> The process outlined in the study — known scientifically as eutrophication — is remarkably similar to modern, albeit smaller-scale, phenomenon currently fueling broad “dead zones” in the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, as excess nutrients from fertilizers and other agricultural runoff trigger massive algae blooms that consume all of the water’s oxygen.
Meanwhile, the next COP28 (United Nations Climate Change conference) will be held by United Arab Emirates's minister for industry and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. As much as this seems like a joke, or a "Don't look up" moment, it is not one ...
A lot of regulatory bodies, commissions, councils, are for optics and captured by the governments or corporations they should be regulating in some way. Put another way we have the fox watching the hen house. Put another way it's all bullshit. It's just as true with our domestic regulation.
I mean, if the sidewalks outside your house were government controlled, the most likely people to try to take control of them would be people with an interest in making money from them (somehow). Most people don't enter government to be the "Minister of Forestry" without some previous industry experience, and a plan of what to do with the forests. The people with industry experience and a plan are usually ones frustrated by the limits of the regulations and therefore they have the desire to take over and change the rules to suit them.
This is at the heart of the problem. You get these revolving doors between eg big positions at the FDA and big pharma staffed by the same individuals at different times in their careers, same with eg Wall St vs SEC. This extends to lobby group positions. One day Fred is the head of the FDA the next day he’s lobbying the FDA for Pfizer. This should be illegal.
They mask the corruption this causes by saying “Hey we need someone with industry/regulatory experience” with no acknowledgement of the massive ($$) conflicts of interest inherent in that strategy.
The DEA is great at busting drug dealers without being drug dealers, neither are the cartels run by DEA agents. This wouldn't be an issue if creating a revolving door between industry and government didn't create huge conflicts of interest but it does.
This concerns me and saddens me a lot. Major changes are required in the near future, and the more I look at the news the less it seems like any of these changes are happening. If at some point I actually get to the conclusion that "it's all bullshit" (i.e. climate change is all bullshit) to those in charge of making these changes, then I have to see how to change those in charge. But really, the options are limited... It's a scary problem. But yeah, it seems like corporations have (often) a lot more to say in this that the what the majority of citizens want.
> the more I look at the news the less it seems like any of these changes are happening
What news are you reading? Last year the world invested $500bn in wind and solar, and another $500bn in energy efficiency. The IRA has $369bn for green tech, and Europe is going to spend $270bn. The invasion of Ukraine has left large amounts of Russian oil and gas effectively stranded. We're going to reach peak carbon in 5 years, and 2°C is looking increasingly feasible.
Does it matter if by then we’ve fractured or cut down what’s left of the world’s forests? Deforestation the last decade https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation
Ocean oxygen depletion (and atmospheric oxygen depletion as marine life like plankton dies with a double whammy of reduced oxygen and greater acidity) comes up in the scarier corners of climate change awareness but I've never known if it was something to take seriously or if it was overblown. Will we stop being able to breathe?
From the abstract of the paper linked in the article:
"A full-scale OAE would take thousands of years to develop, but some of today's processes are reminiscent of those thought to have promoted OAEs in the distant past."
(OAE = oceanic anoxic event)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaj2321
Hmm will be for the super rich for sure. Lets say one air canister is 160 breaths. And this canister is premium lol, and cost 32 bucks. cost per breath is $.20. Avg person = 16 breaths per minute. Cost per minute : $2.30. Cost per hour $192. Cost per day $4608. Cost per year: $1,618,920!
Don't be ridiculous. As President of HN, I can assure both you and the other readers that there's absolutely no air shortage whatsoever. Yes, I've heard the same rumors myself! Thanks for calling, and not reversing the charges.
Ahh right, I read it as “a moment in the style of Don’t Look Up” (which it totally is) rather than “literally a thing in the movie” (which… yeah I agree.)
> the evolution of tree roots may have triggered a series of mass extinctions [...] during the Devonian Period over 300 million years ago
> the evolution of tree roots likely flooded past oceans with excess nutrients, causing massive algae growth
> these rapid and destructive algae blooms would have depleted most of the oceans’ oxygen, triggering catastrophic mass extinction events
> these past events were likely fueled by tree roots, which pulled nutrients from the land during times of growth, then abruptly dumped them into the Earth’s water during times of decay
Just a tldr since it took me a minute to find. Super interesting, always fun / horrifying to think about the earth before terrestrial animal life.
Between this and cyanobacteria causing a catastrophic (for them) oxygenation event some billion of years ago, many species seem to have causes mass extinctions, with us being the last (and quickest) in this chain.
Is this another potential "great filter"? Evolving lifeforms can randomly find ways to kill an ecosystem.
Unfortunately it doesn't make sense to use us as batteries or energy sources, thermodynamically. But they could maybe use our brains as computers (and this was the first idea the writers had, they just decided against it because it would be too complicated for mainstream audiences)
But in this case it would be rather wasteful to also nourish the rest of the body. As a bonus, if all the remaining people are just brains floating in a tank, they can't really escape.
