Climate change anyone?


 
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The Lounge What is on Your Mind? Climate change anyone?
# 8  
Old 05-07-2019
Dr. Kaku agrees with you, Wentzel

Michio Kaku foretells humanity'''s extraordinary future

Quote:
DF: But you've said that as fusion and other alternative energy sources are developed, climate change may pose less of a threat in the future. Do you see global warming as a blip that we've got to pass through - or an ongoing problem?
Quote:
MK: It is one of the major problems facing us now, but I see light at the end of the tunnel. In southern France we have the ITER fusion reactor, which is an ace in the hole. This $10-billion project will hopefully show that seawater could become the ultimate source of energy on Earth. Fusion is relatively nonpolluting and does not create nuclear waste or melt down like fission reactors.
But for me, the guy typing these words now, I'm not so hopeful that humans have the time or even the political will to work together (and not against each other) to "right the ship" because on Earth, money and celebrity worship are the dominate forces over humans and humankind.

I see this everywhere I have been in every country (50+) I have travelled. Money, greed, consumerism, pollution, nationalism; and it has gotten worse in the past few years with the rise of populism and nationalism and many countries fueling the divisions between humankind with cyber influence operations. For me, I do not yet see light at the end of the tunnel in a world where the news media and consumers of news chase "any shiny object" for a few days until the next shiny object come along. For me, "hope" is not a realistic strategy or a workable plan.

I don't consider my thoughts on this "bleak" or "pessimistic", I'm just being realistic. Humans cannot continue to treat this planet as they have been and expect the planet to just "make it alright" again.

In my view, Human civilization in on 2019 Earth has been reduced to a media-driven "chasing shiny objects" world, like fish chasing after shiny object in the water. The future is not going to get better in the age of cyber influence operations, in my view, but I hope I am wrong. But based on what we have seen over the past three years, It's going to get a whole lot worse I think.

Celebrity worship, lifestyle of the rich and famous worship, greed, consumerism, populism, nationalism, racism .... there is no reason, in my mind, to think it's going to get better and humans are all going to wake up someday and reject their most basic nature and instincts we have seen for thousands of years and which we see everyday around the globe.

But, I hope I am wrong. But "hope" is not really a plan or a strategy.

Dr. Kaku is an optimist. I am a huge fan of his and listen to his audiobooks with great joy. Dr. Kaku believes humans will survive by leaving the planet in spaceships. His "backup plan" is Mars. That does not say very much for the future of the planet Earth. I admire Dr. Kaku's energy and optimism and I hope he is right; that the Earth will transition from a Type 0 civilization, to a Type 1 civilization in about 100 years. I hope he is right and he is much smarter than me!

REF: YouTube - Why You Should Be Optimistic About the Future | Michio Kaku on Impact Theory
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# 9  
Old 05-07-2019
Hi Neo...
Quote:
I admire Dr. Kaku's energy and optimism and I hope he is right; that the Earth will transition from a Type 0 civilization, to a Type 1 civilization in about 100 years.
Ha ha, he jests. We will never reach the goal of Kardashev's Type 1 Civilisation, let alone even thinking about his Type II or III, (Types 0, IV and V are modern extensions).

And the so-called Warp drive of StarTrek along with 'Beam Me Up Scotty' matter transfer is pure fiction.
One can't accelerate much outside the range of 0.9G to 1.1G for half the distance we need to travel, inter-stellar wise, as we would need to decelerate at the same amount for the final half, and our closest stellar neighbour is about 4.3 light years away so any SAFE and RELIABLE journey would take, erm, a LONG time.
And we haven't even got to inter-galactic REALISTIC travel methods.

As for matter transfer, how can one guarantee EVERY particle in any one body will return to its exact position on rebuild?
If there were Types I, II or III civilisations we would be able to detect them as they would make themselves easily _visible_/_measurable_.

Climate change will put paid to any idea of colonising a barren planet like Mars as huge global conflicts will occur as military nations grab what quick and easy resources remain.

