• We did it Earth! Carbon emissions may have delayed the next ice age by 50,000 years
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[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35307800[/url] [quote]The next ice age may have been delayed by over 50,000 years because of the greenhouse gases put in the atmosphere by humans, scientists in Germany say. They analysed the trigger conditions for a glaciation, like the one that gripped Earth over 12,000 years ago. The shape of the planet's orbit around the Sun would be conducive now, they find, but the amount of carbon dioxide currently in the air is far too high. Earth is set for a prolonged warm phase, they tell the journal Nature.[/quote]
This sounds like a good thing, is this a good thing?
Well, it won't get too cold for a good while. But it is fairly likely to get too hot for a while, and that's almost as bad, if not worse.
Hip hip hooray!
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49526687]This sounds like a good thing, is this a good thing?[/QUOTE] I think the ice age being delayed is a good thing, but the reason for it likely means humans will be in trouble before the ice age would have happened in the first place. Kinda like if a would-be murderer changed his mind about murdering someone, because he found out someone already has plans to kill them sooner.
Further proof that anthropogenic global climate change is real I should reiterate evidence**
Anthropogenic climate change is real - and fucking awesome! If anything we need to pump more of that shit into the atmosphere to see if we can end ice ages forever!
Temporarily a good thing then, I suppose. If it's maintaining warmth when it should be getting colder then one has to assume when we return to a pattern that puts us closer to the sun, it will be hotter than it should've been. Hotter means more water in the air, right? So worse weather, but not necessarily droughts? also the whole ice-caps melting thing.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49526747]It is not a good thing, we're already at the tail end of an ice-age, unless we adapt really soon shit is gonna get really rough for humanity. Goodbye arable farmland and hello living in houses on stilts.[/QUOTE] That's what I mean, avoiding an ice age is good (because people would die in an ice age), but if it's because of climate change and rising temperatures (which will also kill people eventually), it's not so good.
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;49526799]water evaporates in heat[/QUOTE] Yeah but that doesn't mean it's just gone, it turns into a gas, and mixes with the air, causing rising humidity. So I'd assume we'd at least still be able to grow crops, at the very least. Much harder to grow food when everything is frozen. Time to start building underwater cities, bois!
To put this in perspective, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Age_(franchise)#Ice_Age:_Collision_Course_.282016.29]as recently as 2013[/url] it had been believed that the next Ice Age was coming on July 15, 2016. For it to have not just been delayed, but pushed back by a whole 50,000 years is a real achievement and something we can all be proud of.
On the upside, we won't see lands once considered nations be taken over by glaciers, squeezing closer to the equator while documenting thousands of species going extinct as their habitats are frozen. On the downside, the sea level is going to rise to uncomfortably high levels and some very large populated areas will be flooded. Traditional farming as we understand it will not be a thing unless we engineer strains resistant to high temperature and near-drought conditions. There will probably be major wars started over resources like water and arable land with stabilized local climates. So, we won't freeze to death, but on the other hand as soon as Antarctica melts we're kind of fucked.
To be fair, if temperatures significantly rise, won't greenland, northern canada, and siberia (all currently under-populated) become much more habitable and able to sustain agriculture, depending on how far it rises?
As a species, we've survived ice ages before. Short of nukes or the greenhouse effect pulling out all the stops and going doomsday scenario, neither should drive us to absolute extinction. But we sure as hell won't be retaining the same population growth rate and keeping all those people fed and housed unless soylent green really is people. Things would have a better outlook if we can actually pull off colonizing Mars/other planets within the next two centuries.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49526959]We've survived through a lot but keep in mind that we evolved from rough motherfuckers to more rough motherfuckers until we eventually relied on technology to do a lot of shit for us. Humans as a species are pretty weak compared to thousands of years ago, we're a shitload smarter but we're nowhere near as strong as a chimpanzee or a gorilla, if our knowledge doesn't pull us through, we are very likely fucked.[/QUOTE] Technology and intelligent is about an infinitely more important tool than raw strength.
Keep in mind that we'll all be long, long, LONG dead before any of this shit actually goes down, and I can only assume that we'll have advanced an absolute fuck ton technologically by then. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land#Non-arable_land]Also non-Arable land can be converted into arable land, depending on what makes it non-arable.[/url] I'm remaining optimistic for our species' future.