We think with much more than just our brain. For example, there are neurons at the stomach level and your gut bacteria determines part of your mood. You could make a case that the whole body is required to capture the human experience.
In that film (brains in a jar), you don't escape to reality, you escape to a different level of the matrix (one where you've got superpowers). Last shot in the film will have a lot in common with the last shot in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
> and this was the first idea the writers had, they just decided against it because it would be too complicated for mainstream audiences
Doesn't make immediate sense to me, if using brains as computers you wouldn't want to occupy them with the Matrix simulation and the whole story falls apart, so how was the complicated plot ought to be? Use the brains with the Matrix how we are used already for solving captchas?
> use our brains as computers (and this was the first idea the writers had, they just decided against it because it would be too complicated for mainstream audiences)
like how success of a species becomes the failure of the same species. the endless cycles of success and failure.
also in multi-generational wealth: poor and hard working become successful (when society allows it) then the descendants are lazy and loose the wealth, and finally further descendants are poor and may learn to work hard.
that is, until societies re-organize and stop rewarding hard-work with success; what happens next is still happening, it's what we see in our actual political leadership, it's not very effective and is dragging the world into a seemingly unavoidable war. (both china and USA blaming each other for the escalating: "they (the other) should change course cuz we won't"
The article says that tree roots released massive nutrients into the oceans during the period of decay causing algae bloom depleting the Oxygen and triggering the extinction. Why just the roots and not the entire trees? Wouldn't the entire tree be decayed and end up in the ocean?
There was no soil yet at this time. Plants rooted directly into rock, turning the surface into gravel/sediment, weathering and runoff carried minerals and carbon away into the water. The landscape's stability depends on the roots, and so during mass extinction events, minerals and carbon get dumped en masse from the continents into the sea, and atmospheric CO2 levels drop because of weathering.
That part is relatively well established. This paper looks at the transport of phosphorus in particular, from terrestrial rock into marine ecosystems.
Plants can't take up phosphorus in its mineral bound form. Modern trees have micro-organisms living on their roots that release P (and N etc) from the soil. In certain periods of the Devonian era, P would have been primarily liberated from the rock by acids let off by the plant roots as they decayed.
> others have made the argument that pollution from fertilizers, manure and other organic wastes, such as sewage, have placed the Earth’s oceans on the “edge of anoxia,” or a complete lack of oxygen.
This is nonsense, obviously. Would apply only for shallow bottom or fresh waters
Can you explain further, please? I don't doubt what you are saying, but don't know why it is "obvious". Is it, because the amount of sea water is so large, relative to the amount of 'pollution'?
The abstract of the paper linked in the article seems to support your statement, though.
"For the past several hundred million years, oxygen concentrations in Earth's atmosphere have been comparatively high[..]. Yet, the oceans seem never to have been far from anoxia (oxygen depletion)[..] OAEs seem to be promoted by warm climates[...] ocean oxygen concentrations are declining in the modern ocean [...] A full-scale OAE would take thousands of years to develop[...]"
(OAE = oceanic anoxic event)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaj2321
So my layman summary of that particular study, would be, that the oceans have always been one the “edge of anoxia”, and although human activity could push it closer to that, there is no reason to believe that it could happen in our lifetime or that of our grand-grand children.
To start anoxia is a relative term. It depends on how much oxygen do you spent respect to how fast you replace it. Is also a buffered event, and the problem corrects itself automatically [1]. Therefore, things like "the edge of anoxia" have moving boundaries and are difficult to define
[1] When some area is lacking oxygen, marine life response migrating or is simply killed. The result is that more oxygen is available for the rest until reaching a new equilibrium.
The article provided is paywalled, so I can't really evaluate it here
Lets continue. If you put fertilizers into a flower, it will (try to use it to) grow. In the ocean is exactly the same. Marine life, evolved to feast or famine, will wake up and multiply like if the entire population of humpback whales is coming for they. The event is called "bloom" and is of major importance for humans.
Water will be filled with high concentrations of things that love to release oxygen. Bazillions of oxygen. Thus throwing fertilizer in the ocean equals to oxygen increase, not decrease... in principle.
Of course, biology is never so simple. You can have most life killed by lack of oxygen even while being submerged in a soup of oxygen producers because anoxia is a relative term. Life also breathes. And, unlike photosynthesis, breathing is done also at night. At the end of the night life can experience troubles to survive.
And there is the chemistry also. Stuff reacts chemically with the salts or organic matter suspended in the sea. This can release oxygen as by-product, remove oxygen and store it in some molecule, or remain neutral about it.
Chemistry can also affect oxygen producers. Too much fertilizer and your plant will die by thirst. In the sea the problem is reduced because your flower pot can decide to swim away or sink away.
They don't have any fossil record of tree roots they're looking at in this paper, they're looking at sedimentary rock from lakebeds, right? So they see smoke and think 'gun'.
Meanwhile, the next COP28 (United Nations Climate Change conference) will be held by United Arab Emirates's minister for industry and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. As much as this seems like a joke, or a "Don't look up" moment, it is not one ...