Human extinction by 2026?

Factual Questions
61

Weird diatribe aside, I’m not claiming magical thinking. I’m claiming that the existing rate of agricultural change, under human control, has been enough to outpace environmental change by a very large margin–enough of a margin to absorb an awful lot of scenarios; even some “doomsday” ones. (And that’s not bothering to point out that we already have crops that can survive – even thrive – on flooded cropland, and a large number of edible crops that are better suited for extreme environments but aren’t used today because they’re not currently desirable – see the last poster’s algea, for example.)

No, if there’s no water left on the surface of the planet, we’re not going to be able to fix that, nor the weather rising by 100 degrees over a year. But even the worst case scenarios (barring Niburu or whatever killing us all today) aren’t calling for anything like that. Our problems in rapidly escalating environmental change aren’t likely to be the “we can’t get stuff to grow” ones, they’re going to be more extreme versions of our current problems: getting it to the people who need it, moving people from now-inhospitable lands, and political/economic will to start actually solving the problems instead of hiding our heads in the sand. Those are going to kill us long before lack of technological solutions will.

62

That’s OK, I’m a little irked by the fact that every time a long-term technological challenge like this comes up, you always have the perfect solution based on a sci-fi story you just read, which usually ends up involving a vast network of autonomous self-replicating automated robotic factories.

P.S.- I don’t think you understand what the word “blithe” means.

Cite that genetic engineering – far from “outpacing” the effects of climate change – has had any measurable impact on the agricultural effects of climate change at all? The problem with your thinking, unless I’m misunderstanding your point, is the implicit assumption that climate change will have slow and relatively benign or moderate effects and that we can deploy technology, including GE, to adapt to them. This is the same kind of thinking that suggests that we will actually benefit from climate change due to enhanced CO2 fertilization and the blessing of warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons.

None of those things is supported by actual science; at least, not generally and not over the long term. The general scenario is that even when benefits accrue to some crops in some regions (mostly the higher latitudes, and notably not the tropics that are already the most food- and water-stressed and vulnerable) the benefits would be of relatively short duration and will eventually be offset by hostile climates and extreme and catastrophic weather events attributable to the extraordinarily high rate of anthropogenically forced climate change.

I suggest you read the IPCC WG II report on climate change adaptation. The full report is quite long, but there is a Summary for Policymakers that is much easier to get through. The only mention of genetics in it is the known loss of generic diversity and unintended changes in genetics and phenology of many species due to the effects of climate change. This article from Stanford Bioengineering suggests that the economic damage from climate change may be as much as six times higher than previously estimated, due to factors like decreased agricultural yields and harm to human health.

63

And that wouldn’t kill everyone. Some societies are better organized and have educated leaders who make sensible decisions with an eye towards long term consequences. Other societies revel in their ignorance, freely spreading propaganda and lies, claim the truth is all fake news, and collectively make self-destructive choices. And some are just incompetently managed by dictators, and the people don’t have a voice at all.

Anyways, the weaker societies might die off in an event like this, but the fitter ones would probably survive.

64

Regarding the future of agriculture, I thought this article from National Geographic was interesting. It’s about how the Netherlands grew its agriculture industry so that it exports more food by value than any country other than the US, despite of course being a lot smaller. And they’re doing it using, mostly, sustainable practices and many, many greenhouses. Here’s another one about an indoor farm near New York growing a whole lot of food on multiple levels.

So even as the climate changes, we can adapt and continue to feed ourselves.

65

Wait, it’s Saturday. Aren’t we all dead, anyway? I mean, I don’t FEEL dead, but I’m open to other opinions.

66

We’re not *exactly *dead. We just got transferred into the Matrix. Yesterday was live. All our tomorrows are simulations.

Go ahead: prove me wrong. I dare ya’. :smiley:

67

Blithe means “showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.”. In this case, I’m saying you’re being casually indifferent to reality when you claim that we can’t do anything but die if conventional crops stop working. Self replicating factories aren’t something I read in a sci fi story, in fact, most sci-fi stories grossly underestimate their effects. It’s something I read about by keeping up with tech news and taking courses on machine learning, and realizing that they are basically feasible from my own knowledge in the field.

Oh, and here’s a source for my claims : Robots and industrialization
in developing countries, UN.

This pretty much says that self replicating factories are feasible with demonstrated technology. (not directly, but implicitly. no technology that can eliminate 75% of human tasks can do so without eliminating 100% of repetitive factory tasks, which means the factory by definition can replicate itself because all machines in a factory were made in a factory)

And for that matter, I never said anything about self replication as a solution to climate change. I said we could genetically engineer algae, which the math says would let us feed a city with a rapid growth facility the size of a costco. I think I mentioned above that if things get desperate and solar/wind isn’t providing enough juice, we can physically make the nuclear breeder reactors we’d need, we would merely have to plan for some of them to melt down and build accordingly. I said we could desalinate seawater.

