Tipping Point? Earth Headed for Catastrophic Collapse, Researchers Warn

[GliderGuider]

Tipping Point? Earth Headed for Catastrophic Collapse, Researchers Warn

Barnosky and his colleagues reviewed research on climate change, ecology and Earth's tipping points that break the camel's back, so to speak. At certain thresholds, putting more pressure on the environment leads to a point of no return, Barnosky said. Suddenly, the planet responds in unpredictable ways, triggering major global transitions.

The most recent example of one of these transitions is the end of the last glacial period. Within not much more than 3,000 years, the Earth went from being 30 percent covered in ice to its present, nearly ice-free condition. Most extinctions and ecological changes (goodbye, woolly mammoths) occurred in just 1,600 years. Earth's biodiversity still has not recovered to what it was.

Today, Barnosky said, humans are causing changes even faster than the natural ones that pushed back the glaciers — and the changes are bigger. Driven by a 35 percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the Industrial Revolution, global temperatures are rising faster than they did back then, Barnosky said. Likewise, humans have completely transformed 43 percent of Earth's land surface for cities and agriculture, compared with the 30 percent land surface transition that occurred at the end of the last glacial period. Meanwhile, the human population has exploded, putting ever more pressure on existing resources.

"Every change we look at that we have accomplished in the past couple of centuries is actually more than what preceded one of these major state changes in the past," Barnosky said.

Followed by the usual blabla paragraphs about sustainability, the need for international cooperation and wanting the Earth to be a better place for the kids we shouldn't have had in the first place...

[Warren Stupidity]

1. The earth will be fine, human civ: not so much.

There are other rather unpleasant facts associated with a collapse: we can't really recover the way we did for example in europe after the collapse of the western roman empire. A new dark ages would be more or less permanent, leaving humans back in a low tech agro-economy at best, with some vestiges of the high tech past lingering around. Consider for example why some very rich humans are making serious bets on asteroid mining.

[Warpy]

2. Mining a few thousand years down the road will concentrate

on today's sanitary landfills in developed countries. Discarded plastic will be mined for the petroleum locked within it. Metals will be retrieved and re smelted into usable items. I have a feeling that after the collapse has run its course, a smaller scale technology will take its place--less owned by individuals and more owned by whatever structure takes the place of the plutocratic oligarchy.

One thing I would really mourn is the loss of modern dentistry. Bad teeth killed a lot of our ancestors in their 30s. They will likely wipe out our descendants, as well.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. I agree with the mining, except I see it as a LOT less than 3,000 years.

A lot of people in India are doing this now, just to live. On a small scale, but they live on or alongside "dumps", and pick thru for anything they can re-cycle.

[pscot]

8. Philippines too

And of course in China harvesting hightech waste seems to be part of the regular economy.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. I guess it all depends on what you call “The Earth” and what you define as “Fine.”

I get tired of this idea that if we bring the ecosystem down around our ears that, “The Earth will be fine.” We are potentially looking at a mass extinction event.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112716262

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2012/8535.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]10 million years to recover from mass extinction[/font]

Press release issued 27 May 2012

[font size=4 color=red]It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed.[/font]

[font size=3]Life was nearly wiped out 250 million years ago, with only 10 per cent of plants and animals surviving. It is currently much debated how life recovered from this cataclysm, whether quickly or slowly.

Recent evidence for a rapid bounce-back is evaluated in a new review article by Dr Zhong-Qiang Chen, from the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, and Professor Michael Benton from the University of Bristol. They find that recovery from the crisis lasted some 10 million years, as explained today [27 May] in Nature Geoscience.

There were apparently two reasons for the delay, the sheer intensity of the crisis, and continuing grim conditions on Earth after the first wave of extinction.

The end-Permian crisis, by far the most dramatic biological crisis to affect life on Earth, was triggered by a number of physical environmental shocks - global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification and ocean anoxia. These were enough to kill off 90 per cent of living things on land and in the sea.

