On a scale of 1 to 10 how fucked is the environment?

1

If humans disappeared tomorrow in a thousand years everything would be back to absolute normal

0 you seem to realize this rock was once:
a giant iceball
a giant volcanic gasball

and yet here we are.

There wasn’t microplastic in the oceans then

Yes and humans wouldn't live very well on a giant iceball or a giant volcanic gasball
I'm interested in preserving agriculture so my technology stays cheap.

Climate change is the thing that everyone talks about... but it won't be the immediate problem. Increased levels of CO2 are dissolving in the oceans and creating high levels of carbonic acid. Ocean acidification will not only make wild caught fish unavailable in 100 years but will also kill the phytoplankton that make most of the oxygen.

I'm not an environmentalist maniac, but it doesn't take much to realize how much of a problem all of this is going to be.

11
We have to leave this dying shell NOW.

Fukushima hasn't done anything 1000s of coal plants didn't already do on a much bigger scale
The Earth would be in a much better shape if we had switched to nuclear power 40 years ago but moron "environmentalists" are morons

You don't think radiation is a genuine concern?

Nuclear energy is completely safe and is the cleanest form of energy unless you build the power plants in disaster prone areas. Fukushima (or Japan at all) should have never had a nuclear power plant in the first place

Most nuclear disasters we're not triggered by natural disasters. Usually by human error/negligence.

you don't think coal power plants produce radiation? ahahaha
they produce more on average than a nuclear power plant

They haven't been though...

Which isn't an issue today, due to high standards (beyond humans, in the plants themselves).

coal ash is radioactive but not nearly as much as nuclear fuel/waste
the bigger concern with coal ash is the high concentrations of heavy metals

There has been exactly one nuclear incident because of human error that was harmful on a large scale. The reason it was so bad is because the Soviet Union did not adhere to internationally recognized safety procedures for both constructing and operating nuclear plants.

Let me also mention that we have had a nuclear reactor meltdown in the United States, but no radiation was released because of the structural standards it was built to.

it's certainly a big experiment. sure, co2 has been high before, but not in a very long time and it's never occurred this quickly. i don't think the warming part matters very much. like you said, acidification has bigger potential implications. As far as phytoplankton go... there will be big shifts in species, but definitely won't go away as a clade. However fishing, which is already abused, will only get worse, and combined with large scale population changes it could actually lead to some kind of collapse.
on the other hand it might not happen, or might just happen in ways impossible to predict. plus nobody seems willing to stop driving or stop using central air, or stop eating fish or stop buying random chinese shit, etc.

Coal is loess radioactive than nuclear fuels -- but you have to use a shit-ton more of it for equivalent generating capacity.

I live about 12 miles from a nuclear plant, roughly the same distance from a coal plant. The huge unshielded pile of coal stored at THAT plant releases way more radioactivity than doe s the nuke plant.

And it does it every day, all day, without significant regulation.

Windscale in Britain, Three Mile Island in the USA but those wasn't harmful "on a large scale. I guess it has to decimate a huge area to be considered dangerous.
There are others not mentioned too.

>the operation of a 1000-MWe coal-fired power plant results in a nuclear radiation dose of 490 person-rem/year, compared to 136 person-rem/year, for an equivalent nuclear power plant including uranium mining, reactor operation and waste disposal
that's just for radiation
i can even give source, it's old as fuck though, from 1993
ornl.gov/sites/default/files/ORNL Review v26n3-4 1993.pdf

>On a scale of 1 to 10 how fucked is the environment?
It's impossible to know the true impact.

Only about 5% of the world's seafloor has been mapped in some detail. Since the ocean occupies roughly 70% of the Earth's surface, this leaves approximately 65% of the Earth (excluding dry land) unexplored.
I'll say that again.
65% of the Earth unexplored.

For instance, we recently JUST discovered that there's an entire ecosystem under the ice of Antarctica. And just as we discover it, it's going to die due to increasing temperatures and increased light exposure. We were lucky to catch a glimpse of this ecosystem before it dies but I don't think we'll get to study it. Who knows what can be learned. Perhaps the life has some form of antifreeze that would make cryogenic hibernation a possibility, or some other medical advances.

