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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2500 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 21, 2025

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This is just throwing shit at the wall and see what sticks. The (also false) ecological destruction argument is entirely separate. If we run out of energy and resources, the ‚destruction‘ will cease.

Incorrect - the "running out" of resources means that we will have completely shifted the Earth's climate and seen immense changes to global temperatures and environments. The environmental damage is only just goin to get started when that happens, and the human infrastructure damage will be immense. Every single port city is going to be underwater and new ports will have to be constructed. Shifts in climate means that the areas which receive rain and the areas which are habitable for humans are going to be very different to what they were in the past - which is going to be a big problem, given that our farms and other infrastructure are located in places where they are most efficient right now, as opposed to the world we're going to be living in once all that carbon is back in the atmosphere. Not to mention the terrible weather events we'll get during the transition - and which are already starting to show up.

Fusion? What about fission? We already have hundreds of years of proven uranium reserves, and it‘s a small part of nuclear energy generation cost.

I'll believe that nuclear fission is a viable answer to our energy needs when you show me a nuclear plant capable of generating energy at a profit without government subsidies of one kind or another. Good luck! Nuclear fusion has been twenty years in the future for the past eighty years, so you'll have to forgive me for not being too excited for it.

According to your EROEI math, the romans, and then the 19th century english, were richer than we are, since they had access to high-grade resources they could mine for less energy.

No, they didn't have access to fossil fuels. Technically they were richer in the sense that they could have chosen to use those fossil fuels responsibly, but we already know that in reality they didn't.

Incorrect - the "running out" of resources means that we will have completely shifted the Earth's climate and seen immense changes to global temperatures and environments. The environmental damage is only just goin to get started when that happens, and the human infrastructure damage will be immense. Every single port city is going to be underwater and new ports will have to be constructed. Shifts in climate means that the areas which receive rain and the areas which are habitable for humans are going to be very different to what they were in the past - which is going to be a big problem, given that our farms and other infrastructure are located in places where they are most efficient right now, as opposed to the world we're going to be living in once all that carbon is back in the atmosphere. Not to mention the terrible weather events we'll get during the transition - and which are already starting to show up.

All I hear is "very slow process with ample time to adjust".

We're talking about time frames in which humanity went from inventing electricity to landing on the moon. Time frames in which the world population multiplied several times over. Time frames in which humanity survived economic depressions, world wars and a cold war, and the invention of several novel types of superstimulus. And in such a time frame, we'll have to...move agricultural production to new areas, possibly plant different crops in old agricultural areas, and account for a few centimeters of sea level rise when we inevitably have to do maintenance on infrastructure anyways. Some people will need to adjust to more or less wind than previously. More or less rain than previously. Different temperatures. Over a time-span of multiple generations of humans. OK. I'm very confident that we will manage to deal with this. I'd bet money on it if I expected to be able to collect my winnings at the end of the century.

How do you figure every port city will be underwater? Total sea level rise since the 19th century is estimated at 15-25 cm. It's a joke.

Heat and CO2 have resulted in greater agricultural productivity for our plants already,and it's only going to get better from here. Gigantic areas of canadian and russian tundra are going to slowly become available for crops and human habitation.

France has had cheap electricity thanks to its nuclear power plants for decades now.

The 19th century english and americans had access to cheap, high quality fossil fuels - why weren't they richer than us?

Apologies for the delay! I've been very busy with Christmas and the like - seeing family ranks a bit more highly on my priority list than the culture war.

How do you figure every port city will be underwater? Total sea level rise since the 19th century is estimated at 15-25 cm. It's a joke.

There's no real academic or scientific debate on this subject - I'm not saying that we're going to have to start building Noah's Ark tomorrow, but the projected sea level rises over the next few hundred years are going to do this with ease. Complicated systems like the global climate are also vulnerable to sudden shocks - if something causes a large glacier or ice-shelf to drop into the ocean we could be seeing those levels rise faster than predicted. Again, this won't be a problem for us - but it will have our descendants cursing our names in the future.

Heat and CO2 have resulted in greater agricultural productivity for our plants already,and it's only going to get better from here. Gigantic areas of canadian and russian tundra are going to slowly become available for crops and human habitation.

You're right - Russia is a big winner of climate change. But what you're missing is that the increase in global temperatures is also going to drive a massive increase in adverse weather events. While the equitable climate on the other side of climate change is going to be very nice for a lot of people, the transition period is going to be rather nasty. Existing farming infrastructure will have to be moved and there are going to be a wide variety of extreme storms, floods and other natural disasters.

France has had cheap electricity thanks to its nuclear power plants for decades now.

France had to bail their nuclear power system out because it wasn't economical - and up til now they got their uranium for a 50th of the price thanks to their colonial holdings in Africa. If you scroll back up I've actually had this conversation before, in this very thread even.

The 19th century english and americans had access to cheap, high quality fossil fuels - why weren't they richer than us?

