tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post8551420427379083832..comments2024-03-22T05:20:44.167-07:00Comments on The Disaffected Lib: As the World BurnsThe Mound of Soundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-82605766200202449022016-01-31T11:59:26.271-08:002016-01-31T11:59:26.271-08:00What we forget about "tipping points" is...<br />What we forget about "tipping points" is that we based our 2C target on averting these points. We wanted to stop short of triggering natural feedback loops that, back then, we imagined were still decades off. Now we're witnessing these feedback loops coming into play - retreat of glaciers, ice caps melting, polar sea ice disappearing, tundra wildfires, permafrost melting and releasing methane, sea and lake-bed methane deposits melting and streaming into the atmosphere, the loss of forests and spreading wildfires.. on and on. Each of these is a tipping point passed, an uncontrollable feedback loop now underway that we cannot possibly arrest.<br /><br />As these two scientists mention, climate change on the scale now underway has occurred before but over a span of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. It's never happened over just a few centuries. Nature's ability to adapt over such a truncated interval is almost nil. <br /><br />All of which suggests to me that there is something to the theory that all intelligent life is self-extinguishing.<br /><br />The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-86716838372988773392016-01-31T11:18:56.566-08:002016-01-31T11:18:56.566-08:00ten years ago you read about "tipping points&...ten years ago you read about "tipping points"<br />now you read about "escalating feedback loops"<br />whether your eyes are open or shut<br />won't affect the past 150 years of momentum <br />we pushed into this already<br />the top 10% that contribute 50% to the problem <br />just don't care<br />the rest of us <br />will buy the last galleon of gas from satan <br />to get our loved one to the doctor<br />when it comes to climate<br />the collective spineless mass of self interested humanity<br />is the equivalent of zero braking system<br />rare is the family that lives within their means <br />living at 1/2 your means will never gain traction <br />lungtahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526204597913219959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-57848186067104745572016-01-31T11:04:54.714-08:002016-01-31T11:04:54.714-08:00I think I'm in one of those phases of resignat...I think I'm in one of those phases of resignation. I so wish we, as a global civilization, could do something sensible to curb our overpopulation, slash our over-consumption of essential resources and halt (as in dead stop) our ever growing greenhouse gas emissions.<br /><br />I wish we would sober up and recognize all three of these challenges need to be resolved if we're to have a meaningful outcome on any of them. One, two, three - we have to sort them all out.<br /><br />Our leaders don't understand that you can't grow an economy at exponential rates without commensurate increases in consumption of resources (raw material and energy), production and waste. Our global environment has reached a point where that's self-defeating and yet we persist in it.<br /><br />Africa, Asia and South Asia can't seem to grasp that we can no longer keep adding people by the billions. Lifeboat Earth is already shipping water over the gunwales. No one is even talking about wrestling mankind's population down to 3-billion or less which is where we need to get. If we don't do that, James Lovelock's prediction that we'll probably end the century with a global population well under one billion is probably accurate.<br /><br />We're like a 400 pound, 3-pack a day smoker with a raging meth habit.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-91455938392762020062016-01-31T10:19:42.802-08:002016-01-31T10:19:42.802-08:00We don't see the crisis we're in, Mound. R...We don't see the crisis we're in, Mound. Rarely do we ever see what we're truly facing.Owen Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32931256.post-60296208403406595582016-01-31T09:53:28.302-08:002016-01-31T09:53:28.302-08:00Our capacity to go through life with blinkers will...Our capacity to go through life with blinkers will be the death of us, Mound. Lornehttp://www.politicsanditsdiscontents.blogspot.canoreply@blogger.com