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Climate Change: Where every storm is Perfect

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Posts

  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    Yeah eliminating them is good

    Adding more bloodsucking frankensqueeters (nice job) is definitely eyebrow-raising in the least though

    Male mosquitoes are entirely machines for getting it on and don't bite.

    Also, just because you can describe something in a scary way doesn't make it a scary idea. Its a very good idea! As opposed to the other plan, do nothing and wring our hands, or pour millions of gallons of insecticide on things.

    Invasive species are not an important part of local ecosystems. The release of genetically modified males is the most targetted thing we can do to them and we've been doing very similar stuff (with irradiated flies and moths, which works pretty well because in many fly species, the female mates only once regardless of success) for decades.

    GM stuff is not bad. There are concerns about it in that it COULD be used irresponsibly. And, if this kill effort was targetted at a US native species in its home range then I'd say, "Extirmination of this thing should be considered carefully", but this isn't what this mosquito IS. Its an ocean hopping invasive killer, which we should responsibly eliminate everywhere outside its home range of North Africa, and THEN we should ask the question whether eliminating it there too is responsible.

    People have concerns about the GM organisms I can see, but, Aegypti is ITSELF a GM organism. It's a north african mosquito species which has diverged from its wild cousins to bite more in daytime, fly indoors, and prefer indoor nesting sites. It's genetically adapted to US. You could do horribly irresponsible things with GM organisms, but you could do that with many many things. Its not the GM which is the problem, its what you do with it. And eliminating Aegypti (and its invasive cousins) would be a huge boon to humans, to the environment, and to the ecosystem (as native mosquito species which are active at night etc would thrive).

    I would quibble with the bolded as a universal axiom. Invasives are definitionally not an important part of unimpacted ecosystems, but very few of those are left. What we are left with, in many cases, are things like ecosystems where two or more invasive or introduced species hold each other in equilibrium.

  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Yeah eliminating them is good

    Adding more bloodsucking frankensqueeters (nice job) is definitely eyebrow-raising in the least though

    I'd like to take credit for it, but that's actually what the crazy Floridians called them in the article. They are terrified that they will catch vampirism or something if they get bit by a gmo mosquito.

    My first concern when I read the piece was how it hits fish and birds, so I appreciate the thread's mosquito based food chain knowledge.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    My gut fear, bypassing the brain almost entirely, was that they would somehow pass/inject this gene into humans and it would result in a mass sterility scenario ala Children of Men.

  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    My gut fear, bypassing the brain almost entirely, was that they would somehow pass/inject this gene into humans and it would result in a mass sterility scenario ala Children of Men.

    Our race is not fated to accidentally save the world.

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  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    My gut fear, bypassing the brain almost entirely, was that they would somehow pass/inject this gene into humans and it would result in a mass sterility scenario ala Children of Men.

    If mosquitos transferred their normal genes for male insect devopment into humans then the humans would die or their offspring would anyway. Humans are not insects! We can, in some very rare circumstances, exchange DNA through a viral mediator, but thats a vanishing rare occurrence which only propagates if it is advantageous in some way.

    GM genes are no different from normal genes. People didn't design them from scratch. We usually just take some kind of pre existing mutation gene and propagate it. We arent anywhere near smart enough to make whole new genes, only to figure out what existing ones do and how they affect the animal.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    VishNub wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    Yeah eliminating them is good

    Adding more bloodsucking frankensqueeters (nice job) is definitely eyebrow-raising in the least though

    Male mosquitoes are entirely machines for getting it on and don't bite.

    Also, just because you can describe something in a scary way doesn't make it a scary idea. Its a very good idea! As opposed to the other plan, do nothing and wring our hands, or pour millions of gallons of insecticide on things.

    Invasive species are not an important part of local ecosystems. The release of genetically modified males is the most targetted thing we can do to them and we've been doing very similar stuff (with irradiated flies and moths, which works pretty well because in many fly species, the female mates only once regardless of success) for decades.

    GM stuff is not bad. There are concerns about it in that it COULD be used irresponsibly. And, if this kill effort was targetted at a US native species in its home range then I'd say, "Extirmination of this thing should be considered carefully", but this isn't what this mosquito IS. Its an ocean hopping invasive killer, which we should responsibly eliminate everywhere outside its home range of North Africa, and THEN we should ask the question whether eliminating it there too is responsible.