Do you think this is an actual argument? "If a doctor earns more money than a janitor, why is this doctor fresh out of medical school with tons of debt poorer than a janitor who is retiring after saving and investing for their entire life? Checkmate, liberals." I am legitimately struggling to understand the argument you're making here. Ultimately, they were richer in the sense that they had potential to do a lot more than we did. Personally I think going to the moon again would have been a better use of those fossil fuels than vastly inflating the American population then rendering a vast majority of that population clinically obese - a society that did NOT make that choice would actually be unironically richer in my opinion.

"There's no real academic debate about what might happen hundreds of years in the future" - Okay .

I know some academics are prone to dramatic predictions of doom, but you know you don't have to take everything they say at face value, right? It honestly reads like you never double-check anything, do the barest of common-sense questioning.

Questions such as:

  1. How can you reconcile 'all ports being underwater soon' with 'actual sea level rise for a century and a half being 0.2 m'. 'all ports Underwater' to me means 'dozens of meters', at least. How do you get from one to the other, when the straight extrapolation falls far short?

  2. Why, if we are on a 'nasty transitory period' is, as always, the productivity of farmland increasing?

  3. Why, if nuclear energy is 'uneconomical', does France have such cheap electricity compared to 'nuclear-exiting' Germany, and why does it export so much of it?

  4. Why, if EROEI is determinant, were past societies with better EROEI so much poorer than we are?

"There's no real academic debate about what might happen hundreds of years in the future" - Okay . I know some academics are prone to dramatic predictions of doom, but you know you don't have to take everything they say at face value, right?

In this particular case, what I'm looking at are the results of paleoclimatology studies which looked at the nature of the Earth's climate and atmosphere in the times when the carbon which we are currently pumping into the atmosphere was already there and hadn't been locked away in the form of fossil fuels. There's no real debate on the topic - when you increase the insulating effect of the atmosphere, global temperatures rise. Do you actually have a reasoned and well thought out rebuttal to that claim? I'd love to see it if you do, but so far nobody has managed to step up to the plate.

How can you reconcile 'all ports being underwater soon' with 'actual sea level rise for a century and a half being 0.2 m'. 'all ports Underwater' to me means 'dozens of meters', at least. How do you get from one to the other, when the straight extrapolation falls far short?

It's ironic that you accuse me of not double-checking anything when you claim that I said "all ports being underwater soon" but when I check my actual post I put that event hundreds of years into the future. Soon on a geological timescale to be sure, but the actual answer to this objection is just for you to stop hallucinating.

Why, if we are on a 'nasty transitory period' is, as always, the productivity of farmland increasing?

Because we're pumping massive amounts of fossil fuels into them for one, and because the nasty transition stage is only just beginning. The key points of this nasty transition are going to be an increase in adverse weather events and shifting climate belts that make the optimal distribution of farmland and farming infrastructure very different to where they are now. But on that note, I also said that some people are going to be winners - Russia especially.

Why, if nuclear energy is 'uneconomical', does France have such cheap electricity compared to 'nuclear-exiting' Germany, and why does it export so much of it?

Because France purchased their uranium for cents on the dollar due to their colonial holdings in Africa, and because their government has since bailed out their nuclear power system because it wasn't able to financially sustain itself. I've had this argument several times before - if you want to learn more, look up Françafrique. When you factor in the declining EROEI of current uranium deposits, solar and other renewable energy sources outcompete nuclear in every way that matters - outside of specific circumstances where nuclear's unique characteristics make it valuable (nuclear submarines, precarious geopolitical situations, production of valuable isotopes, etc).

Why, if EROEI is determinant, were past societies with better EROEI so much poorer than we are?

If a doctor makes more money than a janitor, why is a doctor fresh out of medical school with lots of student debt poorer than a janitor who has just retired after saving and investing for their entire career?

CO2 have resulted in greater agricultural productivity for our plants already

do you have numbers for it? Is it greater at high altitudes where one could expect CO2 increase produce larger impact in %?

do you have numbers for it?

Since the industrial revolution we went from 290 ppm CO2 to 424 ppm.

From 2002 to 2014, plants appear to have gone into overdrive, starting to pull more CO2 out of the air than they have done before.[33] The result was that the rate at which CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere did not increase during this time period, although previously, it had grown considerably in concert with growing greenhouse gas emissions.[33]

A 1993 review of scientific greenhouse studies found that a doubling of CO2 concentration would stimulate the growth of 156 different plant species by an average of 37%.

A 2005 review of 12 experiments at 475–600 ppm showed an average gain of 17% in crop yield, with legumes typically showing a greater response than other species and C4 plants generally showing less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_fertilization_effect#Observations_and_trends

We report a strong enhancement of photosynthesis across the observational network (9.1 gC m−2 year−2) and show that the CFE (CO2 Fertilization Effect) is responsible for 44% of the gross primary production (GPP) enhancement since the 2000s, with additional contributions primarily from warming (28%) .

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8915860/

Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004

Is it greater at high altitudes where one could expect CO2 increase produce larger impact in %?

I don‘t think so. According to this map, the CO2 fertilization effect is stronger at the equator, where there are more plants, more primary production already (rainforest) . Then less as you get further away from the equator. The quote above suggests plants at high latitudes need warmth more than CO2.

thanks

i meant altitude, not lattitude (-:

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