7 ms·

Yeah, the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now, even if we reduce

Yeah, the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now, even if we reduce our emissions to zero. The latent emissions in the atmosphere will already bone us. I'm glad I live in the Netherlands. We're a very rich country, and we have been battling water for more than a thousand years as a people. Places like Bangladesh will be completely destroyed..

taberiand 10y ago
I joke this is the real reason Elon Musk is digging tunnels and preparing to live in a Mars-like environment...
- btilly 10y ago
  Why do you think that this is a joke? Elon has stated in all seriousness that he personally puts global warming at above a 1% chance of being a species-threatening event for us, and that we need to become a multi-planetary species to reduce the odds of extinction. He doesn't think that wiping out our species is a likely or even very probable. Just high enough that there is no better way that he can spend his time than trying to address and mitigate the problem.
  - kaybe 10y ago
    The thing is, even Earth at its worst is still by far the most habitable planet in the system. The biggest issue we have with climate change is that we and the biosphere are set up for it to be this way, and adaption is slow. We might have to move many cities and the agriculture, and somehow manage with a biosphere that takes many generations to adapt.
    - btilly 10y ago
      The problem comes if, for example, ocean acidification causes a run-away chemical reaction that makes agriculture fail on a large scale, making civilization collapse. All such possibilities are low. But they aren't 0. Elon's personal judgement is that combined they exceed 1%.
  - taberiand 10y ago
    Because I don't really want to believe it's going to get that bad - I certainly won't be getting a place in the vaults.
crpatino 10y ago
I don't know if you are trolling, but I will bite. You know the Netherlands will be literally underwater within this century, don't you?
- Avalaxy 10y ago
  Not it won't. Why do you think differently?
  - crpatino 10y ago
    As already noted in other sibling comments, the Netherlands is famous for having lots of territory under current sea level. According to Wikipedia, roughly half of its territory is 1 meter above sea level or lower. Two more facts from the same source: it is one of the more densely populated countries in the world, and the second exporter of agricultural products (only behing USA). On the positive side, they have 500 years of experience building dykes and defending their coast line. Their experience will be invaluable to fight off raise of sea level during the current century, inland and around the world. On the negative, they have huge liabilities that can be triggered even by temporary floods. Refugee crisises during storms, lost of high value agricultural land due to increased salinity of soil, etc. All this will cut down on their budget to support their current dyke infrastructure, precisely at a time when they should be extending and enhancing it agressively. Rinse and repeat for 50 years, and you are bonded to see an ever growing number of marginal areas that are deemed not worth salvaging and left to be turned in unproductive swamps. I do not see the impoverished and overpopulated remanant of Netherlands surviving for long afterwards. Best case scenario I imagine is they will be absorbed by Germany, who may at that time have the economic power to keep the dykes in running order. Or they may try to stick to their own guns, in which case it is hard to tell how much land they will be able to hold dry.
- tornadoboy55 10y ago
  We've been largely winning against the sea since 1500, and that's with windmills and wheelbarrels of mud. Look up the Afsluitdijk. Or the Deltawerken. Our combined 'water defense works' are considered one of the modern wonders of the world. The Dutch will never surrender to the sea. Even if the rest of the globe will experience some catastrophic flood, the Dutch will figure out how to stave it off.
protomyth 10y ago
Ok, then is there any proposed plan to remove the excess CO2 from the air and oceans?
- epistasis 10y ago
  I'd love to hear people's proposals for this. There's of course natural methods such as reforestation and soil building, but I have a feeling that we'll want to augment that with more synthetic means. Carbon chains, or in the simplest case, methane, are expensive to produce, as one might expect. By far it's better to never have burned that fossil fuel than to try to reclaim it from the atmosphere or ocean. Setting a $80/ton CO2 carbon tax (Exxon's internal estimate for new project planning) or even a $40/ton CO2 carbon tax (Shell's internal estimate for new project planning) is an obvious step. When even the fossil fuel companies are using this tax level in their internal estimates, it's just stupid that our government and political leaders aren't pushing for that or double or triple it. My personal hope is that by 2040 we will have lots of excess electricity from solar and wind because we overprovision them. And we'll overprovision them because they will be the cheapest electricity, and we need enough of them such that at their low point of output they still meet our needs. In that case it seems that we may have cheap intermittent electricity. At that point we can start making hydrogen, then combining it with CO2, to start getting rid of greenhouse gases. Some people think that we'll be able to take methane (natural gas) and make hydrogen and precipitate out the carbon as graphite. that's probably the easiest form of carbon to dispose of, whereas a liquid like methanol or even diesel is going to pose lots of problems. It seems that CO2 in the oceans is going to be a bit more easy to remove than atmospheric CO2. So it seems that there are all sorts of chemistries that would be useful for that. But still, we need a carbon tax to fund such carbon sequestration activities. Without a market mechanism, there's not going to be much investment. We need to both do research, then develop them into large industries really quickly. Carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax. Don't vote for anybody or any party that doesn't advocate for it. This is the biggest single issue for our children and their economy.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    If we are already past the point where conservation will help, a carbon tax seems like closing the barn doors after all the cows escaped. the market is already going down the alternate fuel route. What I want to know is there any concrete plan to build something that will remove excess CO2 from the air and ocean that can be built by the government. Build this is going to go over a whole lot better than tax this.
