we're breaking our planet once and for all, warn scientists

[bcbm]

http://io9.com/5916605/were-breaking-our-planet-once-and-for-all-warn-scientists

oh boy

[Ele'ill]

After all of this so far we're only 43% of the way there. We'll be fine.

[Zav]

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be human.

Well, there you have it. We have less than a century to destroy Capitalism.

I have... a paperclip, a copy of Mutual Aid, and a hair tie. Fuck, where's MacGuyver when you need him?

I suggest... well I don't know what. Since a single United Front isn't going to work out, how about two: the Marxists and the Anarchists? After that miracle, the Marxists would need to organize a Party, and the Anarchists would need to establish communes and federations. So long as there is free movement between the two and neither outlaws the other, it might work.


After all of this so far we're only 43% of the way there. We'll be fine.
Not sure if sarcastic; hopes is sarcastic.
If not, I will yell at you through the screen and hope you hear me.

[Aussie Trotskyist]

This is a reason we need world revolution.

Capitalism clearly can't address the problems it creates and will destroy the planet. If the revolution spreads world wide, we will have an easier time addressing the problems of climate change, because we won't want to make profit etc etc.

FUCK THE BOURGEOISIE! YOU'RE FUCKING THE PLANET!

(I hope swearing is permitted on this forum).

[MustCrushCapitalism]

It's undeniable that our planet is going to shit. What we need to focus on is leaving the process of fixing it to the scientific community. A lot of "green" solutions are seemingly ineffective. Science-oriented friends of mine tend to lean towards the opinion that nuclear power is a good idea.

One of humanity's main priorities right now should be the eventual terraforming and colonization of other planets.

[Zav]

It's undeniable that our planet is going to shit. What we need to focus on is leaving the process of fixing it to the scientific community. A lot of "green" solutions are seemingly ineffective. Science-oriented friends of mine tend to lean towards the opinion that nuclear power is a good idea.

One of humanity's main priorities right now should be the eventual terraforming and colonization of other planets.
Glorious exposition, Comrade.

This is the kind of post that will cause the thread to derail. You've combined shitting on the Environmentalist movement, the nuclear power thread, and the terraforming thread. Good job.

No, we need popular revolution, because the social systems we have at present are causing the planet's destruction. Scientists alone can do little. I'd like to know which green solutions have failed, and why these fictitious failures discount every green solution we have or will have.

Nuclear power is not a valid long-term solution as it relies on heavy mining and limited radioactive materials that are better used in medicine and scientific instruments. Besides, they are too easy a target during social unrest, which the destruction of the biosphere just might cause a little of. Storm one and you hold a hundred kilometer radius (at least) hostage. There is also the issue of nuclear waste. That shit is heavy, thus expensive to shoot into space, and we can't safely have it here. The new reactor designs that consume some of their waste don't physically exist, so I doubt that we know if they work properly.

We have not the resources to terraform another planet, not even the moon. It would require an incredible amount of gas that we can't afford to take from Earth, and if the rock is geologically dead like the Moon or Mars, then it's pretty much impossible. We can detect large asteroids years before they hit us, and thus have plenty of time to destroy or redirect it. The sun won't consume the planet for billions of years, longer than life itself has existed here. As a species we won't exist then, and if our descendants do, they'll be plenty intelligent enough to find a good solution. Even if we did terraform other planets, it will only provide more resources for Capitalism to exploit, more space for more labor, etcetera, and will greatly delay the Revolution, possibly forever.

[Yu Ming Zai]

It's undeniable that our planet is going to shit. What we need to focus on is leaving the process of fixing it to the scientific community. A lot of "green" solutions are seemingly ineffective. Science-oriented friends of mine tend to lean towards the opinion that nuclear power is a good idea.

One of humanity's main priorities right now should be the eventual terraforming and colonization of other planets.

Why would one of our main priorities right now be the colonization of other planets? We should be fixing our own planet first before we go onto other planets. And we can't just leave the problem for the scientists to fix because they have relatively little political power to call for support. What we really need to focus on is a revolution to overthrow the existing systems that promote waste and ecological destruction in order to provide fertile grounds for scientists and other related groups to work freely with all the support needed to accomplish such a daunting task as the restoration of our planet to its healthy state.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

No, we need popular revolution,

I obviously don't disagree that we do, but it's a grandiose and unscientific delusion to claim that this is all of it.


because the social systems we have at present are causing the planet's destruction. Scientists alone can do little.

