Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.
Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.
I see a lot of doom and gloom in the comments here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is not the main concern being that sea levels will rise and flood costal cities? Plus some parts of the world will be too hot to comfortably live? Human beings are remarkably creative when they need to be. Right now most are overweight watching TV and worried about stupid unimportant things. But if the need arose to build new towns/cities in higher and cooler locations, we have the man power. Literally BILLIONS of humans, some smart ones to plan it all, and the rest to build it. I don’t see an “end of humanity” or “don’t have kids” as being reasonable. Humanity will adapt. Please correct me if I’m missing something here.
I agree that humans are remarkably creative, and I agree “don’t have kids” is reasonable. But the “end of humanity” might come through this. However, I agree that we might be able to survive this. But please take it seriously. The whole climate crisis is a complex challenge by itself, and the politicization of it, along with the capitalistic interests, are complicating it further. We need urgent global action if we want humanity to survive.
Consider: Not all those billions of people will survive the sudden shift in climate. The breaking points in climate make everything super difficult to plan for. It is not just about finding higher ground that is climatic for humans, the whole agriculture will be a big problem. The climate will be so different from what we have right now, we are not perfectly sure how which crops would work where. We need globally aligned tests, knowledge sharing at the very best, along with all the action we need to take along with carbon emissions.
This challenge, is our biggest yet. We need a global, aligned, focused effort. But, we are far from it. The stress is causing conflict everywhere. Our international order is not up to coordinate this global effort, unfortunately. And if COVID-19 showed us what we can have on a global scale as a response, it means every nation state will turn inwards, try to fight against it by themselves while also fighting against everyone else. This problem is the crux. Our systems, our worldviews, our doctrine are not up for this fight ahead.
There is hope. But there is also a lot to despair about.
And if COVID-19 showed us what we can have on a global scale as a response, it means every nation state will turn inwards, try to fight against it by themselves while also fighting against everyone else.
My money is on hot, stressed, scared people tending to vote for politicians who blame immigrants / feminists / queer people. Maybe there will even be sacrifices.
Sea levels rising is only one of the concerns. I think the biggest concern is the reduction of ariable land due to climate change. I.e. the carrying capacity of the Earth will decrease (and I’m of the opinion that the human species has already greatly overshot Earth’s carrying capacity; hence the current degradation of our environment).
I think the species will survive, but may experience a population crash (i.e. mass death), and severly reduced quality of life. I think having 1 or 2 kids is fine for now, and hope I’m wrong in my Malthusian-like thinking.
There is a lot more to it than rise of sea levels on the one hand and some places being too hot.
TL;DR: Climate change causes mass extinctions, ecosystem collapse, extreme weather, and life-threatening heat. Technology alone won’t save us; prevention is crucial. Ignoring climate action risks severe economic damage, comparable to a permanent Great Depression.
(Prepare for a great wall of fuck.)
In short (list is not exhaustive, there’s surely more which I also don’t know of or don’t think of right now):
- Mass extinction of several species, which can’t keep up with the pace of climate change. You might have heard already how insect popluations dramatically declined in the past decades.
- Extinction or even significant deaths and lack of offspring in various species leads to imbalance and collapse of entire eco systems.
- Humans are part of and relying on functioning and healthy eco systems. Without them our very basis of life starts collapsing, leading to numerous human deaths and a lot of misery.
- The occurence of extreme weather conditions as well as catastophes in consequence of climate change increases. The occasional summer storm might become less occasional, which is less of a problem. But so do floodings, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or forest fires increase. And those cost lives and do a lot of damage. We experience weather conditions in places today, which most common people would’ve deemed impossible or extremely unlikely at least. (Not every extreme weather condition is the result of climate change though. But a lot are. An entire field of attribution science has emerged to elaborate which catastrophe has been a direct cause of climate change.)
- Increased temperatures, but especially heatwaves, are already now costing more and more lives and that’s not just some particular places with extremely hot temperatures, but it’s also occuring in entire nations known for more temperate conditions. For example in the EU.
