Quite outstanding, well written and logical for the dilemma humans are walking into, eyes quite wide open.


The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World's Climate
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-massive-climate-lie-that-will-destroy-human-civilization

I think an even bigger lie is that even many of those who understand the science underpinning Climate Change think that if we all got together and agreed it's a real problem and did everything possible to stop it that we still can fix it.  The reality is that first off the horse left the barn at least 20 years ago and second there is no political way possible to get every Goobermint and all the people in every country to do what is necessary and 3rd even if that were possible the economic fallout from putting the brakes on the global industrial machine that powers and feeds 8 Billion people would kill nearly as many of them as will die directly from unmitigated climate change.

What does look increasingly more likely is that ever expanding warfare will destroy the infrastructure necessary for extracting, transporting, refining and burning FFs and the global population of Homo Sap will begin its downward spiral until at some point there is less burning of FFs than there is sequestering of carbon through plant life regrowth and the CO2 concentration will start dropping.  This happy day is a long time in the future.  Nearer term, we're thoroughly fucked and it won't get fixed.

RE

What people don't get is that the current level of climate fubar is permanent.  If global corn harvest falls by 10% in a year because of global heating next year you have the same 10% crop loss plus a tiny sliver more of whatever. 

This ratchet.  I should buy myself one when I decide to retire.  They are on isle 7 at work.

The thing about ratchets is that direction lever on top only lets them turn one way.  That is the way CO2 works too.  Oceans take up some of what is in the atmosphere but that is slow compared to what is released.  Oceans take up about 29% of human CO₂ emissions.  One ton is absorbed by oceans for every 3.4 tons that humans emit.

To break even humans have to reduce CO2 emissions by 71%, otherwise concentration only increases.  The ratchet only turns one way and the level of fubar is permanent. 71% is not going to happen.  Even with Trump's help.


No rest for the wicked.  Go to the main page and look at the upper right corner.  Click the upper-right globe, and then look above the globe on top of the Doomscroll. 

The way I watch monthly CO2 shows how much it has changed in a year.  Seasonal variation is filtered out.  That gold ratchet has 90 clicks to turn a circle.  The current annual global warming climate click is at 0.29% and that is the lowest I have seen.  The climate ratchet only turns one way.  Half a percent of click is more typical.

So a bad harvest this year means a bad harvest next year.  There is no backing up.

Quote from: RE on Aug 21, 2026, 10:30 PMI think an even bigger lie is that even many those who understand the science underpinning Climate Change think that if we all got together and agreed it's a real problem and did everything possible to stop it that we still can fix it.

I don't think that is a lie. Some folks actually do believe, others might have believed at one point, that AT SOME POINT IN TIME that progress was being made. As to how many of them of either type is irrelevant. Believers are just believers, they beleive in God to save them, they believe in peak oil because they can't be bothered to learn what it takes to know why even when it finally does happen it won't be the event they think it will be, they believe in whatever nonsense on climate change comes out of their favorite TV channel.

I don't myself believe it is even about BELIEVING, it is about the practical aspect of getting countries of the world to act. The United Nations isn't for shit, all problems and solutions are local, and results of climate change unevenly distributed. Which means some folks are already dying because of it, in some places. Wipe out America west of the Mississippi River and the rest of the world can still just shrug and say "well its because of those westernly winds in America, it won't hurt ANY OF US.

Typical faith based issues.  There is a reason why Apocalypticism is a millinnia old. And arguably has only showed up a time or two, and not even for the reasons claimed, which were usually about the Gods getting angry.

Quote from: REWhat does look increasingly more likely is that ever expanding warfare will destroy the infrastructure necessary for extracting, transporting, refining and burning FFs and global population of Homo Sap will begin its downward spiral until at some point there is less burning of FFs than there is sequestering of carbon through plant life regrowth and the CO2 concentration will start dropping.  This happy day is a long time in the future.  Nearer term, we're thoroughly fucked and it won't get fixed.

I think humans will continue using those fossil fuels just as they have since claims of the new Ice Age was announced back around 1970. We are slowly doing other things, my EV is about to be joined by a new 14kW solar system and whole house battery backup. The battery feeds the house overnight until the Sun comes up in the morning, the size of the battery and usage in the house at night become my only limiting factors on the electrical side.

