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General discussionPC games (namely, Civilization VI) and Climate Change.(274 posts)(274 posts)
(274 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 10, 2018
I'm of the opinion that as soon as we get carbon emissions under control mother nature will give us the middle finger with a supervolcano eruption somewhere on earth - which will plunge the entire planet into an ice age (ironically, because we reduced our carbon emissions significantly).
Posted November 10, 2018
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Carradice: It is a nice reading, for those interested. Specially recommended are the Press Release, the Headline Statements
Ok so I quickly checked those links, and the little I could get from it (differences to earth if the temperatures will rise by 2 instead of 1½ degrees).

1. Sea levels will rise 10cm more. That is a nuisance, not a catastrophe. I guess the Dutch need to build 10cm higher flood walls to keep sea out of their dry land, or move to Finland (we still have a rising land here, whee!).

2. Corals will die more. Meh, maybe it is time for them to die, they had a good long life already. Where is the closest coral to me anyway, in Australia? That's on the other side of the globe.

3. Less ice on North Pole and South Pole. Ok... why should I care? Does my life somehow depend on that ice? It is not like the ice cubes on my drinks are brought straight from the North Pole.

Then there is some discussion about biodiversity this and that, but doesn't make it clear why it is a catastrophe to us.

I still didn't see signs of incoming apocalypse in that report, why I should be concerned that the world will be a living hell for my grand-grand-children.
Post edited November 10, 2018 by timppu
Posted November 10, 2018
I'm sorry, kohlrak, but I'm going to have to bow out of this debate. I know I implied that I would be willing to write one reply a day, but this thread is going ahead way to quickly, and I just don't have the time to keep up. I'm also sorry for my—I think—uncharacteristically offensive first post, as I generally neither think that offending your opponents will lead to a fruitful discussion, nor do I think it's the way decent people should be conducting themselves to each other. I did it because I was tired and pissed of at having my much needed sleep disturbed. My following post was also unnecessarily aggressive, triggered by you having responded in kind to my first post.

As you called me out on dismissing your source out of hand, whilst expecting you to read mine, I have since seen the video with Stefan Molyneux. I tend to consider his ilk of youtube spin doctors mind poison, ever trying to imply or suggest the very worst possible scenario regarding the other aisle. He didn't disappoint. I did also read up on Peter Ridd, and it does look like they were wrong to fire him. He is also notable as one of the few scientists who don't support man made climate change, thinking that the jury is still out. Having naysayers is not something I consider negative, as they're bound to be extra critical and try to come up with alternative theories, ensuring that things aren't overlooked. However their existence doesn't mean all their peer are wrong either. And here I guess we differ: you think there is enough niggling doubts to deny anthropogenic climate change (at least for now) and I think we've got plenty enough of evidence. I do not want to go more deeply into this as I don't want to come with a bunch of arguments only to hang up on you.

So this is goodbye for now. Maybe we will bump into each other in another thread; hopefully we will be able to keep thing more civil then. Now I'm gonna go catch my five hours of sleep before I have to get up tomorrow (well, today, if you're being pedantic).

EDIT: Spelling, as ever.
Post edited November 10, 2018 by MightyPinecone
Posted November 10, 2018
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tremere110: I'm of the opinion that as soon as we get carbon emissions under control mother nature will give us the middle finger with a supervolcano eruption somewhere on earth - which will plunge the entire planet into an ice age (ironically, because we reduced our carbon emissions significantly).
Humanity dies out either way. That's the spirit!
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MightyPinecone: Having naysayers is not something I consider negative, as they're bound to be extra critical and try to come up with alternative theories, ensuring that things aren't overlooked.
Sadly, most people today don't think that way. You are in a minority, the one that is not considered to be protected, as diversity of thought is considered... well, you know.
Post edited November 10, 2018 by LootHunter
Posted November 10, 2018
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MightyPinecone: Having naysayers is not something I consider negative, as they're bound to be extra critical and try to come up with alternative theories, ensuring that things aren't overlooked.
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LootHunter: Sadly, most people today don't think that way. You are in a minority, the one that is not considered to be protected, as diversity of thought is considered... well, you know.
Remember, the same people today who say racism is bad are the ones who learned that the hard way a long time ago, when they automatically assumed that anyone who looks different must also think different. The whole idea, all along, has always been to control opposing ideas.Suddenly, racism is bad, 'cause they're finding diversity of mind in the same races. Migrations have always been a political tool in the US. That's why the 3/5 vote was a thing: it wasn't a black vote that would be worth almost half, but the slave-owners (and non-slave-owners who somehow managed to own land) who would get their votes multiplied by 1.66 (well, and it gets more complicated, since the votes represented the entire population, and not everyone could vote), 'cause only land owners could vote at that time (that also goes to say that it wasn't largely african-americans who voted to end slavery, either). Redrawing district lines has always been a sneaky tactic of politicians as well, for a very similar reason.