    People have concerns about the GM organisms I can see, but, Aegypti is ITSELF a GM organism. It's a north african mosquito species which has diverged from its wild cousins to bite more in daytime, fly indoors, and prefer indoor nesting sites. It's genetically adapted to US. You could do horribly irresponsible things with GM organisms, but you could do that with many many things. Its not the GM which is the problem, its what you do with it. And eliminating Aegypti (and its invasive cousins) would be a huge boon to humans, to the environment, and to the ecosystem (as native mosquito species which are active at night etc would thrive).

    I would quibble with the bolded as a universal axiom. Invasives are definitionally not an important part of unimpacted ecosystems, but very few of those are left. What we are left with, in many cases, are things like ecosystems where two or more invasive or introduced species hold each other in equilibrium.

    Yes, there clearly is a level of establishment when an invasive species becomes a 'local' species. Almost every species was invasive at some point. However, there is also clearly a "massively disruptive and dangerous" phase which exists in the early stage of an entry which humans almost always make worse with monoculture agriculture and by facilitating spread of the organism. Things in that phase of spread, are better off eliminated.

    In the long term, from a protection standpoint improving ecosystem health is critical, because healthy systems adapt to and control invasive species quicker, and suffer fewer invasions, but once the species is already widespread its too late for that.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    zagdrob wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    Realistically, the Jurassic Park method is solid. Controlling one sex and keeping the other has been used to control species for centuries and in every setting from laboratories to pet stores.

    The ability to shift sex isn't just a single gene but an entire chromosomal system and not something you can randomly introduce along with a couple desired genes.

    Dr. Wu's comment in Jurassic World sums up why it was conceivable in the setting: because none of their creations were dinosaurs, they were fucked up frogs shaped like dinosaurs.

    The sex was one aspect, but they also made the dinosaurs unable to synthesize lysine. Since the dinos required constant supplements, if they escaped they would die of lysine deficiency.

    This fails when the dinosaurs escape and supplement their diet with natural sources of lysine. If I recall the book specifically mentioned them eating soybeans.

    Of course in reality no animals can synthesize lysine and need to acquire it through their diet, so this would be completely pointless as a real measure.

    There’s also the fact that meat is high in lysine, so if your t-rex or velociraptor isn’t getting enough lysine in the diet they would probably be starving anyway.

    The sex change thing is also kind of a stretch, most of the species that actually can do that are egg layers and fertilize outside the body. The machinery is a lot simpler, basically just changing the type of cell produced from eggs to sperm, its a lot more of a stretch to suggest something just spontaneously growing a fully functional penis and testicles (or whatever dinosaurs had)out of nowhere.


    Edit - Apparently chickens can do it, though, so maybe not! They apparently only activate on proto-gonad into an ovary and have a dormant set of male equipment that never develops (they don’t have external testicles so they all stay in the body anyway). If something damages the ovary, like an infection, the other proto-ovary will sometimes develop into a testicle, the male reproductive tract will activate and mature, and the hen will become a rooster that can father children. Life finds a way!

    Jealous Deva on
  • LilnoobsLilnoobs Alpha Queue Registered User regular
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    Doodmann wrote: »
    Is that because it's shark week?

    Fuck, that is definitely because it's shark week.

    *edit
    I'm going to leave my paragraph down there, because it is an ongoing ecological story, but it appears there is no connection to Trump's rant and Florida's plan. That he was swatting at mosquitos and babbling about sharks seems to be unrelated.

    No, it's because Florida got the OK to release a boatload of genetically modified mosquitoes that breed with wild mosquitoes and their female offspring don't develop. It controls the population and reduces blood borne diseases in the area. Floridians are freaking out because frankensqeeters might give them unwanted vaccines or some other lunacy, but the sane people are freaking out because mosquitoes underpin the entire food chain.

    The particular species of mosquito targeted by this do not. There are several different species in the area, only a couple of which host these diseases, and none of which are preferentially preyed upon, and the other species can fill in their niche. I believe at least one of those species isn't even native to the area.

    Mosquitos in general are also not espescially important food insects for anything, because the blood of other animals (what the mosquitos we hate eat) is a really shitty food source. A parasitic mosquito is a predator. An efficient one, but, you (thing eating bugs) are still going to do better just eating something that eats plants.

    Aedes aegypti is an invasive species with no place in the US ecosystem which is a devastating killer through the viruses and parasites it carries. We have to kill it anyway, and you are FAR more likely to give your child a genetic injury through pesticide exposure than through GM mosquito bites. Spiderman is not a documentary. You do not gain mosquito DNA from being bitten, and Mosquitos don't go around mating with other mosquito species any more than humans mate with Gorillas.

