Burning All Fossil Fuels Would Scorch Earth, Says Study (phys.org) 418
mspohr quotes a report from Phys.Org: A new study published in the Journal Nature Climate Change shows our precarious climate condition: "Using up all known fossil fuel reserves would render Earth even more unlivable than scientists had previously projected, researchers said on Monday. Average temperatures would climb by up to 9.5 degrees Celsius (17 degrees Fahrenheit) -- five times the cap on global warming set at climate talks in Paris in December, they reported. In the Arctic region -- already heating at more than double the global average -- the thermometer would rise an unimaginable 15 C to 20 C." This would make most of Earth uninhabitable to humans (although the dinosaurs seemed to do fine with it 65 million years ago). The report also stated that if fossil fuel trends go unchanged, ten times the 540 billion tons of carbon emitted since the start of industrialization would be reached near the end of the 22nd century. For comparison, "older models had projected that depleting fossil fuel reserves entirely would heat the planet by 4.3 C to 8.4 C. The new study revises this to between 6.4 C and 9.5 C," writes Phys.Org.
Gets popcorn... (Score:5, Insightful)
A serious question about the squabble. Even if GW is not AGW, even if GW is not real, why should we not as a species work to reduce our impacts everywhere?
Re:Gets popcorn... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should we? Is there something about future living things that make it imperative that they survive? Is there a particular reason I should care if humanity goes extinct after I die? An uncaring position is selfish, but it's also completely rational. There is no reason for anyone to suffer privation solely to allow future lives to exist.
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Did someone really mod this up 'Insightful'?? (Score:2)
Yup. Slashdot.
Re:Gets popcorn... (Score:5, Insightful)
The greatest scam of the 20th century was convincing people that selfishness is rationality. This is just flagrantly wrong. From the start of the enlightenment rationality was the driving force- but no enlightenment thinker would be so stupid as to think that rationality means not considering emotional considerations and certainly not dismissing considerations like empathy or caring about other people.
In fact, quite the opposite. Not acting with empathy, not caring about other lives is absolutely IRRATIONAL thinking. It's flagrantly NOT rational. See contrary to what the Randians like to claim - there is not nor can there ever be such a thing as a rational motivation. Motivations, by definition, are emotions - hence ALL motivations are NOT rational. Rationality is not useful in the least for selecting motivations - in the same way you probably shouldn't ask a fish to select between two baloon designs - it has absolutely no useful reference frame to compare them. Selfishness and greed are not rational motivations - they are emotions. Pretending they are not emotions is a deceit intended to make them look more acceptable compared to other motivations like compassion. But there is no truth to that, compassion is an emotional motivation, greed is an emotional motivation. They are both nothing but emotions. Rationality has nothing to do with either.
Rationality is a tool which greatly improves your odds of actually achieving your motivation, but it can never define what your motivations are nor can it select between them because it is utterly incapable of understanding anything about the concept of "motivations" since all motivations are emotions - the one thing that rationality can never be.
The closest overlap comes in working out how pursuing different motivations is likely to affect yourself - and since it will always and invariably harm yourself not to care about others (even if most people do not realize this), it is therefore utterly irrational to pursue those motivations.
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Exactly right. I see a lot of potential profit in planting more food and in converting fossil fuels to building materials, both of which reduce our impact as a species while making a boatload of cash for somebody more visionary than the carbon credit trading idiots who will spend more carbon flying to their next conference than I use in a year.
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Re:Gets popcorn... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's short-term vs. long-term thinking.
We all know that we need excess economic activity to spark each technological revolution. So the long-term thing to do is to spur as much economic activity as possible (which means fossil fuels right now) and that will spark the real nuclear revolution, with fusion and safe fission devices. Those will then obviate most of the need for fossil fuels over a decade. Nobody likes having to go to a gas station - inductive parking spaces and solid-state batteries will make our descendants sad for us!
But, we have oligarchs in charge of tax levers, and they're really concerned about their seaside homes and more than a few Europeans are concerned about the thermohaline cycle near Greenland changing the Gulf Stream and making Northern Europe into a climate as suggested by its latitude. So they will tax the shit of out everything today to try to forestall anything that will hamper their enjoyment in their lifetimes.
Those taxes (on top of the stifling regulations) then depress the economic output we need to get past fossil fuels. But if they die happy while third-world people are still burning dung in their huts, well that's really just fine by them.
