And the only reason I posted the iceberg nonsense was to illustrate just how people are willing to attack a minor problem they can localize and not a genuine major one like mitigating climate change that would require a comprehensive long-term effort.
Moving an iceberg is not a minor issue. As I said, it could cause things to become worse fast.
Wow, man is classified as a “global superpredator”.
Ecologically, humanity has been noted as an unprecedented "global superpredator"[10] that consistently preys on the adults of other apex predators, and has worldwide effects on food webs. There have been extinctions of species on every land mass and in every ocean: there are many famous examples within Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, North and South America, and on smaller islands.Overall, the Holocene extinction can be linked to the human impact on the environment. The Holocene extinction continues into the 21st century, with meat consumption, overfishing, and ocean acidification and the decline in amphibian populations[11] being a few broader examples of a cosmopolitan decline in biodiversity. Human population growth and increasing per capita consumption are considered to be the primary drivers of this decline.
“global superpredator” Hadn’t heard that term before, but it’s pretty damned accurate a description of what we have been doing, not just for the past one two hundred years, but the past 10, 15K worth of years. We started small, but that was then, this is now.
Bob: The interdependence among autonomous states made them vulnerable to disruptions in trade in everything from raw materials and food to weapons and luxury goods. The nations today are probably more dependent on trade than ever before.Okay that's plenty true. But what happened back then was that trade routes collapsed, nations collapsed, but the biosphere, except for localized places, remained varied, and fecund - what we are doing today is destroying our foundational biosphere.
I hear many people convinced that humans will survive, but I’ve yet to hear anyone think it through, how can they, they seem very uninformed about our biosphere’s interconnected interdependence systems, nor do they appreciation the complexity and reach of the cascading consequences we are triggering.
Just like that little fairytale about, dragging glaciers across the ocean, as though all that were involved is the physical moving, and amount of fuel needed, and nothing else is plugged into their pretty stories. Or the millions, if not billions being spent to send humans to Mars. Jesus didn’t our immediate loss of interest in the Moon after we’d done it a few times, teach anyone anything? But that’s what a diet of Hollywood will do to peoples brains, probably worse than being pickeled in alcohol.
Bob, I’m curious if you can list some reasons why do you have faith in humans’ ability to survive beyond the next couple decades? What are they going to do after a few more decades of ocean acidification and increasing oxygen dead zones, and our global weather patterns turn into monsters of droughts, heat waves and stationary heart domes, torrential down pours, and wind storms and cyclones like we’ve never experienced, add to that a portion of our globe will become so hot and steamy that humans will not be able to physically survive because their sweat won’t be able to evaporate and cool their bodies.
{ That isn’t shit I’ve made up in my head, this is the past half century of paying attention and learning ever more about Earth and climate science. That is simply cold sober science speaking. The science that Faith-Blinded can’t comprehend so choose to pretend away - because they are so susceptible to fast talking bullshitters like the Kochs, Murdochs, Mercers, trumpsters. }
glacier, iceberg, tomato, tomaato
Citizenschallenge-v.3: “Bob, I’m curious if you can list some reasons why do you have faith in humans’ ability to survive beyond the next couple decades?”
I suppose the first is that there are just so many of us and so much stuff around. If we lose 95 % of the population it would take decades for those who remain to scrounge up all the available resources and screw up a significant part of the farm land. The less the population loss is, the quicker resources will be depleted. A greater initial population loss is good news for the survival prospects of those remaining.
The second is that a few decades is not anywhere enough time for the environment to become toxic enough to kill us all. As sea levels rise and over a long period with fewer sunspots global temps will drop. As ports become unusable trade will decline, manufacturing and agriculture will decline consuming less energy. The laws of scale tell us what’s left of both will be less efficient, therefore more expensive and consumers will consume less.
The third is that we have significant wind, solar and nuke energy production today. Even if we lose all of our energy generating capacity near the coasts the environmentally friendly parts which would remain inland would be sufficient for a smaller population. These would be viable for at least a couple of decades even if we aren’t able to repair or replace them.
My point is that the process of significant world-wide population depletion, while inevitable in the longer term, will be attenuated by less environmentally unfriendly activity on our part and hopefully the environment will recover before the population is completely eliminated. If so, it seems likely that after a dark age similar to what Cline presented we will re-discover our science and technology. We have the example of the Renaissance in Europe.
These would be viable for at least a couple of decades even if we aren’t able to repair or replace them.Some of your calculations are possibly true, but statements like this reveal a flaw in the thinking of people who think simply reducing population is somehow helpful. It ignores how many people are needed to maintain just one person who knows how to maintain a nuclear power plant. If the 5% of remaining people were all well educated scientists, your survival scenario makes sense, but those remaining wouldn't have much time for reproducing and educating the next generation. Accidents of disastrous scale would be inevitable.
I notice no mention of the biosphere or its state of health, - I believe if you familiarized yourself the details surrounding the reality and trends when it comes to ocean acidification, oceanic anoxic zones, insect die off, disruption of pollinators and flowering timing, disruption of hydrological cycle and seasonal patterns, to name but some of the major gut punches being delivered as we speak, but at a rate that apparently people think they can ignore - I believe you would be quite a bit less sanguine about humanity’s future.
Nor do I believe that you have any sort of realistic appreciation of the time scales for recovery Earth works with.
It’s deniable, but it’s certainly not escapable. 
Really quite tragic, it didn’t need to go down like this, but I guess it was a communal decision.
Looks to me like the Coronavirus is on track to decrease human pop by 2%. What is 2% of 7 billion?
Lausten: “It ignores how many people are needed to maintain just one person who knows how to maintain a nuclear power plant. … Accidents of disastrous scale would be inevitable.”
