Octopus Overlords

Has anyone watched that Discovery special "Racing Extinction"? Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick.

It's on my list. Already understood that we're fucked, though.

What a terribly depressing two hours.

I think I watched 5 minutes and had to stop. It was soul-crushing.

I just finished. It tries to end on an upbeat note, but after 110 minutes of shitting on my soul, it was hard to buy their hopeful message at the end.

I didn't see that movie promoted until the day after it ran. Bummed that I missed it.

I did, however, read this Esquire story recently (yeah, I'm behind in my magazines). When the end of human civilization is your day job: Among many climate scientists, gloom has set in. Things are worse than we think, but they can't really talk about it.

For more than thirty years, climate scientists have been living a surreal existence. A vast and ever-growing body of research shows that warming is tracking the rise of greenhouse gases exactly as their models predicted. The physical evidence becomes more dramatic every year: forests retreating, animals moving north, glaciers melting, wildfire seasons getting longer, higher rates of droughts, floods, and storms—five times as many in the 2000s as in the 1970s. In the blunt words of the 2014 National Climate Assessment, conducted by three hundred of America's most distinguished experts at the request of the U. S. government, human-induced climate change is real—U. S. temperatures have gone up between 1.3 and 1.9 degrees, mostly since 1970—and the change is already affecting "agriculture, water, human health, energy, transportation, forests, and ecosystems." But that's not the worst of it. Arctic air temperatures are increasing at twice the rate of the rest of the world—a study by the U. S. Navy says that the Arctic could lose its summer sea ice by next year, eighty-four years ahead of the models—and evidence little more than a year old suggests the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is doomed, which will add between twenty and twenty-five feet to ocean levels. The one hundred million people in Bangladesh will need another place to live and coastal cities globally will be forced to relocate, a task complicated by economic crisis and famine—with continental interiors drying out, the chief scientist at the U. S. State Department in 2009 predicted a billion people will suffer famine within twenty or thirty years. And yet, despite some encouraging developments in renewable energy and some breakthroughs in international leadership, carbon emissions continue to rise at a steady rate, and for their pains the scientists themselves—the cruelest blow of all—have been the targets of an unrelenting and well-organized attack that includes death threats, summonses from a hostile Congress, attempts to get them fired, legal harassment, and intrusive discovery demands so severe they had to start their own legal-defense fund, all amplified by a relentless propaganda campaign nakedly financed by the fossil-fuel companies. Shortly before a pivotal climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, thousands of their e-mail streams were hacked in a sophisticated espionage operation that has never been solved—although the official police investigation revealed nothing, an analysis by forensics experts traced its path through servers in Turkey and two of the world's largest oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

This article focuses on scientists whose views lean toward the darker extremes of the climate models, asks what if they're right, and offers some evidence that they probably are.

We can only hope that they are not.

Kraken wrote:This article focuses on scientists whose views lean toward the darker extremes of the climate models, asks what if they're right, and offers some evidence that they probably are.

We can only hope that they are not.

I'm going to need someone to post some upbeat shit, pronto.

The RE movie touches on the vast amounts of methane currently frozen in the permafrost that we are thawing out and releasing into the atmosphere, and really sells home the dangers of having 1.2 billion cattle roaming around pumping out massive amounts of methane. They say stuff like "Hey, if everyone just gave up meat and dairy for one day a week, for a year, that would make such a huge difference".

But *everyone* knows that isn't going to happen. So what then?

I'm not going to lie, there are a couple of scenes in the movie that are rough. They have a guy talking about this bird from Hawaii, and they are listening to it's song. These birds mate for life, and they sing together. The male sings, and then the female sings. Supposedly a beautiful duet. Except the recording you are listening to is the male singing his song, and then silence because there is no female part. Because all of the females of the species are dead. This sad mother-fucker is the last male of his species...just sitting there, singing his sad song. Except that he's not - because he's fucking dead now too and his species is now extinct.

Later on they show you this sweet frog. He's also the last goddamn member of his species on Earth. Just sitting there looking at me, like I did this to him.

