Methane has a short ~5-10 year half life in the atmosphere. So, releasing 50x current methane levels over 100 years does not triple current methane levels.
In layman's terms, how much are we screwed without hope of a solution, and what is the rough timeframe before the evening news starts looking like "The Day After Tomorrow?"
I wonder how many of these bubbles are harvestable into useful fuel? Prevent a crisis and stockpile fuel at the same time? Obviously it's nicer if we could get everyone to sign the Kyoto treaty but ...
I apologize for not watching the video, but what sort of effects will these increased levels have on humans, plants, and other life on the planet? It doesn't sound like it would be beneficial.
Honest question: Why is Mainstream Media not covering this like it should be doing? Heck, this should be the breaking news every single day!!
After all, this spells doomsday for the upcoming generations, so shouldn't it be the news that should be shown/covered almost everyday on the front page.
The people have the right to know that their children and grandchildren will suffer because of something that is going on right now. I guess, that majority of people, all over the world, are blissfully unaware of this scenario because this doesn't get the kind of attention in the MSM that it should. All they get served is dirty politics and gossip entertainment news.
Maybe people will force the policies to change if they get to know that this will happen.
It seems that most people today think that Terrorism is the main threat to our society, when in fact, Global Warming seems to be the real deal.
Let's say it was found that fifty years from now, an Asteroid would hit Earth. Would the people of Earth react in the same way as they are doing now?
>Honest question: Why is Mainstream Media not covering this like it should be doing? Heck, this should be the breaking news every single day!!
Perhaps it is because of the influence of the largest industry in the world in terms of revenue: the petroleum industry. Money talks, or rather in this case, money hushes.
Where do you think the primary source of climate change denial propaganda comes from?
Russia Today (bear with me for a second) did a documentary [0] on how the climate and geography (!) of the region is changing. They also interview the local population and how they view the change in the ecosystem on which their whole lives are build.
It's not all that bad, we will have the opportunity to live in a Mad Max like environment for real ! If we, humans, - as a species - are unable to focus away from dirty politics and gossips, then we don't really deserve to survive. Maybe we need to go through a few centuries of post-apocalyptic landscape to transform ourselves and evolve ?
Global warming is also extremely costly so it's a financial threat too, and also a problem causing political destabilization and increased tensions, radicalization from climate refugees crisises etc.
If the media covered everything they should have to the standard of quality they should have over the last, oh, let's say twenty years, the world would be an incredibly different place.
Has anything been published in international peer reviewed journals ? Are there scientists at NASA or ivy league universities who became concerned and verified it through modeling and simulations ? If the answer is no in both cases, why should the public be alarmed ?
Until people undeniably feel it they will not believe they are the problem. It takes a lot for someone to change their minds in the face of "criticism".
I believe this is the case when MSM are not blowing things out of proportion, so by comparison it looks like an understatement. This doesn't "spell doomsday" for the upcoming generations.
First, I believe we are already well on path to sustainable energy. Let's be honest, any planet-wide change will take time, especially when affected by economic means. Granted, world-level dictatorship may achieve zero carbon emissions in a few decades, but I strongly doubt that that is what you want. On the other hand, renewables are surging even with our current level of technology. Any sudden technological breakthrough (be it batteries, fusion energy or room-temperature superconductance) will accelerate it even further, but it's not necessary for the transition. Humanity will surely switch to renewables in a century.
Second, consequences of rising global temperature are harsh, but in no way there are a "doomsday". Do you really believe that loosing Californian fertile grounds will end the humanity? We will adapt and so will the ecosystem in general. It may be costly and inconvenient, but people already live both in the desert (like Northern Australia) and in tundra (like Alaska). Not the end of the world.
Third, it's possible to drop global temperatures in a few months' time if direly needed. Ranging from orbital sunshades to tropospheric aerosols, solutions can be cheap and easy to deploy.
All in all, I strongly believe that your asteroid analogy is an over-exaggeration.
At first I was thinking "stupid click bait title", then I saw the pictures. Anything making those craters is properly an explosion. Anything heard 100km away is properly and explosion.
If anything this article plays it down with words like eruption and venting. This seems super dangerous for people in the area. And dangerous in the climate change sense for the rest of us.
This is precisely why Dr. Guy McPherson has predicted human extinction on earth by 2030. Methane clathrates coming from the Arctic sea floor and from Canadian and Siberian permafrost. This is the most serious threat we face now.
Even if we get a 5° - 10° Celsius increase, wouldn't there be plenty of opportunity for millions of humans to survive closer to the poles?
Not that it would be easy or desirable. Some of the worst scenarios might result in 99% (or higher) of humans dying - obviously an unspeakably immense tragedy. Yet that would still leave tens of millions of people to carry on.
It seems to me that it would be extremely difficult to extinguish human life entirely, given our cleverness, adaptability, and very strong survival drive.