mbroncano 10y ago
Although I'm not Dutch I profess a lot of affection to the Netherlands and I lived there for a bunch of years. Having said that, it is IMHO possibly the worse place to be in case of a massive increase in the sea level. My house in Den Haag is 10ft below the sea level, maybe 5 miles away from the sea. That's scary no matter how you put it, despite the best engineering effort from my friends at Rijkswaterstaat.
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  So I am Dutch and currently living in the Netherlands. I think it's something the Netherlands will definitely survive. As a general rule of thumb, a country can spend 50% of GDP for a few years - and end up OK afterwards - on something that's threatening the survival of the nation. The US spent 40% of GDP on WWII, for example. The Dutch GDP is almost a trillion dollars. I think that half a trillion dollars is enough to protect a small country that a) already has good water infrastructure, b) is only 42,000 km2 (25% or so of which is already water), and c) a lot of the threatened area is not terribly densely populated. In contrast, Bangladesh's land area is ~150,000 km2 vs ~30,000 km2 for the Netherlands (figures off the top of my head.) Bangladesh's population is concentrated in places with extraordinarily bad water infrastructure and in the parts of the country most at risk for flooding. Their population is literally ten times larger... and despite having a 'low' growth rate it is growing at about two million additional people PER YEAR. Bangladesh's total GDP is also less than a quarter of a trillion dollars. To add to that, the Bangladeshi government is undoubtedly less skilled at leading massive public works and infrastructure projects to save 160,000,000 people (most of which live in poverty) from having their home flooded. Put it this way, you have two choices. Choice A: you live in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, world renowned for its water management, and you're packed next to a lot of other wealthy people in a union with a lot of other wealthy countries. Your government says it will spend thirty thousand dollars per year - for every man, woman, child, baby, grandmother, you name it - to save your ass from global warming, and they have a history of winning against the water. Even if your country completely ceases to exist, you are bordered by two very wealthy countries where all your citizens have permission to live and work permanently, with no visas or administrative mess. These countries are big enough, and have faced enough of a population decline, that they'd each survive taking in 8 million or so highly educated, wealthy, English-speaking people with extremely similar culture and beliefs. Hell, we're so closely integrated with Belgium that we just peacefully swapped land! [0] Or, you live in one of the poorest countries on earth, which has semi-friendly relations with a few other countries scattered around the globe. Your government says it will spend $400 - less than the price of a new smartphone - to try to save you from having your home wiped out by rising sea levels. This government's history of water management reads like a bad joke: their latest lauded efforts are to try to get water from a hundred and sixty kilometers away, and forty percent of the capital's population live in slums that regularly flood with sewage. The neighboring countries are all dealing with population problems of their own: they're also wealthier, and at least somewhat hesitant to take in one hundred and sixty million impoverished people. I know personally I'm a hell of a lot more scared for Bangladesh. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/world/europe/belgium-netherlands-land-dispute.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/world/europe/belgium-neth...
hackuser 10y ago
> the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now My impression is that this is the latest fallback position intended to stop/delay us from acting (I don't know that the parent commenter intends it that way; this isn't a criticism of them). In rough order: 1) There is no global warming 2) There is global warming, but it's not caused by humans 3) It's caused by humans but there is nothing we can do about it. 4) We can do something about it, but it's too expensive to be worthwhile. 5) It's cost-effective (because the cost of doing nothing is so high), but it's too late to act. 6) ? Any predictions for the next fallback argument?
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  My prediction is "we're encouraging the development of new waterfront properties".
- Spooky23 10y ago
  7) Fake news. NOAA was faking the data, and things are fixed now. New data is great, but we don't release it.
- flukus 10y ago
  6 is GOTO 1. The mouse wheel of denial.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  6) It's all part of God's plan That sounds like a cheap shot but the sad reality is that there are quite a few people who seriously believe that this is part of the rapture/apocalypse/tribulation revealed in Bible prophecy and that attempts to prevent or even mitigate against it are satanic. Of course that's completely bonkers but we have to remember that there's a significant contingent invested in the idea that the bible is literally true and the realities of modern life are essentially illusions designed to test people's faith. I don't know exactly how many people believe this, but I'd bet on about 5-15 million people in the USA.
  - AnOscelot 10y ago
jacquesm 10y ago
> I'm glad I live in the Netherlands. It would be a damn sight better to be living in Switzerland, NL will be sea again once that kicks off. Not much to do against that kind of rise in water levels.