The real problem that'll decide the future of our species is how quickly we [I]forget[/I] these technologies. I mean, I don't know how to build an x86 processor out of sand and raw metals. If it was up to me, computing is fucked. I don't understand the precise details on how to construct any form of power generator (water, wind, nuclear, coal, etc. - although I'd probably figure out electric turbines fast with a bit of experimentation and trying hard to remember high school physics), so RIP the modern living experience pretty much as a whole. All we need is for too many smart people to die without writing down a durable and understandable explanation for how to do everything, and we get set back a century or three.
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49527051]The real problem that'll decide the future of our species is how quickly we [I]forget[/I] these technologies. I mean, I don't know how to build an x86 processor out of sand and raw metals. If it was up to me, computing is fucked. I don't understand the precise details on how to construct any form of power generator (water, wind, nuclear, coal, etc. - although I'd probably figure out electric turbines fast with a bit of experimentation and trying hard to remember high school physics), so RIP the modern living experience pretty much as a whole. All we need is for too many smart people to die without writing down a durable and understandable explanation for how to do everything, and we get set back a century or three.[/QUOTE] as a computer scientist, this is disturbingly true there's already a lot of tech out there that's becoming increasingly unfixable(either we don't have the parts for manufacture, or nobody knows how to program/fix it anymore) and a lot of our systems rely on it. most militaries in the world rely on pre-80s tech for a lot of things, particularly in the US and Russia. this will only get worse.
[QUOTE=aznz888;49527144]as a computer scientist, this is disturbingly true there's already a lot of tech out there that's becoming increasingly unfixable(either we don't have the parts for manufacture, or nobody knows how to program/fix it anymore) and a lot of our systems rely on it. most militaries in the world rely on pre-80s tech for a lot of things, particularly in the US and Russia. this will only get worse.[/QUOTE] I went on an older aircraft carrier a while back. The USS Midway I think. There were some volunteers there. Some 70-80 year old guy was volunteering there to help restore the ship's electronics because the Navy gutted them out. He told me a shit ton of stuff about electronics, the history of em in the past 70 or so years and the struggles in trying to restore old hardware and I'm ashamed I don't quite remember anymore it's quite scary really how much knowledge and technology is lost to time. forgetting how things were done in the past can be deadly. I always remember Millennium Challenge 2002 and how Blue initially lost because they got cocky and didn't realize that their fancy new systems were useless against common procedure from just half a century earlier.
So it's settled: we ruined the environment out of self defense. We had no choice, the Earth came at us with a glacier
Gotta love how religious zealots and greedy fucks are driving us over a cliff.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49526747]It is not a good thing, we're already at the tail end of an ice-age, unless we adapt really soon shit is gonna get really rough for humanity. Goodbye arable farmland and hello living in houses on stilts.[/QUOTE] Better that than goodbye arable farmland and hello frozen, predator-infested hellhole. Because that's what an ice age is. Excess heat, we can adapt to and bounce off of. Excess cold, not so much.
As a winter person, this is jarring news. As a human inhabiting this biosphere, this is catastrophic news.
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;49527532]Better that than goodbye arable farmland and hello frozen, predator-infested hellhole. Because that's what an ice age is. Excess heat, we can adapt to and bounce off of. Excess cold, not so much.[/QUOTE] An encroaching ice age would be the perfect justification for continuing to burn fossil fuels without giving a shit, and everyone in big business could relax and just work out ways of not killing everyone from pollution while they flood the place in CO2. Unfortunately, we don't have that problem and too many people in charge of industry around the world act like we do.
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49526687]This sounds like a good thing, is this a good thing?[/QUOTE] The right will sieze on this, but the issue hasn't been preventing ice ages its been stoppung a runaway greenhouse effect
Apologies for sounding stupid, but is this a good or bad thing :v:?
[QUOTE=EmilyVasquez;49527769]Apologies for sounding stupid, but is this a good or bad thing :v:?[/QUOTE] A little good, potentially a lot bad. The good news is, you'd have to somehow live for thousands of years to really find out.
I would like to ask a question however, why do ice age even occur? I mean, shouldn't an icy planet be outside of a star's habitable zone?
[QUOTE=EmilyVasquez;49527769]Apologies for sounding stupid, but is this a good or bad thing :v:?[/QUOTE] both
Good for those who like going to the beach, bad for those who don't.
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