I haven't seen much talk about projections that would make the entire planet completely uninhabitable for humans. That would require an increase significantly higher than 10° Celsius, I'm guessing?
Of course, this would likely delay our transformation into a space-faring civilization by a few thousand years, as well as significantly damage social progress.
It's strange reading about this and realizing that to be able to do something about it I would have had to have been born twenty some-odd years before I was born. That it's literally too late to do anything about it. I was raised to care about these issues, to save the rainforest, to cut down on pollution, recycle -- to do something about it. And that it would've taken a concerted effort from everyone to take the same care.
Scientists have been warning about this for decades. And we've done nothing. Not even to slow down!
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...
If we can't fix, if we can't prevent, and if we cannot prepare either, then maybe we could at least preserve?
• Digitize all human knowledge and as much art/literature as you can gather (books, music, movies, shows, games, even porn and random YouTube videos and discussions on online forums :) Most of that work has already been done.
• Store it on the most resilient (and simple/repairable) storage media you can,
• Bundle it with devices that can read that data,
• Along with instructions for building/reinventing such devices, and instructions on how to interpret that data (i.e. JPEG and other file formats :)
• Also include a guide for translating the instructions. Assume that a future reader may not understand any of our current languages, or even be human at all.
• Put it all in a silo as physically strong as you can build.
• Make copies of the silo and bury one on each continent and in each ocean. Maybe even on the Moon?
• Distribute markers and maps to each silo (and instructions for opening them) all over the world.
• Let fate take its course.
All of this could be done by a few individuals and most of it won't even require a lot of money.
There's a team of scientists in the arctic who have an unconventional but (possibly) effective idea to reduce/slow the release of permafrost methane. The Zimov's have a Kickstarter up now - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/907484977/pleistocene-p...
That's why I keep hitting "refresh" on this page of comments, in the hope that someone with more expertise than I have comes along and tells me it's not nearly as bad as I take this to be (i. e., "we're fucked").
Here is an at least a somewhat optimistic take on this issue in that it's looking for mitigation techniques and IDing possible research[1]. I worked for the lead author one summer at LLNL right around when this was published, and I believe he's continued to work on aspects of this in the interim, although I must confess that I'm terrible at keeping up with people and am not entirely sure.
The majority of the population does not care about this one bit. They're going to carry on driving their gas guzzlers. The only change we can make is if we, who understand what is at stake, invest in renewables to bring their price down.
When the backwards people will see us all in our cheap to run, fast to accelerate and cheap to maintain electric pass them on the highway will they feel dumb buying gallons of gas to keep their guzzlers going.
Consumer gas vehicle make up a TINY fraction of the cause of greenhouse emissions worldwide. Everyone changing to EVs isn't going to fix anything, especially when that electrical power can come from dirty power plants.
The big changes need to come from agriculture, commercial, and industrial industries. The world also needs to quickly phase out coal and gas power plants and switch to all renewable so new "green" electric vehicles are actually better for the environment.
>> The majority of the population does not care about this one bit. They're going to carry on driving their gas guzzlers. The only change we can make is if we, who understand what is at stake, invest in renewables
>> When the backwards people will see us all in our cheap to run, fast to accelerate and cheap to maintain electric pass them on the highway will they feel dumb buying gallons of gas to keep their guzzlers going.
It's always funny to see someone posting online about how they consider themselves to be part of a group that supposedly "cares", while proclaiming that it's other people who are the (larger part of the) problem.
If you a) live in a populated city; b) purchase products that must be manufactured, shipped, and disposed of; c) own any vehicle (including fully electric); d) use electricity to power heat, A/C, and technology including a computer used to post on HN: you are categorically part of the problem. There is no such thing as an environmentally responsible citizen in any first world country. We all live unsustainably, and no amount of "I bought an electric vehicle", "I recycle and compost", "I buy local", etc., makes the tiniest dent in the system. I wish people who believe they are environmentally self-conscious while still living in unsustainable comfort would get off their high horses. Your contribution to the ecosystem's woes is not measurably different whatsoever compared to that of your "uncaring" neighbors.
I know it's stupid and crazy, but would carpet bombing the arctic work to burn up the methane trapped below the permafrost before it leaks out into the atmosphere and causes worse problems? Or maybe we should send out expedition crews to find and preemptively explode these methane bubbles.
Perhaps the way things are going they will become too plentiful to really do anything realistic about it.
Sounds drastic, but once there is runaway greenhouse effect, something drastic would need to be done to cool the Earth.
Your idea of carpet bombing might just work, provided that the result would produce aerosols that have the similar effect of those produced by volcanoes (volcanic winter)
Suppose one has already cut his own consumption as much as possible and has some free money left. What's the most efficient way to spend it to combat climate change? Buy EV; donate to environmental lobby group; invest in a vegetarian restaurant around the corner; isolate your own house? Any ideas?