Unfortunately, we're in a situation where the solution to AGW is to get rid of the oligarchs. Try telling that to an oligarch.
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Seriously.
Let's quit wasting time saying the world is going to go to shit because we're burning up too many fossil fuels. We know. 200 years, 237 years...let's just start working, now, to fix it.
Hell, in under 10 years we went from stuck within a few thousand feet of our planet to walking on another celestial body. We can kick this fossil fuels habit. All we have to do is quit bickering about how hard it is and put our axes to the grindstone.
Who's got the oil Chantrix?
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Cue the drama and fight.
A serious question about the squabble. Even if GW is not AGW, even if GW is not real, why should we not as a species work to reduce our impacts everywhere?
While I tend to find myself discussing more things in relation to "mankind" or "humans" as a whole, you'll find that the other 99.999% of society doesn't give a shit about doing that. We have FAR too many narcissistic attitudes about labels and titles in society today to reduce ourselves to the level of a species to tackle this issue properly, even when the problem at hand does affect every living thing on this planet.
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Of course, you can measure a real profit in saving our earth. There will be a point where the benefits will outweigh the investment. But it won't pay off in the lifetime of many people alive today, that's why they don't care. And because they are narrow minded and only care about their purse, not about the purses of the of the other humans on this planet, nor the purses of their grandchildren.
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Well, let's hope that enough people with the cash realize soon enough that there IS money in it (altnerative energy sources need to be build too and are profitable too).
Only then are we going to see some real progress.
On the positive side: there are signs that already some are getting it.
Burn baby burn! (Score:2)
I get the vibe that Mdsolar really wants us to invest in Nuclear power.
Humans are like toenail fungus . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
. . . they are very difficult to get rid of. Give 'em a scorched Earth . . . they'll figure some way to survive in it.
Will a lot of folks suffer and die in the process? Hell, yeah. But there will still be some humans around who have figured out how to thrive in that environment.
People like to joke about cockroaches being the only living critter that will survive the nuclear apocalypse.
When I think of the post-nuclear apocalypse world, I see a creepy looking humanoid, munching on cockroaches.
McCockroaches, indeed.
"Would you like some fries with your roaches?"
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> . . . they are very difficult to get rid of. Give 'em a scorched Earth . . . they'll figure some way to survive in it.
Partly by changing the schorched Earth itself. Many species have gone extinct in the last few hundred years due to human intervention, despite hardy natures and adaptability to changing environments. Humanity has tended to revise its own environment, especially since we gained access to bulldozers, cement, and mechanical power.
Don't worry (Score:2)
Seriously, I don't want to troll or anything but few years ago I asked similar question to a libertanian. What is going to happen when it all comes to an end [the fossil fuels]?
The answer was: the last barrel will cost infinite amount of money; the market will fix everything.....
How retarded you have to be to posit only one criteria for success or failure of any endeavor - the profit - is beyond me! It seems these people believe that as long as the market is fine, insignificant things like the laws of natur
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So in other words
Step 1. Run out of oil
Step 2. Charge $infinity for last barrel of oil
Step 3. ????
Step 4. Profit!
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I don't think that's a libertarian issue as much as it is an idiot issue.
Any and all libertarians I've had the pleasure of associating with don't think of the market as anything but a hindrance.
So what will happen when fossil fuels come to an end? Let's just say I hope you've invested in some alternative energy sources like solar and wind. We've got the sun for at least a billion more years before it becomes too hot for us on this planet.
Make it into plastic (Score:2)
If we started using plastic as the primary product instead of fuel, and as a building material, we'd render the fossil fuels safe for the atmosphere by locking the carbon up into a stable structure that lasts for 50,000 years.
Story is wrong. (Score:4, Funny)
Burning all the fossil fuels on the planet at once in a large thruster will SAVE the planet. All we need to do is move the planet further out in orbit from the sun and it will counteract all effects of global warming.
These scientists today are only looking for problems and not solutions.
Misealding title (Score:2)
Should read "Burning all fossil fuels will improve UK temperatures immensely!" -How soon can we start?
Does this mean... (Score:2)
Could Germany be having second thoughts about setting fire to that 85 square kilometers of lignite?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The carbon is useful (Score:2)
Canada and Siberia? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure you're counting the large landmasses in Canada and Siberia?
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Informative)
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:4, Interesting)
Firstly, "Purchase article full text and PDF $32", fuck that shit, if those whoremongers really believed that my actions was going to destroy the world their Greatgrandchildern need to live in, they would be paying me to read it!