- Being “too hot” is only one side. You can survive 40°C or higher, if the air humidity is low. But due to global warming we can also observe time frames in regions where the air humidity plus temperature reaches such levels that people are exposed to life-threatening health risks already at 31°C. (See also “wet bulb temperature” in general.) Higher humidity makes it harder to cool ourselves by sweating, i.e., evaporative cooling. This is being observed more and more often in south-east asia and the middle east but also started to affect the USA in some regions (Texas, last year in 2023).
You might now understand a bit better why even a few degrees more around the globe incur existential threats.
Human beings are remarkably creative when they need to be. […] if the need arose […] some smart ones […] plan it all, and the rest […] build it
(Sorry for quoting you a bit more freely here.)
Technology can do much, but it is not magic. (I’m an engineering scientist, because I realised at some point that I can’t become a magician.) Entropy is a bitch and current solutions or attempts I know of regarding carbon capture are a nice idea at best, but in practise currently not feasibe and therefore a money-pit at worst. “Building higher and cooler” seems a naive approach given the scale and complexity of human lives and disregards the problems we’re facing due to climate change. I don’t mean that condescendingly, rather to highlight how massively impractical that approach would be on the one hand and no solution for most problems caused by climate change on the other hand.
I absolutely think that it’s necessary to continue research in that area, but until we have developed solutions which can tackle the problems we’ve caused in a significant way (which can still take decades until we’ve got large-scale applicable solutions), I think it’s best to practise prevention. Avoid contributing factors to climate change at allmost all costs.
Don’t put all your money on the “technology will save us”-horse.
By the way:
The people who think that climate and environmental protection are damaging the economy are short-sighted, as climate change is projected to cause a tremendous amount financial damage world-wide in the long-term.
One of many many sources on this puts it like this:
when the researchers added in the possibility of a moderate 2 degrees of warming before the end of the century, this led to a decline in future GDP of between 30 and 50 percent by 210 […] In the U.S. alone […] A 50 percent decline in 2100 GDP relative to baseline means a loss of $56 trillion each year, which exceeds the current GDP. Such declines would leave individuals with “a 31 percent drop in purchasing power relative to a world without climate change,” Bilal adds. Such losses are “comparable to living in the 1929 Great Depression, forever,” he says.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/09/harvard-economic-impact-climate-change
Environmental protection is economical protection. They go hand-in-hand.
Human beings are remarkably creative when they need to be.
Yes! Humans say they think children are important, then create situations where children are hungry, abused, or killed in war. Then they create rationalisations for that being inevitable, or acceptable, or even deserved.
Humans also create technology to ‘make the world better’, then use it to convince people as a group to do things which make the world worse.
Aren’t humans creative? They’re going to create a lack of humans eventually - isn’t that imaginative?
Please correct me if I’m missing something here.
Those in power often use crises to invent reasons to take more power, and to direct it against scapegoats. The point is not often to make the world better for everyone, the point is very often to make the world better for those who already have the most.
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The reason nothing will be done is because the only realistic option we have to save our planets ability to sustain life is economic degrowth.
We don’t have enough of the minerals we need to go fully nuclear or renewable and even getting close would use up vast amounts of the very same energy were looking to save in the first place.
As the record levels of equality directly after ww2 showed, economic degrowth due to nearly all the men being at war, only results in the loss of the super rich which is why they’ll never allow economic degrowth.
We all work too much, produce too much and pollute too much. Worse, we’re all forced to produce the very wealth thats used to force us into wage-slavery and kill our planet.
The answer is and will always be the strategic refusal of labour, above what we need to survive and have a good quality of life. This, by default, will result in economic degrowth.
Want to sit around and do nothing to save the planet? Well, now you can.
The answer is and will always be the strategic refusal of labour, above what we need to survive and have some quality of life. This, by default, will result in economic degrowth.
It’s at the point where I don’t accept the label of being human. Humans lack the logic and morality I identify with.
I’m a living being who does not want to associate with humans.
Autistic people are more likely to be Therian (identify as partly non-human and non-humanoid animal): Therianthropy: Wellbeing, Schizotypy, and Autism in Individuals Who Self-Identify as Non-Human, Clegg et al., Society & Animals 2019.
