This has been a doozy of a year. And it’s the best year so far blah blah. So how are you all coping? Does it hit anyone else like a bolt of lightning that probably I - we - won’t die of old age?
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I don‘t. I‘m accepting that i, as an individual, will not be able to impact it and so i‘m pretty much going with it. Humanity will survive, thats for sure but i make sure to make the most of it in the time where it‘s still bearable.
Humanity will survive
…will it though?
Some humans somewhere will survive. We’re the most adaptable and intelligent species on the planet
Yes, don’t be ridiculous
My guess is humanity will, but society probably won’t, at least not in or near it’s current form.
Nah. It’s only been around a very, very short time and it won’t remain much longer despite probably being one of the longer stints the planet’s seen of life so far. We should still get to punch MAN into the high score screen and be seen by other players later on, like we saw with DNO.
I am educated in science and I do not think humanity will survive, no. Most megafauna will probably die out. There are ~10 planetary boundaries and we’ve crossed a lot of them. Earthquakes and volcanoes will start picking up. AMOC collapse could be as soon as 2025.
Uh, what? Earthquakes and volcanoes due to climate changes?
Earthquakes and Volcanic Activity has been tied to sea level and air pressure changes. So one leading theory is that climate changes will more likely than not cause more activity, however the last year has shown no such changes yet Source on last year activity
AMOC collapse could be as soon as 2025.
No. I also read that. There was a prediction that AMOC collapse might be inevitable by 2025 and take a couple centuries to happen.
We have pretty good evidence the currents are slowing, but no real data to predict if and when it might stop. A couple researchers made a prediction that is not currently accepted by the field. It’s just pretty dire, but would affect a few generations from now even if true
Then you should recall that some of the largest megafauna ever lived for tens of millions of years at much higher temperatures(and therefore sea levels)
At higher temps that changed over thousands of years gradually. This is not that. And that’s even if “high temp” was the ONLY planetary boundary being crossed. It is not. There are numerous SIMULTANEOUS extinction events happening. And we know megafauna isn’t surviving this time because we are in the middle of a major extinction event already. Millions of sea life and millions and millions of birds and insects are dead already, from being boiled alive in the ocean to starvation to pollution to bird flu.
Extinction of individual unfit species doesn’t mean the total collapse of life.
Individual unfit species like ALL birds and ALL insects and ALL sea life and ALL fish? Not including ALL corals and ALL trees (forest fires). Lol what’s left, really? In terms of biomass, that’s like, most of it.
That we are in an extinction event is widely known in the scientific community.
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2023/09/human-driven-mass-extinction-eliminating-entire-genera
^There, read up. Sorry to break the news to you.
The biggest threat to your life from climate change is this kind of doomerism making you suicidal. I’ve been down that road myself.
Either get off your ass and do something about it or stop worrying about it. You’re not helping anyone by making yourself sad.
I’m not suicidal.
I’m not saying you are. You missed my point entirely.
I’m asking for coping methods or strategies. For example, I sing a lot because it doesn’t contribute anything to capitalism and more fossil fuels being released, and it releases oxytocin so it makes me feel good. I also read and spend time with others, smoke cannabis, take psilocybin.
That we don’t want to die, and don’t want the planet to die, shows that we are very much not suicidal so it’s just weird you brought that up at all lol.
Same as always. Live my best life right up until the very end. Set a good example and understand my place in the universe.
Does it hit anyone else like a bolt of lightning that probably I - we - won’t die of old age?
Wait, do you actually believe this?
Yes. I am friends with ecological scientists, biologists, soil scientists, ornithologists, and other various environmental researchers. The rest of my natural life would be ~40-50 years. We probably have 10-20 at most. Remember, the heating is exponential and delayed, and we’ve also exceeded several other planetary boundaries. Our governments are decades too late. We are literally already in the middle of an extinction event.
Even if everyone TODAY stopped burning all fossil fuels, we’d still have to sequester millions of tons of carbon in 10-20 years with no infrastructure for it. To do this will release more greenhouse gases. Amd we still have to address the 9 other planetary boundaries we’ve crossed including ocean acidification, soil destruction, and pollution.