And I said we could, without self replicating factories, cover Antarctica* with what would be 10 story buildings probably made of concrete, with some of them containing algae growth tubes and some containing nuclear breeder reactors. This would keep the inhabitants of this place, which could fit a billion people, alive into the far future.

*after the ice melts

68

(Checking my watch) Okay, we ain’t going nowhere, and the tech we have have can handle all of us, even though we can all Stand on Zanzibar. Next assumption?

69

First of all, if your argument is that humanity will not be extinct by 2026, I think it was clear all along that I’m in agreement. Alarmist hyperbole is just as harmful as baseless optimism.

But let me explain why I focused on your use of the word “blithe”. It was because frankly I found it deeply ironic. I cite here the most pertinent definition, from Merriam-Webster: lacking due thought or consideration: casual, heedless; e.g.- blithe unconcern.

This is the essence of what you are posting here. Rapid anthropogenic climate change is an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of mankind; the present climate era has been called the anthropocene, literally, “the climate of man”, unlike anything that we as a species have ever experienced. It’s serious, it’s game-changing, and it’s here now. None of those things are true about your sci-fi fantasies, and your airy dismissal of the seriousness of imminent catastrophic impacts because you believe magical solutions are allegedly easy is the very definition of “blithe”. It’s exactly the same as those who propose fantastical and irresponsible geoengineering projects to modify the earth’s atmosphere to “correct” climate change, like deliberately polluting it with sulphate aerosols or launching giant orbiting beach umbrellas or some stupid thing. And no better in fact than the outright deniers of the fact that climate change is happening at all. None of this is helpful in the real world.

Your UN article on robotics is entirely irrelevant to the topic. And in another irony, it’s the UN itself – through its subsidiary organizations like the UNFCCC and its scientific advisory body, the IPCC, that have stressed the fact that climate change is a serious global problem with no easy solutions. Read some of the reports I cited: real science, written by real scientists, pertinent to the subject. I admire scientific optimism but it has to be realistic. It is irresponsible to suggest that magical technological solutions are just around the corner.

70

Funny you mention this. The people who have proposed this have :

a. Assumptions based on data on the effect of such aerosols, based on natural experiments from recent volcanic erruptions

b. If you multiply how many tons of aerosols you need, by an estimated cost in bulk, times the dT you want, you end up with a number around 10 billion dollars. Even if you are off by 10, that’s downright cheap.

Do you have any evidence for why this basic, sensible solution is “fantastical and irresponsible”?

I would like to see a cite, with numbers and analysis by a competent professional, instead of just declaring it’s immoral or something. The only valid arguments against it are that

(a) it wouldn’t work for a feasible cost
(b) You can’t get the light blocking to be even enough

I suspect the core of your argument is actually magical thinking, where you believe the earth to be such a fragile, chaotic system that simply inverting the math function of greenhouse gasses will cause some unspecified disaster because ‘we just can’t predict what would happen’.

By math function, I mean

(solar insulation) * f(t) = (energy absorbed by the earth)

where f(t) = effect of greenhouse gasses, a function that evaluates to > 1.0 on average

If you bring in a new term, g(t), that is less than 1.0, then

(solar insulation) * f(t) * g(t) = (energy absorbed by the earth), and f(t) * g(t) = 1.0, the product drops out of the equation and you are back to earth like it was before we started polluting.
But I’m sure you’re all concerned about “5th order effects humanity is too ignorant to know about”, ignoring the fact that even if there are unexpected effects, it’s better to deal with the problem we know about…

The only argument I’ve heard against this geoengineering proposal sums to be : is that “it’s WRONG. Gaia won’t stand for it! We’re SINNING by releasing CO2, and we have to stop doing it, instead of releasing another gas to solve our problem” Nobody has a coherent argument why not to do it. And yes, members of the UN have made basically this argument. Similar to health boards who are for people stopping smoking being against e-cigarettes, because they “allow people to continue to smoke in a way, and we know smoking is bad. And even though e-cigarettes have thousands of times less known cancer causing chemicals, they might have (waves hand in a woo gesture) unknown long term effects, so we should just let people die from smoking instead.”

71

Addendum to above : the term (solar insulation) means solar insolation, and in this specific context I mean “total average sunlight energy that impinges on the earth from space, averaged over a 1 year interval”

72

There are so many ways we could cope with peak oil, I don’t see how it could result in widespread society collapse.