Looking at some brief descriptions of the terms (I’m only mildly aware of them) there is also the related group of Otherkin, who identify as not fully human, but do identify full with human-like sapience. The personal experiences of a ‘Machinekin’ (identifying as part sapient robot) are presented in _ Exploring Other-Than-Human Identity: Religious Experiences in the Life-Story of a Machinekin _, Shea, S.C, 2020, published in Religions. Neve discusses the relationship between autism and feeling othered in terms of gender and non-human Machinekin identity first hand.
Searching for autistic and otherkin, I find regular discussions in autistic spaces about how people believe their otherkin and autistic identities and experiences overlap. Much of this is in Autism / Neurodivergence discords, which can’t be searched. However, these discords provide a managed group of fellow travellers with information that doesn’t leak out to search engines. Nevertheless, some discussion about this is searchable. Here’s one comment:
Alienkin. So much wrong planet syndrome. Hi, yes. Not alien, definitely relate to alienness though.
So much of my life spent asking “Why do neurotypicals do X thing?” only to later find out that they do it because it’s done, it’s their social identity. If their social identity mows the lawn, they mow the lawn. It doesn’t matter that there’s a cost of noise pollution and ecological destruction. They do it because their social identity does it. If their social identity revolved around jumping off of cliffs, they’d do that too. It’s why there’s so much “acceptable” ritual sacrifice, war, and other such horrific acts of atrocity throughout human history.
So I definitely relate to alienness. To do something “because it is done, the done thing” is the most utterly bizarre and strange concept to me. I understand to do something if it might be ethical, or kind, or clever, with an accompanying reason. But because “it is done?” It’s bizarre.
Another discussion is titled “Does being autistic feel like being a robot who is trying to learn how to be human?” Top responses agree to this, giving various explanations of why it occurs, or how it feels, including:
I feel more like I’m missing a sense. It’s like in every interaction in a group there is a second conversation only I can’t hear that tells people when It’s their turn to speak and elaborates on what the person means. I’m watching everything and analyzing everything to try to figure out what everyone else is getting that I’m not.
and
Yea kinda, or like an alien, who forgot his human handbook on scp147, if you have seen the show resident alien, I related a sadly large amount to the alien.
and
That’s why folks called me Dr. Spock growing up. I come from Vulcan, live long and prosper
There are questions about this on sites like Quora, with responses like “I’ve known since I was a kid that I had autism, so this might not relate to me. However, as a kid, I called myself an alien in this world. It’s probably common when it comes to robots, but I was an alien to this world.”
I kind of hate this kind of narrative here.
Yeah, capitalism is shit etc… but let’s get to the real root cause: we’re all still animals, and want our pack to be the best. The root issue isn’t money, it’s power. Many societies wouldn’t mind degrowth if it didn’t mean all the others would bury them & dance on their grave.
If one single country would actually degrow, all the others would dominate it financially, loot it for all its worth, and unless it can completely 100% sustain itself without outside trade (pretty much impossible in our globalized society), it would mostly collapse. And even if it could sustain itself, the power imbalance would be so huge we’d run in all other kinds of issues soon (hey, why not just conquer that country that is pretty much powerless now?)
Imo we’re all just animals knowing we’re headed for extinction, but at the same time it’s a big game of chicken on the road, the first to stray from this path will get fucked in so many ways by all the others who see their chance to improve their situation… And imo capitalism isn’t the cause of that, but one of the results of this. It’s just another way for us to compete and try to fuck eachother over like the animals we still are.
So either we get to some near global agreement on how to get out of this situation, or we just keep doing far too little since… what’s the point of trying to improve things if it just means you get annihilated by those that don’t, and things will remain the same despite your best efforts…
So either we get to some near global agreement on how to get out of this situation, or we just keep doing far too little since… what’s the point of trying to improve things if it just means you get annihilated by those that don’t, and things will remain the same despite your best efforts…
I feel like the way out is global and cultural in nature, and I think it’s in progress now, in fact we’re doing it now, talking about this on Lemmy. This wasn’t practical, wasn’t being done outside of “elite circles” before a decade or so ago. This global conversation is going to take some time and have bumps, but it’s happening, this is novel on this planet.