But regular politics aside, have you seen the politics of the JKD (Jun Fan Gung Fu) and JKDC (Jeet Kune Do) communities? Or, hell, go on youtube and type "boxing" and "wing chun," and watch the shitstorm. It's natural for humans to be this way, it seems, and overall our society has always been like this. However, we expected diversity of thought to be more important forever, since it was some time ago. The US Constitution has greatly benefited from diversity of thought in it's very beginnings. Fist fights weren't uncommon to break out over certain issues, but fist fights also weren't uncommon for even looking at someone sideways, but something like this would be unheard of.
Post edited November 10, 2018 by kohlrak
Posted November 10, 2018
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timppu: Ok so I quickly checked those links, and the little I could get from it (differences to earth if the temperatures will rise by 2 instead of 1½ degrees).
As a brief interlude, you did not read carefully enough.

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timppu: 1. Sea levels will rise 10cm more. That is a nuisance, not a catastrophe. I guess the Dutch need to build 10cm higher flood walls to keep sea out of their dry land, or move to Finland (we still have a rising land here, whee!).
No, at 1.5C temperature increase the seas will rise 10cm less than at 2C temperature increase.

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timppu: 2. Corals will die more. Meh, maybe it is time for them to die, they had a good long life already. Where is the closest coral to me anyway, in Australia? That's on the other side of the globe.
What could go wrong with the destruction of THE major part of biosphere in the oceans?

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timppu: 3. Less ice on North Pole and South Pole. Ok... why should I care? Does my life somehow depend on that ice? It is not like the ice cubes on my drinks are brought straight from the North Pole.
All that water has to go somewhere...

The Day after Tomorrow also has a somewhat entertaining way of explaining one potential consequence of desalination of oceans (the movie is actually based on several scientific papers).

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timppu: I still didn't see signs of incoming apocalypse in that report, why I should be concerned that the world will be a living hell for my grand-grand-children.
Aside from the increased environmental hostility already present around the globe (record droughts here, record flooding there, biodiversity taking a plunge about to reach extinction-level numbers), consider the fact that even if you end up in the conveniently-temporarily-unaffected part of the globe, people who were not so lucky aren't going to just lie down and die.

Hell, there's already a strong correlation between immigration and effects of climate change for some parts of the world.
Posted November 11, 2018
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Lukaszmik: The Day after Tomorrow also has a somewhat entertaining way of explaining one potential consequence of desalination of oceans (the movie is actually based on several scientific papers).
I hope loosely, oor i'm going to loose even more faith in modern science.

Hell, there's already a strong correlation between immigration and effects of climate change for some parts of the world.
Correlation does not imply causation. There's another correlation: these same people never saw snow. The short explanation is that since they've never faced winter, their cultures never developed deferral of gratification, which leads to the poverty that they're fleeing from. Seeing these people aren't fleeing with massive sunburns, what does Occam's Razor tell us?
Post edited November 11, 2018 by kohlrak
Posted November 11, 2018
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timppu: 1. Sea levels will rise 10cm more. That is a nuisance, not a catastrophe. I guess the Dutch need to build 10cm higher flood walls to keep sea out of their dry land, or move to Finland (we still have a rising land here, whee!).
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Lukaszmik: No, at 1.5C temperature increase the seas will rise 10cm less than at 2C temperature increase.
And that is what I was talking about all along, as the report was suggesting we should limit the increase from the current 1 degree to 1.5 degrees, instead of 2 degrees, because of the hefty 10cm increase (between 1.5 and 2 degrees).

So how much do you suggest the sea level will rise if we are able to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees? 10 meters? 1000 meters? And going further to 2 degrees will increase it only by measly extra 10cm?

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timppu: 2. Corals will die more. Meh, maybe it is time for them to die, they had a good long life already. Where is the closest coral to me anyway, in Australia? That's on the other side of the globe.
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Lukaszmik: What could go wrong with the destruction of THE major part of biosphere in the oceans?
So what will go wrong? Tell me. The report already suggested that most of it is already gone and going (even if we manage to limit it to 1.5 degrees), so are we in a living hell already?

