Current Events > Ominous warning from UN: World's oceans in peril

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/09/25/un-climate-report-worlds-oceans-and-mountains-big-trouble/2427654001/

The world's oceans and mountains are in peril, and so are we, according to a major new report from United Nations climate scientists released early Wednesday.

The "Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere" offers a bleak picture. It warns that the world's oceans have reached or are nearing critical tipping points: Oceans have gotten warmer, more acidic and are losing oxygen, resulting in a cascade of negative effects that are wreaking havoc on coral and other marine ecosystems, threatening the collapse of the worlds fisheries and turbocharging deadly hurricanes and tropical storms.

In an unprecedented effort, teams of scientists from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explored the farthest corners of Earth, from the highest Alpine regions to the deepest oceans, said Ko Barrett, panel vice chair and a NOAA deputy assistant administrator for research, "and even in these remote places climate change is evident."

As glaciers and ice sheets have melted faster, and rising temperatures have warmed the surface of the sea, the planet's marine zones have absorbed the heat, Barrett said. But the systems are now at or near overload.

"For decades, the ocean has been acting like a sponge ... but it can't keep up," Barrett said. "The consequences for nature and humanity are sweeping and severe."

The scientists confirmed clear links between ice loss and rising seas and an array of impacts, including fiercer hurricanes and storms in the Atlantic Ocean.

In the U.S., most of the East and West coasts will experience what were once "hundred-year" floods on an annual basis, even if greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced, and unless major investments are made to adapt to the coming high waters, the report says.

Globally, preparing for the floods as seas rise could cost hundreds of billions of dollars per year. In the absence of major adaptation efforts, extreme coastal flooding will become common by the end of the century due to sea-level rise, according to the report.

But the consequences of continuing on a high emissions trajectory are even starker, the authors conclude: Under a low-emissions scenario, managing the impacts of climate change will be expensive but possible. Doing little or nothing will result in catastrophic impacts.

This report should erase any doubts about the peril that climate change poses for the health of the ocean and, as a consequence, for human well-being," said John Tanzer of the World Wildlife Fund's global oceans program. "From coral reefs and mangroves to fish populations and coastal habitats, climate change and human pressures are rapidly destroying the natural capital that supports the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people around the world."

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I really dont think we can overcome it.

We are too stuck on capitalism and electronics.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGxdmfjnT2A" data-time="
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Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the earth can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet. She sends 5 magic rings to 5 special young people...
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Are we living in the literal end times?
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*dolphins cry in the distance*
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At least some billionaires were able to buy several summer homes and yachts. That's more important.
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TheMikh posted...

You get those filthy facts out of here!!!
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Nothing can be done at this point tbh, say your prayers
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HypnoCoosh posted...

TheMikh posted...

You get those filthy facts out of here!!!

"They started it"

This is literally how children argue, well done.
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Right over pinkies head.
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HypnoCoosh posted...

Right over pinkies head.

Your point was not clever enough to be over anyone's head, not even a 16 year old Swedish kid's.
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Nah. I don't like the UN's phrasing. Let's continue to do nothing. One decade, someone will say the words in the right way to make me care about climate change
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HypnoCoosh posted...

TheMikh posted...

You get those filthy facts out of here!!!

10% of personal spending in the U.S. is on goods produced by China, and theyre cheap goods so its actually a ton of stuff.
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TheMikh posted...

How much of that is garbage shipped in from the West though? We don't get to dump our garbage on them and blame them entirely for the mess. Not anymore.
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hockeybub89 posted...

Nah. I don't like the UN's phrasing. Let's continue to do nothing. One decade, someone will say the words in the right way to make me care about climate change

That swedish girl is annoying and loud and above all younger than me - the climate will therefore be fine because everyone knows loud and annoying and young people are never right
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By the way, that's the annual chart for 2010, so basically outdated

Anybody have the total waste dumped by countries in the ocean until more recently (2018ish)? The total waste should matter much more than the annual stat I think
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Goats posted...

We don't get to dump our garbage on them and blame them entirely for the mess.

Why not? If they purchased recyclables for use and mismanaged the resource thats on them.
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"Hey, world. We're polluting and killing the planet."

"But China"
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pinky0926 posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

Nah. I don't like the UN's phrasing. Let's continue to do nothing. One decade, someone will say the words in the right way to make me care about climate change

That swedish girl is annoying and loud and above all younger than me - the climate will therefore be fine because everyone knows loud and annoying and young people are never right

Also, let me pretend no one except loud and annoying teenagers ever talked about climate change ever before.
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TheMikh posted...

