The whole situation with climate change feels so hopeless.
I think the worst part of it is that its not actually hopeless, at least not in theory. It’s just that we, or more accurately the people with actual power, refuse to act because it would mean slightly less profit.
I fully believe that if the world comes together, a united global effort, it is solvable, but we won’t.
Me too, specially when I was younger I thought we could change the world for good if united. I saw cristal clear that the rich wanted to be richer at the expense of the poorer, but as I grew older and saw the reality and stupidity of the world (Like Trump, a massively rich guy being massively voted by the poorest and less educated people) I lost hope. I came to realize that education and stoicism and the best tools the human race has to progress to a healthy society. So that’s what I try to share now when I can.
I am fully convinced that won’t materialize until a major Western city or province/state/territory/[insert administrative unit here] gets catastrophically and irreparably fucked up.
Neoliberals won’t (nor will the reactionaries they’ve carefully trained) and unfortunatly we’ve let them infest all major political parties and media outlets across most of the globe.
With these managed democracies, they’re able to delay actual progress until the mining and oil execs are satisified with their obscene wealth (which is never going to happen).
Until these people are pried from their positions of power, everybody “coming together” is meaningless.
The solution is going to require immediate, strict, drastic regulations and billions of dollars of research and investment that will never turn into profits, with much of it financed through taxing the rich appropriately.
Neoliberals hate every one of those ideas and have positioned themselves so they can veto all of them.
Voting genuine progressives and ensuring they keep their promises is the only way out because the best we’ll ever get out of this neoliberal psuedo-left is “Maybe we can find a way to save the world that’s more profitable than just letting everyone die”.
All great points and I agree 100%. Thanks for taking the time to write this
Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it’s still in our power to stop that from happening. We can’t change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it “just” getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that on a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don’t act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we’re lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we’re already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.
In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:
- Voting for parties that favour stronger climate action, and perhaps even more importantly, not supporting those who do less or even nothing. You can also protest or try to influence your government in some other ways.
- Reduce your personal impact by not consuming animal products (in particular meat and dairy), not flying if you can avoid it, not buying stuff you don’t really need, and not having (more) kids. Edit: Also try to favour public transport over driving your own car, and if you need a car, try to use a small, electrical one to reduce emissions.
- Tell other people you know who might listen to do those things. Many people favour climate action in principle, but are too lazy, scared or just otherwise preoccupied to actually start doing stuff on their own. You kicking them in the butt or leading by example can motivate them and in turn other people they might now.
If you’re reading this and whether or not you’re already doing some of those things, I’m sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I’m trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I’m not saying that we’re in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we’re still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.
I know this won’t change your mind or anything, but this is probably pretty close to the mindset of some other ~1.5 billion first world countries’ populations’ mindset. And those combined account to currently around ~37% of CO2 emissions. So if all people like you (if you consider first world countries’ people to be people like you) all came together and did more we could have some pretty huge impact. Of course the other ~63% may still fuck things up, but this is a much different comparison than just you against the rest of the world, you’re not very unique in that regard.
Can also create isolated cells to coordinate … I’m gonna stop before this gets added to my file.
Human problems have human solutions.
The science is clear, now it’s an engineering problem.
Another human problem, so solvable.
It’s not like a super volcano or asteroid.
You’d think that staring the future of climate disaster directly in the face would cause at least a few people in charge to, I don’t know, make a few changes. But nothing. Corporate profits are more important than anything else even if the world burns. It does feel hopeless because, to be honest, it is.
My 13yo refuses to discuss the topic. He says he’s already been traumatized by it.
Some reuters reporting here.
Including…
Prolonged bouts of high temperatures in China have challenged power grids and crops, and concerns are mounting of a possible repeat of last year’s drought, the most severe in 60 years.
China is no stranger to dramatic swings in temperatures across the seasons but the swings are getting wider.
On Jan. 22, temperatures in Mohe, a city in northeastern Heilongjiang province, plunged to minus 53C, according to the local weather bureau, smashing China’s previous all-time low of minus 52.3C set in 1969.
Since then, the heaviest rains in a decade have hit central China, ravaging wheat fields in an area known as the country’s granary.
These few sentences really capture the horror of “climate change”, that so many people overlook. Yes “average global temp” might increase by 1 degree celsius, but the really immediately terrifying part is changes to large weather patterns that provide a foundation to gargantuan food production industries.
I live in Western Australia. It’s a large state perhaps 3 times the size of texas, but it’s very arid and mostly desert aside from the south west corner in which there’s a “belt” of land with appropriate conditions for cropping in which 18 million tonnes of grain is grown each year, of which 90% is exported. Suppose this year the state receives 30% less rain, then next year 30% more. Suppose that halves production this year, and washes away some of the dry top soil next year. Hell, we might even receive more rain but just a few hundred kilometers from where it usually is.
Point is, even a mild interruption to established weather patterns is going to have a huge and detrimental impact on human agriculture. It’s terrifying really.