The world won't change as fast as we like, but I think that rate of change isn't going to offset consequences at this point. But because the outcomes of climate change will not be evenly distributed, the halfwits who think it isn't true will use examples from one side of the outcome distribution, and and the other halfwits will use the other.

People just be people. In the old days it was religion, which is nothing more than a belief system, the best system of social control ever invented by man. Nowadays it is us versus thems, on whatever "it" might be.

And I think my comment stands that for the 3 of us regulars here, personal doom will get us before any actual collapse has the ability to. You can yearn for being around when the real deal arrives all you'd like, but odds are, at best, the 3 of us will only be able to see the windup.

Quote from: K-Dog on Aug 22, 2026, 10:10 AM

What people don't get is that the current level of climate fubar is permanent.

Climate fubar is NEVER permanent. Ask any geologist. 40-50 million years ago present day Seattle was a nearshore, underwater environment. 15000 years ago Seattle was under 1/2 mile of ice. 50 million years ago Anchorage would be sitting in the current vicinity of southern British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, and probably exist as barely identifiable topography.

Los Angeles will arrive in offshore Alaskan waters in 60 million years, with whatever climate of the time that has moved on from the biped infestation and their brief interruption of the normal life cycle of our planet.

Silly Humans. Tricks are for Kids. There is no climate "permanent" on a planet alive with tectonic activity, regardless of a minor biped infestation.

The UN is worthless as global goobermint because:

A- It has no enforcement power
B- It has no taxation power

No independent source of income and no way to punish folks who don't follow the rules.

The consequences are of course moving along at different rates in different places, but all are moving in the same direction, as in getting worse.  It's true we likely won't be around to see the denoument of climate change, but we're already here to witness the End of the Beginning, if not the Beginning of the End (thank you Illuminati Scumbag Winston Churchill).  I'm satisfied with that.

There's nothing permanent, but in terms of it's lifespan for supporting life, the Earth is in it's senescence.  It took 4B years for life to evolve and only for the last 200K or so has there been self-aware (I won't say intelligent) life.  There's only maybe 300M years left before it will be burned to a crisp.  Not enough time for another round.  It's just kind of sad to see it crash and burn so quickly.  Kind of hard to fathom what the purpose of the whole thing was.

RE

Quote from: RE on Aug 22, 2026, 01:53 PMThe UN is worthless as global goobermint because:

Of course. And because humans can't even agree to have a reasonable way to agree on global issues....no issue will ever be solved globally.

Quote from: REThe consequences are of course moving along at different rates in different places, but all are moving in the same direction, as in getting worse.  It's true we likely won't be around to see the denoument of climate change, but we're already here to witness the End of the Beginning, if not the Beginning of the End (thank you Illuminati Scumbag Winston Churchill).  I'm satisfied with that.

But the history of doomsleuthing has been going on long enough now (itself an interesting topic on innoculating humans from yet another and another and another that didn't pan out) that folks don't believe something has ended, or something is beginning, or anything is happening at all, or everything is happening everywhere all at once, or pick your combination.

And then the internet comes along and pours gasoline on every half baked idiot's ideas that comes down the pike (David Ickes anyone?) and 50% of the human population being below average in intelligence.....right off the bat you slmost have a majority buying in.  Take a single PhD to lead the charge (Colin Campbell anyone?) and you have a movement. FLEE! PEAK OIL! MAYAN CALENDAR! YELLOWTONE GOING BOOM! ALIEN ENERGY WEAPONS BROUGHT DOWN THE TWIN TOWERS ON 9/11!

Quote from: REThere's nothing permanent, but in terms of it's lifespan for supporting life, the Earth is in it's senescence.  It took 4B years for life to evolve and only for the last 200K or so has there been self-aware (I won't say intelligent) life.

Bipedalism ancestors date back 6 million years. Stone tools, and by extension the brains it tok to make them, are dated back 3.4 million, with systematic and widespread evidence by 2.6 million years ago. So yes self aware for quite a bit longer than 200k. Bipeds making tools? Intelligent enough to become us.