Nice, time to close this topic
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John_Galt posted...

TheMikh posted...

Nice, time to close this topic

Nope, you should have kept reading. Dont jump to conclusions so quickly.
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John_Galt posted...

TheMikh posted...

Nice, time to close this topic

Indeed, countries are part of the world.
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Southernfatman posted...

At least some billionaires were able to buy several summer homes and yachts. That's more important.

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EzeDoesIt posted...

HypnoCoosh posted...

TheMikh posted...

You get those filthy facts out of here!!!

10% of personal spending in the U.S. is on goods produced by China, and theyre cheap goods so its actually a ton of stuff.

do we need higher tariffs
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Ultima Dragon posted...

Southernfatman posted...

At least some billionaires were able to buy several summer homes and yachts. That's more important.

They're adjusting their lifestyle to live in this new world and what are we doing? Yelling at mommy government to change the world to our liking?

This is why they're billionaires and we're drones.

/s
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That chart is such a fucking stupid rebuttal because it's a chart about plastic being thrown into the ocean whereas the article in the OP is talking about carbon emissions.
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world: Oceans are dying!

republicans: bbbbb but china!!!!!!!!
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pegusus123456 posted...

That chart is such a fucking stupid rebuttal because it's a chart about plastic being thrown into the ocean whereas the article in the OP is talking about carbon emissions.

But a lot of factories are overseas! What's that? Western companies like to outsource and Western countries like to import? You can't put any responsibility on them. That's capitalism!

Those Asian countries can refuse and you and I can stop buying plastic if we want to change the world. Change starts at home!
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TheMikh posted...

Good to see some facts. Important for context as well though. Majority of items we consume in the Western World are produced in China.

Id love to see a similar graph based on where items are consumed rather than where they are produced.
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hockeybub89 posted...

But a lot of factories are overseas! What's that? Western companies like to outsource and Western countries like to import? You can't put any responsibility on them. That's capitalism!

Those Asian countries can refuse and you and I can stop buying plastic if we want to change the world. Change starts at home!

You do realize the biggest corporate polluters in the world aren't american corporations right? Of course you don't.

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China always look the worst in absolute numbers, and they are really bad, but people tend to avoid per person statistics because it makes the west look a lot better
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pegusus123456 posted...

That chart is such a fucking stupid rebuttal because it's a chart about plastic being thrown into the ocean whereas the article in the OP is talking about carbon emissions.

This, its like they didn't read OP...
And then neither did several other people.
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Kolibri X posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

But a lot of factories are overseas! What's that? Western companies like to outsource and Western countries like to import? You can't put any responsibility on them. That's capitalism!

Those Asian countries can refuse and you and I can stop buying plastic if we want to change the world. Change starts at home!

You do realize the biggest corporate polluters in the world aren't american corporations right? Of course you don't.

And that gets back to how "But this Asian country" is a stupid rebuttal to "The world is to polluted and we all need to stop"

Why do we assume that every scientist and climate activist is willfully pretending that Asia is not part of the world? What would even be their agenda there?
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EzeDoesIt posted...

Are we living in the literal end times?

The beginning of them, probably. I worry about my nephews in the future. They're 6 and 9.

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People have been ragging on China for years about their emissions problems. I remember pictures of smog in Beijing in my high school environmental science textbook 15 years ago.

pres_madagascar posted...

EzeDoesIt posted...

Are we living in the literal end times?

The beginning of them, probably. I worry about my nephews in the future. They're 6 and 9.

Its funny because it actually matches the timeline of a lot of those Biblical Apocalypse nutjob theorists.
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It's always strange to me when people get angry at posters bringing up China in a topic where we are also talking about how climate change is on the threshold of being an apocalyptic disaster.

Like, don't we need serious solutions for a country that clearly doesn't give a shit that is also the largest polluter by most metrics to change if we really are that close to the end of the world?

It makes no sense.
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s0nicfan posted...

It's always strange to me when people get angry at posters bringing up China in a topic where we are also talking about how climate change is on the threshold of being an apocalyptic disaster.

Like, don't we need serious solutions for a country that clearly doesn't give a shit that is also the largest polluter by most metrics to change if we really are that close to the end of the world?

It makes no sense.

do you know how to read. do you realize most of their products are going west?

we create the demand that causes this.
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s0nicfan posted...

It's always strange to me when people get angry at posters bringing up China in a topic where we are also talking about how climate change is on the threshold of being an apocalyptic disaster.

Like, don't we need serious solutions for a country that clearly doesn't give a shit that is also the largest polluter by most metrics to change if we really are that close to the end of the world?