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timppu: 3. Less ice on North Pole and South Pole. Ok... why should I care? Does my life somehow depend on that ice? It is not like the ice cubes on my drinks are brought straight from the North Pole.
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Lukaszmik: All that water has to go somewhere...
Sea level increase already discussed before, and what else?

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Lukaszmik: The Day after Tomorrow also has a somewhat entertaining way of explaining one potential consequence of desalination of oceans (the movie is actually based on several scientific papers).
"Potential". You alarmists should make up your mind already, are we heading to a new ice age, or fiery super-hot weather. Maybe in between?

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Waterworld movie as well.

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timppu: I still didn't see signs of incoming apocalypse in that report, why I should be concerned that the world will be a living hell for my grand-grand-children.
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Lukaszmik: Aside from the increased environmental hostility already present around the globe (record droughts here, record flooding there
Or then they are more in the global news nowadays

Yes, there were tornados, floods, droughts, locusts etc. also 100 years ago, even if people on the other side of the globe didn't hear about them in real time, like now.

Also you need to take into account the increase in population, which enforces such effects (more people living in areas with potential droughts, floods etc., and partly also causing them, e.g. more people consuming ground water. I have no idea why the climate change alarmist never want to discuss about the population growth, as if it in itself isn't a big problem. You should start demanding forced birth control to areas with high population growth.

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Lukaszmik: Hell, there's already a strong correlation between immigration and effects of climate change for some parts of the world.
The main reason for mass immigration from poorer countries is simply the population explosion in said areas. For instance:

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/

Also, if you are against climate change, you should be strongly opposed to the idea of people moving from poorer countries to e.g. Europe and other countries where they end up becoming bigger consumers, producing more and more CO2.

Sahara desert is not a consequence of this modern climate change, it was there already 100 years ago.
Posted November 11, 2018
Uhhhhhh

Did someone make a thread earlier today about me using this subject to spread hate speech, or something?

Nevermind
I found him
Post edited November 12, 2018 by tinyE
Posted November 12, 2018
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timppu: Please, could you just list the top five threats from climate change? I'll list two that I remember reading somewhere:
1. Massive migration movements.
2. War.
3. Terrorism.
4. Food shortages due to changing and harsher climate conditions and interrupted commercial activity.
5. Economic apocalypse.

These are just of the top of my head, I'm sure the top threats have been already identified and listed by different governments, military, and scientific organisations. Well, this was about videogames after all and I haven't read throughout the whole debate but I just wanted to add my two cents to the ongoing discussion as I think it's important not to belittle the current and predicted consequences of climate change models :)
Post edited November 12, 2018 by Punington
Posted November 12, 2018
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Carradice: However, in Civilization VI, all global warming or climate change reference has been eliminated. That mechanics simply does not exist, from what reviews mention.

Their explanation is that they want to avoid "controversial" issues.

What do you think? Maybe in Civ 7 they would avoid making an explicit reference to the shape of the Earth? Or evolution?
Climate change is a real, naturally occurring process. Human caused/influenced climate change, also dubbed Global Warming, is left wing hysteria that was designed to influence economic, environmental, and societal norms. It's just as scientific as Creationism at this point and is mostly argued in the same manner - mixing up terminology, creating fallacious associations with things that are real, and then pushing it as if it's the "obvious view that no one can deny without denying science and reality itself!" It's as silly as CNN reporting on Trump.

Good on 2K for removing it. Pollution is bad and we should take steps to reduce it, but not because people are fearmongered into thinking it's causing the end of the world. You give the crazies an inch and suddenly everything will be gluten-free too.
Posted November 12, 2018
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Carradice: Why keep guessing? Just two weeks ago, the international panel on climate change (IPCC) released a special report on global warming at 1.5 Celsius degrees, comparing its probable effects with those of a global warming at 2º C.
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timppu: How many thousand pages is that? Can you point to the exact pages where the effects are listed in detail, rather than me trying to find the needle from the proverbial haystack?
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I will help.

Let's take this special report of the IPCC from October 2018 which should include recent data and could probably be expected to be the most accurate prediction available. It can be found at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

There are five chapters with about main 20 authors each, so it seems to be the work of about 100 scientists but that are only the direct contributors. Most of the 792 pages of the report are long citation lists, that are the primary sources. This report cites the work of thousands of scientists from many different locations in the world. To really know everything one would have to read thousands of pages (still I would not compare it to a haystack, rather to a gold mine of valuable knowledge).

