It is worth considering whether this is actually a sort of social milestone for the US: isn't it the first time we haven't redefined "white" fast enough to maintain majority status? There's still hope, of course --- "whites" have only fallen below 50% in births, and there's still time to redefine before "whites" are <50% of the population. But maybe, just maybe, allowing "whites" to fall below 50% is an indicator that racial association is losing its psychological importance.
I emphasize that global warming is a serious, maybe eve catastrophic, problem for society. It is possible it will be catastrophic for the species homo sapiens. But calling up scenarios that are apocalyptic on an even grander scale than just us - i.e. putting Earth on a trajectory to become Venus - has absolutely no support in the geologic record or climate science, and I believe it feeds a cynicism that undermines the political need to do something about global warming and its effects.
What is said about global warming needs to be based in science, and since climate science already points to scenarios devastating to modern society, why should we try to exaggerate the situation into something that lacks any basis in climate science?
Ther are still gaps in our understanding of the carbon cycle, but the gaps aren't big enough to allow for a chaotic process that would drive a runaway greenhouse effect. The equilibrium isn't something I "envision" - it's the standard carbon cycle model for greater-than-million year timescales.
Everything's useful here, except for the "Venusian hell". Global warming in the future will cause serious societal problems; it will not lead to a planet without life, and runaway greenhouse is just fear-mongering.
The "equilibrium" pCO2 right now is about 200 ppmv. That's the level at which weathering removes CO2 at the same rate that volcanism adds it to the surface CO2 cycle. Changes in that "equilibrium" occur over millions to tens of millions of years, as the rate of volcanic outgassing or the weathering efficiency change. It is possible that human activity can alter this long timescale "equilibrium", but it's not likely we can alter it much: there is no reason to think that in 1 to 3 million years climate won't be back to the glacial-interglacial cycles typical of the last million years. I would guess sooner than 1 million years.
All of that's irrelevant to the next 100-1000 years. The point is that global warming is a societal problem. A major societal problem. But not something that has any huge meaning based in some age-old natural process that we're interrupting. We, along with the global warming we're causing, are just part of the natural process, and as much power as we have to alter evolutionary trajectories and temporarily change climate, in the long run it will all just be a blip in the geologic record. A high amplitude blip, but still just a blip.
Thank you for this!
It is worth considering whether this is actually a sort of social milestone for the US: isn't it the first time we haven't redefined "white" fast enough to maintain majority status? There's still hope, of course --- "whites" have only fallen below 50% in births, and there's still time to redefine before "whites" are <50% of the population. But maybe, just maybe, allowing "whites" to fall below 50% is an indicator that racial association is losing its psychological importance.
I emphasize that global warming is a serious, maybe eve catastrophic, problem for society. It is possible it will be catastrophic for the species homo sapiens. But calling up scenarios that are apocalyptic on an even grander scale than just us - i.e. putting Earth on a trajectory to become Venus - has absolutely no support in the geologic record or climate science, and I believe it feeds a cynicism that undermines the political need to do something about global warming and its effects.
What is said about global warming needs to be based in science, and since climate science already points to scenarios devastating to modern society, why should we try to exaggerate the situation into something that lacks any basis in climate science?
Ther are still gaps in our understanding of the carbon cycle, but the gaps aren't big enough to allow for a chaotic process that would drive a runaway greenhouse effect. The equilibrium isn't something I "envision" - it's the standard carbon cycle model for greater-than-million year timescales.
Everything's useful here, except for the "Venusian hell". Global warming in the future will cause serious societal problems; it will not lead to a planet without life, and runaway greenhouse is just fear-mongering.
The "equilibrium" pCO2 right now is about 200 ppmv. That's the level at which weathering removes CO2 at the same rate that volcanism adds it to the surface CO2 cycle. Changes in that "equilibrium" occur over millions to tens of millions of years, as the rate of volcanic outgassing or the weathering efficiency change. It is possible that human activity can alter this long timescale "equilibrium", but it's not likely we can alter it much: there is no reason to think that in 1 to 3 million years climate won't be back to the glacial-interglacial cycles typical of the last million years. I would guess sooner than 1 million years.
All of that's irrelevant to the next 100-1000 years. The point is that global warming is a societal problem. A major societal problem. But not something that has any huge meaning based in some age-old natural process that we're interrupting. We, along with the global warming we're causing, are just part of the natural process, and as much power as we have to alter evolutionary trajectories and temporarily change climate, in the long run it will all just be a blip in the geologic record. A high amplitude blip, but still just a blip.