You do know, we *are* all going to die, don't you ?

deano

Yet I am not convinced. Look at these couple of reports from Science Daily...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181004155426.htm

Artificial enzymes convert solar energy into hydrogen gas

Date: October 4, 2018
Source: Uppsala University
Summary: Researchers have synthesized an artificial enzyme that functions in the metabolism of living cells. These enzymes can utilize the cell's own energy, and thereby enable hydrogen gas to be produced from solar energy.

or...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181004143908.htm

Light makes catalyst more effective

Halas lab details plasmonic effect that allows catalyst to work at lower energy

Date: October 4, 2018
Source: Rice University
Summary: Scientists have demonstrated a new catalyst for making clean-burning hydrogen from ammonia. They describe a plasmonic effect that lowers chemical activation barriers, improves efficiency and could be of general use in other catalysts.

or...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181003110426.htm

New fuel cell concept brings biological design to better electricity generation

Date: October 3, 2018
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Summary: Fuel cells have long been viewed as a promising power source. But most fuel cells are too expensive, inefficient, or both. In a new approach, inspired by biology, a team has designed a fuel cell using cheaper materials and an organic compound that shuttles electrons and protons.

That's just three stories from the last week alone. There are plenty of others. This is real research that holds promise for a genuine alternative to fossil fuels. I have to say, it will not be recycling a couple of plastic spoons that get us out of this problem, although it does help by at least keeping the issue focused. It will be scientists and engineers who will get this sort of science out of the laboratory and into the real world.

Once we can generate electricity and move vehicles by solar, nuclear fusion and hydrogen then the average temperatures will start to fall again.

Human ingenuity during the industrial revolution and onwards got us into this mess, and it will be that same human ingenuity that gets us out of it. It is what we do as a species. We fix problems. That is our talent. Why do we think we don't have any, or that it was all used up by industrial revolution? Brains, ingenuity and talent are all renewable resources.

octatonic

Emp_Fab said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309

Maybe not our generation, but perhaps our kids or grandkids.  In geological terms - it's imminent.

Homo Sapiens' ultimate end will come about because they were collectively too greedy and selfish to care about anything beyond their own short-term desires.

It's a shame - being gifted the most beautiful planet in the known universe then shitting all over it to the point of self-extinction.

Maybe the next species will take better care of it....  survival of the fittest and all that.

We are possibly living in a simulation, so I’m not sure it is an issue.

munckee

deano said:

Yet I am not convinced. Look at these couple of reports from Science Daily...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181004155426.htm

Artificial enzymes convert solar energy into hydrogen gas

Date: October 4, 2018
Source: Uppsala University
Summary: Researchers have synthesized an artificial enzyme that functions in the metabolism of living cells. These enzymes can utilize the cell's own energy, and thereby enable hydrogen gas to be produced from solar energy.

or...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181004143908.htm

Light makes catalyst more effective

Halas lab details plasmonic effect that allows catalyst to work at lower energy

Date: October 4, 2018
Source: Rice University
Summary: Scientists have demonstrated a new catalyst for making clean-burning hydrogen from ammonia. They describe a plasmonic effect that lowers chemical activation barriers, improves efficiency and could be of general use in other catalysts.

or...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181003110426.htm

New fuel cell concept brings biological design to better electricity generation

Date: October 3, 2018
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Summary: Fuel cells have long been viewed as a promising power source. But most fuel cells are too expensive, inefficient, or both. In a new approach, inspired by biology, a team has designed a fuel cell using cheaper materials and an organic compound that shuttles electrons and protons.

That's just three stories from the last week alone. There are plenty of others. This is real research that holds promise for a genuine alternative to fossil fuels. I have to say, it will not be recycling a couple of plastic spoons that get us out of this problem, although it does help by at least keeping the issue focused. It will be scientists and engineers who will get this sort of science out of the laboratory and into the real world.

Once we can generate electricity and move vehicles by solar, nuclear fusion and hydrogen then the average temperatures will start to fall again.