Secondly,
Every other modeler since Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier [wikipedia.org], and especialy Svante Arrhenius [wikipedia.org] uses logarithmic relationship
These guys are claiming the entire body of Climatological "Settled Science" is wrong and they are just throwing it out there like a bunch of assholes trolling click-bait; at least on Facebook the click-bait trolls give you some side-boob or camel-toed yoga-pants.
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Informative)
Secondly,
Every other modeler since Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier [wikipedia.org], and especialy Svante Arrhenius [wikipedia.org] uses logarithmic relationship
These guys are claiming the entire body of Climatological "Settled Science" is wrong and they are just throwing it out there like a bunch of assholes trolling click-bait; at least on Facebook the click-bait trolls give you some side-boob or camel-toed yoga-pants.
You're confusing two different things -- Fourier and Arrhenius (and everyone else) say that there is a logarithmic relationship between the increase in CO2 concentration and the increase in temperature.
This paper (as do many others) claims that there is a (near) linear relationship between emissions and temperature.
That's because doubling the amount we emit will more than double the atmospheric concentration, as the oceans will be taking up a smaller part of what we emit. Look for articles that talk about the TCRE "transient climate response to cumulative carbon emissions", e.g. Le Duc et al 2015 [ametsoc.org]
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You're confusing two different things -- Fourier and Arrhenius (and everyone else) say that there is a logarithmic relationship between the increase in CO2 concentration and the increase in temperature.
This paper (as do many others) claims that there is a (near) linear relationship between emissions and temperature.
That's because doubling the amount we emit will more than double the atmospheric concentration, as the oceans will be taking up a smaller part of what we emit. Look for articles that talk about the TCRE "transient climate response to cumulative carbon emissions", e.g. Le Duc et al 2015 [ametsoc.org]
So they are saying that since the atmosphere contains over 2,996×10^9 tonnes of CO2, adding an addition 29*10^9 tonnes of CO2 will cause the atmosphere to contain over 6,000 *10^9 tonnes? I think you are grossly underestimating increased primary production; CO2 is a fertilizer, not a growth imhibitor.
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Okay, fine, I didn't mean to leave you Libertarians out, so I'll rephrase:
It has to be wrong, because the Invisible Hand wouldn't let the wonderful substances known as oil and coal be harmful.
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Which is little more than a recipe for fucking over future generations. Maybe you don't give a rats ass about your children and grandchildren, but I happen to care about mine, and I think, considering we are the dominant species on this planet, that we have a duty to be good stewards, and not just keeping doing bad things out of expediency.
Beyond that, it's already beginning to fuck up a lot of people, and it's only going to get worse.
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If you live in America, I'd be more worried about debt and the current political clusterfuck than any emissions from burning fossil fuels... Those are much more likely to affect the quality of life for your children and grandchildren than any small changes in average global temperature.
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Oh I'm worried about debt. I'm worried about my auto loan, though that will be paid off soon enough. I'm more worried about my children's student loans and the long-term impact on their finances (postponing retirement savings, home buying etc.)
Did you mean the "public debt"? I don't worry about that, I worry about politicians who use it as an excuse to cut social programs and ensure those who live in poverty remain in poverty. The US is a sovereign nation with a fiat currency. They literally issue curre
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We're not talking 500 years from now. We're talking in the next half century to 75 years.
You can keep trying to make believe this isn't a problem now, but it is. I realize you just want to throw anything in the air to get out of admitting the issue, but by the end of your post, you're just being a fucking idiot. It's like debating a five year old.
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No, they're claiming that the well known and verified properties of CO2 will inevitably lead to heating of the lower atmosphere and surface of the planet, because, you know, they don't believe there's a magic heat sink that just makes all that trapped solar radiation go away.
Some other sources (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the press release from the University of Victoria:
www.communications.uvic.ca/releases/tip.php?date=23052016 [communications.uvic.ca]
and here are some sources that discuss the paper without quite as much in the way of scare words and hype:
www.reportingclimatescience.com/2016/05/23/unmitigated-emissions/ [reportingc...cience.com]
www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2016/05/23/uvic-researcher-models-worst-case-climate-change.html [metronews.ca]
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Informative)
By 2015, the growing share of renewable energy in the national electricity market (26% in 2014, up from 4% in 1990) and the government's mandated CO2 emission reduction targets (40% below 1990 levels by 2020; 80% below 1990 levels by 2050) have increasingly curtailed previous plans for new, expanded coal power capacity.