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1475

[Warren Stupidity]

5. The planet. Even that little part of it called "life on earth".

Life on earth will continue even after we have finished fucking it up for humans and a bunch of other life forms.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Yup, this rock we’re riding on will be still be here.

And some forms of single-cellular life will almost certainly survive!

.
.
.

Personally, I think that humanity and other higher-order “life forms” are of intrinsic worth, but apparently you don’t.

Oh yeah… the Earth will be just fine! (So will Mars. BFD.)

[Bradical79]

13. Not sure if you're not seeing the point, or I'm interpreting his statement wrong

But that was actually something my environmental science teacher would say before linking us to the environment for people who think of environmentalists as tree huggers who care more about small forrest critters than humanity. He would say that he isn't concerned with the Earth. This rock we live on will likely be here long after we've all died off. The planet doesn't need saving, WE do. You should be concerned about the environment because we need it to live, and then he would go into making the many connections between us and our surrounding environment.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. A couple of thoughts

1. I tire of this meme, "The Earth will be fine," as modeled by George Carlin:
   
   In my opinion, it’s just another excuse not to do something.
2. The attitude of too many seems to be, “Oh well! We may die, but ‘Earth’” (by which they generally mean “nature”) “will be better off without us.” (The planet won’t notice we’re gone, but if we manage to eliminate our species, we’re liable to bring down many, perhaps most, of the other species with us.)

[GliderGuider]

15. What do you mean when you say

"it’s just another excuse not to do something"?

After all, it's literally impossible to go through life not doing anything, so I think there may be something missing from your sentence. I suspect it's wrapped up in the word "something". Is there a particular something you have in mind that we shouldn't have an excuse not to do?

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. Like “Jevons’ Paradox”

It is used as an excuse not to try to actively do something to positively affect the situation.

• “Jevons’ Paradox”—Don’t try to do anything positive, the result will be a net negative. (OK, then logically, we should try to do something negative, so that we accomplish a net positive! No, wait, the mystical “Jevons force” is too smart for that, because even though we’re trying to do something negative to provoke a positive result, the “Jevons force” would see through our conceit, realize we’re trying to accomplish something positive, and allow our negative to succeed, just to spite us!) So, it’s better to do nothing!
• “The Earth will be just fine!” We don’t need to take any responsibility for our actions. We don’t need to try to take any remedial actions. It would simply be arrogance for us even to attempt it. The Earth will be just fine no matter what we do! (This is the same reasoning used by the “Skeptics” i.e. that we are too insignificant to affect the Earth.)

So, for God’s sake, don't try to increase efficiency! And, whatever you do, don't try to do anything that might smack of “Geo-Engineering” (which in my opinion, is anything done, in a conscious attempt to affect the environment, you know, like planting trees, or cutting down kudzu, extinguishing fires, tearing down dams, saving whales, …)

[GliderGuider]

17. Are you really trying to equate stratospheric SO2 injection and oceanic fertilizing

With planting trees? With removing dams? With saving the whales?

Srsly????

Sorry, that's just lame.

What Are People Really Talking About When They Talk About "Geo-Engineering"?

Indeed, the pattern with "geo-engineering" proposals, so-called, so far -- whether they have called for dumping vast quantities of iron filings in our oceans or for spewing vast quantities of sulfur in our skies -- has been that precisely as these proposals become more detailed warnings of their deleterious environmental impacts have multiplied so explosively, concerns about their unknowable environmental impacts have proliferated so threateningly, questions about the legal, logistical, technical, funding hurdles to their implementation have ramified so breathtakingly that these proposals get tossed into the wastebasket by the serious within moments of being taken the least bit seriously.

Calling on our moral responsibility to "do something" does not give anyone carte blanche to take any risk they feel like.

[OKIsItJustMe]

18. No, I'm not—However they are (by definition) Geoengineering

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/geoengineering

[font face=Serif][font size=5]geoengineering[/font]
[font size=4]ge·o·en·gi·neer[/font]
[font size=3]verb (used without object), verb (used with object)

1. to make a large-scale effort to modify (the earth or its environment), especially to counteract global warming:
   Pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is one way to geoengineer the planet.