Off the top of my head I could see the following spring up if peak oil happened.

More carpools
More motorcycles
More public and private mass transit (a full size van can hold 15 passengers. I’m sure an uber for carpools would spring up)
People living closer to work
More transportation powered by alternatives to fossil fuels (electric cars, hydrogen cars, compressed air cars, etc)
more coal to oil technology investment
Using fewer semis and more rail and barges to transport goods across country
etc

It’d be mildly unpleasant, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

If right now you have four people each driving cars that get 25mpg, and each one goes 50 miles round trip to/from work, then that is 8 gallons of gas used a day for all 4. If all 4 carpool in a car that gets 50mpg (like a hybrid sedan), then you reduce their daily gas usage to 1 gallon. Stuff like that will pop up if peak oil happens.

73

Are sulfate aerosols the most efficient atmospheric additive to reflect sunlight? Do they cause acid rain?

Even when you get the net insolation to the same energy, it won’t be the same qualitatively: the new daylight will have less high-frequency light (violet) and more low-frequency (infrared). I don’t know what the numbers are, nor the consequences of the spectral shift.

And of course injecting coolants into the atmosphere doesn’t address the problem of rising ocean acidity.

74

ETA: @Wesley just above

The main disruptive feature of capital-P “Peak Oil” was the assumption (supported by some real facts, but also hyped a bit), that the decline after the peak would be steep. At least compared to the smooth upward trajectory of production that would have been preceding the surprise discovery that the peak was metaphorically yesterday.

IOW, if all our collective investments in vehicles, housing, city design, factories, powerplants, etc. had assumed that next year we’d have 5% more oil production at current prices and suddenly one bright day we discovered instead we’d have 10% less oil production at 2x the price, the lurching dislocation would be massively disruptive.

e.g. Yes, we can all move closer to our jobs. But not all of us within 6 months.

I’m not a believer that fracking miraculously prevents peak oil. It does postpone it for some as yet unknown time interval, perhaps even well beyond our current lifetimes.

What fracking unequivocally does do is decentralize production relative to more traditional oil field methods. Which decentralization does go some ways towards reducing the surprise lurch whenever peak oil does finally occur.

Other power sources, from solar to wind to compact safe nuclear all work similarly. It’s the “All eggs in one just-dropped basket” effect of the classic capital-P “Peak Oil” scenario that makes it dangerous. And increasingly unlikely in the near term.

75

I thought peak oil would occur slowly over several decades, with maybe a 1-2% decline in production per year over several decades. It may take 30 years to see production cut in half (assuming new techs do not boost production).

Seeing how the majority of oil is used for personal transportation and I’m sure a huge chunk of that is for going to/from work, there is a lot of ‘fat’ that can be cut from that usage if need be.

76

See my comment about 5th order effects.

They don’t cause acid rain, or we would have gotten it the last time this happened naturally from a big volcanic eruption.

No, they are almost certainly not the most efficient way to do it. They are a way to do it, and we have data that says it works, so it’s a starting point. The geoengineering crowd have lots of ideas, and obviously the thing to do would be to test different additives.

If every plant on earth has a bit more CO2, but a bit less violet light, well, some plants would do better and some would do worse. There obviously would be a way to make human crops work, and the planet would still be inhabitable because the temperatures would still be reasonable.

The eco-hippie view is that the earth is sacred, that this kind of large scale disruption, which yes, would cause mass extinctions, is evil in it’s own right. Never mind that it would be better for people and most plants and animals would survive just fine. One unchallenged assumption is that mass extinctions of rarer species are a bad thing because of various false theories about how the ‘web of life’ is just a few broken strands from destabilizing, or that the cure for cancer might be in the amazon rainforest in a section we burnt down. Neither is true or a well informed opinion *.

*I could go into a long discussion of cell biology, the nature of cancer, why no single protein can possibly cure it, why evolution wouldn’t create that protein in a random plant or animal, but I’d need the space for a paper to do that.

77

The probability of peak oil is exactly 0 if we develop self replicating factories.

Note that an industrial infrastructure that needs 10 times less labor than we do now means that we could have 10 times the output for the same workers we have now. (several hundred million people in China and elsewhere). Same math if the intelligent robots can reduce the fraction to 5%, or 1%. As you can see, it technically has a limit at infinity - at some fraction of reduced labor, the limiting factor becomes the raw materials available on the planet and the remaining tasks do not need to be automated.

So for those who roll your eyes at self replication, realize that you do not even need it to have the same effective benefit. A factory that needs 1% of the current number of human workers is effectively the same thing.