Storing all of the energy on the host planet is worlds away, (no pun), from reality as we have a core and mantle with as much energy as we would ever need, and yet we have not harnessed it in any way seriously. This alone could help combat climate change but......
Science, engineering and geo-physics are one thing, human nature is something else.
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# 10  
Old 05-07-2019
Hey Wise,

Yes, I am on your side of the Dr. Kaku discussion.

When I read his novels, my mind perceives much (not all) of his ideas and concepts as science fiction; and actually very good science fiction.

In my view, the theory of moving toward a more advanced "Type 1" civilization is mired in problems related to the human condition, politics, religion and all the other countless ways humans have been divided as a species.

The worst enemy of humankind is humankind.

Hence, I place very strong odds that the humans on Earth will continue to kill animals for sport, pollute the planet, consume and exhaust the natural resource and make this planet a horrible place to live for future generations.

I think well intended and "optimistic" people like Dr. Kaku and others, with their shiny object discussions of escaping a doomed Earth to colonize Mars, while that might seem romantically appealing to some, I would prefer that humans focus on taking care of this planet Earth.

For me, I live on the seacoast (you know that, I guess) and I see people coming to visit everyday. They bring their mountains of garbage with them, and leave a lot of it in the sand and boardwalks to be swept into the sea, every day. They consume their alcohol and cook their food and drink and make themselves merry and have fun; and each one pollutes the planet without hesitation.

Even the beach dogs are more careful with their waste than the vast majority of humans enjoying the sea.

Having seen this every day for years, combined with all the greed, hero worship, human conflict, anger, hate, resentment, and intolerance we see globally in 2019, it's hard for me to believe that humans are going to "wake up" and stop destroying this beautiful, precious world we live on.

I realize that being an optimist like Dr. Kaku is a lot more popular than being a realist. Hence, people can live and be happy (and perhaps at peace with themselves) in "hope land" and "shiny object land" while our Earth is being consumed and destroyed by its most "intelligent" occupants.

Earth, I fear, is doomed to remain a "Type 0 Civilization", and will continue to consume all of Earth's natural resources and pollute the planet in ways we cannot yet image. This is especially true in light of the "cyber revolution" where the new battle space is the human mind; and this is a battle humans are destined to lose, because we are mostly powerless to stop the inevitable. The tech companies and indeed governments are convinced that "AI" will solve humankind's myriad problems. The cat is out of the bag, I am afraid.
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# 11  
Old 05-08-2019
Quote:
The worst enemy of humankind is humankind.
Smilie Nice aphorism.
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# 12  
Old 05-12-2019
Thanks for all of you participating here and welcome all others for sharing thoughts and emotions on this topic, even if not conforming to the majority of opinions here.

In terms of the M. Scott Peck(therapist, author) quote: "Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost." we're not that bad here. Everyone here seems to at least sense that there is a big problem here.

For my side I'm not a globetrotter myself. Not travelled much. Just reading and watching what's easy to get. And my view is the same as Neos in terms of the state of the planet: We treat the planet with unbelievable ignorance that our actions will ever have an effect. I think it's easy to get an overview of the current state of the planet by just googling around and on the other side it's in fact very difficult to ignore all unpleasant information about that passing by by accident.

Knowing is one part - Acting the other part. As the above mentioned author also said, "the greatest weakness of all humans is lazyness". (He used the word "original sin"). And a controverse person nowadays - the girl Greta Thunberg - said(whether it came out of herself or she heard it from others) "There are people with more guilt and others with less". Yes, I think that's the case. There are people that actively pushing for example fracking(pumping masses of extremely toxic chemicals into the ground), dumping nuclear wast just into the see, willingly try to enslave people through the use of AI, ... . That's indeed a big part of responsibility of a few here. But since we all know the crimes being done and know we are using the products(gasoline, food, electricity, ...) nevertheless, we have have a little share of responsibility ourselves. With some thousands people doing bad things in this world and some billions of the high industrialized countries silently acknowledging and supporting the action of the former, we see that the former would not get away with it or even economically survive without the laziness of the rest.

The lazyness from my side is: This whole thing is so big, I feel overwhelmed by it. What can I - this little human do? It's so ardous. I do not want to fight other people. There are so big instituions I feel so powerless against. I have enough tasks myself, I can not handle much more. I have to care about myself. Everyone has its only set of problems and is not enthused to get more.

