Underwater oxygen loss threatens earth's stability, researchers warn(scripps.ucsd.edu) |
Underwater oxygen loss threatens earth's stability, researchers warn(scripps.ucsd.edu) |
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-discove...
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_...
Your charts show several "green house gases" and with some squinting and handwaving could be used to "prove" that the seas are mopping up those gases and saving the planet.
I used to keep tropical fish and they somehow managed to survive in water temperatures way higher than the open seas. In an aquarium it is the surface water area (not volume) that generally decides how many fish can live within it. The surface area determines how much oxygen can be absorbed, Oxygenating plants help and agitating the surface increases the surface area - it does not "mix in" oxygen.
My point is: That's all bollocks.
What would be the closest “we’ve got to change or perish” moment we’ve successfully navigated?
I.E. avoiding population collapse due to lack of ecosystem carrying capacity? Eliminating famine? etc.
Banning CFCs perhaps?
If you want to go older and more localised you could look at forestry and fisheries laws. Sometimes we self-regulate and form a stable state, other times we over-extract until collapse
It is possible for us to work together and fix these things.
Edit:
Moving away from leaded gas might be another example.
(CFCs and leaded gas invented by the same dude, fun fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. Quite a legacy...)
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/ozone-hole-...
Climate change has been the story of evolution since life appeared on earth and aglae filled the atmosphere with gasses.
Also, it's important to realize that climate change, as we best understand it right now, is not a "or perish" type of situation. RCP8.5 has now been soundly eliminated from the set of potential climate trajectories, so what we're left with is a question of 1) how much mass migration will be forced upon the world, with concomitant wars and social strife, and 2) how much economic loss results from that, as well as from lost opportunity by not adopting cheaper renewable energy routes.
Technological innovation has done something absolutely remarkable: the future with the cheapest and most abundant energy is the one that switches to renewable energy and storage the fastest. Every day we delay, not only do we end up with a worse climate outcome, but we also just light money on fire, with worse economic efficiency. And in economies built on the continual compounding interest of technological advancement, we subject humanity to far greater poverty for every day we delay the transition.
Most of the world will benefit from this technological change happening quickly. There will be some outliers, like the US, that choose to be poorer and less influential by actively subverting renewable energy in the marketplace (the Trump administration has done a huge amount of economic damage in only a small amount of time), but the US will come around. Texas is leading the way, because they are actually market driven more than they are politically driven, but the rest of the US is kind of screwed on that front for a while.
Issue here is that becomes more common and underwater oxygen loss is approaching an “unsafe space” with impacts likely irreversible within human lifetimes, some of which could persist for centuries.
Coastal “dead zones”, impact of fish food etc.
Go team!
Can we please snap out of it and use something like if not common sense but at least a Fermi approach? Or did he die in vain?
“Plasma Tunnels Reveal How Dying Satellites Fall to Earth” (ieee.org)
Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels. The areas that are just developing widespread electricity now will do it far cleaner than the US did, skipping the lower development stages of electricity and jumping directly into the future, if that's what you're saying. But I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
I cannot for the life of me understand the increasing popularity of socialism and communism in the US today. Those forms of government have a proven track record of failure.
By any measure, China has come a long way since 1949.
You could say the same about Soviet Russia. By the 1980s it had stagnated, but the average Russian was incomparably better off than in 1917.
Vietnam has also done reasonably well since other countries stopped invading it.
American foreign policy hasn't exactly helped Cuba, either.