taberiand 10y ago

I joke this is the real reason Elon Musk is digging tunnels and preparing to live in a Mars-like environment...

btilly 10y ago
Why do you think that this is a joke? Elon has stated in all seriousness that he personally puts global warming at above a 1% chance of being a species-threatening event for us, and that we need to become a multi-planetary species to reduce the odds of extinction. He doesn't think that wiping out our species is a likely or even very probable. Just high enough that there is no better way that he can spend his time than trying to address and mitigate the problem.
- kaybe 10y ago
  The thing is, even Earth at its worst is still by far the most habitable planet in the system. The biggest issue we have with climate change is that we and the biosphere are set up for it to be this way, and adaption is slow. We might have to move many cities and the agriculture, and somehow manage with a biosphere that takes many generations to adapt.
  - btilly 10y ago
    The problem comes if, for example, ocean acidification causes a run-away chemical reaction that makes agriculture fail on a large scale, making civilization collapse. All such possibilities are low. But they aren't 0. Elon's personal judgement is that combined they exceed 1%.
- taberiand 10y ago
  Because I don't really want to believe it's going to get that bad - I certainly won't be getting a place in the vaults.

crpatino 10y ago

I don't know if you are trolling, but I will bite. You know the Netherlands will be literally underwater within this century, don't you?

Avalaxy 10y ago
Not it won't. Why do you think differently?
- crpatino 10y ago
  As already noted in other sibling comments, the Netherlands is famous for having lots of territory under current sea level. According to Wikipedia, roughly half of its territory is 1 meter above sea level or lower. Two more facts from the same source: it is one of the more densely populated countries in the world, and the second exporter of agricultural products (only behing USA). On the positive side, they have 500 years of experience building dykes and defending their coast line. Their experience will be invaluable to fight off raise of sea level during the current century, inland and around the world. On the negative, they have huge liabilities that can be triggered even by temporary floods. Refugee crisises during storms, lost of high value agricultural land due to increased salinity of soil, etc. All this will cut down on their budget to support their current dyke infrastructure, precisely at a time when they should be extending and enhancing it agressively. Rinse and repeat for 50 years, and you are bonded to see an ever growing number of marginal areas that are deemed not worth salvaging and left to be turned in unproductive swamps. I do not see the impoverished and overpopulated remanant of Netherlands surviving for long afterwards. Best case scenario I imagine is they will be absorbed by Germany, who may at that time have the economic power to keep the dykes in running order. Or they may try to stick to their own guns, in which case it is hard to tell how much land they will be able to hold dry.
tornadoboy55 10y ago
We've been largely winning against the sea since 1500, and that's with windmills and wheelbarrels of mud. Look up the Afsluitdijk. Or the Deltawerken. Our combined 'water defense works' are considered one of the modern wonders of the world. The Dutch will never surrender to the sea. Even if the rest of the globe will experience some catastrophic flood, the Dutch will figure out how to stave it off.

protomyth 10y ago

Ok, then is there any proposed plan to remove the excess CO2 from the air and oceans?

epistasis 10y ago
I'd love to hear people's proposals for this. There's of course natural methods such as reforestation and soil building, but I have a feeling that we'll want to augment that with more synthetic means. Carbon chains, or in the simplest case, methane, are expensive to produce, as one might expect. By far it's better to never have burned that fossil fuel than to try to reclaim it from the atmosphere or ocean. Setting a $80/ton CO2 carbon tax (Exxon's internal estimate for new project planning) or even a $40/ton CO2 carbon tax (Shell's internal estimate for new project planning) is an obvious step. When even the fossil fuel companies are using this tax level in their internal estimates, it's just stupid that our government and political leaders aren't pushing for that or double or triple it. My personal hope is that by 2040 we will have lots of excess electricity from solar and wind because we overprovision them. And we'll overprovision them because they will be the cheapest electricity, and we need enough of them such that at their low point of output they still meet our needs. In that case it seems that we may have cheap intermittent electricity. At that point we can start making hydrogen, then combining it with CO2, to start getting rid of greenhouse gases. Some people think that we'll be able to take methane (natural gas) and make hydrogen and precipitate out the carbon as graphite. that's probably the easiest form of carbon to dispose of, whereas a liquid like methanol or even diesel is going to pose lots of problems. It seems that CO2 in the oceans is going to be a bit more easy to remove than atmospheric CO2. So it seems that there are all sorts of chemistries that would be useful for that. But still, we need a carbon tax to fund such carbon sequestration activities. Without a market mechanism, there's not going to be much investment. We need to both do research, then develop them into large industries really quickly. Carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax. Don't vote for anybody or any party that doesn't advocate for it. This is the biggest single issue for our children and their economy.
- protomyth 10y ago
  If we are already past the point where conservation will help, a carbon tax seems like closing the barn doors after all the cows escaped. the market is already going down the alternate fuel route. What I want to know is there any concrete plan to build something that will remove excess CO2 from the air and ocean that can be built by the government. Build this is going to go over a whole lot better than tax this.