It makes no sense.

The problem is it's usually not done to point out China as an egregious offender, but rather to distract from problems we have here in the US. Similar to how someone will inevitably bring up livestock methane emissions when there's talk of stricter environmental regulations on industry.

Hanky_Bannister posted...

s0nicfan posted...

It's always strange to me when people get angry at posters bringing up China in a topic where we are also talking about how climate change is on the threshold of being an apocalyptic disaster.

Like, don't we need serious solutions for a country that clearly doesn't give a shit that is also the largest polluter by most metrics to change if we really are that close to the end of the world?

It makes no sense.

do you know how to read. do you realize most of their products are going west?

we create the demand that causes this.

And you think that if the US stop buying Chinese products that they're suddenly going to stop manufacturing things? That rising demand from China itself and other gigantic countries like India won't simply replace our demand?

Either this is a global crisis on the verge of permanently destroying the ecosystem, or it's not. If it's the former, dealing with China directly has to be part of the conversation. You can only afford to ignore them if it's the latter.

I keep hearing that we are literally years away from the Tipping Point, but any change to Consumer habits would take decades. If we are really that short on time, then yes, China has to be part of the discussion.
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The UN is garbage.

ofc course they are, but we all have to look at what we are doing as well. our consuming habits cause this.

and afaik trump hasnt done shit to encourage this change with china. just tarriffs hurting american businesses and citizens.
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treewojima posted...

The problem is it's usually not done to point out China as an egregious offender, but rather to distract from problems we have here in the US. Similar to how someone will inevitably bring up livestock methane emissions when there's talk of stricter environmental regulations on industry.

The question then is the same as to why individual responsibility is irrelevant when looking at pollution at the corporate and National level. If the US were to completely eliminate its emissions over the next , completely ignoring the fact that it would probably decimate our economy, is that even enough to stop or reverse the trend? Or is curbing China directly a necessary step to hit that magic number that moves climate-change backwards.
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Hanky_Bannister posted...

ofc course they are, but we all have to look at what we are doing as well. our consuming habits cause this.

and afaik trump hasnt done shit to encourage this change with china. just tarriffs hurting american businesses and citizens.

Okay, so we need to convince consumers to stop buying products from China. That means there are really three options:
One, we tariff the shit out of everything they produce until it's cheaper to buy domestic.
Two, we manufacture domestically and accept that because they effectively use slave labor the price of everything we buy is going to go up 50 fold.
Three, we put economic pressure on China and hope that it convinces them to change their habits.

The first two options are untenable because it would completely destroy our economy if you did it immediately, and the infrastructure to manufacture domestically will take a decade or more to build back up. The third option also stands to take a very long time if it works at all.

Which brings me back to my earlier point, that is if we really are in such a state of emergency that we have to act now, there is no way to reverse the trend of climate change by convincing American consumers through legal means or otherwise to stop buying Chinese products.
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I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that experts that talk about climate science include Asia when they consider "the world".
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hockeybub89 posted...

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that experts that talk about climate science include Asia when they consider "the world".

Nobody is saying they're not including Asia. You keep bringing this up like it's a point, but it's nonsense. We're discussing to what extent a United States domestic agenda can effectively curb enough of the World's pollution to reverse the trend, or whether International efforts are required to force other countries to comply so that we can hit the amount of reduction necessary to save ourselves.
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s0nicfan posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that experts that talk about climate science include Asia when they consider "the world".

Nobody is saying they're not including Asia. You keep bringing this up like it's a point, but it's nonsense. We're discussing to what extent a United States domestic agenda can effectively curb enough of the World's pollution to reverse the trend, or whether International efforts are required to force other countries to comply so that we can hit the amount of reduction necessary to save ourselves.

Who is saying there doesn't need to be international efforts though?
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s0nicfan posted...

treewojima posted...

The problem is it's usually not done to point out China as an egregious offender, but rather to distract from problems we have here in the US. Similar to how someone will inevitably bring up livestock methane emissions when there's talk of stricter environmental regulations on industry.

The question then is the same as to why individual responsibility is irrelevant when looking at pollution at the corporate and National level. If the US were to completely eliminate its emissions over the next , completely ignoring the fact that it would probably decimate our economy, is that even enough to stop or reverse the trend? Or is curbing China directly a necessary step to hit that magic number that moves climate-change backwards.

If the US were to completely eliminate its emissions, they would have very strong credibility in trade negotiations when they demand the people they trade with do the same thing.
Furthermore they would have sustainable solutions to export, further strengthening them in negotiations.

They would be able to put immensely more pressure on China and India than they are now.
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