... taken verbatim from the source you cite.
A few month ago I looked through all available data for Germany's coal plants, and I found that since 1997, no new coal plant has been licensed, and all coal plants that are under construction now were already licensed before 1997. And all of the current coal plants under construction are to replace older coal plants, but will not increase total capacity.
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45% of our power is coal. If you closed down coal plants and kept the nuclear you would decrease your total CO2 output more than you are now.
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, I'm sure all your answers will be answered if you $32 to access the full text of the article. Then again maybe it won't and the study is complete bullshit and you'll have spent that money for nothing.
We seriously need a shift in the way we share scientific data with each other. The system we have now is broken.
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Don't worry, I'm sure all your answers will be answered if you $32 to access the full text of the article. Then again maybe it won't and the study is complete bullshit and you'll have spent that money for nothing.
We seriously need a shift in the way we share scientific data with each other. The system we have now is broken.
To be fair, this doesn't seem to be "scientific".
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I'd say it works just fine.
Paywalls are a great bullshit filter. If this article turns out to be useful and interesting, then other outlets will run it. If it's the usual sensationalist bullshit, then they won't. Thus, you and I needn't concern ourselves with it for now. If it's important, we'll hear about it somewhere else ;-)
Re:of course it will burn.... (Score:2)
Your statement, as reassuring as it sounds, isn't going to help us at all. At the current rate there is no way we would last a single millenium on the current reserves.
And I don't know where you get the notion that a slower release would make things better.
Just hoping??
Re:of course it will burn.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering the rate at which new reserves are discovered as it becomes profitable to look for them in more difficult places, it wouldn't surprise me if we could find enough fossil fuels to last a millennium. That would of course make the Earth considerably hotter than this projection.
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[...]it wouldn't surprise me if we could find enough fossil fuels to last a millennium.
Me neither. I think we are getting nearer to the turning point where fossil fuels are not seen as viable anymore. Demand will start to drop rapidly such that, in the end, most of the remaining reserves will simply stay where they are...
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AFIAK, we have passed peak coal, where anthracite (the highest quality coal) is almost impossible to find, so a lot of coal plants burn lignite (one step up from peat.) Peak oil is long since behind us, especially with the pushback from fracking. Then, you get reports of solar actually being cheaper than fossil fuels, especially for maintenance.
There are three things which would kill fossil fuels dead that are still out there:
1: Nuclear power becoming accepted, or re-accepted.
2: Battery density getting
Re:of course it will burn.... (Score:4, Informative)
The point of the pseudo-skepticism is put off that day as long as possible. There are great fortunes founded on fossil fuels, and those that have those fortunes want to maximize profits. Of course, they have a lot of witless mindless soldiers who they've convinced that climatology is really a communist fantasy, and those brainless idiots run around the intertubes with oft-repeated memes and a near total ignorance of the actual science (though some of these people are a little more capable and thus have rehearsed a somewhat more complex version of the pseudo-scientific drivel).
But make no mistake, when Saudi Arabia is creating the largest sovereign wealth fund in history, it's not because it sees a bright future for oil.
Re:of course it will burn.... (Score:4, Insightful)
And I don't know where you get the notion that a slower release would make things better.
I'm not a denier, by any means, but it does make some sense that a slower release would be better. There are processes (photosynthesis being the most obvious) that take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Conceivably, there is some rate of fossil fuel use that is sustainable, but maybe that rate is so low that it's irrelevant on a global industrial scale.
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And I don't know where you get the notion that a slower release would make things better.
Of course slower release is better. The atmosphere is not a bottle! There are many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative, at work. The danger is not the total amount released, but entirely the speed.
The major carbon cycle for the earth is the geological cycle. All the carbon in the air, water, all life, and all fossil fuel reserves, all of that is a rounding error compared to the carbon bound up in the crust, slowly released by volcanic activity and reclaimed by erosion. That's a feedback lo
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If you burned it all tomorrow, yes the planet would burn.. burn it over a millennia, no, it won't.