Human ingenuity during the industrial revolution and onwards got us into this mess, and it will be that same human ingenuity that gets us out of it. It is what we do as a species. We fix problems. That is our talent. Why do we think we don't have any, or that it was all used up by industrial revolution? Brains, ingenuity and talent are all renewable resources.

We've seen the movies we just have to keep our blinkers on and wait for the nerds to sort this mess.

Shrews

Is there enough money in it for the Nerds to sort it out?  Or are they all in the City earning the mega-bucks still?

The question is 'speed'. I've no doubt we can do it, but can we do it quick enough?  According to the boffins  the tipping point of the point of no return was very close and that was only a few years ago.  

I think we'll know if we're in trouble if Mr Trump announces we're off to colonise Mars before the end of the 20's. 

deano

Shrews said:

Is there enough money in it for the Nerds to sort it out?  Or are they all in the City earning the mega-bucks still?

The question is 'speed'. I've no doubt we can do it, but can we do it quick enough?  According to the boffins  the tipping point of the point of no return was very close and that was only a few years ago.  

I think we'll know if we're in trouble if Mr Trump announces we're off to colonise Mars before the end of the 20's. 

The answer to that is to look at the sources of the links I posted; Uppsala University, Rice University and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

There are plenty of others if you have a trawl through from the US, Europe, China and Japan. This isn't something that took a lot of digging to get at either, they are all on the front page of the Matter and Energy page, and there are pages and pages of it. As I said, these were reported on the 3rd and 4th of October. Just last week alone generated at least three potential scientific breakthroughs that have the potential to drastically reduce the amount of gas, coal, oil, jet fuel, petrol and diesel we burn by replacing them with hydrogen.

Nuclear fusion is harder but there are still plenty of research papers produced showing progress in this area, and there are reports aplenty of efficiencies in solar cell energy generation.

I just grabbed three at random that show the nerds are hard at work trying to fix it. It is going to be the nerds who do fix it. And perhaps a modern day Samuel Johnson will amend that old saw about men think more meanly of themselves who haven't been soldiers, to men will think more meanly of themselves who haven't had the intelligence to become scientists and engineers that will fix global warming.

Maybe we will have to stop calling them nerds given they are going to save our lives and win Nobel prizes.

roberty

Chalky said:

roberty said:

thecolourbox said: just

roberty said:

thecolourbox said:

Blueingreen said:

There was a time when humanity didn't exist.  I wasn't in the least bit bothered.

I expect it's highly likely there'll be a future in which humanity doesn't exist.  I don't expect I'll be in the least bit bothered.

Yeah but that time before we existed doesn't exist because there was no human comprehension of it

Our understanding of it exists

True I'll give you that I still don't think something ceases to exist just because those who created it no longer exist though. Reality exists outside of human influence, and if anything, the lack of humans may allow for a more objective summary or evaluation of that 200,000 years of progress by whatever is left afterwards.

Maybe, I'm just talking out of my arse to be honest.

The fact that we can deduce and comprehend things is unique and quite special, so it would be a shame for us to go. Especially now that we've stopped burning women and dying of scurvy

Having said that, there were probably legions of contented indigenous people before we went over there and commodified their resources

Ah, the myth of the Noble Savage?  Gotta love the deep Greens' anarcho-primitivism and completely unscientific belief in mystical harmony and balance in that stuff, even in the face of Darwin's Evolution and other archaelogical and anthropological science. 

Sorry yeah you're right, being murdered, raped and enslaved was the best thing that ever happened to them.  If only we could tell them somehow without sounding condescending

deano

roberty said:

Chalky said:

roberty said:

thecolourbox said: just

roberty said:

thecolourbox said:

Blueingreen said:

There was a time when humanity didn't exist.  I wasn't in the least bit bothered.

I expect it's highly likely there'll be a future in which humanity doesn't exist.  I don't expect I'll be in the least bit bothered.

