<story><title>Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/climate/tokyo-floods.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&amp;rref=climate</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>Nah, the problem is self-limiting.  If global warming reduces the carrying capacity of the environment, people will die.  Dead people don&amp;#x27;t use resources; their bodies are returned to the environment by decomposers, where they will provide fertilizer for trees and other plants, which will grow even more abundantly because of the enhanced CO2 levels.  Eventually the earth reaches a new equilibrium at a somewhat higher temperature.&lt;p&gt;Most people don&amp;#x27;t want to die, and so we have a self-interested argument for not destroying our environment.  But we&amp;#x27;re at the top of the food chain - well before there&amp;#x27;s a lasting impact on the earth&amp;#x27;s ability to sustain life, we&amp;#x27;ll all be dead.  It&amp;#x27;s the height of hubris to believe we have the ability to effect lasting change on the earth&amp;#x27;s environment that won&amp;#x27;t disappear once we do.</text></item><item><author>blondie9x</author><text>Adaptation without mitigation will not be effective as the impacts worsen. Uncapped emissions and business as usual scenarios will cause outcomes that we will not be able to build ourselves out of.&lt;p&gt;We must reduce emissions and push for sustainable infrastructure and solutions, now.&lt;p&gt;We must adapt and we must also mitigate. Only through the combination of both efforts and through our determination and willingness to lead sustainable lifestyles will we be able to beat climate change. We must push for renewable energy, and technological solutions to efficiently use resources.&lt;p&gt;The policy coming out of the White House is against these efforts and we need to find a way to prevent them from hurting us and our posterity by postponing the efforts to transition to clean energy.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;clean-power-plan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;clean-power-plan....&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s very likely that local band-aids are the most effective way to deal with this.&lt;p&gt;Your train example is a pretty good one, but you&amp;#x27;ve mixed up the metaphor.  Here, &amp;quot;stepping out of the way&amp;quot; = mass migrations out of coastal cities.  &amp;quot;A mechanized winch that temporarily lifts us over the train&amp;quot; = flood control projects like in Tokyo, Houston, Venice, or the Netherlands.  &amp;quot;Calling the train company and asking them to stop running trains&amp;quot; = stopping global warming by addressing carbon emissions.&lt;p&gt;If you had a train barreling down on you, which one would you choose?  I&amp;#x27;d bet it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be calling the train company and asking them to stop running trains, because a.) they are unlikely to anyway and b.) even if they were willing, by the time you got through to someone with the power to stop the trains you&amp;#x27;ll probably be dead anyway.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d argue that the actual solution to global warming will be more akin to &amp;quot;stepping out of the way&amp;quot;: people will evacuate from major cities, major cities will be destroyed, and people will pick up the pieces of their lives elsewhere.  If they&amp;#x27;re proactive, they might evacuate before the city is actually destroyed, and we&amp;#x27;ll see mass migrations of people (as have been happening for the last several hundred years anyway) away from areas that will face greater climate risks and toward areas that benefit from global warming.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what humans do: we adapt to our environment.  Only in particularly hubristic times (like now) have we expected to adapt our environment to us.</text></item><item><author>acabal</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems.&lt;p&gt;It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it.&lt;p&gt;In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that things are only going to get worse for them as the years go on. And yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their own air with every trip, public transit is in a poor state, and oil exploitation continues apace. Everyone&amp;#x27;s OK with spending money and manpower on huge public works projects, but they&amp;#x27;re not OK with addressing habits and addictions that make the projects necessary in the first place.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s as if our eyes can see the oncoming train just a mile away, but instead of stepping out of the way we want to build a mechanized winch that will temporarily lift us over the train, and hopefully we&amp;#x27;ll be done building it before the train hits us, and oh yeah, never mind how we&amp;#x27;re supposed to get down, or the taller train after that one.&lt;p&gt;Why can&amp;#x27;t we put that money, effort, manpower, and will into actually &lt;i&gt;addressing climate change&lt;/i&gt; and make crazy projects like vast man-made Mines-of-Moria-style underground tunnels and huge artificial reservoirs unnecessary?&lt;p&gt;Yes it&amp;#x27;s a global problem, but solutions to global problems start at home. Throwing our hands up and saying it&amp;#x27;s pointless until the other guy does something too can&amp;#x27;t be the way to progress on this issue.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>trophycase</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not true that a stable equilibrium is always reached. It&amp;#x27;s also possible that irreversible changes are set into motion which shift the equilibrium so far away from livability that humans cannot survive.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/climate/tokyo-floods.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&amp;rref=climate</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>Nah, the problem is self-limiting.  