Quote from: REThere's only maybe 300M years left before it will be burned to a crisp.

The Sun isn't expanding quite that fast yet, so what does "burned to a crisp" mean? Those Siberian Traps refiring up? Because a hotter atmosphere is just a hotter atmosphere, humans might not make it but other species will lap it up. The Dinosaurs LOVED a warmer atmosphere.

Quote from: RENot enough time for another round.  It's just kind of sad to see it crash and burn so quickly.  Kind of hard to fathom what the purpose of the whole thing was.
RE

Depends on one's beliefs. Churchy types figure they've already got this problem clocked. Folks who abandoned religion the instant they figured out it wasn't as advertised might not care about the purpose of it, because it doesn't exist. We are no different than megalodon in trying to figure out a purpose....megalodon was to eat stuff until there was no stuff left to eat. Then it would become extinct. Humans purpose is to subjugate the earth, excrete waste, and do it until they become extinct. A mindless self interest no different than megalodon in the end.

Clever monkeys have zero requirement to end up any different than other species. Megalodon made it 20 million years. Bipedalism has been around only 6-7 million. Only humans are egotistical enough to think we are anything special.

I date self-awareness back to the first art we have left around, which dates back around 40K years.  Anatomically identical humans to today date back at least 100K years and Neanderthal another 100K.  So no evidence for self awareness earlier.  I don't count simple tool use, Chimps use tools.



300M years because before the Sun goes Red Giant, it starts emitting high energy EM radiation that will make the surface uninhabitable.  Not just for people, all the way down to bacteria.

Relative to Megalodon and all the other creatures it's not just Ego, we ARE different because of the Art, the Science. the Philosophy...all the Thinking things that disappear when the Last of Us dies off.  All those Billions of Man-Hours spent studying for exams, writing poetry, playing Poker, inventing Iphones just time wasters on the way to extinction.  Why bother even caring about being alive?

It is certainly possible that all we amount to are agents of Entropy, I just find it unlikely.  The Universe is so well organized it seems unlikely to have popped into existence with no Reason and no Plan.  If the Purpose of Living is just to Die, creating a whole Universe with all these neat rules seems like a pretty big waste of time.  Also dumb if the reason is just to get an endless supply of Virgins to fuck, though that is better than nothingness as a purpose.

Anyhow, I just have a feeling there is a greater purpose, just we haven't been able to figure it out yet.  That's why it's such a bummer we're Extinctifying ourselves so rapidly.  We might have figured it out given another Million years.

RE

I think your measure of self awareness is a bit severe, but not unreasonable as an argument.

Quote from: RE300M years because before the Sun goes Red Giant, it starts emitting high energy EM radiation that will make the surface uninhabitable.  Not just for people, all the way down to bacteria.

I don't use Red Giant because no one knows what the hell that is, and "the Sun is losing 4 million tons a second of mass....WE'RE DOOMED!!!" is more opaque and helps seperate those with at least 80 IQ points from the usual internet denizen. Let alone doomers just repeating whatever another Apocalyptian has spoon fed them. Peak oil, Yellowstone going boom, aliens lurking in the oceans, blue ocean event, the Mayan Calendar, global cooling, The Population Bomb (since converted more recently to Population Reduction) and so on and so forth.   

Quote from: RERelative to Megalodon and all the other creatures it's not just Ego, we ARE different because of the Art, the Science. the Philosophy...all the Thinking things that disappear when the Last of Us dies off.

Nah. That is just species egotism speaking. We be special because I be part of "we". That is more of a "We Be Borg" angle. Art, religion, science, I could just as easily say size, teeth and ferocity. 

Quote from: REAll those Billions of Man-Hours spent studying for exams, writing poetry, playing Poker, inventing Iphones just time wasters on the way to extinction.  Why bother even caring about being alive?

A parent could answer that question easily.

Quote from: REIt is certainly possible that all we amount to are agents of Entropy, I just find it unlikely.  The Universe is so well organized it seems unlikely to have popped into existence with no Reason and no Plan.  If the Purpose of Living is just to Die, creating a whole Universe with all these neat rules seems like a pretty big waste of time. 