The absolute best shot we have is to deflect a percentage of the sun’s rays from ever reaching earth with some kind of space blanket or shield. Likely we will just inject sulfur into the atmosphere with unknown consequences.
That you don’t realize how bad it is, is the sadder thing. We have seriously failed in educating people about science. Chemical reactions need specific energy requirements to work, which means specific temperatures. It’s a big deal to our very cells themselves that the planet is getting hotter. And again, that is only 1 planetary boundary and we have crossed others.
You can literally see footage online of people’s housing falling into the ocean, and their property wasn’t oceanfront when they bought it. You can look u0 articles about billions of sea life boiling alive off the oregon coast and baby eagles flinging themselves from their nests to die due to heat. You can see the recent article about Dubai being beyond the wet bulb temp for humans to survive. That’s not normal, ya’ll. None of this is normal.
But whatever, it’s too late. Enjoy your remaining years as much as you can, and don’t forget you can always starve yourself to death for free if you don’t have a bullet. Good luck everyone.
This is doommongering nonsense.
I’m no climate change denier at all, but the idea that the planet is basically going to be unliveable in 10-20 years is ludicrous.
Even the most pessimistic of scientists don’t believe that.
AMOC collapse could happen as soon as 2025.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189
Scientists have been forced to give “optimistic” findings relating to climate change for decades because we were told not to scaremonger. We were told no one would believe us. Well, no one believed us anyway (see: you) and now our conservative estimates are turning out to be wildly too conservative. It is exponentially getting worse and we didn’t consider numerous cascading events like the methane bubbles in the arctic permafrost.
We are literally already in the middle of a sixth extinction event relating to passing 6-8 of 9-10 planetary boundaries. It’s not doomerism, it’s literally reality. Measurably and empirically happening.
Likely we will just inject sulfur into the atmosphere with unknown consequences.
Kind of the only hope we have left at this point. One which I’m desperately holding onto.
Articles about insect populations being decimated by something like 70%… They are the ones most vulnerable to climate change, and they’re all dying. How people can see that and not understand is mind boggling.
I think we should put up a metal blanket in space. Tbh all the space junk and satellites are already doing that a little
Very very little, the planet is kinda big
Badly. Really, not much more that I can say about it. The future terrifies me.
I become a stauncher anti-capitalist every day, since capitalism and its unsustainable and literally impossible aim of infinite growth, and the greed and corruption it encourages, is why climate change is not only happening but also not being treated seriously, and abolishing it is the only hope we have of dealing with the damage climate change will bring and try and minimize it going forward (since its past the point of stopping it entirely).
The whole point of those responsible shifting blame on to individuals who have nothing to do with the decisions that got us here, nor the profits they make, is to get you to the point you’re at now - hopelessness which leads to inaction, or desperation that leads to futile action (like banning straws or paying to reduce your “carbon footprint” - a term they made up for this exact purpose, and so on, all of which are there to make sure you’re criticising your neighbour for their recycling habits instead of the companies that say they’re recycling and get paid to but really send the garbage directly to landfill, or to a developing nation already drowning in western trash).
What you actually need to be is angry and focused, to ensure your anger is aimed at the right people and the systems they uphold that got us here. Those systems are not natural or inevitable or immutable, they are artificially created by and for the benefit of a really small group of humans, a group we could easily be rid of if we actually united to do so.
This could have been written by me. I despise capitalism, capitalists, and if I could, would ensure that every company knowingly polluting or harming people or the planet would be dissolved and their boards put in jail, or worse. I have always hated capitalism, I’m realizing, the older I get, and learning how many of these companies KNEW the consequences of their greed makes me even more radicalized against it.
We glamorize wealth hoarding and that baffles me. I have a 4yo son. I see in him the same things I see in these capitalists. I give him what he wants, say a scoop of ice cream. I get some for myself, maybe a different flavor, and he asks for mine. He gets upset when I tell him to enjoy what he has and that I want to enjoy my ice cream too.