Again, repeating what I said above, yes, it's indisputable that the capitalist system is detrimental to the environment, but to say that socialist revolution would instantly solve this problem is to delude yourself. There's a lot scientists could do, an issue is that it's not always profitable for the capitalist system to allow them to.


I'd like to know which green solutions have failed, and why these fictitious failures discount every green solution we have or will have.

I'm not anti-green.


Nuclear power is not a valid long-term solution as it relies on heavy mining and limited radioactive materials that are better used in medicine and scientific instruments. Besides, they are too easy a target during social unrest, which the destruction of the biosphere just might cause a little of. Storm one and you hold a hundred kilometer radius (at least) hostage. There is also the issue of nuclear waste. That shit is heavy, thus expensive to shoot into space, and we can't safely have it here. The new reactor designs that consume some of their waste don't physically exist, so I doubt that we know if they work properly.

It's not a permanent solution, but neither are most other alternatives available right now. Solar energy, wind energy, etc, should account for a lot more of our energy use but they simply are not enough to fuel the whole planet. Nuclear energy is reusable and, although far from perfect, the best option we really have as a species right now.

I'd write up a longer response, but I don't have any source or stats to quote offhand on nuclear energy.

[black magick hustla]

http://io9.com/5916605/were-breaking-our-planet-once-and-for-all-warn-scientists

oh boy

:shrugs:, probably important to consider but, as someone who models bullshit too, models that attempt to model something as massive as this aren't probably that trustworthy. i am really careful about people singing catastrophe because people have been doing that shit for centuries and we still keep going on at it, especially malthusian like predictions.

[ВАЛТЕР]

I don't even like this planet anyways...

[MotherCossack]

nuclear is a piece of shit idea...... i know how to save our planet from glabal warming.....greenhouse gases.... methane bubbles.... catastrophic transformation of earth into venus mark2....... let's nuclearise it..... it is good shit... this nuclear power .... we just need a load of uranium.... smash it up...[and split the atoms]...feel the heat and grab the energy... hide it away in the deepest pit.... hoping no-on e ever goes near it..... for this particular waste leaves a nasty taste in your mouth....some of the elements in the spent fuel have a half life of millions of years.!
so that sounds perfect.... we just bury the lot... it dont matter if the whole planet glows like a flourescent christmas tree in essex

[marl]

I'm just worried this planet will be destroyed before the revolution.

[bcbm]

:shrugs:, probably important to consider but, as someone who models bullshit too, models that attempt to model something as massive as this aren't probably that trustworthy. i am really careful about people singing catastrophe because people have been doing that shit for centuries and we still keep going on at it, especially malthusian like predictions.

it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism

[Hexen]

I think this may have happened before.

http://io9.com/5914091/climate-change-ended-one-of-the-great-ancient-civilizations

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Huh. If we're so DOOOOOMED, then tell me what's the point of fighting for justice and equality?

Acquiring the habit of rubbing oneself silly over the prospect of those evil, sinful Nature-destroying hoo-mans destroying themselves strikes me as something more likely to lead to apathy than action.

[Hexen]

Huh. If we're so DOOOOOMED, then tell me what's the point of fighting for justice and equality?

Acquiring the habit of rubbing oneself silly over the prospect of those evil, sinful Nature-destroying hoo-mans destroying themselves strikes me as something more likely to lead to apathy than action.

I guess it's rather that doomsday predictions is defeatist garbage after all.

[Sasha]

dont have time to read the article but "we are breaking the planet"? people need to stop with that shit, the planet can take anything we throw at it, we are merely destroying our own likely survival (and of most plants and animals we curently share the plannet with). maybe if we stop making it so abstract people will finaly pay a little attention and get oif their arses.
that planet wil be here, with most likely plenty of forms of life, for bilions of years after we are gone, its humanity we need to worry about.