Climate change is only one of the bullets approaching us. And it's not a quick one. But with every day passing by without actions the bullet is harder to avoid. At the moment we got the clarity that we got an average level of changes and impacts on our lives and on the production of the things we need. In about 10 years or so without action the game is over. We will no longer be able to handle things coming in about 20-100 years. Hunger, Violence, War.

We are in a comparatively good position of beeing able to push things forward. We have no lack of things of our needs in live. Everything is still there. We have spare time and a high level of freedom . For me the first thing in action is to get myself into action. And I call upon you, successful and highly intelligent people. Many of you accomplished so much in life. Incredible things. Things they may never have imagined they would. Will you take the challenge? If we fail so what? But if we didn't even try? What heritage do you like leave to our successors? Uhm, sorry about the mess we left to you!

The talk of XR talks about "virtue ethics". Do the right thing, even if there's no hope for change.

If masses of people change from serving profit to serving the change towards a life-supporting society, it will make a difference.

And it begins with me and you.

Update

Interestingly Frank Capra, the famous film directory(1897-1991) made a movie with warnings more than 60 years ago, stating the dangers clearly. Here's the one minute extract from the "unchained goddess(1958)" YouTube

Update II

The video on taxing co2 usage from wisecracker was very interesting and I think it will help. And I think it will need additional persuation for politicians to do it and citizens to accept it, too.

Last edited by stomp; 05-12-2019 at 05:31 PM..
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# 13  
Old 05-13-2019
I don't know how long this link will stay up but academics in the UK are thinking seriously about it:

Climate change: Scientists test radical ways to fix Earth's climate - BBC News

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 05-14-2019 at 04:18 AM..
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# 14  
Old 05-13-2019
Hi Hicksd,

the algae-option was something that was reported on TV some time ago. Seems it's not that good, because if you want to achieve a considerable effect, you have to create masses of algae which would harm the existing ecosystem a lot. For the other things I'll have a closer look at. My intuition is that way that too much tech may not be the solution. But hey! Better look twice before throwing away a possible solution.

---

I saw a video of Allan Savory these days(YouTube). He's very enthusiastic about reversing desertification of land. After a major fail he got to a possible solution which helps with climate change to.

His theory for one reason for desertification(in areas with only partial humidity) is dry micro climate directly on the surface of the soil. Once there where many herds of wild animals, because a large herd can better defend against hunting packs of wolves for example than single animals or small groups. Even those large herds kept moving quickly to not get in danger of gathering hunting packs. So they grazed the lands intensely for a short period of time, moved on, came back a lot later to eat here again. So the vegetation can regenerate extensively between the use-cycles. The animals left their excrements, which was furtilizing the soil and they trampled down the grass. The trampled down grass covers the soil, so the water is held back within the soil and is not evaporating as it would be if uncovered. The trampled down grass is further dying, making room for the next generation of grass.

Since there are no longer large herds of wild animals due to excessive hunting of man, this process of conservation micro climate ceased to exist, and Savory thought about what can be done, to achive the same by maybe mimicking nature as it once was. So he had the idea of moving large flocks of livestock upon the living grasslands and got them moved on to other areas in a special rotation which imitates the original use.

It seems to work out very fine. The quality of the soil improved drastically. Some farms do not even need extra fertilizer to have the same crops as with fertilizer added. Knowledge is spreaded and some farmers begin to try it for themselves.

The method is interesting because it's really low tech. The movement is accomplished via electric fences, but can also done with manpower if the former tools are not available. Even in Africa there are projects to teach that knowledge to locals in order to transform desertification into prospering nature. The advantage for climate is that increased biomass binds co2 and get's it into the soil.(Layers of dead grass vegetation. Maybe the co2 of vegetation is released into the air, because of decay. Did not get all details so far.)

Update

Pleasant to see that Savorys idea(which seems to be originated in France in the 1950s) is spreading. I saw a talk from the austrian Beatrice Kehl(degree in landscape architecture) talking in a major german community project about her successful experiences on this method she made in great britain. A way of unterstanding nature and doing it right.

Last edited by stomp; 05-14-2019 at 04:44 AM..
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