Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Egan_BW on November 12, 2018, 11:44:30 am

Regardless of how many people we have now (much, much more than is normal for an animal of our size) we will need to reach an equilibrium state eventually. That or periods of growth followed by massive die offs, but I'd prefer the equilibrium.

Or, space. I've been thinking, with all the talk of Mars and all, that if we can figure out how to build large orbital habitats fit for long-term human habitation, population size stops even being a thing and you can just build more habitats. There's always more space in space, and no localised disaster can wipe out a species spread over thousands of giant space stations.

And if we could achieve that, then why even bother colonising other planets at that point?

Three generations.

"Why do we have to keep doing these maintenance tasks?"
1st: 'Because we die.'
2nd: 'Because my dad said we'll die, what a jerk.'
3rd: 'Because my crazy old kook of a granddad said we'll die, who cares?'

Mars is no different really, the Moon or space is just as easy, Venus is a better target, workable pressures, generations of kids named Lando, you get it.

Quote from: Donald Trump

There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

Is there any subject that Donald Trump can't display gross ignorance about?

Tax fraud?

Quote from: Max™ on November 11, 2018, 02:12:52 pm

Quote from: PTTG?? on November 11, 2018, 03:40:07 am

Trump has successfully prevented a clear discussion of how climate change has caused this California fire season. Never mind the impossible drought and severe, unseasonal winds that drove the fire spread.

And yes, if Trump said the Sky was blue, I would be pretty confident that the sky was red or green or anything else besides blue, sight unseen.

Except that draining aquifers, mismanaging the water drained from them (HEY LETS GO THROW WATER AT THE DESERT GUIZ), fucking exploding fire trees, people refusing to let any burns happen until they explode, and the worst sin of all: living in California which clearly hates humans. Climate change or not, California is going to burn, acting like this is surprising or due to something besides stupid policies involving everything about living in California is ridiculous.

If you think California's not worth living in, I guess we're going to have to evacuate the midwest (the only place on the planet which reliably has tornadoes), and the south (those hurricanes are only getting worse) and the east coast (due to proximity to New Jersey).

Texas is worth living in despite the south end of tornado alley being there--though lets ignore that we just had one of the least interesting tornado seasons yet--and the rest, yeah, but most of the country doesn't get earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, L.A. people, and top it off with a big wildfire cherry. Hurricanes are getting more costly because of more people being encouraged to rebuild in previously flooded areas, strengthwise is another matter, which makes sense, in a planet which is warming you would expect a reduced equator to pole temperature gradient, and since that gradient is what powers the most destructive storms it's weird to argue they'll get stronger somehow.

And yeah, I know California's prone to fires. Despite that, this is the deadliest and most severe fire season in decades. If it was due to policies, we'd see this stuff happening every year, or else reliably every few years, not clustered in the past 5-10. This firestorm is due to terrible conditions and lack of rain, both of which can be attributed to climate change.

Uh, deadliest? most destructive? Your link doesn't seem to support this idea that it was a new thing, or the worst ever even, though I don't doubt it is being reported that way.

Of course, policy can mitigate the loss due to fire. We can mandate stone houses and defensible spaces. We can insist on firebreaks around every town. But don't act like there's someone out there who said "I'm a Republican, and if we have a Democrat in office, that will lead to the state burning to the ground for any reason other divine judgement."

I'm not sure what this means, I'm virulently and violently anti-republican, but it is hard for me to parse this properly besides the first bit about policy. It's been a problem for decades that we catch and stop any minor burn before it spreads, this causes dead plant matter to build up until you get a fire too big to catch and stop which roars through the whole area.

I'd be frankly terrified of living near the field we have next door if Memphis wasn't soggy year round, stuff never dries out enough to slog over and remove it even mid-summer.

Trump has successfully prevented a clear discussion of how climate change has caused this California fire season. Never mind the impossible drought and severe, unseasonal winds that drove the fire spread.

And yes, if Trump said the Sky was blue, I would be pretty confident that the sky was red or green or anything else besides blue, sight unseen.