What are you basing that on? CO2 in the atmosphere is CO2 in the atmosphere whether it gets there quickly or slowly (unless you're talking the millions of years it takes to be transformed back into fossil fuels, which we are not). And speaking of time-scales, economists seem hell bent on exponential growth in everything, including energy consumption. And they genuinely don't seem to give a damn where that energy comes from and at what environmental or human cost: ergo it will be the cheapest available so
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CO2 in the atmosphere is CO2 in the atmosphere whether it gets there quickly or slowly (unless you're talking the millions of years it takes to be transformed back into fossil fuels, which we are not).
ignorant much ?
why do you want it back as fossil fuels?
have you heard of photosynthesis? it takes far less time than "millions of years" for plants to remove CO2 from atmosphere.
so unless we burn the fossil fuels all at once, or at a very rapid rate, and remove most of the plants as well, earth is not going to be "scorched"
you are not going to make a rational case for a sustainable climate, and for less fossil fuel use, successfully, by peddling alarmist ignorant nonsense like this.
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Insightful)
Photosynthesis only removes carbon from the atmosphere for a short period of time. The plants eventually die and decay. When they do, that carbon is released back into the atmosphere. The problem is that all of this carbon was locked out of the usual carbon cycle by being buried deep underground (in the form of coal or oil). We're pulling it out of the ground, burning it, and putting it back into the normal carbon cycle. The only way to restore the carbon cycle to the normal (pre-industrial age) amounts of carbon would be to bury it again - an endeavor that would either be highly expensive (use some sort of atmospheric scrubber to remove the carbon and then pump it deep into the Earth) or would take millions of years (wait for the same process that formed the oil in the first place).
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Insightful)
The plants eventually die and decay. When they do, that carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
You do realize that carbon is not a gas, right? And that it happily bonds with A LOT of things other than oxygen? Also, dead plants don't break down into a gaseous state, any one with a compost pile can show you that. Some is given back into the atmosphere as CO2 and methane when the plants die, but not all of it. We can sequester a notable amount of CO2 as soil through decaying plant matter in a relatively short period of time (as in months given the right conditions).
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The fast processes that remove a small part of the CO2 are photosynthesis and ocean acidification.
But what does the long term draw-down is weathering of rocks -- and that takes a very long time, millenia.
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>ignorant much ?
You should take a look in the mirror.
>why do you want it back as fossil fuels?
Maybe because that at least has a chance of actually happening.
>have you heard of photosynthesis? it takes far less time than "millions of years" for plants to remove CO2 from atmosphere
Eeeeehhh wrong. Plants are carbon neutral. Every single atom of carbon a plant removes from the air with photosynthesis gets bonded back with Oxygen and turned back into CO2. Every plant gets eaten, some things eat parts wh
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Carbon is a heavy element, and breaks down out of the atmosphere eventually, in any form. If you're really worried about it though, i'd suggest planting fruit trees to end world hunger and lock up some carbon, and buying more plastic building materials to lock up even more carbon out of the atmosphere.
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Enlighten me: how exactly does plastic lock up Carbon from the air ?
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Oh, he apparently doesn't know that plastics are made from fossil fuels. I suppose you could argue that making them into plastics prevent them from getting into the air in the first place, and plastics have their pro-side in terms of nature (we use a lot less wood because plastic is cheaper so we cut down less trees for wood - now we cut them down for grazing land instead) - but they are also non-biodegradeable and end up causing a whole host of other problems.
Asphalt for roads is a better form of carbon se
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Informative)
The article makes absolutely NO MENTION of time frame
Absolutely no mention, except for the six mentions of time frame in the article: "by year 2300", "in 2300" (twice), "during the 2100-2300 period" (twice), "to the year 2300", plus 3 mentions of the 2100 time frame. And I stopped to count before even reaching the end of the first page (out of 6)
Re:of course it will burn.... IF (Score:5, Informative)
ten times the 540 billion tons of carbon emitted since the start of industrialization would be reached near the end of the 22nd century.
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Those who are in "policy making" are bad at math (Score:3, Insightful)
Those who are in "policy making" are bad at math and physic. I always get a sense that low IQ or low persistence people become politicians that always want to control others. It was always like that through ages, since the times when everyone knew that earth is being held by three giant whales or elephants.
Most of fossil fuels represent energy of sun converted to carbohydrates or coal. Of course burning all of it would heat up mother Earth. But burning it slowly, won't.
Those models that calculate carbon dio
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Most of fossil fuels represent energy of sun converted to carbohydrates or coal. Of course burning all of it would heat up mother Earth. But burning it slowly, won't.
Define "slowly". Show your working.