78

This is so ridiculous I barely know where to begin. But I have to point out first of all that this is also a digression from the topic because the perils of geoengineering were just another example I mentioned in passing of blithe unconcern about the seriousness of the climate change problem. Some try to deny the reality of climate change, others put forth baseless blind faith in technology or crackpot solutions to suggest that we can easily fix it. We can’t. These are all uninformed types of denial.

The IPCC WG III report on mitigation mainly considers serious, realistic options for climate change mitigation. They mention geoengineering (which they call “solar radiation management”) briefly in one chapter, only to state that both the efficacy of these methods and theirl risks are presently largely unknown, so they can’t be considered useful or feasible in any realistic timeframe, if ever.

Among the many problems with proposed substance injection into the atmosphere – of which sulphate aerosols are among the most reckless – is a whole slew of projected and unknown side effects, among which are ozone depletion and undesired changes to the hydrological cycle and regional weather, including the potential to create droughts in the most vulnerable regions on earth. It does nothing to mitigate other aspects of climate change like ocean acidification, may have little or no impact on polar albedo feedback and polar ice loss, and generally presents a vast array of unknowns with respect to climate response in general. And the fact that all such aerosols are short-lived means that if the material injections are not strictly maintained, the earth’s temperature would rebound with extraordinary rapidity and catastrophic consequences.

And then there is the matter of atmospheric pollution, the magnitude of which depends on how much material we need to inject. But the basic fact is that sulphate aerosols and nitrogen oxides are the predominant cause of acid rain. Acid rain was a major blight in the second half of the last century, responsible for poisoning our lakes and rivers and damaging buildings and urban infrastructure. Due to acid rain, more than 20,000 lakes in Ontario alone were acidified to the point of serious ecological damage including complete loss of life. I’ve personally seen some of these lakes in the years after acid rain was brought under control – lakes of incredible natural beauty, with still not a sign of life in them, not a single fish. The curtailment of these emissions stands today as arguably the most important success story in the history of the EPA, as well as a great example of successful cap and trade regimes. The acid rain story is one of the few great success stories in the history of pollution mitigation. But you want to start spewing sulphur aerosols back into the atmosphere again. :rolleyes:

I suggest you read some of the material I cited in post #62 before you continue expounding on a subject about which you appear to have little knowledge, specifically the IPCC WG II report on climate change vulnerabilities and adaptation (and also WG III on realistic mitigation options). And also the Stanford Bioengineering article which – far from setting out genetic modification as a panacea for agricultural risks posed by climate change – suggests that the climate change problem may be far worse than we realize. As I said in #69, read some of the reports I cited: real science, written by real scientists, pertinent to the subject. I admire scientific optimism but it has to be realistic. It is irresponsible to suggest that magical technological solutions (and self-replicating factories!) are just around the corner.

Wrong again. Volcanoes are in fact the principal natural source of acid rain. E. A. Bryant, in Natural Hazards, recounts how the Katmai eruption in 1912 produced so much acid rain that the acid damaged clothes drying on a line 2000 km away!

:smiley:

79

So your counter argument is, exactly what I said, ‘unknown 5th order effects’.

Since the -2 degrees from the last volcanic eruption didn’t extinct the planet from the acid rain, it must not be that bad. So your argument is just as ignorant as you are claiming me to be.

Continuing the injections indefinitely, if they don’t cost anything compared to the benefits, is trivial. Your argument could be exactly mirrored to say why medicine for a disease are bad.

a. Antibiotics and antivirals have side effects, some of them severe. None are as bad as death from the disease.

b. Some diseases are chronic, and the only feasible thing is to keep taking the drugs for the rest of your life.

Sure, if the disease were cheaply and easily preventable, a vaccine (ceasing CO2 emissions) is fine. It isn’t cheap or easy to do that. All the alternatives have severe drawbacks :

nuclear costs far too much, causes immense liability

solar/wind do not work for full scale because you can’t afford a battery with a buffer size of weeks worth of power consumption, so you are going to have to have backup power.

Planes and ships and other high energy vehicles cannot work on batteries, and never will, by any known chemistry ever discovered.

Now, yes, carbon free is eventually possible, but you would have to produce so much renewable energy you can synthetically make liquid methane to fuel your ships, planes, and backup power needs. This is immensely inefficient. You lose 50% or more of the energy going from electricity to liquid methane (usually more), and then you lose 60% of the energy in the heat engine to produce power from it again.

80

Oh, and sulfate injections are only proposed because it’s a substance known to work. Almost certainly other gasses will work, and they wouldn’t have the acid rain risk, so I pretty much am ignoring it like a reasonable engineer.