    Spiderman is a modern day cautionary tale (i.e. myth) meant to compress cultural knowledge and emotions into a symbol that's understandable, a bit also like what memes do. I don't think a rational person believes a mosquito will give you mosquito powers, but there's been about 0 instances I can recall where human fuckmuppetry of the local environment has lead to net positives. Also throw in this is genetically manipulating a living organism and then letting it loose into the wild, so I think people's fears are quite warranted. There's a lot of unknowns by doing such a thing, and our modern myths, which you like to cite so haphazardly, are tales that try to caution based on cultural experience and emotions.

    Cool but do you want to actually address the points made in tbloxham's post or

    Sorry, I was addressing his hand-waving of cultural fears and knowledge. I'm not debating any of the science, but science without understanding people is problematic imo.

  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    So if we were to connect the US East and West Coasts' power grids, we'd end up making a more efficient overall power grid. It would really help phase out the use of coal power plants. It would help reduce overall emissions and slow down Global Warming.

    But it got shut down, because politics.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/how-trump-appointees-short-circuited-grid-modernization/615433/

    Honestly, I thought our grids were a bit better connected, especially after the Great Brown Outs that happened on the East Coast in like 2009, I think. And California constantly undergoing brownouts due to tremendous heat and everyone running their air conditioning.

    It seems like a no brainer investment that we'd want to do. Give people jobs, make our infrastructure better, reduce carbon output, and help make our country actually stronger.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Boy howdy
    But a study like Seams was politically dangerous territory for a federally funded lab while coal-industry advocates—and climate-change deniers—reign in the White House. The Trump administration has a long history of protecting coal companies, and unfortunately for Novacheck, a representative was sitting in the audience during the talk: Catherine “Katie” Jereza, then a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity.

    Jereza fired off an email to DOE headquarters—before Novacheck had even finished speaking, according to sources who viewed the email—raising an alarm about Seams’ anti-coal findings. That email ignited an internal firestorm. According to interviews with five current and former DOE and NREL sources, supported by more than 900 pages of documents and emails obtained by InvestigateWest through Freedom of Information Act requests and by additional documentation from industry sources, Trump officials would ultimately block Seams from seeing the light of day. And in doing so, they would set back America’s efforts to slow climate change.

    ....
    The fallout was swift: The lab grounded Bloom and Novacheck, prohibiting them from presenting the Seams results or even discussing the study outside NREL. At the end of 2018, Bloom left NREL for the private sector. Dale Osborn, a retired grid-planning expert and a key adviser to Seams, says Bloom thought his career was over at NREL. “He told me, ‘I’ll never get a decent project again,’” Osborn recalls.

    And the $1.6 million study itself disappeared. NREL yanked the completed findings from its website and deleted power-flow visualizations from its YouTube channel. An NREL document shows that Bloom and Novacheck expected to submit an article to a top grid-engineering journal within six weeks after the Kansas event. That paper remains blocked two years later.

    Fuck

  • OghulkOghulk Tinychat Janitor TinychatRegistered User regular
    And in a swift motion just provided reason for another set of brilliant people to never work for the feds

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Oghulk wrote: »
    And in a swift motion just provided reason for another set of brilliant people to never work for the feds

    Right, and this isn’t just happening with Seams

    The incredible thing about this one is it wasn’t just like a report of bad news- it was a roadmap to generate billions that more enterprising criminals could have funneled to themselves

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular


    Well, this sounds utterly infuriating.

  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    technically, dumping all the plastic into a landfill is carbon sequestration...

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    This is probably a dumb question, but if you bury plastic deep enough will it eventually turn back into oil?

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • zagdrobzagdrob Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    This is probably a dumb question, but if you bury plastic deep enough will it eventually turn back into oil?

    Depending on the right geological processes, maybe? It's a lot of carbon + immense heat and pressure so it'll give you something.

    I doubt it would something that could be extracted though, the amount of carbon that goes into real oil reserves is insane.

  • kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular
    Destroy oil companies.

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  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular

    I've assumed something along these lines for a long time. If plastic were being recycled in any significant quantity, then products made from recycled plastic should be ubiquitous. They would be everywhere, and they wouldn't need labels touting their virtue or a premium price to offset the cost of producing them.

    It sure makes everything (everything!) I buy come with an extra helping of guilt, though :sad:

  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    I would like to know what actually is recycled so I know what to put in the recycling bin.