The fact is we don't know how badly we're screwing up, and those in charge are burring their heads in the sand because all signs indicate that it's bad, and they're all afraid of how bad it really is. It reminds me of when the idea was 1st proposed surgeons should wash their hands before operation. Doctors refused to believe they were causing infection because they didn't want to know how badly they fucked up. Same fear based logic applies here, but on a massive global scale.

it depends on the source, but coal can come from the same places you find a lot of radioisotopes

>Can damage dealt to critical ecosystems be rolled back in the next 50 years or so if we don’t act in the next 4 years?

well you can't sustain society without capitalism and democracy. people need to produce in order for others to buy, which promotes capitalism and consumerism.
it depends if you plan on ending capitalism (which is pretty fucking ambitious in itself).

if we end capitalism and consumerism, we can make a post-communist society that puts emphasis on resource efficiency,energy effciency and minimal consumption.
it will be like the old communism, the only difference is we still maintain democracy to some degree.
there are very few people that can even live this sort of lifestyle by default so that will require some form of dictatorship mixed with democracy.

USGS paper from 1997 says what I said
>average population dose attributed to coal burning (KEK) is included under the consumer products category and is much less than 1%
pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/0163/report.pdf
there's also a bunch of stuff about coal ash by this environmental health NGO that doesn't mention radiation at all
psr.org/assets/PDFs/coal-ash.pdf

see this usgs paper

Agreed

Not only that but all of our electronics use silicon wafers which just so happen to be insanely awful for the environment to make

Everything we are doing on every front is destroying the environment, global warming is nowhere near the whole picture

>time is a flat circle

So if I live in a moderately wealthy life compared to most of the world, and try to be as environmentally conscious as possible (recycle, grow my own foods when I can, don’t leave lights on/turn off ac most of the time, don’t drive a gas guzzler etc) is it still a horrible idea to bring a child into this world?

no it never mattered
we're all fucked anyway

In millions of years it will be gone, this is a fucking planet you retard.
The point here is our crust can get rid of anything that threatens the biosphere in time.

the relevant question is not "will ecosystems be able to recover" but rather "will human society survive the damage we're doing to the ecosystems we depend on"

(the answer is probably no)

>The point here is our crust can get rid of anything that threatens the biosphere in time.

That doesn't matter if we don't live to see it.

This is like saying death is a normal process so murder is fine. There's a difference between a species naturally going extinct and an extinction event.

Cool for the planet dude. What most people are largely concerned about is the continued survival of humanity. No one gives a shit if the planet will eventually recover, were worried about humans not getting sent back thousands of years of progress.

Most of us are pretty fucked today
Though since life uh... finds a way we can expect natural selection to produce organisms that can cope with the new environment.

for a small loan of a millions of years

C02 IS FUCKCING FILLIGN UP UOUR ATMOSTPHERE HURRY DO SOMETHINGN BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS ITS 2012 ALL OVER AGAGAIN HEEEEEEEEELLLPP!!!!

5

It's pretty fucked and we will see major dieoffs and climate change, but we will survive. We're more dangerous to ourselves than the biosphere collapse. Most likely a war will get us.

>I can’t think critically about overarching effects of damage to the ecosystems

I’m not too worried about human survival, but survival of the modern life we’ve come to enjoy. How fucked is that specifically? I don’t want to “survive” if it means Africa/India tier living.

>ORE THE WORLD ENDS ITS 2012 ALL OVER AGAGAIN HEEEEEEEEELLLPP!!
thanks for proving everyone right

>I'm a paranoid schizophrenic who indulges in apocalyptic scenarios based on pseudo-science funded by governments and big business.

>worrying about the very clear effects of the environment causing an agricultural decline is an apocalyptic scenario
>majority scientific opinion is pseudo-science
>caring about my own future instead of sticking my head in the sand and saying “LALALA ITLL ALL FIX ITSELF” is being paranoid
>corporate interests are in the environment

There’s literally no point in engaging with you further if you’re just going to be obtuse.

