Enjoy Earth While It Lasts: Atmospheric Carbon Levels Pass the Point of No Return

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: FamCore

So........did your prof point out that there's nothing that can be done to stop this?

And my question is.............if there's nothing that can be done to stop this............why talk about it?s

If you're on an airplane at 30,000' and all the engines burn out, and it starts to fall from the sky........are you going to do anything any good by .............talking about it?

If a plague is sweeping across the world, is there a reason to even discuss it if there is no cure?
....Yes! thats exactly when to talk about it a lot..because necessity fuels innovation.

Tech got us into the mess, tech will get us out. look at any sci-fi game or detailed book and you will hear long diatribes about atmospheric scrubbers, airborne nanites repairing and terraforming atmosphere, etc...we are at a point now where technological progress is pushing us towards a type 1 planet..and this may be the natural catalyst needed to finally reign in our world through technological evolution.

Where you see despair, I see natural evolution of our species and the next stepping stone for humanity.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

Goodness gracious great balls of fire!!

that makes me squirm just a bit. Ouch.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: network dude

I did read the whole OP. Your point at the end about taking care of the environment doesn't make the point I highlighted any less silly.

Plus believing in and accepting that we are past the point of no return or even that AGW is real doesn't necessarily mean that you know of solutions to the problem. I hate when people try to do this lazy false equivalence, "well if you believe in AGW, how about offering some solutions?" Like just because I accept the science in front of me suddenly I know how to fix whats causing it.

It's cool, you didn't understand it. I didn't think you would. You can't do much with that stick wedged where it's at.
I just think if we are going to be told by the 99% of scientists that we have been told to trust that it's game over, we have little choice but to try to enjoy what time we have left. And As I said in the OP that you failed on epic proportions to grasp, Just in case those same 99% were wrong, we ought to clean up our act. Now please, don't let the blood vessels in your pointy head burst, I left some ambiguity there that the 99% might well be correct and we are all doomed.

And like a man who has been told he only has a year to live, no, he shouldn't kill himself right off, that would be stupid even for an SJW, he should live his life to the fullest and have no regrets. Kind of like I suggested in the OP.

a reply to: network dude

I don't know what's causing it; Pollution, GMO food, Radiation leaks, chemicals in the water supply, but people sure seem to be getting increasingly stupid.

Use your ****in turn signal! And when you get cancer, don't be a crybaby! Cancer rates and heart disease is skyrocketing...somethings causing it!

www.cancer.gov...

originally posted by: TheRedneck
Well, it's about time we got past the point of no return! Seems like it took forever...

Now we can quit worrying about carbon dioxide and maybe get some things done. Like that island of plastic floating in the Pacific. Like the dumping of hazardous industrial waste into our waterways. Like the deforestation of the Amazon. There's so much to do!

TheRedneck

exactly. plant a few trees, enjoy a few more sunsets. Perhaps have some engineer make a boat that has a big grinder on it and can pull up to that island of plastic, shred it and throw the bits into a barge and use it for recycled plastic products. Oh, and come up with some better ways to fertilize crops so we don't kill the oceans where the rivers empty into it.

You know, just busy work while we wait for the end to come.

originally posted by: olaru12

Use you ****in turn signal!

preach on.

The last time CO2 levels were higher than now, humans were not where to be found, so to say that we are causing this is nothing but a big lie, now be very afraid as the earth plunged into an ice age right after the high CO2 that lasted 1 million years.

Get educated in earth fluctuations people, if we are heading to another ice age after the CO2 raises we definitely will not survive.

a reply to: TonyS

there is a prototype of these giant contraptions that absorb C02 from the atmosphere, so perhaps there are ways to combat this that are not currently being discussed in this thread

Check it out

a reply to: SaturnFX

Tech got us into the mess, tech will get us out.

No, it won't. At least not now.

Tech already exists that could remove enough CO2 from the air to put us well below pre-industrial levels. Witness the link above this post (might wind being a few posts above this post) and Columbia University's Artificial Tree. The problem is, if this technology is allowed to develop, it will have two results: the lack of public acceptance of a carbon tax, and proof of the fact that CO2-based Global Warming is a hoax. Neither of these are acceptable to governmental designs, so the technology is oppressed at every turn.

TheRedneck

a reply to: network dude

I have to respond to this because too few seem to use this logic. I'm trying to understand why people believe we are spit on pavement in comparison to the actual durability of the Earth. If we get too hot for our britches, the Earth will get rid of us. Plain and simple. I have other thoughts on the subject, but I am not interested in a debate on ATS over something like this.

Great comments OP!

Like you, I've become jaded I guess. I grew up believing we were destroying our planet. I swallowed all of the goop the schools force you to eat. But honestly, if I believed everything, I'd have to divorce this country and divorce this llife. I'd have to stop living. It's not just I'm useless weight, but nature is inherently experimental. Contradictions are the default. It's grating to live with that knowledge--it's like bad music. Thus, all these years later, my conclusion is we're just as paranoid as we're right. And for that, I leave the real answers for the people who can provide them. I can make changes in my life, but as you say, the changes won't be enough. The changes have to address our energy and government to make the kind of difference necessary. And that also requires faith. Why do I say that? Because who knows all the science, except maybe the climate scientists? Almost nobody. So you need faith. And I don't have that faith. All I will do is whatever small things I can do and also keeping in mind we're facing many problems and they're all competing for our attention.

Suffice to say, I'm humiliated, maybe devastated by all this. It doesn't exist in isolation--there're many problems going on. But this is nothing new. We've always faced challenges. And as you say, there're still a lot of things we don't know. I believe more people than not will survive, no matter what it requires, even as fair numbers of us will let go and even gladly meet our demise if it comes to that. So many of us are barely holding on by a thread.