If global warming reduces the carrying capacity of the environment, people will die.  Dead people don&amp;#x27;t use resources; their bodies are returned to the environment by decomposers, where they will provide fertilizer for trees and other plants, which will grow even more abundantly because of the enhanced CO2 levels.  Eventually the earth reaches a new equilibrium at a somewhat higher temperature.&lt;p&gt;Most people don&amp;#x27;t want to die, and so we have a self-interested argument for not destroying our environment.  But we&amp;#x27;re at the top of the food chain - well before there&amp;#x27;s a lasting impact on the earth&amp;#x27;s ability to sustain life, we&amp;#x27;ll all be dead.  It&amp;#x27;s the height of hubris to believe we have the ability to effect lasting change on the earth&amp;#x27;s environment that won&amp;#x27;t disappear once we do.</text></item><item><author>blondie9x</author><text>Adaptation without mitigation will not be effective as the impacts worsen. Uncapped emissions and business as usual scenarios will cause outcomes that we will not be able to build ourselves out of.&lt;p&gt;We must reduce emissions and push for sustainable infrastructure and solutions, now.&lt;p&gt;We must adapt and we must also mitigate. Only through the combination of both efforts and through our determination and willingness to lead sustainable lifestyles will we be able to beat climate change. We must push for renewable energy, and technological solutions to efficiently use resources.&lt;p&gt;The policy coming out of the White House is against these efforts and we need to find a way to prevent them from hurting us and our posterity by postponing the efforts to transition to clean energy.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;clean-power-plan.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;clean-power-plan....&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s very likely that local band-aids are the most effective way to deal with this.&lt;p&gt;Your train example is a pretty good one, but you&amp;#x27;ve mixed up the metaphor.  Here, &amp;quot;stepping out of the way&amp;quot; = mass migrations out of coastal cities.  &amp;quot;A mechanized winch that temporarily lifts us over the train&amp;quot; = flood control projects like in Tokyo, Houston, Venice, or the Netherlands.  &amp;quot;Calling the train company and asking them to stop running trains&amp;quot; = stopping global warming by addressing carbon emissions.&lt;p&gt;If you had a train barreling down on you, which one would you choose?  I&amp;#x27;d bet it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be calling the train company and asking them to stop running trains, because a.) they are unlikely to anyway and b.) even if they were willing, by the time you got through to someone with the power to stop the trains you&amp;#x27;ll probably be dead anyway.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d argue that the actual solution to global warming will be more akin to &amp;quot;stepping out of the way&amp;quot;: people will evacuate from major cities, major cities will be destroyed, and people will pick up the pieces of their lives elsewhere.  If they&amp;#x27;re proactive, they might evacuate before the city is actually destroyed, and we&amp;#x27;ll see mass migrations of people (as have been happening for the last several hundred years anyway) away from areas that will face greater climate risks and toward areas that benefit from global warming.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s what humans do: we adapt to our environment.  Only in particularly hubristic times (like now) have we expected to adapt our environment to us.</text></item><item><author>acabal</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems.&lt;p&gt;It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it.&lt;p&gt;In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that things are only going to get worse for them as the years go on. And yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their own air with every trip, public transit is in a poor state, and oil exploitation continues apace. Everyone&amp;#x27;s OK with spending money and manpower on huge public works projects, but they&amp;#x27;re not OK with addressing habits and addictions that make the projects necessary in the first place.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s as if our eyes can see the oncoming train just a mile away, but instead of stepping out of the way we want to build a mechanized winch that will temporarily lift us over the train, and hopefully we&amp;#x27;ll be done building it before the train hits us, and oh yeah, never mind how we&amp;#x27;re supposed to get down, or the taller train after that one.&lt;p&gt;Why can&amp;#x27;t we put that money, effort, manpower, and will into actually &lt;i&gt;addressing climate change&lt;/i&gt; and make crazy projects like vast man-made Mines-of-Moria-style underground tunnels and huge artificial reservoirs unnecessary?&lt;p&gt;Yes it&amp;#x27;s a global problem, but solutions to global problems start at home. Throwing our hands up and saying it&amp;#x27;s pointless until the other guy does something too can&amp;#x27;t be the way to progress on this issue.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacobolus</author><text>It seems that we could be headed for a mass extinction, whether or not humans manage to survive thousands of years longer.&lt;p&gt;We aren’t going to entirely destroy life on the planet, which will eventually recover great diversity (speciation to fill new ecological niches in some new stable equilibrium) within a few million years after we’re gone, but it will look significantly different than what we are familiar with.&lt;p&gt;That’s not much consolation to people who feel attached to what human societies and cultures we have all spent a lot of effort developing.</text></comment>