Except that draining aquifers, mismanaging the water drained from them (HEY LETS GO THROW WATER AT THE DESERT GUIZ), fucking exploding fire trees, people refusing to let any burns happen until they explode, and the worst sin of all: living in California which clearly hates humans. Climate change or not, California is going to burn, acting like this is surprising or due to something besides stupid policies involving everything about living in California is ridiculous.

"DID YOU JUST...

...Ignore the possibility of droughts caused by changing weather patterns worsened by climste change?

When they're presented as a broad and widening thing? Fuck yes I did, it is lying to the layman and it is the worst sin in science. Ice ages are arid, deserts expanded vastly, the sahara is a remnant of the glacial deserts, you want to see what happens when you have a massive ice sheet, look at Antarctica, the largest desert on the planet, literal fucktons of water right there, hard as rock, dry as stone.

To assume that THIS point in time is when we reach the apex of aridity and that it somehow drops off if we enter a warmer climate AND a colder climate is absurd just from a philosophical standpoint, nevermind the physical implausibilities required to support this idea. Somehow we're going to melt the last ice caps and simultaneously turn half the planet into deserts?

I get it, burning oil is shitty, I love cars but we have better things to do with petroleum anyways, and burning lighter distillates of it isn't one of them. Moving away from oil and coal and gas is important, but I can't help but think honesty in the presentation of science is important as well. A big part of that is being able to say "I don't know" or better yet "I'm not certain, but if X holds, then Y following is supported by Z models for these reasons with these assumptions as can be found in blah blah blah" which will probably end up with your audience having their eyes glaze over sadly. I always liked reading through this stuff, but I had to swear off arguing about it, too much time I could have been doing something fun like hurting myself with woodworking tools or picking my nose. I'll gladly provide links to read through and make your own inferences from if you're interested, with the note that you shouldn't believe me, as I do not have perfect information about the future or the past, nor does anyone else. Asking questions and hunting for answers is always a noble pursuit.

Changes  in  the  water  cycle  are  projected  to  occur  in  a  warming  climate  (TFE.1,  Figure  3,  see  also  TS  4.6,  TS  5.6,  Annex I). Global-scale precipitation is projected to gradually increase in the 21st century. The precipitation increase is projected to be much smaller (about 2% K–1) than the rate of lower tropospheric water vapour increase (about 7% K–1), due to global energetic constraints. Changes of average precipitation in a much warmer world will not be uniform, with some regions experiencing increases, and others with decreases or not much change at all. The high latitude land masses are likely to experience greater amounts of precipitation due to the additional water carrying capacity of the warmer troposphere. Many mid-latitude and subtropical arid and semi-arid regions will likely experience less precipitation. The largest precipitation changes over northern Eurasia and North America are projected to occur during the winter. {12.4.5, Annex I}

Italics theirs, unnecessarily vague wording which could suggest a majority of regions bolded by me, link here: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf

Quote from: Max™ on November 10, 2018, 05:09:57 am

Totally forgot the fucking aussie trees, and no, it has little to nothing to do with the climate for a simple reason: warmer climactic periods are LESS arid, sounds crazy but the reason we have large deserts now is because of all the water locked up in various ice caps. Just because the idea seems intuitively fine that hot=arid it doesn't matter if reality disagrees, same with the projections of increased storm intensity/frequency which somehow overlook that storms are driven by the magnitude of the local temperature differences from the equator to the pole, guess what goes down in a warmer planet?

[citations needed]

For what, aridity being higher during glacials? For fucking carnot heat engine efficiency? I thought you knew this stuff man.

Wildfires in California keep getting worse.

People need to stop the hyper-vigilance about small fires which used to clear dead underbrush and whatnot away regularly, it's Smokey's fault basically. By tamping everything and letting dead material accumulate and dry and dry we've been doing a great job of producing ever more massive wildfires... that was the goal right?

YOU CAN FLY HOLY SHIT WHAT