Also - I'm no real big fan of sharks, because they're assholes. But seeing goddamn rooftops filled to capacity with goddamn shark fins (with the companion video of some shark fisherman catching a shark, lopping his fins off and then tossing him back in the water so he can fall to the bottom, struggling to swim - except he can't because some asshole just chopped his fucking fins off and left him for dead). What the hell?

Goddamn China.

At least some of the guys in the movie got this small Indonesian village to stop slaughtering manta rays like it was their goddamn job (it was their goddamn job - they were slaughtering the manta rays so they could chop out the gills and ship them to China - because dumb fucking people in China heard that some other dumb fucking people in China heard that their ancestors said that manta ray gills might cure cancer).

Such a sad and enraging two hours. And I know that the entire point of the movie was to make me sad and enraged. I know that it's propaganda. But I also know that it's right. This shit is happening.

The one *really* disturbing factoid was the substantial loss of phytoplankton. If that is actually happening, and it gets worse...that is bad fucking news. Phytoplankton are the main reason things can live on land (they produce more than 50% of the oxygen in the atmosphere), without them, things can't live on land.

The Paris climate change meetings got a first draft done on time that people seem very optimistic about. Does that do anything for you, RM9?

It's too little to hold the temperature increase to 2 degrees even if all the nations abide by their commitments. So too little, too late...but better than nothing if it's treated as a starting point rather than an end. The 2-degree target might be impossible now, but we can still try to prevent it from galloping too much past that.

I read yesterday that, thanks to Iranian oil coming onto the market and OPEC failing to agree on restrictions, the price could fall to $20/bbl by next summer, and the world will run out of land-based storage capacity by January. As much as we all like paying lower energy bills (myself included), that's bad news for the climate...particularly if cheap oil accelerates consumption in general.

RunningMn9 wrote:

Kraken wrote:This article focuses on scientists whose views lean toward the darker extremes of the climate models, asks what if they're right, and offers some evidence that they probably are.

We can only hope that they are not.

I'm going to need someone to post some upbeat shit, pronto.

You'll be dead before things enter the cannibal stage.

Probably.

That's only upbeat if you have no kids. Or dislike them.

Zaxxon wrote:That's only upbeat if you have no kids. Or dislike them.

Meh. I'm saving for their education. They're on their own for the rest of it.

RunningMn9 wrote:

Kraken wrote:This article focuses on scientists whose views lean toward the darker extremes of the climate models, asks what if they're right, and offers some evidence that they probably are.

We can only hope that they are not.

I'm going to need someone to post some upbeat shit, pronto.

The RE movie touches on the vast amounts of methane currently frozen in the permafrost that we are thawing out and releasing into the atmosphere, and really sells home the dangers of having 1.2 billion cattle roaming around pumping out massive amounts of methane. They say stuff like "Hey, if everyone just gave up meat and dairy for one day a week, for a year, that would make such a huge difference".

But *everyone* knows that isn't going to happen. So what then?

I'm not going to lie, there are a couple of scenes in the movie that are rough. They have a guy talking about this bird from Hawaii, and they are listening to it's song. These birds mate for life, and they sing together. The male sings, and then the female sings. Supposedly a beautiful duet. Except the recording you are listening to is the male singing his song, and then silence because there is no female part. Because all of the females of the species are dead. This sad mother-fucker is the last male of his species...just sitting there, singing his sad song. Except that he's not - because he's fucking dead now too and his species is now extinct.

Later on they show you this sweet frog. He's also the last goddamn member of his species on Earth. Just sitting there looking at me, like I did this to him.

Also - I'm no real big fan of sharks, because they're assholes. But seeing goddamn rooftops filled to capacity with goddamn shark fins (with the companion video of some shark fisherman catching a shark, lopping his fins off and then tossing him back in the water so he can fall to the bottom, struggling to swim - except he can't because some asshole just chopped his fucking fins off and left him for dead). What the hell?

Goddamn China.

At least some of the guys in the movie got this small Indonesian village to stop slaughtering manta rays like it was their goddamn job (it was their goddamn job - they were slaughtering the manta rays so they could chop out the gills and ship them to China - because dumb fucking people in China heard that some other dumb fucking people in China heard that their ancestors said that manta ray gills might cure cancer).