For those wondering, one degree celsius increase means every kilogram of air has at least increased by 1°C. The specific heat of air is about 1158 J/(kg*C). Now that might not seem like a lot of energy, in fact 4g (one teaspoon) of sugar has 68,000 J of chemical energy.
The thing is, you might have noticed, there’s a lot of air around us. About 5.14 x 10^(18) kg of air. So when you take a pretty normal number and multiply it by an insanely huge number, you get an insanely huge number. That’s about 5 exajoules of energy. That is the total energy consumption of the US in 2021 for four million years. Or in sugar terms, equal to the energy of sugar if you converted a little over half of the Earth’s entire mass into sugar.
We hit that additional amount of energy in our atmosphere in 2017.
But as an Australian myself i believe the government will ensure we’re all fed and not leave us to starve. Especially not in the Northern Territory where we can’t grow fuck all. /s (do we do that here)
China is massive though, Mohe is further north than Mongolia, it’s 2,200 km north of Beijing.
It’s nowhere near the central wheat fields so it’s not really comparable
I’m not saying the agricultural circumstances are comparable.
I’m saying that it’s the changes to weather patterns, hot or cold wet or dry, that are scary.
“It was hotter” is IMO a bit of a distraction, because no one really knows what that means in practical terms.
Like in the linked Reuters article, the higher than usual rainfall could well be more problematic than the higher maximum temp.
Reposting my comment from another similar thread ‘cause I think it’s kind of important to add.
Ok, so it doesn’t mention wet bulb temperature anywhere, so I went to figure it out. The first thing I was surprised with is apparently most of online calculators don’t take in values higher than 50C.
I couldn’t find the exact data about humidity for that day, but it has been 35-40%+ at a minimum for most days in that region, sometimes even reaching 90%.
So, 52C at around 40% humidity is 37.5C in wet bulb temp. The point of survivability is around 35, and most humans should be able to withstand 37.5 for several hours, but it’s much worse for sick or elderly. 39 is often a death sentence even for healthy humans after just two hours — your body can no longer lose heat and you bake from the inside. That’s like having an unstoppable runaway fever. And with that humidity it’s reached at 54C.
We’re dangerously close to that.
An absolute death sentence for folks without air conditioning or another means to stay cool.
From what I know the critical wet bulb temperature is ~31.5°C. it was from a study done last year.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature
It’s a bit different depending on your health and all that. But 35 WBT is a definite point for everyone (since our bodies run at 36–37C). Kinda like the difference between “some will die” and “most will die”.
From @beigegat’s article it says that from real expieriences it’s 31.5C
The oft-cited 35C value comes from a 2010 theoretical study. However, research co-authored by Kenney this year found that the real threshold our bodies can tolerate could be far lower. “Our data is actual human subject data and shows that the critical wet-bulb temperature is closer to 31.5C,” he says.
I mean to say that the wet bulb temperature at which most will die is ~31.5°C, the gaurdian report I linked is saying that the 35°C number comes from a 2010 study, whereas the findings of the 2022 study found the number to be much lower ~31.5°C.
If that was true, people would die in Russian sauna - 80-90° at 100% humidity with 10-20 minute sessions.
Yeah, that makes me think that data was just wrong. Every homeless in the area would be dead with those temps and humidities.
I don’t want to be rude, and I completely am all for combating climate change, but 39C is not baking your insides…
I have been deployed to multiple places that were 52C (~125F) in the day/night with high humidity levels, in full long sleeve/pants for 8 hours at a time. 39C (~102F) is hot, but not bake you from the inside type of hot.
Elderly and sick are people not included in what I said above for obvious reasons.
I find it pretty funny that people are arguing both “35 WBT is pretty fine” and “31.5 WBT is a death sentence”.
Yet somewhere in that range seems to be the consensus for an actual “your body is on the clock and you’re not surviving it for a prolonged time” situation.
I don’t know your personal experience and how dangerous it was in regards to temperature, but high temperature environments start feeling pretty humid at like ~50%, so you still pretty much need an actual temperature/humidity reading to gauge it correctly.
So guys, take it to the scientists :) I’m not talking out of my ass here, rather quoting research data. There are a couple dozen papers listed in the link above, and most seem to agree on the dangerous temp region. Read their methodology and reasoning if you’re interested to learn more.
Oh I’m not arguing it’s a hot temp and exerting yourself in those temps is very much a death sentence; especially without water. I’m saying that many people in the world have lived through those temperatures. Research studies have a way of making things a bit more dire than what is normally human survivable, probably for legal/medical moral reasons.
The US military definitely has rules against 40+ WBT and state how many hours of work per hours of rest we could have in high temp+humidity levels. However, I, and anyone who had to deploy or live in East Africa (like Djibouti) or the Middle East can definitely attest, 50WBT is survivable for 8 hours days. Again, not talkin’ elderly or sick persons.