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The environment is a complex thing. While we have forces creating carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere (Humans and Volcanos). There are other forces that take them out (Plants and Oceans). Now there is also a problem with deforestation and water pollutants where we are double hindering our carbon footprint by polluting and removing things that can clean the pollutants.
So if we were to slow down our rate of pollution and increase forest growth than over time we could burn all the fossil fuels and
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So if we were to slow down our rate of pollution and increase forest growth than over time we could burn all the fossil fuels and not raise the temperature to obscene levels. As the carbon in the air will be absorbed to the mass of vegetation.
We would have to make certain that it wasn't released back into the atmosphere. A re-sequestering to emulate the previous sequestering that we released. Because the coal and oil and gas are just sequestered carbon from ages ago.
And unless humans start to think differently, we'd just burn the new plant life we grew for fuel anyhow.
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FYI, for equivalent time frames, cars in Europe emit more CO2 than all volcanoes on earth. That's just cars in Europe. Nevermind power plants, cement production...or all the bigger CO2 emitters in the whole rest of the world. Also, volcanic CO2 is part of that balanced system you referenced. Human CO2 emissions are not. We could change that by increasing forest growth as you say but unfortunately the opposite is happening. Best to slow down fossil fuel use with the intent of ending it entirely, asap.
btw, I
Headline and summary is sensationalistic. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I always thought we'd go the way of the dinosau (Score:5, Funny)
What, get smaller and grow feathers?
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Not to mention: it is incredibly unlikely that we could survive in Dinosaur climates - or they in ours. Plenty of things have existed in the past which could not possibly exist now. In the Carboniferous we had dragonflies with 1m wingspans. That could not possibly exist today - because their booklungs are just not efficient enough to get enough oxygen for a body that big in a climate where the oxygen concentration is around 21%, when they lived it was more like 40% - nearly twice what it is now. But - chanc
Re:Circle Of Life (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, 'Dino sludge' was a one-shot deal. On the timescales needed for new fossil fuel, the sun will have died to the extent that Earth CO2 levels will have dropped below the level needed to sustain plant life (and thus animal life). [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Circle Of Life (Score:5, Informative)
300-400 million years to form supposedly. The Oregon Rainforest Coal Deposits tell a different story- they're only a few feet down, possibly two or three millenia old, and are constantly replenished by the living forest sitting on top of them.
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300-400 million years to form supposedly. The Oregon Rainforest Coal Deposits tell a different story- they're only a few feet down, possibly two or three millenia old, and are constantly replenished by the living forest sitting on top of them.
Thanks for the info - Is this the Coos bay deposits? a 15 by 30 mile area of subbituminous deposits. As well, it's interesting - normally a millennia or three only produce peat, not that.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0982... [usgs.gov]
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Us humans are just another test run of this life.exe program
- and given our experiences with Windows (.exe, see?), we have little scope for optimism. Also, it shows that God is more a managerial type than an engineer, which explains a lot.
Re:This was published in Nature? (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, the "if nothing changed" scenario was kind of the point. And people modded this idiot up?
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Ok Mr smartypants, how would you come up with an informed energy policy without running models for different hypothetical future energy usage patterns?
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So, what, research teams aren't allowed to publish single scenario papers so they can be integrated into the wider body of research? Are you going to raise the funds required to run multiple scenarios for them?
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Maybe do it the way the IPCC does it by creating multiple scenarios based on sets of realistic assumptions.
And you pick the one you like best and declare a winner? It's obvious you don't like this scenario, so tell us one that is acceptable.
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Ok Mr smartypants, how would you come up with an informed energy policy without running models for different hypothetical future energy usage patterns?
You are asking someone who probably believes that the laws of physics has a liberal bias, so my guess id "Drill Baby Drill!"
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"But "if nothing changed" is an absurd assumption"
Not necessarily. We've been burning fossil fuels on a large scale now since the mid 19th century and we don't appear to be letting up.
Anyway, how would you expect them to model it? What assumptions would you make about the future? Please, fill us in with your insight.
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But "if nothing changed" is an absurd assumption, it's saying, "if there was no technological progress in the next 200 years". Its the same ridiculous assumption that all Malthusian predictions of disaster make, and why they never come true.
Hyperbolic histrionics much? Using present trends is a time honored way showing what happens if present trends are followed.
Tell me of the scientific value of these technological progress events and exactly what the progress consists of. As well, tell me of the political climate and exactly how it will unfold in the future.
They extrapolate something, your version of science involves knowing the details of the future.
Has nothing to do with Malthus.