>agricultural decline

Has it happened yet!? We produce too much food as it is, a few degrees of temp difference won't do SHIT.

>majority scientific opinion is pseudo-science

Science is not based on consensus, it's based on the validity of the science. Climate scientists are not scientists, they're nothing more than useless weathermen who make shitty predictions using their shitty "semi-empirical" models.

>caring about my own future

You only give a shit about the environment when pseudo-science tells you to.

>corporate interests are in the environment

They're in money. Energy is big money. Green energy is big money. Get it?

>few degrees of temp difference won't do SHIT.
youtu.be/Mc_4Z1oiXhY?t=23m10s
-------------------------------------
thumbnail explanation why food supply gets hit

>a few degrees of temp difference won't do SHIT.
a few degrees of temp difference could make or break some agricultural zones

>Gwynne Dyer
>Officer of the Order of Canada

Yeaahhhhhh... no thanks.

Literal retard

>i have no argument

You can start reading Sepp Holzer's Permaculture and living a simpler life.

bp saved the gulf of mexico when it released that oil on accident. It killed an algae called the Red Tide. Not backing oil because it killed a fuckton of sea life by depleting the oxygen of the ocean a few meters deep. The red tide algae was doing the same thing. The gov did charge them a shitton of cash but the media didn't report that because of how much damage it did. But at least the red tide algae is gone. YAY!

occurs nearly every summer along Florida’s Gulf Coast. This bloom is caused by microscopic algae that produce toxins that kill fish and make shellfish dangerous to eat. The toxins may also make the surrounding air difficult to breathe. turns the water red.

1....no, 10...wait. Which is which?

George Carlin said it best.

The planet is fine
youtu.be/7W33HRc1A6c

Do your part to reduce co2
Stop breathing

Isn't that picture known to be erroneous and based on pictures taken at different seasons of the year?

youtu.be/Mc_4Z1oiXhY?t=48m40s
tropical: 0 - 23.5°
subtropical: 23.5° - 40°
temperate: 40° - 65°

This really doesn't say much of anything since the month of the year isn't given. What if the 1978 picture was taken in May when the 2012 picture was taken in November?

Source please.

Satan you gotta calm down with this autism. Obviously we know the earth has been hit with giant meteors at extreme speed, leaving most of earth's surface molten, and still bacteria somewhere in some pockets survived and produced more complex life eventually.

Obviously what people fucking mean when they talk about this topic is "oh shit we are all gonna die because we're making the planet unsuitable for living." Everyone knows the fucking planet will "recover" and other life forms will go on, but we will go extinct.

Frankly it would be rather implausible to say that humanity as a species will even go completley extinct.

As far as I'm concerned short of a meteor that glasses the whole planet there will probably be isolated pockets of humans that manage to cling to life for a very long time. We could hit a point where it is impossible to rebuild civilization and as such our technological legacy will die and we will die out as savages the same as we were born, but there will almost certainly always be humans.

>inb4 humans aren't good at surviving and will all die
Fuck this meme, we might not be the best brawlers out there but humans are some of the most durable creatures on the planet insofar as our ability to survive copious amounts of bullshit of various forms and descriptions.

LOL, that's funny

(runaway) global warming is much worse than a meteorite
just look at Venus

From what I've seen we would have to do a metric fuckton more than what we're doing now to get to that particular point or even particularly close to it.

That said I'm just a layman so I might just be 100% fucking wrong.

that's why I said runaway
at a certain point it just keeps happening on it's own
it's really not that difficult, lots of people seem to struggle with this

And that's what I'm saying, from the things I've seen we're pretty far away from that runaway point and it would take a borderline conscious effort to reach it.

Why did you assume that I'm retarded and incapable of reading the words you wrote? Have a little bit of faith, lad.

In that case your opinion is worthless because to assess that takes a high level of scientific expertise in the emerging field of climate science. Runaway is just the worst case scenario anyway, just cause something doesn't kill you doesn't mean it's ok, to use human mortality as an analogy for environmental degradation.