Such a sad and enraging two hours. And I know that the entire point of the movie was to make me sad and enraged. I know that it's propaganda. But I also know that it's right. This shit is happening.

The one *really* disturbing factoid was the substantial loss of phytoplankton. If that is actually happening, and it gets worse...that is bad fucking news. Phytoplankton are the main reason things can live on land (they produce more than 50% of the oxygen in the atmosphere), without them, things can't live on land.

As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

geezer wrote:

As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

I didn't have kids, and I come from a long line of people who didn't have kids.

Not to worry, climate change will resolve any overpopulation issues.

geezer wrote:As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

Certainly that isn't helping. But "too many f'ing people" isn't the reason that we are lopping off shark fins and tossing still living (but finless) sharks back into the water to let them suffocate and die.

RunningMn9 wrote:

geezer wrote:As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

Certainly that isn't helping. But "too many f'ing people" isn't the reason that we are lopping off shark fins and tossing still living (but finless) sharks back into the water to let them suffocate and die.

Not the reason, but certainly increases the probability that there will be assholes out there with the time, resources and desire to do this insane shit.

Kraken wrote:

geezer wrote:

As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

I didn't have kids, and I come from a long line of people who didn't have kids.

RunningMn9 wrote:

geezer wrote:As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

Certainly that isn't helping. But "too many f'ing people" isn't the reason that we are lopping off shark fins and tossing still living (but finless) sharks back into the water to let them suffocate and die.

Pretty much every thing you do today will contribute disproportionately to global warming. From typing your post to getting to work (or just working at home if you work at home) to taking a shit. And I'm willing to bet that you're on the low end of the wasteful scale in the US.

I know I am but every morning I get in a lukewarm shower or put on my sweatshirt at home I know that even that is unsustainable. I still buy food, I still have running water and heat and a billion electrical devices. I take part in one of the most wasteful and polluting societies on the planet. How do you resign yourself to the fact that your kids or grandkids will probably die of starvation and there's nothing we can do about it? Eat steak? It's tempting.

Here's as close as I can get to finding some good news:

COP21: Carbon emissions 'to stall or even decline' this year

Global emissions of carbon dioxide are likely to stall and even decline slightly this year, new data suggests. Researchers say it is the first time this has happened while the global economy has continued to grow. The fall-off is due to reduced coal use in China, as well as faster uptake of renewables, the scientists involved in the assessment add. But they expect the stall to be temporary and for emissions to grow again as emerging economies develop.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change and presented here at COP21 in Paris, emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry are likely to have fallen 0.6% in 2015. They increased by around the same amount in 2014. Since 2000, global emissions have grown annually by 2-3%. The slowdown has occurred while the global economy has grown by 3% in both 2014 and 2015. "We're expecting a stalling in emissions, possibly even a little decrease," said Prof Corinne Le Quere from the University of East Anglia, UK, who led the data analysis. "The main cause is from decreased coal use in China. It's restructuring its economy, but there is also a contribution from the very fast growth in renewable energy worldwide, and this is the most interesting part: can we actually grow renewable energy enough to offset the coal use elsewhere?"

RunningMn9 wrote:

geezer wrote:As always, the core problem is too many f'ing people, but hardly anyone, for a variety of reasons, want to reverse population growth. We're fucked because we all expect someone else to make the sacrifice.

Certainly that isn't helping. But "too many f'ing people" isn't the reason that we are lopping off shark fins and tossing still living (but finless) sharks back into the water to let them suffocate and die.

That's true. Honestly, I can't even stand to see that kind of thing anymore. It just absolutely breaks my heart and I know it's happening over and over again, and everywhere. It's not even the macro ecological things sometimes - it's just the idea of the willing cruelty and the suffering people inflict for absolutely no goddamn good reason.

My thing with too many people is that I know as a species we just don't respect the world around us, but when there aren't so many of us the world has a chance to survive the onslaught to some extent or another. With so many of us, well, the outlook is grim.

And like LawBeef says, I know that *I* am part of the problem. I do all sorts of things to minimize impact, but ultimately, eh.. I just don't know.