Of course you’re right. We are dependent on one another to some extent locally as well as internationally. I posted here about a conversation I had with a native american. He was confident his survival skills would save him until I asked him if he could make things like steel, glass and gun powder and if he could get salt without a truck to get him to the ocean. Few people I know have any survival skills or experience growing food.
I accept that accidents at certain facilities would have very bad consequences, but I believe the majority would produce only local problems. I don’t know the operational fail safe protections in nuke plants in the US or elsewhere, but I have been in the guts of one while it was being built. The plants in the US are nothing like Chernobyl. Ours are quite robust structures. There is little chance of a complete meltdown and not much else would be a significant threat.
I’d be more concerned about chemical/biological weapon labs and storage depots and labs such as the CDC where they hold really bad news diseases and viruses. These things can be spread by animals and around the world by the wind. A decline in society would probably lead to the loss of satellites for weather prediction leaving us vulnerable to storms. Without satellites for communication we would need land lines again. I can’t see that happening. And I don’t think we have the resources to keep the internet up and running without imports from Taiwan.
As the dude says: man, this could get serious.
Citizenschallenge-v.3: “Really quite tragic, it didn’t need to go down like this, but I guess it was a communal decision.”
Lemmings don’t learn. I’d really like to know what came before Göbekli Tepe.
Lemmings might learn, but just too late to put their knowledge into effective action (as they are hurtling to their deaths).
Where did “Gobekli Tepe” get in to this thread? Tho I am interested in the topic.
Where did “Gobekli Tepe” get in to this thread? Tho I am interested in the topic.Ain't that the truth. Before that, hmmm. Guess one would start looking here:
Tracing the peopling of the world through genomics
Rasmus Nielsen, Joshua M. Akey, […], and Eske Willerslev
Nature. 2017 Jan 18; 541(7637): 302-310
Abstract
Advances in the sequencing and the analysis of the genomes of both modern and ancient peoples have facilitated a number of breakthroughs in our understanding of human evolutionary history. These include the discovery of interbreeding between anatomically modern humans and extinct hominins; the development of an increasingly detailed description of the complex dispersal of modern humans out of Africa and their population expansion worldwide; and the characterization of many of the genetic adaptions of humans to local environmental conditions. Our interpretation of the evolutionary history and adaptation of humans is being transformed by analyses of these new genomic data. …
Göbekli Tepe is amazing and mind boggling, with supporting communities found throughout the area existing for hundreds of years. Then the world changed and they deliberately buried it. To know what they were thinking, that would be incredibly amazing, but alas.
Turkey's Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture? Scholars say the organisation needed to build the 12,000-year-old temple may mark the beginnings of class society and patriarchy ROBERT BEVAN- 3rd August 2018 - TheArtNewspaper.comAt around 12,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe in south-east Turkey has been billed as the world’s oldest temple. It is many millennia older than Stonehenge or Egypt’s great pyramids, built in the pre-pottery Neolithic period before writing or the wheel. But should Göbekli Tepe, which became a Unesco World Heritage Site in July, also be regarded as the world’s oldest piece of architecture?
Archaeologists are fascinated by Göbekli Tepe, an artificial mound spread across eight hectares at the top end of the Fertile Crescent near the present-day city of Sanliurfa. It features a series of circular sunken structures that had been occupied for a thousand years before they were back-filled and abandoned.
Construction techniques…Turkey's Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture?
TimB: “Where did “Gobekli Tepe” get in to this thread?”
Whenever I see something like this that seems to push civilization back in history I want to know why that civilization disappeared. I think a big part of that answer could be found in what it looked like before it failed. I get the impression from all we’ve found around the world that civilizations have been up and down for a lot longer and were more globally connected than commonly acknowledged. The failure we see coming is probably just another in a long string them.
Bob said,“I get the impression from all we’ve found around the world that civilizations have been up and down for a lot longer and were more globally connected than commonly acknowledged.”
TimB replies: I get that impression also.
I think a big part of that answer could be found in what it looked like before it failed.Here again "failed" is such an ugly concept when it comes to ancient cultures, particular when so little is actually known, let alone understood.
From the reports Göbekli Tepe is different, it wasn’t destroyed, it was buried. So it leads some experts to suggest evidence indicates that times had changed, people deliberately transitioned to a new social economic paradigm and moved on. Evolved out of, so to speak.
I don’t have any theories, so I like to listen to what the sober experts have to say.
Here an intro to the topic - only thing that’s for sure, there will be surprises as they learn more.
Citizenschallenge-v.3: “Here an intro to the topic – only thing that’s for sure, there will be surprises as they learn more.”
Very interesting video. Thanks.
I think it would be interesting to see someone link those sites to the climate and geology of the region at that time. The last glacial period reached a maximum around the time Göbekli Tepe was settled. The Sahara has undergone wet cycles during that period. The geology has changed significantly even since the time of Alexander. I can’t help but believe, just as with the land bridge from Siberia to North America, there are climatic and geologic connections to the timing of migrations and settlements in the region that would give us a better over-all picture of what happened to the people. Like you, I’d like to hear what the experts could say.
A few million years of accumulated ice gone in 7:30 minutes.
The Antarctic region just recorded a temperature higher than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time.
"We'd never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica," Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.The record was broken three days after the Antarctic continent recorded its highest temperature to date at a balmy 18.3 degrees Celsius (approximately 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit). That measure was taken at Argentina’s Esperanza station on the Antarctic peninsula that extends north towards South America.
We are in trouble.
I heard a presentation from a guy who is selling charging stations. Several new electric vehicles are coming next year and the carbon cost of electricity is going down, so even if you plug in to coal based power you will pollute less, and wind and solar are increasing. Plus things like computers are getting smaller and lasting a little longer, so we are throwing away less. All nice, but, “too little, too late?” Hmm, likely.