Has the appearance of a transient ischemic attack. But apparently “he’s fine”
Unless Biden decides not to run, I’m almost certainly going to vote for him. Not voting or voting third party puts us closer to authoritarian leaders.
Although at this point, I’m kind of wondering if the GOP has it right on climate change. If climate change is a giant volcano, humanity is free-falling directly into it. The GOP wants to point headfirst and tuck our arms by our side to speed towards it. The DNC wants to deploy a parachute that will ensure we slow down, but still fall into the volcano much more slowly and painfully.
Sorry Earth. Humanity fucked it up. We were too stupid to figure out fossil fuels and greenhouse gasses early in industrialization. When it was realized at first, greedy business executives hid it from society. When society at large became aware of it, we were too selfish to give up fossil fuels. By the time green energy was made feasible, it was too late to avoid 2C, which may trigger positive feedback processes that humans have no hope of controlling.
I’m not falling into the trap of “it’s too late so let’s not do anything and drill, baby, drill”, but some days I wonder if the radical energy policy will extend the suffering.
Anyways, hope everyone has a great Thursday!
Even the harshest climate scientists don’t share the same doom and gloom narrative that you do. I think you should watch fewer hollywood movies. Maybe go outside for a bit and disconnect yourself from the internet for a few hours.
At one point in time, the goal was to remain below 1.5C heating (I forget over which time frame), with the worst effects kicking in at 2.0C. I believe one of the recent IPCC reports suggest to stay near 2.0C, we have to sequester carbon using a process that’s not invented yet.
I believe that current thought is that we will reach 2.0 C of heating even if we stop fossil fuel usage, entirely, tomorrow.
My post was pretty pessimistic, but the reality is pretty bad. The reason that all that carbon was sequestered prior to burning it is that plant life existed before fungi for a significant amount of time. Plants would sequester carbon, die and fall, then remain and not rot.
Today, sequestering carbon can only be done by adding biomass. Trees sequester carbon until they die, then release all of the carbon back into the atmosphere (either quickly in a forest fire or slowly as they rot). Existing forests really aren’t doing much sequestering once they reach steady-state biomass (growing trees balanced by rotting trees).
I have no idea what the cycle is in the ocean, though. I know it’s 70% of Earth’s photosynthesis. Maybe the situation is not quite as dire.
The future is uncertain, perhaps humanity will figure out methods to mitigate things. There are thoughts that injecting synthetic volcano ash into the atmosphere might be feasible with today’s technology. This would emulate the cooling effect seen with volcanic eruptions that reach high enough. The effect can last a couple of years.