I think the part of the show that struck the biggest nerve (by design) was seeing the last living members of some of these species. That goddamn bird just sitting there on a branch, singing his half of a song to a lady bird that will never come. The last male of his species. Same with those rhinos that we've hunted to extinction. I understand why we have a ring of guards around him at all time - but now he's just standing there, the last of his species, just waiting to go extinct because we like to carve shit out of ivory.

Ivory is from elephant teeth. Rhino horn is a giant fingernail. Even worse, you don't have to kill the rhino to get it.

Isgrimnur wrote:Ivory is from elephant teeth. Rhino horn is a giant fingernail. Even worse, you don't have to kill the rhino to get it.

Well, whatever we murdered them for.

Greed. As with most things.

geezer wrote:My thing with too many people is that I know as a species we just don't respect the world around us, but when there aren't so many of us the world has a chance to survive the onslaught to some extent or another. With so many of us, well, the outlook is grim.

The world will survive. Once we completely use it up from a survival of the species standpoint, I imagine it will rid itself of us and go into hibernation for a while then it will re-emerge at some later point. We likely won't have any lasting impact in geological terms.

My plan is to be cheap fuel for some future species, who will complain about how expensive I am anyway.

45 glorknids just for a trilogramme? That's outrageous!

If there's a God, I'll be the source of constant news, discussion and stress.

Something to look forward to.

coopasonic wrote: The world will survive. Once we completely use it up from a survival of the species standpoint, I imagine it will rid itself of us and go into hibernation for a while then it will re-emerge at some later point. We likely won't have any lasting impact in geological terms.

Actually we have. By using up all the accessible fossil fuels, we've made it impossible for the next intelligent species to boost itself into an industrial age. They might have done better than us, but they won't have the chance.

Holman wrote:

coopasonic wrote: The world will survive. Once we completely use it up from a survival of the species standpoint, I imagine it will rid itself of us and go into hibernation for a while then it will re-emerge at some later point. We likely won't have any lasting impact in geological terms.

Actually we have. By using up all the accessible fossil fuels, we've made it impossible for the next intelligent species to boost itself into an industrial age. They might have done better than us, but they won't have the chance.

All of our rotting corpses will make more.

The U.S. Navy’s $500 million ship that’s ready for disaster in a warmer world

Culturally, the U.S. military is a fairly conservative organization. But unlike many other conservative American institutions, the armed services harbor no doubt about arguably the most important issue in the world today — one that has drawn experts, advocates and leaders from all over the world to Paris for an historic conference.

Climate change.

The military believes in it. And it’s already preparing for a world with a climate that’s hotter, more volatile and more destructive. It is evident in the armed forces’ investment in solar energy to power their bases and in their experimentation with renewable, non-petroleum “bio-fuels.”

And the Defense Department’s commitment to addressing climate change is also apparent in the kinds of equipment it buys. Today, the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, part of defense giant General Dynamics, is building a new ship for the Navy that’s ideal for dealing with the consequences of a warmer, more volatile world.

The $500-million Expeditionary Mobile Base vessel — 784 feet long from bow to stern — combines all the most important features the military believes ships will need to respond to the more frequent and more severe natural disasters.

A modified version of a commercial oil tanker, the base ship boasts vast storage capacity for hauling emergency supplies, a huge flight deck for launching and landing helicopters and other aircraft, and plenty of internal space for people and medical facilities. By deliberately taking on water, the Montford Point-class “Expeditionary Mobile Base” can bring its lower deck level with the sea, allowing it to easily launch hovercraft and small boats. Observers have described the new ships as “ports at sea.”

The Navy originally intended the Montford Point class to support amphibious beach assaults, but the sailing branch now realizes the ships are also ideal for swiftly responding to natural disasters — including those worsened by climate change — by delivering relief supplies by air and by sea, as well as helping to care for victims.

Plus it's air-conditioned, so manpower will never be a problem.

Because responding to natural disasters around the world is what we build these multi-billion dollar ships for.

I hear you can crop dust the hell out of a field with an F-35 as well.

Rip wrote:Because responding to natural disasters around the world is what we build these multi-billion dollar ships for.

