The next years are going to be fun… The world is burning while the fossil fuel industry is chugging along like everything is great as long as you buy enough co2 credits.
I’m scared in what kind of world my children will have to live in…
It’ll be fine. It has all happened before. There was 5x to 10x as much CO2 in the atmosphere when the dinosaurs were alive (2000 to 4000 ppm).
All we need to do is kill off about 7 billion people and have the survivors move to the south pole atleast 300’ above sea level.
Not sure if this was sarcasm. On a serious note:
There was 5x to 10x as much CO2 in the atmosphere when the dinosaurs were alive (2000 to 4000 ppm).
Yes, but that is irrelevant. CO2 levels were never so high in the existence of humans. We know for a fact humans could survive without burning coal and oil. We do not know wether our existence is compatible with these unprecedented CO2 levels, but started the experiment nevertheless.
Lol definitely sarcasm per the second paragraph of that comment. Good point on general toxicity at those levels. I looked it up and it appears we can survive it, albeit in a moderately reduced state.
Weather and even temperature are a bit of a red herring in all this. The extreme weather is caused by the rising temps and feedback loops, but what’s happening is just the heat trying to normalize. We’re not going to end up with 70c at the equator and -30c at the poles. Look at the cretaceous temp, CO2, and fossil records and you’ll see that the temp evens out even with CO2 massively higher then today, and you end up with things like temperate rainforest at the south pole. Our real issue and the one we should be actively fighting against (as in actual in-the-street rebellion) is the absolute destruction of the environment. Chemical dumping, strip mining, industrial fishing, industrial agriculture, forever chemicals, microplastics, desertification and deforestation. These things are going to cause ecological collapse and kill almost everyone in the next generation or two, no question about it. We don’t have to worry about the heat getting us
Some parts of the world definitely do have to worry about the heat getting them. We’ve already seen wet bulb temperatures exceeding human habitability in places where millions live, and some recent studies have suggested that in the long run our metric for true human habitability may actually be too wide.
From where I am in the Philippines, it’s a huge fucking deal. We’ve been getting supertyphoons more frequently, more intense and abrupt storms, and if not that, regular temperatures more than 30C°, and our country being an archipelago, is humid AF. We’ve been getting more crop shortages, more droughts, even constant hours-long water interruptions in the big cities. Not to mention, the huge damages due to those typhoons.
You are right, all these other problems are also really bad. A lot of stuff is happening at the same time. It’s hard for me to read about all the shit that is going down and not be able to do anything impactful against these things.
Yeah its really tough and I try to limit my doomscrolling to the amount needed to stay informed. One huge problem with all this is that it effects the most privileged the least, and even the day to day things we can do to feel like we’re helping are only really available to those of us with that privilege. Like, I could say “start a vege garden, buy hemp and wool clothes, fix things in your workshop instead of buying new” but yeah, those aren’t really options most people can take unless we change the underlying structure of our society first. But then, why don’t we try changing society so we can then fix these issues? In the end, it’s all part of the class war, and we’re losing badly.
I’m living in a flat, this limits what I can do on my own. But I’m looking into getting some solar panels to put up on the balcony, coupled with a storage battery this should bring down the kW/h I need from an external provider.
In the far future I would like to move out of the city and start producing more of my own food, but prices are just to high right now.
Weather and even temperature are a bit of a red herring in all this. The extreme weather is caused by the rising temps and feedback loops, but what’s happening is just the heat trying to normalize.
More and more severe extreme weather events are a bad thing, aren’t they?
Environmental destruction is bad, yes. But climate change causes a host of major issues (adding ocean acidification to your list). Rising temperatures and extreme weather certainly will cause deaths and trouble long before the heat normalized, if that ever happens.
Bad weather is also expensive AF. There’s a reason reinsurers such as MunichRE aren’t on the climate change denial train: They see the writing on the wall of not being able to back the insurers you buy your flood insurance from at a price point anyone could afford. If the damages become too high on aggregate, things simply become uninsurable (hence also why states don’t require nuclear plants to have insurance but back them themselves but that’s another can of hidden subsidy worms).
People are talking about “but investment in climate-friendly technology costs money and we must think of the economy and prosperity” – motherfucker if you were thinking about prosperity and the economy you wouldn’t set us on a path towards cities being destroyed faster than we can build them. Broken window fallacy times a million.
Remember, elections have consequences. While, at least in the US, neither party is perfect, Republicans are actively engaged in climate denial.
Vote accordingly.
