dagblog - Comments for "Doomsday... is you is or is you ain't? "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

LisB — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:33:59 +0000

In reply to Aww, David, why do you bait

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsx1cvACkY

If you read me,

David Seaton — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:29:34 +0000

In reply to I don't even know how I would

If you read me, http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/2010/09/fascism-is-coming-to-usa-li...

I have the view that what we will get is the same one percent of super rich that we have now living like they do now, albeit with more security, more gates etc, and the rest of us living in third world squalor.Think Mexico City or Lagos, Nigeria. This is not the end of the world as McPherson suggests just the end of the American model of a middle class society. A world all Prada and no Wal-Mart.

I don't even know how I would

DF — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:47:00 +0000

In reply to Funny, I was just reading an

I don't even know how I would respond to such claims. Weird that the article says he only even heard of the concept of peak oil after he got done working on a book on climate change. You would think the question of petroleum supply would cross a curious mind when studying greenhouse gases.

For my part, my answer is that I don't know. And I don't think anyone else does either. We know oil is finite, but we don't exactly when and how that rears its ugly head. We also know that climate change is a fact (again - look at the atmospheric half-life of CO2 - the climate is already changing and would continue to change even if all emissions stopped yesterday, which they didn't and peak oil won't change that). What we don't know is how all of this plays out.

In fact, we know what the future holds no better than we know what makes us happy - or even if we're supposed to be. For instance, happiness might have nothing to do with my DNA's plan to propogate itself. In fact, given the capacity of women to create personal misery at whim, I'm not so sure happiness is even part of the plan. ;)

FWIW though, I think peak oil is what will put the brakes on emissions. We just don't have the capacity to act any sooner. But climate science doesn't say we can wait 10 or 20 years to reduce or even eliminate emissions. Climate change is here, the atmosphere is packed full of CO2 and nothing short of a powerful method to reverse that process is going to change that now.

Oddly enough, I just saw

Donal — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:13:01 +0000

In reply to Well I think there was a

Oddly enough, I just saw Soylent Green a few weeks ago.

Funny, I was just reading an

Donal — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:29:53 +0000

In reply to Climate change is real.

Funny, I was just reading an article by a guy who thinks Peak Oil will save us from Climate Change. I suppose the question is, save how many of us for what sort of life? But then a lot of people claim that our advanced society isn't making us happy anyway.

hahahahaahahah I hereby

Richard Day — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:42:56 +0000

In reply to Aww, David, why do you bait

hahahahaahahah

I hereby render unto Emma, the Dayly Cartoon of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of Emma from all of me. hahahha

Aww, David, why do you bait

EmmaZahn — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:41:36 +0000

In reply to Doomsday... is you is or is you ain't?

Aww, David, why do you bait me? I think I'll pass on this one. Progressive eschatology is just too depressing. What fun are end times if there is nothing to look forward to on the other side?

Climate change is real.

DF — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:25:35 +0000

In reply to Doomsday... is you is or is you ain't?

Climate change is real. Nothing will be done to mitigate it because it's too late. We needed to act decades ago, and even the most, ahem, ambitious proposals for doing something about it, like returning to 1990s levels of emissions within ten or fifteen years, are locked up in prisoner's dilemma-like proceedings on the world stage. In other words, we lack the political institutions to enact even tepid reforms that wouldn't halt climate change anyway. I've written about this before here.

No, we've punched this ticket. Returning to 1990s levels of emissions, even if that were "politically possible" at present, would not help. Let's remember that the evidence of climate change was with us in 1990. And then there's the whole thing about the half-life of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere.

As for what will happen as a result, no one can be sure. Many predictions have been made. GCMs will continue to be refined and run, but no one can predict the future. Perhaps the wisest thing that can be said about the future of climate is that we are entering a new era of fundamental uncertainty.

But it's done. Forget halting it. Probably forget mitigating it, too. We've already changed the climate.

I think it's a vision of what

Beetlejuice — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:23:03 +0000

In reply to Sheeeeeeeit!!!! Dawg!!! We

I think it's a vision of what the halls of Congress will look like if the republicans win both House and Senate.

Well I think there was a

Beetlejuice — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 21:18:04 +0000

In reply to Doomsday... is you is or is you ain't?

Well I think there was a movie about this very subject made in 1973 called Soylent Green. A tale of Earth in despair in 2022...12 years from now no less. If you're too old, it's time to meet your maker. The question is...what's too old? In the movie, Roth (Edward G. Robinson, his last film), opts for assisted suicide, or Palin's death panels no less, at a government clinic, a process referred to as "going home".