Well, if by "multi-billion dollar ships" you mean the particular class of half-billion dollar ship in question, the answer is yes -- in part. As I understand it, one of the reasons these ships are being built is that they can be used for relatively low-risk missions such as humanitarian assistance and natural disaster relief, freeing up the much more expensive "big deck" amphibious ships and surface combatants for actual warfighting missions.

Don't take my word for it, for example you can check the Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2015, Appendix 4: Amphibious Class Warship Construction, Section IV: Mitigating Amphibious Lift Shortfall, third paragraph:

In the short-term, we are accepting risk to aviation and vehicle lift. We may be able to reduce the risk by relying more heavily on carrier tactical aviation for close air support and by delivering additional support vehicles via MLP/AFSB and/or JHSV to support ground maneuver. Innovative approaches and employment models are being planned to mitigate some impacts to presence missions caused by early ship retirements. With increased investment in the capabilities of JHSV and MLP/AFSB, some of the risk associated with missions in permissive environments may be reduced by increasing reliance on these platforms. These new ships can take on a potentially valuable role in security cooperation, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, which frees up the amphibious warships to meet global warfighting demands.

Note that Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) is the old designation for the Expeditionary Base Mobile (ESB), while Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) is the old designation for Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ESD). The Reuters article seems to be referring to ESB and ESD somewhat interchangably.

There is a better more cost effective way.

http://blog.usni.org/2011/03/17/paint-it-white

Rip wrote:There is a better more cost effective way.

http://blog.usni.org/2011/03/17/paint-it-white

Don't you have to have already built something before you can paint it?

GreenGoo wrote:

Rip wrote:There is a better more cost effective way.

http://blog.usni.org/2011/03/17/paint-it-white

Don't you have to have already built something before you can paint it?

The idea proposed in the opinion piece is that they could convert decomissioned amphibious ships to fill the humanitarian/relief role (i.e. the ships are already built, by definition). From some of the comments, it doesn't seem like it is a given that it would actually be more cost effective to keep the older ships operating beyond their intended life span, but it is an interesting idea nonetheless.

Well then I have to ask why Rip hates jobs, the economy and a modern Navy?

that's rhetorical. I understand the answer to be "because climate change is a hoax, duh".

GreenGoo wrote:Well then I have to ask why Rip hates jobs, the economy and a modern Navy?

that's rhetorical. I understand the answer to be "because climate change is a hoax, duh".

Actually, I believe he was snarking on the idea that the USN should be in the business of worrying about humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Those multi-billion dollar ships he referenced (carriers, big-deck amphibious ships, surface combatants, etc) are designed and built for the express purpose of breaking things and killing people (or the facilitation thereof). Hence the need for a class of ships that can take on roles that don't typically require full combat capability, freeing up the actual combat ships.

The chance to sneer at the climate change angle in the article was just a nice bonus, of which he didn't really take advantage.

P.S. Answering explicitly rhetorical questions is one of my hobbies.

Max Peck wrote:

GreenGoo wrote:Well then I have to ask why Rip hates jobs, the economy and a modern Navy?

that's rhetorical. I understand the answer to be "because climate change is a hoax, duh".

Actually, I believe he was snarking on the idea that the USN should be in the business of worrying about humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Those multi-billion dollar ships he referenced (carriers, big-deck amphibious ships, surface combatants, etc) are designed and built for the express purpose of breaking things and killing people (or the facilitation thereof). Hence the need for a class of ships that can take on roles that don't typically require full combat capability, freeing up the actual combat ships.

The chance to sneer at the climate change angle in the article was just a nice bonus, of which he didn't really take advantage.

P.S. Answering explicitly rhetorical questions is one of my hobbies.

I can see why, you are very good at it.

If anyone else has question please submit them to my press secretary.

Given that we're Canadian and our military is almost always used for humanitarian purposes you'll have to forgive me for not recognizing another broken thought process of Rip's.

Painting things is a great alternative to designing and building new ships to specific purpose.

If you don't care about succeeding at that purpose, I suppose.

And you really didn't answer why Rip hates the economy in this case but has in the past expressed support for a ultra high tech and modern navy on other occasions.