Yeah but that time before we existed doesn't exist because there was no human comprehension of it

Our understanding of it exists

True I'll give you that I still don't think something ceases to exist just because those who created it no longer exist though. Reality exists outside of human influence, and if anything, the lack of humans may allow for a more objective summary or evaluation of that 200,000 years of progress by whatever is left afterwards.

Maybe, I'm just talking out of my arse to be honest.

The fact that we can deduce and comprehend things is unique and quite special, so it would be a shame for us to go. Especially now that we've stopped burning women and dying of scurvy

Having said that, there were probably legions of contented indigenous people before we went over there and commodified their resources

Ah, the myth of the Noble Savage?  Gotta love the deep Greens' anarcho-primitivism and completely unscientific belief in mystical harmony and balance in that stuff, even in the face of Darwin's Evolution and other archaelogical and anthropological science. 

Sorry yeah you're right, being murdered, raped and enslaved was the best thing that ever happened to them.  If only we could tell them somehow without sounding condescending

So has this conversation moved on from climate change to the benefits or otherwise of European colonialism?

I would hazard a guess that for every bad aspect of colonialism, there were probably two or three major benefits such as, for example, better medication, increased trade and a more efficient agricultural system (it was the industrial revolution - there it is again - that made slavery too expensive to maintain, so there were no more slaves kept for farming). So basically their kids lived longer and healthier and wealthier lives, in general.

Of course specific injustices always play well to a gallery, but they make bad laws.

Blaendulais

FAke news OP 

gringopig

.

Rabs

gringopig said:

thecolourbox said:

roberty said:

thecolourbox said:

Blueingreen said:

There was a time when humanity didn't exist.  I wasn't in the least bit bothered.

I expect it's highly likely there'll be a future in which humanity doesn't exist.  I don't expect I'll be in the least bit bothered.

Yeah but that time before we existed doesn't exist because there was no human comprehension of it

Our understanding of it exists

True I'll give you that I still don't think something ceases to exist just because those who created it no longer exist though. Reality exists outside of human influence, and if anything, the lack of humans may allow for a more objective summary or evaluation of that 200,000 years of progress by whatever is left afterwards.

Maybe, I'm just talking out of my arse to be honest.

I watched a programme about quantum physics one long confusing evening but the gist of it seemed to be, incredibly, that reality only comes into being by observing it. Literally comes into being. So without observation, there is no reality of physical particles and whatnot. This was stated as a provable notion and the concept is apparently as flummoxing to the physicists as it is to me. Atoms and the building blocks of physical reality are, without observation, indeterminate states of energy and coalesce into observable material form when observed.
My observation is that cats must be able to accomplish this feat too as they are attracted without fail to delicious bowls of tuna.

The double slit experiment

gringopig

.

Rabs

I still say none of this really matters...

We could all die any day..  Being run over, hit by lightning, contracting some awful disease... Whatever. Theres loads of ways... Worrying about what could happen is pointless.. 

In saying that im not saying we shouldn't stop polluting the world. That's just wrong and always has been..

But everyone will die one day.. Its the only fact of life. As I said before, we should just all learn to appreciate what we have while we have it..

thecolourbox

How dare people try to contribute to this with  science!

"My observation is that cats must be able to accomplish this feat too as they are attracted without fail to delicious bowls of tuna."

Presumably Schrödinger's cat is a master of this?

Which reminds me, I may dress up as Schrödinger's cat for Halloween this year, but then on the other hand, I may not

darthed1981

thecolourbox said:

How dare people try to contribute to this with  science!

"My observation is that cats must be able to accomplish this feat too as they are attracted without fail to delicious bowls of tuna."

Presumably Schrödinger's cat is a master of this?

Which reminds me, I may dress up as Schrödinger's cat for Halloween this year, but then on the other hand, I may not

Fail - you have to both dress as the cat and not dress as the cat at the SAME TIME!

andy_k

How many childrens toys end up in landfill??? how many kids toys are made of plastic???, just saying.
something really has to change drastically at some point, and if I had young kids-well I haven't, but how can you explain to your children that the planet is drowning in plastic, but here--have this Kinder egg??