What I hope comes of this, and seems to be happening, perhaps slower than I’d like, is a paradigm shift in the way we think about ourselves, others, our communities, our situation, and our goals. We need a new “mythology” that allows us to live on this planet sustainably, and it only needs to be true enough and could even be done transparently and with purpose.
I feel like our species is in a existential battle and almost nobody (at least on the left-ish) is talking strategy. As if any valid strategy (e.g. “capitalism”, “communism”, “competition”, “religion”, “growth” “zero sum” etc) has been identified by the 1960s and we’re all just battling amongst 20th century ideas for domination.
I’m thinkiing stuff like this (sorry for the poor organization of my thoughts, to lazy to cleanup)
Define some axioms/statements that are mostly true and fairly agreeable, not based in faith, not limited by materialism.
- Most people would be happy to just live and thrive and don’t feel a need to dominate others or hoard resources
- There is a tiny number of people who do feel a need to dominate and/or hoard
- We are all vulnerable to propaganda
- Nobody is inherently better or more deserving than anyone else
- Nobody is entitled to the time or labor of anyone (except a child being entitled to their parents)
- Nobody actually knows the meaning of life or the nature of reality (not even materialists).
- Our own conscious experience is all we can be certain of, nobody knows any absolute truths
- The most logical assumption is that others’ experience is similar to my own
- I don’t want to suffer or be coerced, I don’t feel others are entitled to cause me to suffer or coerce my behavior
- It’s ok to defend myself against those trying to harm or coerce my behavior, dominate or hoard at my or my community’s expense
- If I cause another to suffer or coerce their behavior I should expect a response
–> The goal of these axioms is not to get everyone to agree to them, it’s to blaze a new path that can evolve into the way, to plant a seed that can inspire moving in new directions.
A set of explicit stated axioms allows taking the next steps and figure out how to evolve into a sustainable culture. Clear eyed strategy and goals are why the Heritage Foundation is making progress and the left is not.
Strategy like this could allow a better understanding of who and what the actual threats are and identify appropriate responses to them.
–> The “global agreement” will not be a formal inter-governmental thing, it will be loosely coupled set of cultural evolutions spurred by global conversations happening now.
I feel like the way out is global and cultural in nature,
I agree that it starts with a sense of a global community. Instead of people considering themselves a citizen of their homecountry, they need to switch to the mindset of being a citizen of Earth.
We now have the technology to get past the language barrier, so it is more possible to get people together, talking about our future as a species more than anytime in our history.
One thing that could help is some sort of globally available social media, or forum that automatically translate to the language of the reader. Imagine if a Chinese person could post something in Chinese, but English speakers could read and respond in English, and vice versa.
the reason nothing will be done
nothing will be done peacefully. plenty could be done.
see, the ultra rich die either way. either they kill everyone, including themselves, and end all life, or someone kills them. those are the only two outcomes here.
I mean, i guess they could just fuck off and stop being super rich. fuckerberg could be a creepy robot man who lives above his kinda cringe MMA dojo or something, but they’re not going to do that. I don’t think they’re psychologically capable of it.
It’s not so much Zuck and Elon, it’s the people above them. If the oil companies, banks, or military industrial complex wanted Elon gone he would be erased in less than 24 hours. They are the ones controlling the strings, and all they want is more power.
Have you seen this person’s posts on Reddit?
https://www.reddit.com/user/backcountrydrifter/
They have some interesting sources and connections for how Elon maybe plays a part in all this. I don’t buy everything they say, but they do have good interviews and articles explaining Epstein, Trump, Putin, and MBS, and even Elon and how they relate. It’s worth perusing if you have time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Elon is a little untouchable because of his Saudi connections (and yes I do think MBS would order a hit on him no problem, but he’s doing a service for them rn). And Zuck owns Meta which has the most users on its social sites worldwide iirc. Modern day currency isn’t always in capital- these days attention and clout are worth a LOT. Ad revenue is worth a lot. Less and less people are watching TV, so propaganda has to get in front of viewers in unique ways now.
just using them as examples because we know their names and a bit of their character. they COULD abandon their shit, stop fucking people over, stop trying to have control, and just be on the shitty side of normal people, and nobody who didn’t have to interact with their sleazy asses would fucking care.
except my argument is that they genuinely can’t. not because we wouldn’t let them, nto because it wouldn’t work, but because their brains are broken and they are incapable of letting go, and the only future we will ever get must be taken from their cold dead hands.