That at its core is the religious argument, all of them suppose the same thing. We arrived for a purpose, as defined by our deity of choice. Humans really don't like the possibility they are just an accident of all the combinations of biological matter coming together in a certain way and arriving at...them. The Universe is a Monte Carlo simulator, and one of the outcomes is us. And megalodon. And plenty of other unimaginable combinations that silly bipeds can't.

Quote from: REAnyhow, I just have a feeling there is a greater purpose, just we haven't been able to figure it out yet.  That's why it's such a bummer we're Extinctifying ourselves so rapidly.  We might have figured it out given another Million years.

RE

Ah, odds are we won't come even that close to megalodons reign as king shit of the world's waters. As folks age they think differently, with "what the fuck was I put here for?" at the top of the list. Seems like you have already defined it for yourself, run around, see stuff, have a good time while times are good, hedonism rocks, etc etc. But your point/question is why religion works. It gives an easy explanation, provides purpose and structure, allows individual humans to walk off into the sunset with hope.

At the end of the day, we humans are naught but stardust. And given enough time, might get to be some small contribution to those 4 million tons a second used to bring visible light to some small part of our Universe.   

That was a long way of saying you believe the Universe and Life is Random, but it clearly isn't.  There's a whole bunch of rules we already have elucidated from how many Quarks & Gluons it takes to make up a Proton to how fast light travels to what numbers of Protons and Neutrons are stable together to what nucleic acids code for what proteins to what numbers of appendages an animal will have...and so on.  If the Universe and Life were random, there would be no discernible pattern, but there is.

Religions just posit a purpose, science gives evidence of organization and planning.  It's a black box though, we can observe the effects of the organization, we just can't see inside the box to figure out how or why it's organized in this way.  Sort of like figuring out DNA is a Double Helix, it's too small too actually see the structure.  The way it was figured out was by bouncing Xrays off crystals of a DNA hydrate, which gave a reflection that if you analyze mathematically is characteristic of a helix.  Very neat trick actually, which Rosalind Franklin should have received the Nobel Prize alon with Watson, Crick & Wilkins.  She was the crystalographer.



Anyhow, DNA's structure and how it works is something that was inside the box we didn't know before 1953, now we do.  There's a whole lot more inside the box we still have little clue on, but in a million more years we might have had a shot.  How the brain works to organize thoughts and emotions is pretty much a mystery, besides identifying a few areas in the organ responsible for various tasks.  Better understanding that might have given a clue as to the purpose of the  organization necessary to build it.  Not gonna happen though.

RE

Quote from: RE on Today at 09:41 AMThat was a long way of saying you believe the Universe and Life is Random, but it clearly isn't.

Oh please. While I can count on a vast majority of people knowing nothing about statistics (and even fewer their involvement in the geosciencese), I did not imply random in my siloloqui to have it characterized so simply.

Life is NOT random, it just requires the right combination of circumstances/timing/ingredients, all the basic molecular components of which float around in space until...they no longer float around...and instead form...stuff....and said stuff sometimes becomes life. Or not. Might look random, or sound random, but you should know better. All these independent distributions of stuff...combining in weird ways, life of our type being one outcome, life of another type undoubtedly exists...elsewhere..and at other times. When a systeem as large as our Universe delivers life ONCE, there is no longer random, there is absolute certainty of a given outcome, the only question being the liklihood of occurrence across the unfathomable number of combinations of dead galaxies and current galaxies and galaxies yet to come. In that system, we are proof of certainty, and in that certainty, guarentee its existence. The only question is what are the odds of occurrence. Nothing more random that the odds on a rooullette table, which on any given table are immutable and known.

Human exitence isn't required for this math to work, the prokaryotes 3.7 billion years ago were sufficient. The only question left is the liklihood of occurrence per unit of whatever. Random....please....there is a distribution describing the occurrence EXACTLY...we just lack the information to know it yet.