Recently, we got into LEGO and I will be building something, usually just fucking around, and I’ll start to make something cool. He’ll come up and want it. Even with other blocks, it’s what little I have that he wants. Sometimes, there is no amount of persuasion to allow me to continue what I’m doing.
I’m convinced that greed is just a regression/stopping of cognitive development to the level of a child. I would pity these capitalist fuckers if they weren’t destroying the planet and our lives for their greed.
Makes me think, sure, go ahead, build that bunker to escape the disaster you [capitalists] created. Nature may not be able to get in that easily, but people didn’t become the apex hunters of this planet from giving up. Persistence will reap what you have sowed.
…instead of the companies that say they’re recycling and get paid to but really send the garbage directly to landfill, or to a developing nation already drowning in western trash).
More to the point, instead of the companies that say they’re recycling but haven’t done a damn thing to reduce how much trash they manufacture in the first place, and in fact are doing every single thing in their power to keep expanding to manufacture trash at ever faster rates.
I bike as much as possible instead of driving and lobby my local government for zoning reform.
Incredibly based, same here.
Poorly. We basically didn’t have a winter here in Chicago and the summer has been marked by severe storms.
100mg Fluvoxamine and 5-10mg Diazepam a day seems to be working for me.
I’ve been doing occasional psilocybin and hedonism and that’s been pretty good so far
I really wanna try psilocybin. Like so much I’m thinking about growing it myself, just for one time, ego-shattering trip to break this cycle.
The world is fucked but apparently people like to live the way they do, so I expect worst shit.
Edit: I have to admit I believe there are worst shit why people will not die old.
The Earth has been much hotter than the worst-case scenario for anthropogenic climate change. (It used to be rainforests-at-the-North-pole hot.) Climate change isn’t going to kill you unless you’re both extremely poor (by global standards, not by first-world standards) and unlucky, although it may significantly reduce your quality of life as resources are redirected to mitigation. Where do these “mass death everywhere” ideas come from? They’re not a product of the scientific consensus.
As for me: it seems like the climate where I live is getting warmer. There has been much less snow recently than there was when I was a kid; it’s convenient but unsettling. The summers are getting hotter too, although the difference isn’t as dramatic. I’d like to move to somewhere further north, or maybe a place like coastal California which is without temperature extremes, but I would want to do that even if the climate wasn’t changing.
Where do these “mass death everywhere” ideas come from?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
The problem isn’t that it’s going to be warmer. The problem is that it’s getting warmer so quickly that populations won’t be able to adapt. Ecological collapse is absolutely on the table here. There is no real debate in the scientific community about this, just deceptive propaganda that’s disguised as ‘conflicting science’ but is simply a smoke screen to keep people ignoring the problem.
Humans have drastically altered ecology permanently anyways, during fruits and vegetables into near monocrops and changing them within just a few decades, it’s pretty clear that can be done for temperature changes. Though yeah of course temperature changing changes ecology, but why assume that change will be disastrous collapse
We’re going to lose a lot of diversity but hardy, fast-growing species will spread into niches formerly filled by specialists. Some models even predict that net ecological productivity will increase significantly (there does exist disagreement about this).
Look at who funded that study, and the actual contents.
According to this study - funded by the Chinese government, the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions on earth - we’ll see increased plant growth in the short term under controlled warming. Even ignoring the incredible conflict of interest, the fundamental assumption of the study is that we’ll be able to get warming under control and stick to the goals of the Paris agreement, maintaining only 2 degrees of warming by 2070. That’s absolutely absurd. We’ll be incredibly lucky to not hit 2 degrees of warming by 2040 at this rate. Besides that, they are essentially just looking at how plant growth responds to changes in temp and CO2. Of course plant productivity increases with higher temps and more available CO2, that’s not where the problems come in.
