Hi Ugo, you are one of my saints. But even if you would go to net zero at once The warming would go on because of the many feedbacks already in place, (Water vapour, Methane, Wildfires).
And we are not going to net zero any time soon, On the contrary, Everything is accelerating, And as soon as we have lost the Polar ice all hell will break loose. Therefore, although I'm a physician and very prudent with forecasts I would say that we have not some decades, but Rather some years left. The end will not be decline But rapid destruction of the higher biosphere. That's what we should preparing for. Cheers
I am not yet sure about Saints, and of course civilisations come and go, but Nate Hagens has a neat aphorism, 'Electricity could power a civilisation, just not this one.' Tend though to agree with Ugo if he means a Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum is not yet with us, even if it might be in a 1000 years or so. I doubt that any plan will work, but things could get suddenly interesting in the next few years if the global industrial economy manages an unplanned peak and emissions with it. I suppose there might be a graceful collapse, and less suffering than in the present dispensation. After that I suppose it turns on ocean deep waters and where the biosphere poos and the dear old carbon cycle. Give Blue Whales et al a chance and you never know? Gaia loved them in the old days.
So will the hoped-for generalization of renewable energy will allow us to preserve most our civilization and, more to the point, keep alive the vast population it supported so far ? Or will it not ?
In the end, one way or an other, it is still more a matter of creed than facts. To the point where it will always be possible to argue that it won't happen if not enough people believe in it...
And still, as far as I'm concerned, I'm very doubtful and tend to think along the same ways than your interlocutor.
But or course, that doesn't mean it's the end of human history.
Actually, it's probably the difference between optimism (the idea that we will find a way to fix our problems) and hope (the idea that not everything is lost and one day the situation can/will improve again).
I suppose a lot of people prefer to view the collapse as a revenge against all humankind for the sadness of big and little sins that we do each another, I too have my share of good reasons to want vengeance and the instinct of feel good thinking to a burning world, but I know it's not something new or healthy: in Bible we read about first Christians asking for a rapid coming of Apocalypse and the first saints explaining that is not so Christian to ask for it as a vengeance against enemies...
I suppose that is part of the mechanic of this world to promote changes trough collapses, the photosynthesis made the ecosystem collapse poisoning the world with oxygen but to survive life adapted integrating an archaebacterium that today we call mitochondrium in every cell, a union and composing of different lives that opened up to a new kind of life (from prokaryote to eukaryote) with more complexity and possibilities.
The great designer of this universe have designed the rules of this world to promote integration and cooperation of life to open up new possibilities, in the integration every one keep and reinforce his nature and preferred behavior still contributing and composing the new whole.
Collapse is the driving event that represent the chrysalis phase of a transformation: the change need a phase of "death" that burn a lot of the vaulted resources to implement the new form, caterpillar, fat and chubby must consume himself to change all his morphology and become something radically different.... a new life that is also the old one!
Hi Ugo, you are one of my saints. But even if you would go to net zero at once The warming would go on because of the many feedbacks already in place, (Water vapour, Methane, Wildfires).
And we are not going to net zero any time soon, On the contrary, Everything is accelerating, And as soon as we have lost the Polar ice all hell will break loose. Therefore, although I'm a physician and very prudent with forecasts I would say that we have not some decades, but Rather some years left. The end will not be decline But rapid destruction of the higher biosphere. That's what we should preparing for. Cheers
I am not yet sure about Saints, and of course civilisations come and go, but Nate Hagens has a neat aphorism, 'Electricity could power a civilisation, just not this one.' Tend though to agree with Ugo if he means a Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum is not yet with us, even if it might be in a 1000 years or so. I doubt that any plan will work, but things could get suddenly interesting in the next few years if the global industrial economy manages an unplanned peak and emissions with it. I suppose there might be a graceful collapse, and less suffering than in the present dispensation. After that I suppose it turns on ocean deep waters and where the biosphere poos and the dear old carbon cycle. Give Blue Whales et al a chance and you never know? Gaia loved them in the old days.
Yes…
So will the hoped-for generalization of renewable energy will allow us to preserve most our civilization and, more to the point, keep alive the vast population it supported so far ? Or will it not ?
In the end, one way or an other, it is still more a matter of creed than facts. To the point where it will always be possible to argue that it won't happen if not enough people believe in it...
And still, as far as I'm concerned, I'm very doubtful and tend to think along the same ways than your interlocutor.
But or course, that doesn't mean it's the end of human history.
Actually, it's probably the difference between optimism (the idea that we will find a way to fix our problems) and hope (the idea that not everything is lost and one day the situation can/will improve again).
I suppose a lot of people prefer to view the collapse as a revenge against all humankind for the sadness of big and little sins that we do each another, I too have my share of good reasons to want vengeance and the instinct of feel good thinking to a burning world, but I know it's not something new or healthy: in Bible we read about first Christians asking for a rapid coming of Apocalypse and the first saints explaining that is not so Christian to ask for it as a vengeance against enemies...
I suppose that is part of the mechanic of this world to promote changes trough collapses, the photosynthesis made the ecosystem collapse poisoning the world with oxygen but to survive life adapted integrating an archaebacterium that today we call mitochondrium in every cell, a union and composing of different lives that opened up to a new kind of life (from prokaryote to eukaryote) with more complexity and possibilities.
The great designer of this universe have designed the rules of this world to promote integration and cooperation of life to open up new possibilities, in the integration every one keep and reinforce his nature and preferred behavior still contributing and composing the new whole.
Collapse is the driving event that represent the chrysalis phase of a transformation: the change need a phase of "death" that burn a lot of the vaulted resources to implement the new form, caterpillar, fat and chubby must consume himself to change all his morphology and become something radically different.... a new life that is also the old one!