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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 4464279 times)

smjjames

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19995 on: May 20, 2018, 04:52:04 pm »

For example, plants are made of CO2, so therefore more CO2 should make more plant

I shouldn't have to point out that this is intentional propoganda, but [urlhttps://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm]that is intentional propaganda that you're spreading[/url]. Please go suck a tailpipe and see if you sprout leaves.

Also, volcanoes release a small fraction the CO2 that humans do. Fun fact, there are also conspiracy myths that state that warming is caused by a decrease in volcanic activity. Sometimes I am jealous of those who leave fact behind; they get to have things both ways.

I think you’re taking reelyas statement too literally. It is a bit hyperbolic anyway since plants (like all carbon based organisms...) use the carbon in CO2, but aren’t literally made of CO2.

Also, while it’s true that a single volcano has a tiny effect on global CO2 (still part of the carbon cycle though), a huge amount of volcanism like what produced the really big flood basalts would certainly have an impact. However, the slot tossed into the atmosphere would be a much bigger problem.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2018, 05:10:13 pm by smjjames »
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19996 on: May 20, 2018, 05:08:26 pm »

For example, plants are made of CO2, so therefore more CO2 should make more plant

I shouldn't have to point out that this is intentional propoganda, but [urlhttps://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm]that is intentional propaganda that you're spreading[/url]. Please go suck a tailpipe and see if you sprout leaves.

Also, volcanoes release a small fraction the CO2 that humans do. Fun fact, there are also conspiracy myths that state that warming is caused by a decrease in volcanic activity. Sometimes I am jealous of those who leave fact behind; they get to have things both ways.

I think you’re taking reelyas statement too literally. It is a bit hyperbolic anyway since plants (like all carbon based organisms...) use the carbon in CO2, but aren’t literally made of CO2.

https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm They mulched the link pointing out that more co2 =/= better yields any more than giving someone an extra potato on their dinnerplate will necessarily make them a healthier person
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smjjames

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19997 on: May 20, 2018, 05:12:58 pm »

For example, plants are made of CO2, so therefore more CO2 should make more plant

I shouldn't have to point out that this is intentional propoganda, but [urlhttps://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm]that is intentional propaganda that you're spreading[/url]. Please go suck a tailpipe and see if you sprout leaves.

Also, volcanoes release a small fraction the CO2 that humans do. Fun fact, there are also conspiracy myths that state that warming is caused by a decrease in volcanic activity. Sometimes I am jealous of those who leave fact behind; they get to have things both ways.

I think you’re taking reelyas statement too literally. It is a bit hyperbolic anyway since plants (like all carbon based organisms...) use the carbon in CO2, but aren’t literally made of CO2.

https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm They mulched the link pointing out that more co2 =/= better yields any more than giving someone an extra potato on their dinnerplate will necessarily make them a healthier person

Yeah, that’s the main problem, they do grow faster, but could end up being less nutritious.

I don’t suppose we could get back on topic somehow?
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19998 on: May 20, 2018, 05:41:33 pm »

Well, I tried talking about potential policy changes, but I guess I wasn't explicit enough.  Basically, I would much rather have policy to support actual solutions to global warming like "even though it sounds crazy, let's use volcanoes for power" instead of "well, maybe if we tax CO2 production it will convince people to change their ways" kind of stuff.

I mean the price quoted for the project in the article I linked was only something like $3B to take enough energy from Yellowstone to tame it and get 6GW power generation.  I mean, you'd only need $10 per person in the country to raise that much money. I'd totally pony up $10 to help support that sort of thing - heck even if you just want to put it on the top 10% in the country, it's only $100 each. I'd willingly pay for that much more than I'd pay for some arbitrary carbon tax or whatever.   Even if you want just the top 1% - it's only $1k each.
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Rolan7

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #19999 on: May 20, 2018, 05:45:14 pm »

I only mentioned Malthus, as he is the boogeyman spectre of "Woooo! Population growth DOOOOOOOOM! DOOOOOOOOM!"

The actual merits or lack thereof, of his population model are not terribly important. That he was a prominent figure (if a quack), is.  His argument was shot down by all possible forms by the adoption of chemical fertilizer and mechanical planting/harvest.

Most claims about CO2 rising to genuinely toxic levels from industrial activity will be seen with similar levels of "WOOOOOOO!". However, that does not mean we should not look at the rising trend data, and not go "Yeah, we should do something about that before it gets there."

Remember, the very people that discovered that CO2 was a greenhouse gas warned about climactic impacts back in the late 1800s. They recognized the trend data waaaay back then.  We have just reacted to that with "Oh, that's just more Wooo from the doom sayers. Buy FunDongles today!"
The thing I think to take away from Malthus isn't "Malthus was wrong, we don't need to worry about the doom people say."

Malthus was right, and it took effort and decades to avert the crisis he saw coming. If he was wrong about anything, it was about whether it was something that could be fixed; but the "we can't feed the people we're birthing with current production" thing was true enough.

(Although considering how unsustainable current agricultural practices can be, from topsoil depletion to nitrogen run-off to using a non-renewable resource to make fertilizer, he might not have been as wrong as people say. :v)

(I also haven't actually read Malthus so disregard what he ACTUALLY said and just take what I said to mean the whole "people need food, we don't make enough food, ohshi-" thing.)
All of this.  How was he supposed to predict those advances?
And we aren't feeding everyone now (due to our global economy... which isn't something we can just fix).  But we're supposed to assume that our already unsustainable agriculture will keep pace with our growth?