  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Welp we're fucked:
    Calica wrote: »

    I've assumed something along these lines for a long time. If plastic were being recycled in any significant quantity, then products made from recycled plastic should be ubiquitous. They would be everywhere, and they wouldn't need labels touting their virtue or a premium price to offset the cost of producing them.

    It sure makes everything (everything!) I buy come with an extra helping of guilt, though :sad:

    What sucks is there isn't even a way I can pay money to responsibly dispose of plastic. I also can't convince any god damn manufacturer to not send me a cubic meter of styrofoam when I buy something (stuff doesn't even fit in the bin). As consumers, we're all totally fucked on this, and that's all entirely deliberate because the goal of corporate sponsored environmentalism was to deflect attention away from addressing systemic issues which might result in legislation.

  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    I would like to know what actually is recycled so I know what to put in the recycling bin.

    Aluminum for sure. Tin and other metals, as well.

    Glass probably is but I seem to recall reading that glass is so easy to make it's of questionable value from a carbon standpoint.

    Cardboard is, but only the stuff that doesn't have tape or grease on it.

    I've known about the plastic thing for a while. Basically it can't be restored to its previous quality, so you get at most 2-3 uses out of anything. :/

  • Havelock2.0Havelock2.0 Sufficiently Chill The Chill ZoneRegistered User regular

    ...

    I hate this fucking year

    I've seen things you people wouldn't believe
  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    edited September 2020

    ...

    I hate this fucking year

    I mean, this was last year, where it became an international incident between Aus and our dumping grounds:
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/09/indonesia-sends-rubbish-back-to-australia-and-says-its-too-contaminated-to-recycle

    Same as our car tyres

    discrider on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Jragghen wrote: »
    I would like to know what actually is recycled so I know what to put in the recycling bin.

    Aluminum for sure. Tin and other metals, as well.

    Glass probably is but I seem to recall reading that glass is so easy to make it's of questionable value from a carbon standpoint.

    Cardboard is, but only the stuff that doesn't have tape or grease on it.

    I've known about the plastic thing for a while. Basically it can't be restored to its previous quality, so you get at most 2-3 uses out of anything. :/
    It’s also probably not environmentally damaging to just dump glass into the ocean

    wbBv3fj.png
  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular

    ...

    I hate this fucking year

    This isn't a 2020 thing. This has been going on for years.

    But if you really wanna get mad? Look up e-waste/electronics recycling.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    So it’s just plastic that’s not being recycled?

  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Prof. International Relations & National Security:


    Reporter for KGW in Portland:
    Dear people listening to scanners and believing everything on social media: BLM in this case refers to Bureau of Land Management, which manages federal lands and helps provide resources and fight fires all over the state
    This is just silly enough to be true.

    Couscous on
  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    Naturally being careful to not overly attach import to it but man the twitter is just roiling with deranged shit about antifa starting fires it appears to have a potentially distressing degree of traction

    Broke as fuck in the style of the times. Gratitude is all that can return on your generosity.

    https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Jragghen wrote: »
    I would like to know what .actually is recycled so I know what to put in the recycling bin.

    Aluminum for sure. Tin and other metals, as well.

    Glass probably is but I seem to recall reading that glass is so easy to make it's of questionable value from a carbon standpoint.

    Cardboard is, but only the stuff that doesn't have tape or grease on it.

    I've known about the plastic thing for a while. Basically it can't be restored to its previous quality, so you get at most 2-3 uses out of anything. :/

    Glass is made from one of the most common elements in the earth's Crust, and recycling it is basically the same process as making it, so I'm sure it's a wash overall.

    In some places a lot of "recycled" paper and cardboard is burned for electricity. Which is even dirtier per MWH than coal.

    Just another example of how the "individual responsibility" thing is bullshit - out individual contributions are small and we have no way of auditing most of our countermeasures. Cardboard would be better in a landfill than a trash fire plant, and plastics would be better in a local landfill than shipped overseas and then dumped in a landfill. Effective change needs to come from the level of governments and industries.

    Hevach on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    I mean really if you look at it there never really was a significant landfill space shortage anyway. Non-metallic recycling has always been one of those bullshit all the way down things.

  • zagdrobzagdrob Registered User regular
    Nobody wants to live across the street from a dump, but well managed landfills with non-industrial household or consumer waste are pretty much fine. Waste goes in, biodegradable shit slowly decays and gasses are captured, but most of the carbon stays sequestered in a big pit.

    Auto / metal recycling is legit, as is tire recycling (mulch / playgrounds and stuff). Most everything else at the consumer level is break-even at best by the time you deal with logistics and levels of demand.

