The Environmental and Conservation Issues Room
The Methane apocalypse.
For me the key take away from the article:
This Methane Apocalypse thing...This, Shakhova said, means that methane releases from decaying frozen hydrates could result in emission rates that "could change in order of magnitude in a matter of minutes," and that there would be nothing "smooth, gradual or controlled" about it. She described it as a "kind of a release [that] is like the unsealing of an over-pressurized pipeline."
I don't know why but this is a scenario that really is bothering me tonight because it has more plausibility than anything I've heard in years. It's interesting when I was a kid in the 80's, I remember I used to have literal nightmares of nuclear annihilation. Of running from nuclear explosions in my dreams. After the fall of the Berlin wall those nightmares faded away. The brink was closer existentially than many realized. Turns out there were a few incidents one in particular in which a Russian submarine captain was the ONLY decision that stopped the firing of nuclear missiles from his sub. Turned out he had lost contact with his higher ups after an order came down to fire missiles. It was literally that close.This methane apocalypse is the closest thing I've felt in my bones to that existential threat in my lifetime and in all honesty it did not fully hit me until that particular article i posted earlier. I mean I've known of the methane threat I just did not get how quickly it could happen. This could seriously be an extinction event on par with a super volcano in Yellowstone park. The key difference is this is an almost unstoppable event created by humanity. The Yellowstone super volcano could be put under the category of act of God, this though, this Methane Apocalypse is ALL on us. I don't know why but it profoundly shakes me inside.
From my heart I say to all who read this, hug your significant others, hug your kids & your grand kids. This may be too late.
Seriously after this last winter the arctic was warmer then it's EVER been. That is significant. I don't say this lightly, even if we had some scenario where Sanders was president and he helped push an environmentally friendly call to arms it's still pretty much too late. CO2 is not going away, it has a half life of a hundred years before degrading. Methane has a half life of about 10 years but at more than the amount of CO2 being released in minutes, in Freaking MINUTES!! The consequences are catastrophic. It's a cascade effect, It's far more probable than possible. And that should deeply shake everyone.
It's profoundly sad for me because humanity will cease to exist, along with most of the life we know that supports us.
Yes, bacteria will survive & some fungus but it will be millions of years before life gets complex enough for consciousness to arise and that consciousness will not be homo sapiens.
I am unabashedly a scifi enthusiast, I read tuns of science fiction and actually do it for work, another story for another day. Something i'm loathe to admit It is potentially the Fermi paradox is true.
And we are just conscious enough to watch it happen in real time.
Hold those you love close, things may honestly not last.
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Originally Posted by crowonapost