My statement above about divorcing this countyr and this life is directed at what I learned in school. It was "left-leaning." I leanred we were killing our planet and carelessly engineering for gain. It seemed hopeless. I learned a country is selfish, just like people are. Nationalism is a poison, but it's also part of the identity of a people and region. We're not emotionless saintly robots who can change overnight. I can't simply cut myself into more than one piece and live that way. Poisons are all around us and inside us. It's not like any of us are going to live forever either. I have to accept the imperfect parts of myself and the world I live in, or I see no reason to continue living at all.

We're animals. We make mistakes. It's part of life. I guess that's what I'm saying. We will find answers, it just won't happen all at once. And even as we're finding answers we're confronted by new problems.

I still cheer everytime someone TRIES. You know? There're so many unbelievable people. We humans are far from a lost cause! We don't need anyone to help us--be it god or benevolent aliens. We did this. We beat through it. We suffered and we survived. And I think we'll continue to do that, even when things look grim. We're afraid and there's good reason to be afraid.

EDIT: I just realized now the post I wrote above is darker than I feel things really are. I'm optimistic about our collective future. It's just this optimism is contrasted by a bleaker outlook stemming from fears. I believe that while it's always a race between progress and destruction, it's all too easy to let our fears overtake what's essentially a bright future not without its faults.

originally posted by: jonnywhite

EDIT: I just realized now the post I wrote above is darker than I feel things really are. I'm optimistic about our collective future. It's just this optimism is contrasted by a bleaker outlook stemming from fears. I believe that while it's always a race between progress and destruction, it's all too easy to let our fears overtake what's essentially a bright future not without its faults.

Since we alone can't fix this, we will have to wait for some alternative to a lot of what we need/want to survive. So in the interim, why not be happy. Ignore the stuff you can't change, and embrace the challenges of the things you can.

Perfect!

The period of human evolution has coincided with environmental change, including cooling, drying, and wider climate fluctuations over time

humanorigins.si.edu...

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: SaturnFX

Tech got us into the mess, tech will get us out.

No, it won't. At least not now.

Tech already exists that could remove enough CO2 from the air to put us well below pre-industrial levels. Witness the link above this post (might wind being a few posts above this post) and Columbia University's Artificial Tree. The problem is, if this technology is allowed to develop, it will have two results: the lack of public acceptance of a carbon tax, and proof of the fact that CO2-based Global Warming is a hoax. Neither of these are acceptable to governmental designs, so the technology is oppressed at every turn.

TheRedneck

And thats okay. The tech exists, even better than it will one day. Now like trying to hold back the tide, there is only soo much supression that can happen before it simply leaks out. America will never let it happen? well America isn't the world, they cant control the world, every single innovator, or person with access to the internet, etc.

Point is, humanity isn't doomed..emergency results in advancment, and yeah, with each major advancment, there is growing pains (if what you say is true, the growing pains here is economical), but adjustments are always made and we as a species moves on.

originally posted by: NthOther

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

So we should just jam the throttle down to full, break off the handle, and party while the earth burns?

Unless you want to prolong our own mass suicide, thereby ensuring that each successive generation is progressively more miserable than the last.

In my only response to the misery aspect, it matters not the
cause-- I am convinced the misery will be invented and perpe-
tuated by the greedy politicians and not so special interests.
After all life is gone in the northern Pacific, it will be blamed
on randomly drifting counties of plastic... and not madmen
playing with shortcutting safety standards on nuclear reactors.

You want 120-200 years of greenhouse gases in one shot?
Watch one volcano erupt.
How about two billion cars going from a Northwest suburb of
Chicago to work every day, an impossibly high number BTW, for
CO2? Watch just one 747 take off from O'Hare 27 Right. Same amount.

Anybody who owns a 24 room mansion and rides around more
than half the time in an airborne oil burner-- is too much of a
hypocrite for me to desire making his foundations any fatter.

But yeah, sure.. whip out another bucket of cocktail sauce.
But for God's sake don't turn off the lights at the seafood buffet:
because it may not get any less bright in there in a few years.

Mother Earth has its secrets.

www.dailykos.com...

Time to convert. Convert or die!

a reply to: SaturnFX

Point is, humanity isn't doomed...

I absolutely agree.

Global Warming was always a hoax intended to separate people from their money. The planet is not going to explode in a fiery flood over a slight increase in a minor trace gas. To those who say, "but what if you're wrong?" I say, "what if pink pygmy elephants fly across your house while they need to take a poop?"

Similar probabilities.

Now if someone wants to talk about cleaning pollution, I'm on board.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

The planet is not going to explode in a fiery flood over a slight increase in a minor trace gas.

That would seem to be a hyperbolic strawman argument. Congratulations. Two logical fallacies for the price of one.

a reply to: network dude

exactly. plant a few trees, enjoy a few more sunsets. Perhaps have some engineer make a boat that has a big grinder on it and can pull up to that island of plastic, shred it and throw the bits into a barge and use it for recycled plastic products. Oh, and come up with some better ways to fertilize crops so we don't kill the oceans where the rivers empty into it.

So are you? Do you plant trees? Shred the garbage? Or did you contribute like many others to the no-turning back?
Its always easy to have remorse about what should have been done.. Did you teach you neighbor ? Or is it more important that only you left no tracks? " A good traveler leaves no tracks " ~ Lao Tzu 600BC. Is it your motto ?

When taking part in society and of society you also have an obligation to it, to many forget its a privilege not a right.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Global Warming was always a hoax intended to separate people from their money.

So those with a degree and contributed their lives to a cause, are wrong and you are right?
What field are you specialized in? Conspiracy? PhD in Conspiracy theories?