…[/font][/font]

This is not some new and novel definition of Geoengineering I’ve cooked up.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=1605&page=433

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming[/font]

[font size=3]Mitigation, Adaptation,
and the Science Base

Panel on Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C. 1992

National Academy Press • 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W. • Washington, D.C. 20418[/font]

…


Page 433

[font size=5]28
Geoengineering[/font]

[font size=3]In this chapter a number of "geoengineering" options are considered. These are options that would involve large-scale engineering of our environment in order to combat or counteract the effects of changes in atmospheric chemistry. Most of these options have to do with the possibility of compensating for a rise in global temperature, caused by an increase in greenhouse gases, by reflecting or scattering back a fraction of the incoming sunlight. Other geoengineering possibilities include reforesting the United States to increase the storage of carbon in vegetation, stimulating an increase in oceanic biomass as a means of increasing the storage and natural sequestering of carbon in the ocean, decreasing CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] by direct absorption, and decreasing atmospheric halocarbons by direct destruction. It is important to recognize that we are at present involved in a large project of inadvertent "geoengineering" by altering atmospheric chemistry, and it does not seem inappropriate to inquire if there are countermeasures that might be implemented to address the adverse impacts.

Our current inadvertent project in "geoengineering" involves great uncertainty and great risk. Engineered countermeasures need to be evaluated but should not be implemented without broad understanding of the direct effects and the potential side effects, the ethical issues, and the risks. Some do have the merit of being within the range of current short-term experience, and others could be "turned off" if unintended effects occur.

Most of these ideas have been proposed before, and the relevant references are cited in the text. The panel here provides sketches of possible systems and rough estimates of the costs of implementing them.

The analyses in this chapter should be thought of as explorations of plausibility in the sense of providing preliminary answers to two questions and encouraging scrutiny of a third:

1. Does it appear feasible that engineered systems could actually mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases?


2. Does it appear that the proposed systems might be carried out by feasible technical means at reasonable costs?


3. Do the proposed systems have effects, besides the sought-after effects, that might be adverse, and can these be accepted or dealt with?

…[/font][/font]

[stuntcat]

7. the

the fact that MY species will cause a world-wide mass extinction and rape the oceans and forests gives me horror and shame. I have a feeling though that "Earth'll be just fine!" will be repeated more and more for the rest of this century. Even though what humans are doing here is the clearest plainest Evil I can imagine.
Maybe by 2500 the planet will again be approaching the biodiversity it had until our species exploded. Whatever, it's right now that my heart has broken.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. I merely described a bit more accurately the catastrophe we face.

Earth is not headed for a catastrophe, we are, along with the other life forms who will have a hard time surviving in the new conditions. But then again other life forms will thrive. Is it also a catastrophe for them?

[GliderGuider]

10. People have a hard time with that perspective

Humans tend to be anthropocentric, and assume that we are actually the center of the universe. While that's not true in any teleological sense, the question of moral responsibility raises its little pointed head from time to time: since we messed it up through conscious acts, perhaps we have a "karmic" duty to do something about it.

I must admit I vibrate back and forth between these positions - we're just another life form/we are so not just another life form.

[caraher]

11. I think it's fine to embrace the limitations of what we are

In other words, on one hand yes, we are just another life form.

On the other hand, part of what it means to be a life form is to have some kind of inborn drive to have life forms like us carry on. So I think your "vibrations" are perfectly natural - you can't stop being human simply because on a certain level you recognize that humans don't occupy some special central place in the universe.

[GliderGuider]

12. One of my favourite thoughts:

"Deep Ecology completes the Copernican Revolution."

In other words, Man is now placed completely in context, as an embedded part of the natural universe and the web of life.

However, the fact that we understand our context doesn't change what we are - at least not that much. It can change what we choose to do, if we allow that understanding to penetrate our core of intrinsic self-interest.