>In that case your opinion is worthless
I already said that, lad. Literally scroll up four posts from this one. Doesn't mean that I can't casually discuss the issue on Veeky Forums and read through any literature that I'm directed to though, now does it?
>Runaway is just the worst case scenario anyway
Obviously
>Just cause something doesn't kill you doesn't mean it's ok
Obviously, I even said this, scroll up seven posts from this one, lad.

You need to chill, dude.

I just assumed you were a denier for obvious reasons.

That would be all well in good if I didn't give sufficient context to show that I'm not within the exact chain of comments you're replying too.

If you want my stance it's that there is obviously climate change and that it is obviously a problem, but that it's not entirely clear how bad the problem actually is and that it does not seem to be following the trends that have been proposed by the biggest alarmists in the climatology community and as such assuming that we are following the trends of the absolute worst case scenarios (pretty much the doomsday scenarios) seems somewhat unreasonable.

Now, if you want to call me retarded for all of that, feel free. If it's deserved then it's deserved.

>what is positive feedback

Well, that kid is going to have to get sick, get a job, work like a dog their whole life, endure painful procedures, worry about a ton of shit, and eventually gracelessly expire in his or her own excrement sucking on tubes... if he or she is lucky.

You tell me.

>at a certain point it just keeps happening on it's own

It begins at 450ppm/2C, at that point the process becomes independent from human emissions.
Nothing explosive happens at that point, but that's when the steering wheel comes off.

At the current rate, we'll reach 450ppm around 2030.

I would say that if you think that you have good genes you have a duty to try to find someone with good genes and reproduce, or at least put in a token effort.

If you're reasonably intelligent, reasonably agreeable and personable, and reasonably responsible then congrats you're above average and we want more people like you so make more please. If you aren't these things then please don't reproduce.

What about regression to the mean? Isn't his kid likely to be of average intellect?

>be rolled back
You're not getting back any extinct species, obviously, and plastic in the seas and soil isn't going anywhere except maybe the digestive systems of surviving species. The warming probably has reached the feedback loop already, so it'll kill off more stuff over the next couple thousand years. Overall I'd say that Earth will be very boring and samey in the future regardless of where you go. Hot and dry wasteland everywhere, with the same resilient weeds and vermins making up the biodiversity. Kinda like how all the major metropolises look like each other.

Yes, but they are also more likley to be above average than an individual who was born to average or below average parents, and they are also far less likley to be below average than an individual who was born to average or below average parents.

The smarter you are the more likley your kids are to also be smart or at least not be blathering retards. Same goes or empathy and personality and the like and that's important too.

The important thing is that you as an individual are proof that the genetic potential is there.

And yet here we are, ruining this absolute miracle we were given.

>bringing a smart, empathetic soul into this shitty game
How cruel.

Perhaps, but the more of them we have playing the better the game gets.

It depends where you're standing and how you're standing.
If you gathered all the damage in one place, what would you do with it that would make it not damage?
Once a chemical is created by humans, what can happen to it? Can chemicals be uncreated?
What kind of Earth do you want?

you're a big guess

It's advancing all the time, piece by piece
sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/amazon-rainforest-ability-soak-carbon-dioxide-falling

Why would someone go on the internet and propagate a false narrative fed to them by those who stand to lose money by changing the status quo for a greener earth?

No one would be that stupid...would they?

skepticalscience.com/why-450-ppm-is-not-safe.html

Conclusion chapter sums it up

Yeah this planet is fucked. If this Mars colony makes it off the ground I am getting the fuck off this gay Earth.

Honestly like 6.5/10
Don't think this is the epitome of climate science

the environment is fine
we're fucked

Post a rebuttal then

The environment has been changing regularly since the earth was formed. We're all gonna get fucked to death. Eventually, everything will even out sorta and dolphins will take over the world.

I agree with the conclusions in general but it could address more things is what I'm saying. Climate science doesn't suck.

>i discredit facts to make myself feel safe

Dolphins will never inherit the earth. Besides the fact that no other animal would reach human intellect in the time span before the sun engulfs the earth, if it had to be one it’d be octopi related.