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So that's the climate f****d then

One could argue (actually there is no need to argue) that total biomass on the planet has broken all records since humans appeared.

HAD, until the gun and the Industrial revolution.
 
timola said:
I may have it wrong; but imagine a tree getting ever larger with more dividing branches over time (evolutionary). The number of branches is correlated to the number of species, almost by definition we have more species now than in the past. The last I heard, no big branch has been knocked off yet.

One could argue (actually there is no need to argue) that total biomass on the planet has broken all records since humans appeared.
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I see what you are saying, but I think that line of thought is dangerous because it leads to complacency. Personally, I do not want to live in a world where there are no living examples of:

African Elephants; Rhinoceroses, Whales and Tigers of various descriptions; Orang Utans; Mountain Gorillas; Polar Bears;

and that's just the more obvious mammals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_critically_endangered_mammals

Most of these are endangered due to either poaching or habitat loss due to logging. Some, eg polar bears, may not yet be critically endangered but are a graphic indication of the risks of climate change to the wider animal kingdom. I don't want to be part of a world that sits back and lets this happen.
 
russel said:
Scientific progress is not carried out by average people, its carried out by well above average people. In the case of switching to an economy powered by renewables, how long do you think it would take?, most likely five years if the will was there. Is there are precedent?, yes look at WW2 The US up to WW2 has produced about 3000 planes, by the end of WW2 it had produced 300,000, if we had a hundred times more renewables than today, its job done.
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I'll ignore your first sentence, the rest is at least optimistic, but ignores reality, much of the renewable technologies especially solar have a huge carbon footprint which in some cases it never repaid in their useful lifetime (they also contain harmful elements e.g cadmium). The real solution is nuclear (particularily Fusion) but because 'Greens' are scared of this it prevents us solving our overuse of fossil fuels. So it could be said that the 'Green Movement' is the problem, they need a reality self-check.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I see what you are saying, but I think that line of thought is dangerous because it leads to complacency. Personally, I do not want to live in a world where there are no living examples of:

African Elephants; Rhinoceroses, Whales and Tigers of various descriptions; Orang Utans; Mountain Gorillas; Polar Bears;

and that's just the more obvious mammals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_critically_endangered_mammals

Most of these are endangered due to either poaching or habitat loss due to logging. Some, eg polar bears, may not yet be critically endangered but are a graphic indication of the risks of climate change to the wider animal kingdom. I don't want to be part of a world that sits back and lets this happen.
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We all exhibit anthropomorphism which is a nice trait in my opinion and no doubt countless unseen unliked lifeforms are also endangered. Imagine how many dinosaurs you might have liked in a similar way. Extinction is a natural process and goes on with our without humans. Although to be avoided as strongly as possible the Holocene extinction may be an unfortunate gamble for all life on this planet to escape it's bounds. Even if the gamble fails, life will come back, probably stronger and without humans it may never produce a technological species with all it's abilities.
 
Tim,

Extinction is a natural process but extinction at least 100 times that of the natural background rate is not.

I don’t know why this simple statement is not sinking in.

Death is natural but if people were suddenly dropping off like flies it’s not much help to say, well, given enough time they’d be dead anyway so let’s not worry about this new cause of mortality.

Joe
 
P.S. Steve did not exhibit anthropomorphism — ascribing human traits to animals. What he exhibited was biophilia.

Joe
 
Joe P said:
Tim,

Extinction is a natural process but extinction at least 100 times that of the natural background rate is not.

I don’t know why this simple statement is not sinking in.
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I don't think I've denied this. We all know why too. I just think it may be the birth pains or a new era....If I know you right, your a Star Trek fan...I think this story was dealt with, maybe more than once.
 
timola said:
I'll ignore your first sentence, the rest is at least optimistic, but ignores reality, much of the renewable technologies especially solar have a huge carbon footprint which in some cases it never repaid in their useful lifetime (they also contain harmful elements e.g cadmium). The real solution is nuclear (particularily Fusion) but because 'Greens' are scared of this it prevents us solving our overuse of fossil fuels. So it could be said that the 'Green Movement' is the problem, they need a reality self-check.
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Timola, you have a fascinating constellation of beliefs and values across politics, science, social matters.
 
Tim,

Star Trek? I think I’ve caught an episode or two. ;-)

The thing is, we can have human and technological progress without taking out a lot of the living world . Pianos don’t need elephant teeth to be beautiful instruments and we can enjoy good food without stuffing our holes with a pound of meat, to give but two simple examples.

Joe
 
Joe P said:
Tim,

Star Trek? I think I’ve caught an episode or two. ;-)

The thing is, we can have human and technological progress without taking out a lot of the living world . Pianos don’t need elephant teeth to be beautiful instruments and we can enjoy good food without stuffing our holes with a pound of meat, to give but two simple examples.

Joe
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Morality and culture develop/change over time and are informed by progress in everything including science. Everyone in the world needs to find their own way, imposing your ideals on others is counter productive, arguing your case is a better way forward. The world is a chaotic system (and not perfect...thank gods!), so diverse that almost anything can happen, I can see hope for a wonderful future.
 
Tim,

I’ve imposed precisely nothing on anyone and I have argued my case, but apparently to no avail.

I’ll leave it at that.

Joe
 
We know that in the warm eras in the geological past, that the Arctic was a stagnant green lake at about 20C. At the same time the equator was still cool enough for animal life.
The only way for this to be possible is continuous global hurricanes to circulate the heat.
 
davidsrsb said:
We know that in the warm eras in the geological past, that the Arctic was a stagnant green lake at about 20C. At the same time the equator was still cool enough for animal life.
The only way for this to be possible is continuous global hurricanes to circulate the heat.
Click to expand...

I think the stirring also resulted in more rainfall so the hot equatorial zone didn't suffer as badly from the c50C max temperatures.

One downside is that we lose a lot of land area, much of it highly productive.

The top of Greenland is down to a more seasonal -11C now so hopefully just a blip but still quite warm for the dark, mid winter?
 
Yeah, the North Pole is definitely losing ice.

monthly_ice_01_NH_v3.0.png


February's data ought to be available in a bit, and with the record high temps in the Arctic recently it's hard to imagine a rebound.

Joe
 
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