It seems like elections only have consequences and never any benefits. While republicans are worse than democrats, I don’t see democrats moving effectively in this area. It’s usually business as usual with democrats (e.g. Biden signing in more drilling permits). At best I see too-little-too-late agreements with non-strict enforcement that republicans can cancel any time they get power (which is inevitable in our system).
While republicans are worse than democrats,
That doesn’t really matter - the problem is they enable each other. They just play a “good cop, bad cop” routine while “business as usual” accelerates. Political parties aren’t interested in changing the status quo - but it’s the status quo that must be changed.
Yeah, I’ve had to make sure to include that in every post I make criticizing democrats because otherwise people who’ve had their brains poisoned by the two party system immediately jump to stupid conclusions like “oh, are you saying we should vote for republicans then?!?!?!” or try to dismiss all criticism by pointing out the obvious in that republicans are worse.
The thing with good cop, bad cop is that they both have the same objective and neither are on your side. It’s a great act, too, because people actually get fooled into thinking parties bought and paid for by the rich are somehow fighting for the common person.
The problem is that as long as actively lying in order to get elected isn’t a crime and enough people are just falling for those lies then there is nothing we can do really.
The reality is that adaptions for climate change WILL as a direct response change habits that people had for years and even make our lives on average less luxurious - if it’s legal for one party to campaign on “everything can stay the same way it’s been” that’s more attractive to a lot of people.
Elections sort of have consequences sometimes. In some places. Especially in the US, both sides play the same game and both allow corporations to act with enough impunity for it to make no difference who is in charge. The fact that “democracy” has become a choice between two essentially identical options tells you everything you need to know about the idea. Not to mention that the US is a republic not a democracy anyway and is therefore a totally different beast. And the second biggest economy and influence on the climate is China - another “democracy” which isn’t one.
“the US is a Republic not a democracy…”
Thanks for telling us that you don’t know WTF you’re talking about.
This idea of yours, that republics and democracies are somehow mutually exclusive concepts is a deeply stupid category error that has zero basis in political science (to say nothing of practical reality) and almost always is the redoubt of those who wish to justify the dysfunction of the current status quo.
There’s no need to get upset about it mate. At least not about my comment. Please do get upset about (I assume) your government. Its a shitshow. I never said anything about mutual exclusivity, all I said is that being a republic, the rulesa re different to what they would be otherwise. Gerrymandering, the executive branch, the judicial branch, and especially the electoral college, all mean that even though some people are allowed to vote, power lies with the political class and oligarchs, not with the people voting.
Here’s some handy info about republics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic
“the US is a Republic not a democracy…”
Thanks for telling us that you don’t know WTF you’re talking about.
This idea of yours, that republics and democracies are somehow mutually exclusive concepts is a deeply stupid category error that has zero basis in political science (to say nothing of practical reality) and almost always is the redoubt of those who wish to justify the dysfunction of the current status quo.
Is it bizarre it doesn’t bother me that much about what happens to humanity at this point? Scientists have seen this happening decades ago and have implored companies and governments to make changes, only to land in deaf ears… so in a way, we saw this coming and didn’t care. We kinda had it coming. What I really worry for are the innocent animals, fauna, and flora that will definitely be affected by this. It upsets me even just a change in temperature can mean life or death for some species. I just hope we can still slow this down enough for them to be able to adapt too 😥
I’m sorry you feel that way, but I get where you’re coming from.
Zoom out a little though and it’s consequences are war, famine, and desecration.
If not the human suffering, consider eons long chains of biology that’ll be wiped off the face of the earth as climates shift quicker than their ability to adapt
Ha. That will be wiped off? We are actively watching a mass extinction occur. It’s not going to happen. It already is
I remember watching a clip from “The Network” where Jeff Daniel’s is interviewing an expert on climate change. It was when it was too late - and the expert lore or less said so.
It struck me as prescient - that despite all the warnings we’d be shocked when it came and it was irreversible.
Tbh it came sooner than I expected.
Oh, for sure. There will be battles for resources that would probably dwindle exponentially. There will be loads of suffering throughout. I’ve worried so much for years and have made my own contributions to reduce my carbon footprint - recycled and reused as much as I can, not buying a car, among others - and it’s so exhausting to keep caring when the main perpetrators get to keep doing it abundantly relatively scot-free. At this point, it’s just easier for my own mental health to choose my battles and to choose which one to worry more and hopefully help in that aspect. This is one of the main reasons I’ve decided to become childfree; it’s just cruel to bring life to an uncertain world where the bad guys run rampant.
But hey the last article I read was a bunch of totally-relatable-super-wealthy-individuals who are just like me, asking why people aren’t having kids! Are you telling me the world is actually a hellscape and I’ve been lied to?