This is a particularly dramatic methane release, but methane is being released regularly in the high latitudes. I visit Alaska in the summertime and I see methane releases in many locations -- for example (taken from my kayak):
It's important to say the only reason you can see this outgassing is because the source is underwater. The entire landscape is releasing methane this way, but without any clear signs.
So, assuming we're screwed, where's the best place to move preemptively? I know Boston isn't that place.
- I assume the coasts are a nonstarter.
- Moving inland could be nice, but the ground would need to be pretty arable to restart civilization there. I'm guessing somewhere in Africa is a safe bet, given the lack of resource exploitation there, but then again, there's not much infrastructure at the moment.
Here is a list of articles so far about methane capture and biogas. This is lab based experiments in small quantities (~50ml) but it could be scaled up. So in a foggy smog future where we all live in domes, these methane processors could slowly grab the energy back from the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, few of the photos have anything to indicate scale and those few seem to range from 100m (small trucks on the far side) to 2-3m (the guy stepping on one). Still, those are incredible photos...
Another bigger problem, raised by VICE reporting, is tundra thawing, leading to ground collapsing 10-30 meters into huge sinkholes. Appearently, one of the possible solutions is replacing tundra forests with grasslands by megafauna and macrofauna grazing, including, potentially, cloned mammoths, because grassland freezes harder in the winter and keeps the permafrost froze during the summer months.
[+] [-] bithive123|9 years ago|reply
Some summary points:
- Total amount of methane in the current atmosphere: ~5 gigatons
- Amount of carbon preserved as methane in the arctic shelf: estimated at 100s-1000s of gigatons
- Only 1% release would double the atmospheric burden of methane
- Not much effort is needed to destabilize this 1%
- The volume currently being released is estimated at 50 gigatons (it could be far more)
- 50 gigatons is 10x the methane content of the current atmosphere
- We are already at 2.5x pre-industrial level, there is a methane veil spreading southward from the arctic.
- Methane is 150x as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2 when it is first released.
Here is a longer video for those who have the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPdc75epOEw
[+] [-] Retric|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shostack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kneel|9 years ago|reply
Nature is fairly dynamic, especially at the prokaryotic level.
[+] [-] makmanalp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metaobject|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Two9A|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonmoy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wilkommen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brogrammer2|9 years ago|reply
After all, this spells doomsday for the upcoming generations, so shouldn't it be the news that should be shown/covered almost everyday on the front page.
The people have the right to know that their children and grandchildren will suffer because of something that is going on right now. I guess, that majority of people, all over the world, are blissfully unaware of this scenario because this doesn't get the kind of attention in the MSM that it should. All they get served is dirty politics and gossip entertainment news.
Maybe people will force the policies to change if they get to know that this will happen.
It seems that most people today think that Terrorism is the main threat to our society, when in fact, Global Warming seems to be the real deal.
Let's say it was found that fifty years from now, an Asteroid would hit Earth. Would the people of Earth react in the same way as they are doing now?
[+] [-] wu-ikkyu|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps it is because of the influence of the largest industry in the world in terms of revenue: the petroleum industry. Money talks, or rather in this case, money hushes.
Where do you think the primary source of climate change denial propaganda comes from?
[+] [-] notsofastmister|9 years ago|reply
[0] https://rtd.rt.com/films/the-permafrost-mystery/#part-1
[+] [-] Fiahil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jug|9 years ago|reply
So yes it should be covered for many reasons.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nroets|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finid|9 years ago|reply
Alaska might have a similar problem, though on a much smaller scale.
[+] [-] ianai|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lambdadmitry|9 years ago|reply
First, I believe we are already well on path to sustainable energy. Let's be honest, any planet-wide change will take time, especially when affected by economic means. Granted, world-level dictatorship may achieve zero carbon emissions in a few decades, but I strongly doubt that that is what you want. On the other hand, renewables are surging even with our current level of technology. Any sudden technological breakthrough (be it batteries, fusion energy or room-temperature superconductance) will accelerate it even further, but it's not necessary for the transition. Humanity will surely switch to renewables in a century.
Second, consequences of rising global temperature are harsh, but in no way there are a "doomsday". Do you really believe that loosing Californian fertile grounds will end the humanity? We will adapt and so will the ecosystem in general. It may be costly and inconvenient, but people already live both in the desert (like Northern Australia) and in tundra (like Alaska). Not the end of the world.
Third, it's possible to drop global temperatures in a few months' time if direly needed. Ranging from orbital sunshades to tropospheric aerosols, solutions can be cheap and easy to deploy.
All in all, I strongly believe that your asteroid analogy is an over-exaggeration.
[+] [-] buckbova|9 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/6163gu/7000_unde...