People saying:
“Voting doesn’t matter. They’re all the same.” “Things can’t be solved because the global elite won’t allow it” “I don’t have to do anything because it won’t matter” “This is all big industry’s problem, why should I do anything”
have been manipulated/influenced/radicalized by a combination of paid media shills, RW billionaires and Saudi/Kremlin/Iranian propaganda.
Snap out of it and let’s all pitch in to save our children and world.
Voting matters, but unfortunately it appears to be an incredibly sub-optimal solution for dealing with climate change for the following reasons:
- Just because you can vote, doesn’t mean that the option you need is even on the menu. It often isn’t.
- Through hard work you can get the option on the menu, but that doesn’t mean your politician won’t do “deals” after they are in power.
- Lobbyists get access to politicians 24/7 and have a lot of influence, you have one vote every 4 years;
- Even if politicians do what you want, it is unlikely that your country by itself will make a difference, this is a global problem.
Meanwhile we are all fucked. It is likely too late already for preventing severe climate change. Our only hope now is geoengineering. The USA and EU are already considering blocking the sun.
The people who (rightly) have a sense of urgency about this are taking more radical action. They are blocking roads and throwing soup at famous paintings. These are desperate acts that seem rational in the face of the horror that we should strive to avoid, but the majority opinion of our species seems to be that these people are “too radical” and that common folks just trying to get by should not be inconvenienced, and that these radical eco-terrorists should be thrown in a cage.
To be honest, I’m not sure that our species deserves to survive.
Fun fact, there are climate lobbyists as well.
You can (very) easily join up here: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
They are serious, bipartisan, and get face-to-face time regularly with elected leaders.
No, they’re not rational in the face of anything. They’re stupid virtue-signalling that does nothing to reduce climate change. The only way they could possibly be rational is that they get people talking about them, but climate change is not some little-known issue. The entire world has been screaming about it for the past 20 years. If you haven’t been listening, some cunt with soup isn’t going to change that.
“Virtue-signaling” is just another though-terminating cliché of the current culture wars. It implies that the action has no cost to the person and provides some social credit. These people are risking their lives, violence, prison time, etc. Everyone hates them. Nobody knows their names. They keep doing it. Your hypothesis doesn’t hold. If we all decided that we don’t give a shit about this civilization-ending event, might as well through some soup at a van Gogh painting. Why not? It won’t matter anyway.
Even if these people were horrible “virtue-signaling” vandals, it is a microscopic problem in comparison to the real one: clime change. And yet the media focus on the former. Why? You do the math.
Agreed, at least in principle - but your statement is so reductive it really could be said about anything.
It’s so hard to motivate people to vote, people are exhausted and finding ten minutes in the day to feel good about oneself, much less performing a (seemingly futile, thanks to those poisonous ideas you’ve mentioned) civic duty is bordering on impossible. When 1 in 15 people in the UK need drugs just to keep their desire to live one more day in check - and a good chunk of the remaining population from that statistic are barely holding on - fighting the futility for someone else is an insurmountable goal.
I don’t know if we can afford to wait for climate to get worse for people to take action. People are dying preventable deaths, if it weren’t for the very evident effects of man made climate change being politicised or obfuscated, maybe it’d be just a warm Summer in Europe right now.
How long can we wait for a peaceful solution to form?
If we don’t wait - how many heads would we need on pikes next to Mortimer Buckley or Larry Fink before we start seeing positive change? When would be the tipping point for the guillotine to become the most ethical solution?
Sorry, I’m rambling. I just feel so hopeless sometimes, and putting a X in a box 2 or 3 times a decade doesn’t do anything to make me feel like we’re making progress…!
“Reductive” is the exact word that popped into my head, while reading PP’s comment.
I have come to suspect that we can look forward to continued basic survival being monetized, as VC-funded startups enter the space to disrupt breathing and skin-based evaporative cooling, and just generally making it to the next minute.
Voting is still good, but it’s the bare minimum. Not everyone has the time, but if you do, you should try to advocate publicly, and preferably in a group. Just like with unions, collective action is more effective. If I give feedback to my city individually, I’m a data point. But as part of an advocacy group, they reach out to us.
stuck fin
But you’re not talking about the people who are already doing everything they can you’re talking about the people who aren’t, and they haven’t, and they won’t, so it is industry and government who needs to do the things for them, because they won’t. If our votes aren’t enough then there is nothing more that can be done under the current system.
Well it’s been fun y’all, cya in the wasteland, better watch your water.
My aim is terrible. I really hope I don’t have to actively recycle urine.
You mean the same water that’s so contaminated with forever chemicals that multiple governments set recommended limits for safe fish consumption?
Hahaha…we’re fucked.
For those interested:
"A new study has found that consuming a single fish from the Great Lakes is equal to drinking a month’s worth of water contaminated with high levels of “forever chemicals.”
(The recommended amount of some species of fish is now 0 in lake Michigan.)
http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/fishadv/lakemichigan.htm
