3/19/2023 at 9:27 AM, animechat said:

Sometimes need to serious discussion even in anime forums.

That's true, sometimes uncomfortable discussions have to take place in order to fix important issues. Or try to anyway.

So, @animechat, what's your take on climate change? Do you think it's too late, or will we be able to actually heal the planet in time before countries get flooded by the melting ice caps?

[Clayton]

I blame James Bond. Why did he have to blow up the weather control devices? Couldn't he have brought some back with him?

 

Only one man can save us now...

 

 

[animechat]

On 3/31/2023 at 2:07 AM, Rebel Spirit said:

That's true, sometimes uncomfortable discussions have to take place in order to fix important issues. Or try to anyway.

So, @animechat, what's your take on climate change? Do you think it's too late, or will we be able to actually heal the planet in time before countries get flooded by the melting ice caps?

Seriously not possible  got 0,if don't limit then  be  1 grade warmer,limit then be only 0,001 warmer   but still mostly effects climate be  on earth...

I always hope  in future be tehnlogy has allow to fix problems was made in past.

Edited April 4, 2023 by animechat

[Emotion Flux]

16 minutes ago, animechat said:

Seriously not possible  got 0,if don't limit then  be  1 grade warmer,limit then be only 0,001 warmer   but still mostly effects climate be  on earth...

I always hope  in future be tehnlogy has allow to fix problems was made in past.

Yeah, I have the same hope. Maybe one day they'll be able to come up with a solution instead of the apocalypse that I'm afraid of.

[Clayton]

I live in Utah where January just went from being a month to a season. 

[Emotion Flux]

16 hours ago, Clayton said:

I live in Utah where January just went from being a month to a season. 

lol Do you like it or not so much?

[Clayton]

I can't remember any more... but it's over now... I think...