The problems occur when those hardy, fast growing species start really exploding. Cyanobacterial blooms that deoxygenate massive swaths of the ocean, killing millions of fish at a time. Population explosions of pests, contaminating food supplies and starting future pandemics. The ecosystem is complex and interconnected, things will adapt eventually, but the transition period will be catastrophic.
We are not a hardy, fast growing species. I have no doubt that people will survive, but it’s going to effect everyone, and a lot sooner than you think.
I still try my best to do what I can. But at the same time I’ve come to terms with the fact that we’re all fucked and everything I’m doing is pointless. But I’d rather do what I can and strive to do better than give up and make things worse. I have completely selfish reasons for doing my part and it’s literally just because I’d feel like an asshole.
I do what I can to reduce my own CO2 footprint - mostly for my own conscience.
In every election I vote for the party with the most focus on CO2 reduction that has a good chance of making it into parlament.
I chose both my work and home specifically so I don’t need a car to commute, and am completely safe from “once in a lifetime” floods (which will probably happen every other year soon).
I could make decently more money and rent more living space elsewhere.Otherwise I don’t worry. Cause what else is there to do?
I could die in the climate wars, in an epic storm, in a new pandemic…
Or quietly in my bed at age 100 like my grandparents, who survived 2 world wars, the cold war, and 4 revolutions.
Who knows?Solar panels to run the aircon.
Just have to hope no storm blows the house down.
Would like an electric car but it’s out of my financial reach at this time, so keep the old car repaired and running.
Where did you get the idea that you’re not going to die of old age?
Depends on the rapidity of the onset of the negative effects of climate change. If it’s slow, we’re gonna lose a lot of people, but we’ll be able to preserve some form of civilization. The worst affected will be the usual poorer people and those who can’t geographically escape the heat for whatever reason.
Worst scenario is rapid onset that disrupts the global network of food, energy, manufacturing, medicines, materials, etc. that literally keep everything working. If that goes tits up in an uncontrolled way just plan on losing a very significant chunk of the world’s population very fast. At a certain tipping point we also lose the people that know how to make things work. Modern society works because we have the ability to free some people from manual labor and subsistence existence to take on highly specialized learning. From fixing the grid, to doctors, to IT specialists, to the academics that teach these specialists. Lose enough of them and you lose the knowledge of how to do anything that makes modern civilization work.
So it all depends on your views if you think you’ll make it to old age. Do you think the world will collapse quickly or will it be a controlled descent? It certainly doesn’t look like we’re going to solve a damn thing regarding anthropogenic climate change, much less reverse anything, and we’re already stuck facing the damaging climate changes we started.
If it’s slow, we’re gonna lose a lot of people, but we’ll be able to preserve some form of civilization.
Assuming this is the best case scenario, are you willing to make a prediction about number of deaths by a certain year?
The reason I ask is because I think climate change alarmism is an unscientific, nonfalsifiable system of beliefs that don’t match reality.
And part of that is that people never make solid predictions. They resist it. Are you willing to make a solid prediction with an actual timeline on it, given this is your best case scenario?
It certainly doesn’t look like we’re going to solve a damn thing regarding anthropogenic climate change, much less reverse anything, and we’re already stuck facing the damaging climate changes we started.
Yeah we’re definitely not going to reverse climate change.
As far as I can tell, the main disrupting effects of climate change are going to be higher sea levels. So lots of people will have to move, or protect their cities with dikes.
There will be more farmland than before, given the effects of CO2 on plant growth.
I don’t see any scenario where it leads to a collapse of civilization.
Hah, you’re ridiculous.
We can’t even predict the weather yet you want me to give you timelines for climate change impact and entire geopolitical and worldwide logistical systems. Not even supercomputers can predict that.
Congrats on your manufactured, pseudo-intellectual “gotcha”. Why don’t you go learn about chaotic systems and the study of anthropogenic climate change and make your own predictions…
Oh, and for the record, if we’re all cheering about redrawn beachfront property being the worst of it in a century I’ll eat my hat. If I’m right, well…you’ll probably be hungry enough to eat yours.