However, the people writing the report also made a summary of their headline statements (http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_headline_statements.pdf) which is probably exactly what you were asking for.

What you really want to read is Chapter 3: Impacts of 1.5ºC global warming on natural and human systems (http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_chapter3.pdf) which is about 170 pages and could probably be read in an evening or two. I admit I haven't read it so far, but I will start doing today. I expect it will be a real treat. Maybe (if the thread is still open at the time, I finish) I can even summarize it a bit more here.
Post edited November 12, 2018 by Trilarion
Posted November 12, 2018
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firstpastthepost: ... And on that note, to bring it back to gaming conversation, it would be interesting for Civilization to bring in some mechanics for populace trust in institutions and media and have that effect the populations mood. It would be a topical game mechanic.
Yes and while one is at it one could also model susceptibility to populistic influences. Kind of resulting in a form of government something in between democracy and tyranny with reduced cultural output but increased popularity rating at least for some time.

I always thought that declaring war is far too easy in Civ. The mood of the population should be taken into account there too.

Global warming would also fit really nicely as part of the game mechanic. I mean, it's not the only game concept that limits expansion. First, the limited space on the map limits expansion, but by global warming there would also be a limit on the industrial capability (unless you invest heavily in technology or so).

Maybe a disadvantage is that Civ is not putting much emphasis on diplomacy or economy or happiness of the population. If all you have is a hammer, everything will start looking like a nail. If global warming threatens the well being of your civilization and all you have is an army, then you will use that army to try to end the pollution threat ...

Maybe it would actually not be very educatiional if Civ players would "fight global warming" by sending intercontinental missiles around.
Posted November 12, 2018
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firstpastthepost: ... And on that note, to bring it back to gaming conversation, it would be interesting for Civilization to bring in some mechanics for populace trust in institutions and media and have that effect the populations mood. It would be a topical game mechanic.
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Trilarion: I always thought that declaring war is far too easy in Civ. The mood of the population should be taken into account there too.
We should have to option to go to war if we don't like which side of the egg our neighbors eat their soft boiled eggs from.
Posted November 12, 2018
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timppu: Give something that really gives me the creeps, like that climate change will make the dinosaurs emerge and stomp all over the humankind.
This may come across as crackpot-ish, but....

Dinosaurs were already here, as we all know. And Earth was a good bit warmer at that time. And then an external force (a big honkin' asteroid - from SPAAAAACE!) acted upon Earth and things got a whole bunch cooler. Dinosaurs went bye-bye, other stuff evolved, and now humans are here to argue about it.

Anyway, Earth was quite a bit warmer than today. Something from outside the ecosystem came along and changed Earth's natural climate and things cooled off a lot, and did it quickly. So if Earth is warming, then it's going back to the temperature state it should have been all along were it not for that big rock - from SPAAAAAACE! - that turned it all upside down. And if man's actions are contributing, then it's that we're speeding along the process to put Earth back to where it should be pre-big rock (you know, from spaaaaace).

Like I said, might be of the crackpot variety. ; ) or : ) or : (, take your pick.

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So with that warmer Earth, all the things they warn against today were already things that Earth dealt with previously: higher temps, higher water levels, more bugs, etc. And it would seem life thrived in those conditions. Just not life as we humans experience it today.

That Earth adapted and sustained life throughout that cataclysm... Pretty remarkable, really. It's like taking a cannonball to the gut and during the long and painful recovery your hair and eyes turned completely different colors and you grew two more fully functional arms.

So I don't know. Maybe climate change is a good thing on the overall scale, though it could also be a complete disaster for humans. Either way, I'm hedging my bets with the new solar installation.

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For your point about the bad effects, there is one small one that is actually a really big one: potential difficulties for pollinators. Life in general will adapt to change, but I think the rapid speed of change makes it tough for evolution / natural selection to do its thing in the same time frame. Pollinators may well be one of those that can't adapt in time. Lots of species could have that problem, with effects that we can't predict.

But, as mentioned above, that might be a good thing in the grander scale beyond human existence. We may love Earth, but Earth may not love us back.

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For the game itself, it would be nice if it was an optional game mechanic. Check-box in some menu. And as someone mentioned above, the mod community might add it back.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionPC games (namely, Civilization VI) and Climate Change.(274 posts)(274 posts)
(274 posts)