[doesn't even make sense]

dont have time to read the article but "we are breaking the planet"? people need to stop with that shit, the planet can take anything we throw at it, we are merely destroying our own likely survival (and of most plants and animals we curently share the plannet with). maybe if we stop making it so abstract people will finaly pay a little attention and get oif their arses.
that planet wil be here, with most likely plenty of forms of life, for bilions of years after we are gone, its humanity we need to worry about.

As far as we're concerned though, that *is* breaking the planet. I mean what comfort is it to us that life will go on in some unrecognizable form (unless we are looking at it purely from some kind of moralistic standpoint)?.

I think we should take ecological problems dead serious and I don't see how focusing on them in any way promotes defeatism or acquiescence to the system. For me at least stories like these inspire a sense of life or death urgency to tear down this system we have that is so utterly incompetent at prioritizing our well-being that the bare minimum of our continued survival is itself in question.

[black magick hustla]

it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism

maybe, but human beings are resilent enough to survive and find joy in things.

[bcbm]

Huh. If we're so DOOOOOMED, then tell me what's the point of fighting for justice and equality?


Not willing to completely give up, and considering that humanity has yet to push the planet to the brink, the scientists highlight the need to improve biological forecasting. At the same time, they suggest we address the root causes of how humans are forcing biological change.


Acquiring the habit of rubbing oneself silly over the prospect of those evil, sinful Nature-destroying hoo-mans destroying themselves strikes me as something more likely to lead to apathy than action.

being honest about what our actions are doing to the planet and seeking a way to fix them strikes me as pragmatic and necessary for our survival. and nobody said anything about 'evil, sin' blah blah' stop projecting your asinine technophile prejudices.


maybe, but human beings are resilent enough to survive and find joy in things.

i want more than survival and an eking of joy

[DasFapital]

well I think humanity has fucked up the planet tremendously over the last 10,000 years or so I don't think we're gonna break it permanently. If the biosphere made it through the Permian extinction and the K-T event I think it can survive civilization.

[bcbm]

i think they mean 'breaking' in the sense of causing long term changes that will disrupt or destroy much of the life on the planet including ourselves

[Hit The North]

well I think humanity has fucked up the planet tremendously over the last 10,000 years or so I don't think we're gonna break it permanently. If the biosphere made it through the Permian extinction and the K-T event I think it can survive civilization.

Why "fucked up"? Humans have transformed nature so it best accords to their needs. There's no standard and stable point of "natural harmony" that can be said to be upset by human intervention, given that humans are part of the biosphere and biospheres are, whether humans are in them or not, intrinsically unstable and mutable over archeological time.

[DasFapital]

Why "fucked up"? Humans have transformed nature so it best accords to their needs. There's no standard and stable point of "natural harmony" that can be said to be upset by human intervention, given that humans are part of the biosphere and biospheres are, whether humans are in them or not, intrinsically unstable and mutable over archeological time.
There is indeed a natural harmony. Ecosystems evolve over millions of years to achieve some form of stability. Events like the Columbian Exchange and the Holocene extinctions have upset this. Take the American dust bowl for instance, the farmers removed the native vegetation causing the soil to become lose and unstable. Then there's the pine beetles destroying the forests of the Rocky Mountains, the introduction of rabbits and foxes to Australia, feral hogs in the Southern US, the list goes on and on.

[bcbm]

Why "fucked up"? Humans have transformed nature so it best accords to their needs.

a brief glance through history shows this isn't the case though. time and time again humans have transformed nature to the point that their surrounding were no longer capable of supporting human civilization.

[Ele'ill]

Why "fucked up"? Humans have transformed nature so it best accords to their needs. There's no standard and stable point of "natural harmony" that can be said to be upset by human intervention, given that humans are part of the biosphere and biospheres are, whether humans are in them or not, intrinsically unstable and mutable over archeological time.


I don't know if I understand what you're saying but there are non human oriented 'events' that occur and then there is a rebound, sometimes- not always, but the frequency and severity of events that humans are creating aren't allowing for any rebound. It's almost a constant change that the biosphere rarely or never really comes back from. I'm not saying it's impossible for something other than humans to do this kind of thing but right now it's humans that are doing it.

[Comrade Mitja]

Look on the bright side only this way we can kill all the capitalists.

everything has a happy ending