Remember the Titanic sub? How those rich guys thought they knew more than scientists and engineers? When they died, I realized that was exactly what they were doing with our planet. They will kill us all for their ego and hubris. Quite clearly. That’s why they are building their bunkers and super cities and not allowing governments to actually address this issue - they think they’ll come out on top. And there’s evidence they’ve thought this since at least the 70s, so this implies a couple generations of them plotting to kill us.
then governments can;t be trusted with the future of humanity. which I think I agree with.
but it’s not just their ego and hubris; it’s also their paranoia and addiction.
Uranium is extremely common on Earth. What minerals are we lacking to go nuclear? If you were arguing that we need to switch the type of reactors we use, I could see that. A lack of fissile material isn’t an issue.
If I remember correctly, we don’t have enough of it to go fully nuclear with our current energy demands. More so, we’ve mined nearly all of the soil thats anything above 0.02% uranium. As such, not only do we not have enough on the planet, getting it and refining it would almost defeat the whole point of doing so in the first place.
It is a problem in that there might be plenty of it but that doesn’t mean there’s enough.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying we have to go back to the stone ages. Its just that we can’t afford the super rich anymore.
we need to get rid of them anyway, but do we have enough nuclear fuel, when combined with renewables+batteries, for base load?
Pretty sure there’s enough weapons grade plutonium to run the US for 100 years in decommissioned nuclear weapons alone.
I think 100 years is enough time to build pumped hydro storage and renewables like solar/wind.
Thats WAY too expensive and takes way to long to build. Renewables are the answer. Sun, wind.
Uranium is extremely common on Earth.
I wouldn’t be so uncritical about this. Depending on rate of consumption (and data source) the world’s Uranium supplies will last for about 50 to 200 years. (The latter a low demand scenario based on current consumption rates.)
Technological advancements may push these limits. Possibly even into 10.000 to 60.000 years, when filtering active substances from seawater, which is currently quite a timeframe to consider it long-term sustainable even for a limited resource. However, we’re not there yet.
One point I have to disagree on is the point you made about nuclear energy. Its untrue. If we switched to primarily using nuclear energy we would be able to successfully power the majority of the species using that technology. Its fear that stops us. Everyone is worried about another Chernobyl or Fukushima. When the logical course of action would be to find tectonically stable sites for any nuclear facilities. That’d be number one to solving a lot of meltdown concerns. The other would be to use well researched and planned designs. Chernobyl was a faulty design for a reactor that should never have been allowed to be produced.
Lookup Thorium reactors. Those are the true future of nuclear technology. Thorium is also abundant when compared to Uranium or Plutonium. It does not have the same weaponization issues. It does not produce the same high levels of radiation. It is also safer to handle and store once depleted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Thorium-fueled_reactors "Using breeder reactors, known thorium and uranium resources can both generate world-scale energy for thousands of years. "
Literally with nuclear power we can power the whole world for the next 2,000 to 3,000 years. Possibly longer. It’s fear that holds us back on this.
Yes and majority of time and expense that goes into building nuclear reactors is due to regulations, espeically NIMBY/fear based regulations. They have to hire teams of special lawyers for these and cases last years. That’s why when you see people describing the cost and time of building these, they always start at the planning stage which can include years of legal battles.
And these lawyers are usually nuclear engineers who went to law school afterwards, so they are pretty expensive to staff.