[+] [-] ironic_ali|9 years ago|reply
MSM doesn't mention the hundreds of thousands of underwater volcanoes either.
[+] [-] LyndsySimon|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
[+] [-] sqeaky|9 years ago|reply
If anything this article plays it down with words like eruption and venting. This seems super dangerous for people in the area. And dangerous in the climate change sense for the rest of us.
[+] [-] british_india|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwaltrip|9 years ago|reply
Not that it would be easy or desirable. Some of the worst scenarios might result in 99% (or higher) of humans dying - obviously an unspeakably immense tragedy. Yet that would still leave tens of millions of people to carry on.
It seems to me that it would be extremely difficult to extinguish human life entirely, given our cleverness, adaptability, and very strong survival drive.
I haven't seen much talk about projections that would make the entire planet completely uninhabitable for humans. That would require an increase significantly higher than 10° Celsius, I'm guessing?
Of course, this would likely delay our transformation into a space-faring civilization by a few thousand years, as well as significantly damage social progress.
[+] [-] teslaberry|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] derrickdirge|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agentultra|9 years ago|reply
Scientists have been warning about this for decades. And we've done nothing. Not even to slow down!
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...
Indeed.
[+] [-] Razengan|9 years ago|reply
• Digitize all human knowledge and as much art/literature as you can gather (books, music, movies, shows, games, even porn and random YouTube videos and discussions on online forums :) Most of that work has already been done.
• Store it on the most resilient (and simple/repairable) storage media you can,
• Bundle it with devices that can read that data,
• Along with instructions for building/reinventing such devices, and instructions on how to interpret that data (i.e. JPEG and other file formats :)
• Also include a guide for translating the instructions. Assume that a future reader may not understand any of our current languages, or even be human at all.
• Put it all in a silo as physically strong as you can build.
• Make copies of the silo and bury one on each continent and in each ocean. Maybe even on the Moon?
• Distribute markers and maps to each silo (and instructions for opening them) all over the world.
• Let fate take its course.
All of this could be done by a few individuals and most of it won't even require a lot of money.
[+] [-] adamtait|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wiz21c|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
Still waiting, BTW.
[+] [-] cwal37|9 years ago|reply
[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es204686w
[+] [-] xutopia|9 years ago|reply
When the backwards people will see us all in our cheap to run, fast to accelerate and cheap to maintain electric pass them on the highway will they feel dumb buying gallons of gas to keep their guzzlers going.
[+] [-] dcchambers|9 years ago|reply
The big changes need to come from agriculture, commercial, and industrial industries. The world also needs to quickly phase out coal and gas power plants and switch to all renewable so new "green" electric vehicles are actually better for the environment.
[+] [-] developer2|9 years ago|reply
>> When the backwards people will see us all in our cheap to run, fast to accelerate and cheap to maintain electric pass them on the highway will they feel dumb buying gallons of gas to keep their guzzlers going.
It's always funny to see someone posting online about how they consider themselves to be part of a group that supposedly "cares", while proclaiming that it's other people who are the (larger part of the) problem.
If you a) live in a populated city; b) purchase products that must be manufactured, shipped, and disposed of; c) own any vehicle (including fully electric); d) use electricity to power heat, A/C, and technology including a computer used to post on HN: you are categorically part of the problem. There is no such thing as an environmentally responsible citizen in any first world country. We all live unsustainably, and no amount of "I bought an electric vehicle", "I recycle and compost", "I buy local", etc., makes the tiniest dent in the system. I wish people who believe they are environmentally self-conscious while still living in unsustainable comfort would get off their high horses. Your contribution to the ecosystem's woes is not measurably different whatsoever compared to that of your "uncaring" neighbors.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gph|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps the way things are going they will become too plentiful to really do anything realistic about it.
[+] [-] phkahler|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flashmob|9 years ago|reply
Your idea of carpet bombing might just work, provided that the result would produce aerosols that have the similar effect of those produced by volcanoes (volcanic winter)
[+] [-] brians|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfunctory|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lutusp|9 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/rRs3fQU.jpg
It's important to say the only reason you can see this outgassing is because the source is underwater. The entire landscape is releasing methane this way, but without any clear signs.
[+] [-] partycoder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _m8fo|9 years ago|reply
- I assume the coasts are a nonstarter.
- Moving inland could be nice, but the ground would need to be pretty arable to restart civilization there. I'm guessing somewhere in Africa is a safe bet, given the lack of resource exploitation there, but then again, there's not much infrastructure at the moment.
[+] [-] alvern|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18977-innovation-meth...
[2] http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2008/CC/b80440...
[3]http://www.rsc.org/suppdata/cc/b8/b804405h/b804405h.pdf
[+] [-] CoffeeDregs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deanclatworthy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BrailleHunting|9 years ago|reply