Re:This was published in Nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This was published in Nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who doesn't make predictions based on nothing changing for 200 years will never learn what changes are needed in the next 200 years.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone who makes predictions based on nothing changing for almost 200 years is an idiot.
You're right. We should always assume something will change. And that something is .... nothing, because we have no data on what changes need to be made because no one did a study examining the status quo.
Re: (Score:2)
They are also basing their claim on simple linear models, not the current CMIP5 simulations; which basically says, "our peers thought so little of our grant proposal, we didn't get funding for real computer time."
Re: (Score:2)
Why, given advancing technology in a variety of other energy sources, do you assume exponential growth in fossil fuel usage?
Re:Survivable != Unlivable? (Score:4, Insightful)
If by "livable" you mean "pockets of humanity are able to eke out a subsistence living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland" then sure!
Re:Survivable != Unlivable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, I live in Iceland, where the average January low is -3C and the average July high is 13C. Such warming would make us the new California. Bring it on ;) I own some land, you can start booking your timeshares now.
It's funny, when you hear people talking about forestry here, they talk about things as if they only apply to our current climate. They plant douglas fir, sitka spruce, etc, trees that can become true giants in the right climate, but insist that they'll stay (comparatively) short and grow slowly because our climate is too cool for their optimal growth. Yes, our current climate, but these are trees that can live for much of a millennium. Heat up the country 4-5 degrees and you've turned the climate into that of coastal Washington / British Columbia where they reach their record heights; we have similar sun, soil, precipitation, summer/winter temperature differences, etc (windier, but that's in large part due to the shortage of trees).
Iceland once even had redwood forests. Washington/British Columbia species are not going to stay short forever if the climate keeps warming.
Re:Modeling the future (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, the trend remained unchanged in their minds. Modeling and fortune telling are more art and religion than actual science.
Um, no, the study isn't predicting that fossil fuel usage will go unchanged, it's predicting what will happen IF fossil fuel usage goes unchanged. That's a very important difference.
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Fossil fuel usage won't go unchanged. It also won't be used as fuel 40 years from now, but rather as building materials.
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Well you'd hope not, but papers like this might be necessary to make that actually happen.
Re:Puhleeze (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop peddling your bullshit anon:
They can't explain the mechanism
Bullshit: http://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-d... [ucar.edu]
nor can they explain why Earth was so much colder during times when CO2 concentration was 10 times what it is today.
Bullshit: https://www.skepticalscience.c... [skepticalscience.com]
They talk out of both sides of their mouths and are bullshitting for money, lots and lots of taxpayer money. Why do they need taxpayer money?
Bullshit: Fossil fuels recieve considerably more taxpayer money than renewables [wikipedia.org], and they only reason climate science needs funding is that fossil fuel interests insist on continuously pushing back on scientists recommendations.
You think there would need to be reports like this if, in the 70s, governments had simply agreed that yes, they do need to reduce and stabilise CO2 production? The only reason climate scientists continually need to prove themselves is because of big oil shills and IDIOTS LIKE YOU who are drinking their koolaid.
I mean hell you're not even honest enough to use your account.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes indeed, if only scientists could establish a mechanism.... [rsc.org].
You mean the Precambrian? Where every bloody factor involved in our planet's climate system was also different? Or were you under the impression that there's only one factor that determines Earth's surface temperature, carbon dioxide?
The most important factor is that the sun emitted much less li
Re: (Score:2)
"If you don't stop eating all that junk food you're going to get fat and probably die of a heart attack"
"OK, the sky is falling... Got it."
Re:Why believe the models? (Score:5, Interesting)
Models being too extreme? Hardly.
Forecast: 1990 IPCC sea level rise predictions vs. actuality [wxug.com]
Forecast: 1988 Hansen temperature predictions vs. actuality [skepticalscience.com] (Scenario B was described as most likely)
Forecast: IPCC temperature predictions vs. actuality vs. contrarian models [skepticalscience.com]
Backtest: IPCC AR1 sea ice loss models vs. actual [skepticalscience.com]
Temperatures are tracking, on long running average, right on what has been forecast. Sea level rise is well on the high end. As it stands, our arctic sea ice models predict significantly less loss than we actually see (we're not very good with sea ice right now, and this is well acknowledged by the IPCC).
I know there's been this contrarian myth circulating claiming that climate models predicted warming that never occurred. There's a nice, well-referenced debunking of it here [skepticalscience.com].