  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    So is it better to put plastic in the trash, to hopefully end up in a well-managed landfill instead of dumped on a third-world country?

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Best yet to start going out of our way to use less of it and create market opportunities for “not plastic”

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    zagdrob wrote: »
    Nobody wants to live across the street from a dump, but well managed landfills with non-industrial household or consumer waste are pretty much fine. Waste goes in, biodegradable shit slowly decays and gasses are captured, but most of the carbon stays sequestered in a big pit.

    Auto / metal recycling is legit, as is tire recycling (mulch / playgrounds and stuff). Most everything else at the consumer level is break-even at best by the time you deal with logistics and levels of demand.

    Pretty sure Aus tyres are still being put on slow container ships to other countries to be burnt, despite that being illegal as far as I can recall.
    At least in 18-19 this COAG report states we exported 61,000 tonnes of tyres.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    Thirty or so years ago, I chuckled at a chronicle of a SWRPG campaign where the Rebel PCs had to track down a MacGuffin that their contact had thrown in the trash when he feared imminent stop-and-search, and which had subsequently been sent to something I thought was a very Star Wars thing: "the garbage continent".
    Yup, a whole continent set aside for the rest of the planet to dump garbage on.

    It doesn't seem as funny anymore.

  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    Best yet to start going out of our way to use less of it and create market opportunities for “not plastic”

    Well yes but some is unavoidable.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Thirty or so years ago, I chuckled at a chronicle of a SWRPG campaign where the Rebel PCs had to track down a MacGuffin that their contact had thrown in the trash when he feared imminent stop-and-search, and which had subsequently been sent to something I thought was a very Star Wars thing: "the garbage continent".
    Yup, a whole continent set aside for the rest of the planet to dump garbage on.

    It doesn't seem as funny anymore.

    Red Dwarf had Earth as the garbage planet, up until it escaped the solar system on its own vented gases.
    It then promptly tried to kill Lister when he found it again.

    discrider on
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    The Atlantic hurricane season isn't just breaking records, it's breaking records for the biggest record breaks.

    Paulette was 10 days earlier than the earliest P storm. Rene was 11 ahead of the earliest R storm. Now Sally has formed 18 days ahead of the earliest S storm, the biggest record break ever for this record. A strong depression is expected to take the T name tomorrow, which will be a staggering 21 day record break.

    The season is also on track to break the record for the most storms making landfall on the continental US, but thankfully not for serious hurricanes doing so.

    There is one good thing: the accumulated cyclone energy (the total power of all the named storms) is not unusually high - there are an incredible number of storms likely to blow right past Zeta (the farthest we got into the Greek alphabet in 2005), but a lower number of high category hurricanes.


    The grand wind up of all this is that heat in the atmosphere is kinetic energy. That is to literally say heat is weather. Surface heat in the oceans is the other big contributor to tropical and extra-tropical cyclones, so the combination means more storms. 2020 is repeating the same alignment that created 2005's 28 storms and 1995's 19. The average is rising and the old unprecedented record is now merely above average, and the new unprecedented record is about to be broken, possibly annihilated.

    Hevach on
  • CorvusCorvus . VancouverRegistered User regular

    ...

    I hate this fucking year

    It ain't the year. This shit has been going on for decades apparently. Still it's damn infuriating.

    :so_raven:
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Corvus wrote: »

    ...

    I hate this fucking year

    It ain't the year. This shit has been going on for decades apparently. Still it's damn infuriating.

    I'd also like to add that its PERFECTLY possible to recycle plastics, and many companies do do it, however, it requires people to sort their plastics more than they do, and clean their plastics OR pay someone else to do that. Effectively, plastic waste is a perfectly viable input stream in your plastic things factory, but it is more expensive than just buying new plastic or making new plastic from oil. So, companies won't recycle plastics even though they could.

    This is a government level problem. Governments should be either...

    1) Forcing companies to use the recycled waste stream through law (which passes the costs indirectly on to the consumers by making the companies use a more expensive raw material)
    2) Forcing local governments to pay for sufficient sorting and cleaning of the plastic which some jurisdictions do already (which passes the costs on directly to the communities by forcing them to pay for additional processing before the items are released)

    This has only really come to light because of the decrease in value of random rare contaminant stuff in the plastic waste stream which used to make it worth buying for that, and then dumping. So people would buy the bulk recycled plastics, send it for picking to get out improperly retained metals etc and then dump it in indonesia or other places.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
This discussion has been closed.