Quote from: REAnyhow, DNA's structure and how it works is something that was inside the box we didn't know before 1953, now we do.  There's a whole lot more inside the box we still have little clue on, but in a million more years we might have had a shot.  How the brain works to organize thoughts and emotions is pretty much a mystery, besides identifying a few areas in the organ responsible for various tasks.  Better understanding that might have given a clue as to the purpose of the  organization necessary to build it.  Not gonna happen though
RE

The hubris of us bipeds. We know DNA. We be smartz. The amount we DON'T know yet is likely orders of magnitude beyond what we DO know yet. The Wright Brothers did cooler stuff, but DNA will probably be more useful in the long run. So what? Think it will cure our urge to over-exploit everything we touch? Will it stop people from suffering "us versus them" attitudes? Politicians from deciding the "good" citizens from the "bad" ones based on skin color and nationality?

Based on your understanding of DNA, do you think it has potential to cure humans from doing stupid things before collapse finally shows up and reduces our population enough to qualify as one?

Quote from: TDoS on Today at 12:45 PMBased on your understanding of DNA, do you think it has potential to cure humans from doing stupid things before collapse finally shows up and reduces our population enough to qualify as one?

The only thing DNA does is encode for the various proteins your meat package is composed of and uses in the chemical reactions that drive your metabolic system.  That isn't enough information to understand why humans do stupid things.  We'll need another million years to figure that out, so no, not before collapse finishes.

You repeated my point, which was that what's in the Black Box is far greater than what we have figured out.  DNA, as neat as it is in it's operation doesn't do a damn thing to explain the workings of the human mind.  I don't think that's an impenetrable problem though, given enough time and people as smart as me working on it. lol.

Even if all the planets in the universe that could support life had 8 Billion monkeys typing from the Big Bang until now, one of them would not type out the complete works of Shakespeare at random.  That's an easier problem than randomly starting life.  Gotta have a plan.

RE

Quote from: RE on Today at 01:24 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Today at 12:45 PMBased on your understanding of DNA, do you think it has potential to cure humans from doing stupid things before collapse finally shows up and reduces our population enough to qualify as one?

The only thing DNA does is encode for the various proteins your meat package is composed of and uses in the chemical reactions that drive your metabolic system.  That isn't enough information to understand why humans do stupid things.  We'll need another million years to figure that out, so no, not before collapse finishes.

Oh, I think behavioral psychologists and whatnot might be all that's needed if they have done some study, hell folks like Jared Diamond can detail humans in the past doing both stupid things and being subject to the consequences of climate change, local resource depletion, famine, plague, all the usual normal stuff.

HISTORIANS in general might be enough, the psychologists for putting the pieces together to figure out the how/when/why.

Quote from: REDNA, as neat as it is in it's operation doesn't do a damn thing to explain the workings of the human mind.

Hence my commentary above.

Quote from: REEven if all the planets in the universe that could support life had 8 Billion monkeys typing from the Big Bang until now, one of them would not type out the complete works of Shakespeare at random.

Of course they could...it just wouldn't be Shakespeare but its alien equivalent. Stop being so species centric, expand your horizons, take a crack at interesting cosmological questions involving not just what life is from a human view but alien life unlike anything human. Alien prokaryotes as it were, except as primitive as humans of now, and they advanced far beyond us, and then died when their star expired. Some are new now, some already became advanced and became extinct, some are as primitive as us, others are like....dinosaurs...except with brains and fingers and stuff. Who knows?

Quote from: REThat's an easier problem than randomly starting life.  Gotta have a plan.
RE

God does. If you swing that way. God doesn't place dice with the Universe. Doesn't need to.

Not Aliens dimwit, Monkeys.  Or Raccoons.  Or any other creature that could randomly peck at a keyboard with no plan.  If you can't even grasp the analogy, it's pointless to further debate this.

RE

Quote from: TDoS on Today at 12:45 PMThe hubris of us bipeds. We know DNA. We be smartz. The amount we DON'T know yet is likely orders of magnitude beyond what we DO know yet. The Wright Brothers did cooler stuff, but DNA will probably be more useful in the long run. So what? Think it will cure our urge to over-exploit everything we touch? Will it stop people from suffering "us versus them" attitudes? Politicians from deciding the "good" citizens from the "bad" ones based on skin color and nationality?

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

True that.