Biggest thing against nuclear power is the cost associated with it. Other, sustainable sources of energy like wind and solar, combined with hydrogen and batteries, are way cheaper due to their simplicity. Thorium reactors are a nice idea but need so much development (costs) that they will take a while to become a reality, if ever at all. Probably nuclear fusion will be available sooner than thorium fission for power generation, which also needs decades of development. And then there’s still the problem of nuclear waste. Maybe not a huge problem, but still one without a viable solution.
nuclear energy we would be able to successfully power the majority of the species using that technology
But that energy will be used for what? To mine for more minerals, create more waste, destroy more land, and make more species extinct? Our problem is not a shortage of energy nor is it even a problem of the efficiency or cleanliness of the energy. It’s a problem of our species living far beyond the sustainable bounds of the planet.
For carbon sequestration, which also needs to happen. Not only do we need to not put out more carbon into the atmosphere, but we also need to sequester atmospheric carbon. A LOT of it.
We are living beyond several planetary bounds but if we made our energy not release carbon, it would be a huge start. Harm reduction is valid.
Capitalism is a death cult.
And yet its the least worst functional economic system we currently have…
Living and dying are the same process. You can’t be born without dying. You could say biology condemns us all - very loosely - to a cult of death, as we must all participate.
Capitalism is worse than that. Capitalism is an ideology of exploitation. I’m fine with dying, it’s my fault for being born. I don’t see why I must submit to exploitation while I do, temporarily, exist.
it’s my fault for being born.
is it? I don’t recall ever asking to be born, i’m pretty sure that just kind of happened.
Just because you can’t recall it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. As a spermatozoon, you eagerly swam towards that egg, then that egg could have chosen to abort at any time. Yet here you are alive. You chose to be here. Deal with it, accept it and move on with your life.
I don’t recall ever asking to be born
Who would do the asking and what would be providing the answer?
That’s because you’re a sinner and exploiting sinners isn’t to be punished, but praised. Exploit your fellow sinners, make them toil in suffering and you too shall redeem salvation in the form of stock options and tax evasion.
The answer is aluminum roofing! I was a the beach a couple of weeks ago and you just couldn’t step on the hot magma for any amount of time. But if you sat down on the shadeless aluminum benches provided by the idiots at the government, you were welcome to the best feeling of freezing your ass off while searing your nuts off. It’s aluminum, we know it can reflect like 90% of all incoming light including heat and UV…and Wi-Fi. But I much rather have antennas that allow phone communications than to have to run the AC non stop even when the house has more insulation than my fridge.
110⁰ heat wave in a high humidity climate
“Have you tried switching out your shingled roof for aluminum?”
Like, idk, maybe this can save a few bucks on your AC bill. But this isn’t magic. It can’t keep the air getting into your house from being superheated.
But it isolates radiated heat. You’ll have to pump heat built up inside. But also, aluminum radiators pointing upward can help reduce climate temperatures similar to the way trees do. Trees absorb the heat and shade the ground. These would shade and reflect heat creating a cooler area underneath if heat is not actively being generated…no humans or computers or pets. So not a silver bullet but just makes me so puzzled to see people using tar, which pollutes the ground, and steel which perfectly absorbs heat. No, the best solution is to use aluminum.
steel which perfectly absorbs heat. No, the best solution is to use aluminum.
Aluminum is far more thermally conductive and makes both a far better radiator and absorber of heat. Ultimately it’s a coating that does the absorbing though, as shiny metal reflects IR regardless of the material. Source: I work with this stuff
Light coloured or reflective roofs do make sense though and that’s why traditional homes in most hot climates are painted white.
Aluminum oxidizes and no longer reflects after long term exposure to moisture. It would have to be painted white, which is really no different than current metal roofing.
Which does bring up a good point though… all we need is some really environmentally friendly and long lasting white paint (that doesn’t get dirty) and we could easily slow down climate change. Unfortunately white paint gets dirty real quick and the dirt absorbs radiation the same as a dark paint.
Anodized aluminum absorbs some heat, but that’s only one single light pass. Or well two passes. But that’s way better than aluminum with white bird poop on it which is easily cleaned. Clear anodized aluminum or white reflective aluminum would be quite superior to anything out there.