The population growth rate has been going down since the mid 60's, apparently.  And apparently the UN predicts that trend will continue sharply, bringing the growth rate to nearly nothing.

If that's even true, it's only going to be because of horrendous die-offs in certain overpopulated areas which *aren't* reducing their reproduction.  Historically overpopulation has always led to war, disease, or genocides.
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Rolan7

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20000 on: May 20, 2018, 05:52:09 pm »

Not yet, but inevitably so in the future.  They're claiming that, worldwide, we'll get to 0.1% growth this century.  They're just inventing numbers, so I'm inventing a situation where that could possibly happen.
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Rolan7

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20001 on: May 20, 2018, 06:08:15 pm »

I meant that it's inevitable as long as we pretend that food production will increase in pace with unrestricted reproduction.

And, honestly, as long as we're openly and legislatively hostile to people to people who choose not reproduce.

But don't worry, we're going to be relatively okay in the first world.  *I* still think it's a problem worth talking about, that's all.
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20002 on: May 20, 2018, 07:38:35 pm »

PTTG your link claims:

Quote
1. CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water

But ... actual published research has shown that this is also too simplistic. This article below is written by climate research scientists at Australias CSIRO (basically our national science institute):
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: May 20, 2018, 09:42:56 pm by Reelya »
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20003 on: May 20, 2018, 07:51:41 pm »

Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Water evaporation out of the stomata is vital for many processes of the plant, it’s what allows plants to draw nutrients up from their roots, isn’t it? That’s what almost all the water a plant uses goes to, isn’t it?

If plants are taking in and using more CO2, which must necessarily increase their other non-water nutritional requirements, then they have to carry more nutrients up from their roots to the body of the plant to use along with that newly created sugar, and that means they need a stronger water flow. How does that work?
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Egan_BW

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20004 on: May 20, 2018, 07:54:28 pm »

I'd assume that plants use a large portion of the water they absorb in the process of photosynthesis.
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20005 on: May 20, 2018, 08:01:44 pm »

I'd assume that plants use a large portion of the water they absorb in the process of photosynthesis.

Plants only directly use about 1% of water uptake for photosynthesis, actually. It seems crazy but transpiration really is super water-thirsty compared to photosynthesis, and is responsible for mass flow and keeping the plant cool
« Last Edit: May 20, 2018, 08:05:57 pm by Dorsidwarf »
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20006 on: May 20, 2018, 08:02:35 pm »

The thing about Malthus is, humans evolved to have built in population controls.  Technology hasn't changed that.

The worst famines and overpopulation in human history have been caused by two things: rapid changes in availability of resources (AKA famine), and migrating to overpopulated cities where people threw feces out the window.

Malthus is wrong for the same reason Judge Dredd* is wrong: you can't look at an upward trending graph and assume it will keep going.  He looked at overpopulated, disease ridden Victorian London and assumed overpopulation was some kind of inevitable trend.  Just like how the Americans of the 80s looked at rising crime rates and assumed they would keep rising.  In that case it was lead poisoning but you get the idea.

The other problem with Malthus is that overpopulation fixes itself.  You know... because people die.

Now there are animals for which Malthus would be right.  Like deer.  But deer have many natural predators and evolved without built in controls.  We are not deer.  A better metaphor for us would be those animals that live in tiny islands in the Pacific.  Our population will grow until the limit of what is available and then stop.

*and other 80s dystopias featuring crime, like for example Robocop
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smjjames

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20007 on: May 20, 2018, 08:07:54 pm »

I thought the fortress cities in Judge Dredd were the result of cramming a billion or more people into an area roughly the size of Rhode Island or something, not some Malthusian dystopia.
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20008 on: May 20, 2018, 08:10:18 pm »

I thought the fortress cities in Judge Dredd were the result of cramming a billion or more people into an area roughly the size of Rhode Island or something, not some Malthusian dystopia.

Dredd isnt directly Malthusian afaik, it’s premise (that crime rates will indefinitely spiral and police brutality will rise to meet them)just follows the same outline of “this is how things are progressing today, therefore they will do so like this forever until disaster”
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Reelya

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Re: AmeriPol: new thread subtitle pending
« Reply #20009 on: May 20, 2018, 08:23:49 pm »

Judge Dredd mega-cities are more a statement about urban sprawl though than linear population growth. So they're a more modern and nuanced look at urban development than the merely Malthusian or "The Limits to Growth" worldview.

e.g. google "Mega City One" and the "city" is the entire US east cost from Florida to Maine on the east side, and from Ohio down to Alabama on the west side. The point in JD is that Mega Cities are nation-sized cities and are the basic political unit, nation-states having become obsolete.

* btw not that growth doesn't have limits, but the book "The Limits to Growth (1972)" made some fairly specific predictions which failed to come true. We were supposed to be well into the post-apocalyptic cannibalism phase right now. One problem with the math is that they gave models/formulas to prove their claims, but people extrapolated their model backwards, and it gave a U-shape, e.g. there's an asymptote just before the industrial revolution with infinite population. Which clearly proves their equations were faulty.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2018, 08:29:50 pm by Reelya »
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