We neither have a plan to fix the existing ozone hole and nor do we have a way for preventing an asteroid collision (assuming we are lucky enough that the theoretical asteroid that hits us is one of the subset of asteroids we can actually track)
So no, neither of those problems are even remotely fixed. We’ve just done the bare minimum to check the “we’ve reacted to a crisis” box.
The problem is that we won't learn about it early enough for our current level of technology to do anything about it.
We'd need 2 fully-operational Starship launches or 4 SLS launches or 10 Delta IV Heavy launches with 25 years notice to redirect an asteroid like Bennu.
Now obviously 2 is better than 4 is better than 10. But the 25 years notice is a big problem. The momentum change you need to deliver the later it gets is so much larger.
> The problem is that we won't learn about it early enough for our current level of technology to do anything about it.
And this is exactly my point. We aren’t investing into inventing the technology to do this. Instead we just say “if we can detect a small asteroid early enough then we might be able to divert it” and then count that problem as solved. Even though Bennu is small, we still can’t see the vast majority of objects in the solar system and the advance notice we are talking about is impracticality long.
If this was a software engineering Jira ticket, it wouldn’t pass PR. And software developers aren’t even the most diligent of professionals compared engineers, doctors and scientists. But there’s no incentive for governments to sink money into a theoretical risk that impacts their “enemies” equally. And man do I hate how nations refer to other nations as “enemies” — but that’s a whole other argument.
And quite frankly, Bennu isn't even all that large. At worst, it would cause a regional catastrophe.
Imagine humanity being forced to react to an impending impact, say within a few years, from a newly detected 1km+ asteroid, never mind something like the colossal Chicxulub impactor.
Kind of tired of hearing this. Citing one initiative from 50 years ago is the definition of cherry picking, I'm sorry. The trend is that humans are incapable of long term global initiatives. I'm sure some game theory guy could prove it.
Strong disagree. When there is sufficient political will complex policies can and will be enacted. What is missing in climate action is not some psychological deficiency of our species, it’s lack of strong enough political consensus.
”We can’t do this” is both inaccurate and harmfull. I believe ”We are not currently fixing this” and ”there is a need for stronger political alignment” are the more accurate descriptions of the current malaise.
Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Climate change is a liberal hoax to steal money from you. Jesus is coming soon and will rapture us into heaven. Antifa wants to burn down your city. Gays are destroying family values. Women should be forced to have children if they got pregnant. Taxes are theft. The US should let Russia take Ukraine. The earth is 2000 years old. Weed should be illegal. More guns will solve crime. Elementary schools are radicalizing children telling them they should be gay and teaching them white people are evil.
As long as these beliefs are allowed to be mainstream we are 100% fucked.
Agreed, but: The words “are allowed to be” are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Who allows these beliefs to be mainstream? Does anybody have the power to not allow it? The thing, is, we cannot get rid of those beliefs by force – and arguably, we should not even if we could – so where does that leave us? Reason does not seem to help. It is hard to avoid a feeling of despair. But we cannot allow ourselves the luxury.
The general public. People that have these beliefs need to be ridiculed and called out. But in the US, that's not polite and you're not supposed to talk about politics. Meanwhile, "both sides" news shows continue to give airtime to lies and nonsense from charlatans. Our entire news and political culture is infested with pure horseshit.
Yes, opinions about which foods people prefer. Not “opinions” on the factuality of scientific knowledge (which is a large part of what feeds into discord at the political level— avoidably so).
There is a large range of things people are fully entitled to have a sane-but-politically-aligned opinion on between inconsequential matters of taste and the scientifically quantifiable quality of the world we live in.
For example things such as:
-should universities be state subsidised or should there be tuition.
-If state needs to raise more taxes what
type of tax should they increase; sales tax or income tax.
- should there be a tobacco tax or should tobacco be made illegal
- should cocaine be legalized
Etc etc mundane things.
This is not unrelated to all other things - these all are political issues. There is no ”lane b” for matters of urgency unless there is an imminent disaster looming. All matters need to churn through the same machine - sales tax incease of 0.1 % as well as specific environmental matters.
The biggest villain here is not humnanity. It’s the hydrocarbon companies and families (Koch!) that have fucked up the political dialogue by first seeding ”skepticism” and then making a matter scientific urgency a political negotiable thing.
The machine is what it is, and it’s capable of doing great things. Some fucktards have just intentionally loosened a few gears and somebody would need to fix the mess.
Now, one must point out that the fossil fuels burned have not just disappeared as smoke in the air. We’ve used them to keep the wheels of civilization spinning and in a way it’s not just folks like Koch that have profited but we all have profited from fossil fuel based world order (see for example ’How the world really works’ by Smil). So, in a way all consumers in the industrial world have been benefitted materially - which also explains why there are so many vested interests not too keen to energetically debunk the ”climate skeptics”. Yeah. Everything I own I own mostly because of cheap industrial goods and food in whose production fossil fuels have played an important part.
So it’s not a simple thing to fix. But it’s all down to the same machine.
If the outcome of the process of consolidating different opinions (politics) conflicts with the existence of the human species, and the human species has only itself to blame for emergently designing a political process with this faulty outcome, than it's the psychological deficiency of the human species which causes its extinction.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much an optimist when it comes to things like fighting climate change, fixing the ozone layer, etc. and I take plenty of personal responsibility. More than the average person does, I think. The point of my comment was to call attention to the pessimism and doomerism that’s rampant any time you try to discuss saving the planet — case in point, the comments in this very thread.
I think those kinds of comments can be discouraging for the layman who wants to help the planet but maybe isn’t well versed enough in the topic to argue with the doomer. More sinisterly, I’ve often wondered how much doomerism is pushed by oil companies and other businesses that stand to benefit from the status quo.
> A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
In what way did we solve peak oil - by continuing to burn more every year? Climate scientists are going out of their minds.
Is PFAS rain that much better than acid rain? Rainwater is no longer safe to drink anywhere on Earth.
As for the whales, that's nice they got a reprive... But we're still extinctifying species at 100-1,000x the background rate.
And the people responsible for all of this are not strung up, nor even imprisoned. They're fucking around on mega-yachts and private planes (environmental atrocities in themselves).
Ah, so we 'solved' it by finding so much more oil that life on Earth would be burned to a crisp long before we used it all, then just burning more every year.
All while subsidizing oil companies to an absurd degree, even as they make record profits and avoid liability for environmental disasters.
So glad we 'solved' that. How great for us, and what an interesting example of how we come together to solve global scale crises that was.
Maybe we can solve PFAS rain by coating everything in Teflon so the PFAS don't stick.
Ozone is not fixed because I will still get extremely burnt in the sun here in Australia. Asteroids is not fixed because what happens when one super massive one is coming straight for us?
You do understand that even with a fully normal ozone layer, exposure to the sun can indeed cause burns during certain times of the year and especially in hot, tropical places? Are you expecting magic as a definition of fixed, or something that actually applies to reality?
Much of the climate change discourse on this site strays into the absurdly hysterical, but some of it veers even further into deep childish fantasy.