mbroncano 10y ago

Although I'm not Dutch I profess a lot of affection to the Netherlands and I lived there for a bunch of years. Having said that, it is IMHO possibly the worse place to be in case of a massive increase in the sea level. My house in Den Haag is 10ft below the sea level, maybe 5 miles away from the sea. That's scary no matter how you put it, despite the best engineering effort from my friends at Rijkswaterstaat.

owenversteeg 10y ago
So I am Dutch and currently living in the Netherlands. I think it's something the Netherlands will definitely survive. As a general rule of thumb, a country can spend 50% of GDP for a few years - and end up OK afterwards - on something that's threatening the survival of the nation. The US spent 40% of GDP on WWII, for example. The Dutch GDP is almost a trillion dollars. I think that half a trillion dollars is enough to protect a small country that a) already has good water infrastructure, b) is only 42,000 km2 (25% or so of which is already water), and c) a lot of the threatened area is not terribly densely populated. In contrast, Bangladesh's land area is ~150,000 km2 vs ~30,000 km2 for the Netherlands (figures off the top of my head.) Bangladesh's population is concentrated in places with extraordinarily bad water infrastructure and in the parts of the country most at risk for flooding. Their population is literally ten times larger... and despite having a 'low' growth rate it is growing at about two million additional people PER YEAR. Bangladesh's total GDP is also less than a quarter of a trillion dollars. To add to that, the Bangladeshi government is undoubtedly less skilled at leading massive public works and infrastructure projects to save 160,000,000 people (most of which live in poverty) from having their home flooded. Put it this way, you have two choices. Choice A: you live in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, world renowned for its water management, and you're packed next to a lot of other wealthy people in a union with a lot of other wealthy countries. Your government says it will spend thirty thousand dollars per year - for every man, woman, child, baby, grandmother, you name it - to save your ass from global warming, and they have a history of winning against the water. Even if your country completely ceases to exist, you are bordered by two very wealthy countries where all your citizens have permission to live and work permanently, with no visas or administrative mess. These countries are big enough, and have faced enough of a population decline, that they'd each survive taking in 8 million or so highly educated, wealthy, English-speaking people with extremely similar culture and beliefs. Hell, we're so closely integrated with Belgium that we just peacefully swapped land! [0] Or, you live in one of the poorest countries on earth, which has semi-friendly relations with a few other countries scattered around the globe. Your government says it will spend $400 - less than the price of a new smartphone - to try to save you from having your home wiped out by rising sea levels. This government's history of water management reads like a bad joke: their latest lauded efforts are to try to get water from a hundred and sixty kilometers away, and forty percent of the capital's population live in slums that regularly flood with sewage. The neighboring countries are all dealing with population problems of their own: they're also wealthier, and at least somewhat hesitant to take in one hundred and sixty million impoverished people. I know personally I'm a hell of a lot more scared for Bangladesh. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/world/europe/belgium-netherlands-land-dispute.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/world/europe/belgium-neth...

hackuser 10y ago

> the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now My impression is that this is the latest fallback position intended to stop/delay us from acting (I don't know that the parent commenter intends it that way; this isn't a criticism of them). In rough order: 1) There is no global warming 2) There is global warming, but it's not caused by humans 3) It's caused by humans but there is nothing we can do about it. 4) We can do something about it, but it's too expensive to be worthwhile. 5) It's cost-effective (because the cost of doing nothing is so high), but it's too late to act. 6) ? Any predictions for the next fallback argument?

ceejayoz 10y ago
My prediction is "we're encouraging the development of new waterfront properties".
Spooky23 10y ago
7) Fake news. NOAA was faking the data, and things are fixed now. New data is great, but we don't release it.
flukus 10y ago
6 is GOTO 1. The mouse wheel of denial.
anigbrowl 10y ago
6) It's all part of God's plan That sounds like a cheap shot but the sad reality is that there are quite a few people who seriously believe that this is part of the rapture/apocalypse/tribulation revealed in Bible prophecy and that attempts to prevent or even mitigate against it are satanic. Of course that's completely bonkers but we have to remember that there's a significant contingent invested in the idea that the bible is literally true and the realities of modern life are essentially illusions designed to test people's faith. I don't know exactly how many people believe this, but I'd bet on about 5-15 million people in the USA.
- AnOscelot 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago

> I'm glad I live in the Netherlands. It would be a damn sight better to be living in Switzerland, NL will be sea again once that kicks off. Not much to do against that kind of rise in water levels.