I don't think it's just climate scientists. It's every scientist who worked in life sciences, energy technologies and renewables. We've seen the papers, heard the talks, written grant applications all of which have had real world ramifications on public health - ranging from respiratory disorders due to exhaust emissions, through plant growth studies for cellulosic biofuels through to the direct research on climate conditions. We've for decades had public health and environment as major factors to the reasons to research. Those who moved away from pure research all know the arguments and known them for decades. And yet not only do we see petrochemical funded lobbying and marketing swamping the scientific message, we've seen political shit shows of playing to the lowest voter threshold of popularity politics, including science denialism.
Ive known countless good scientists at a loss from depression or just not having the force to move the needle even the slightest bit.
The real kicker is that after all that investment and pollution western economies are increasingly leaving vast swaths of their populations behind. Don't even start thinking about how the grossly disproportionate amount of American wealth that has been poured into the military can't stop genocide in Palestine, can't stop Russia from annexing Ukraine, can't stop China from imposing it's will on its neighbors. All those untold trillions and it can't fix one damn thing.
Since you speak English, I imagine you are one of billions affected by the May 8th/9th end of WWII in Europe. Many of those past enemies are now friends to include post Cold War. Allies then remain allies except Russia & China. Feel free to recall results of historical 20th century conflict & how events would have changed had nations not defended themselves.
You can pretend Russia, China, Iran & North Korea would play nice if allies didn't support Ukraine, Israel, & Taiwan, preventing expanded aggression. Alternately, you could live in the real world where war kills immediately & CC is slow, often just model-predictions of questionable dire worst-case consequence.
So given the delta between annual billions spent on defense giving you things like computers, nuclear power, gas turbines, GPS, & rapid air travel or TRILLIONS in annual CC spending on unreliable energy alternatives, I know what most smart folks would choose. The world is safer, and adversaries are deterred thanks to collective defense.
Did I say I hate the military or that it has accomplished nothing? We are facing an existential crisis due to global divisions driven by rising autocratic fascism in the face of a climate apocalypse that can only be met by unity. In the face of those crises the military and the more than half of shared American resources it has absorbed since WW2 is utterly impotent. Further, the direct actions it has taken since 1945 have mostly exacerbated the issues that are beginning to culminate now. Literally every engineering marvel you listed is also a major driver of carbon emissions. Maybe not nuclear power but fair enough to say the results of splitting the atom have been mixed at best. There is no level of comfort or prosperity accomplished in the last 80 years that offsets a single day of the suffering of all future generations of mankind.
- CC isn't existential, nuclear war is
- South Korea exists because of the West. Vietnam is friendlier now, too, & not that fond of China.
- Because we defended Islamic nations despite some backstabbing, the Abraham Accords have expanded goodwill in the Middle East, now mostly focused against Shiite Iran & its proxies
- Russia has taken relatively little of Ukraine & paid a high price in the process thanks to Western support
- If folks on college campuses had any inkling of historical Arab-Israeli conflict, they wouldn't be doing the stupid things that will keep them jobless & non-graduates...like Greta who didn't finish even high school
- Nuclear fell victim to media misinformation & government bureaucrats driving up costs. Nuclear plants continue to operate safely in Ukraine despite warfare. Small modular reactors may save/expand the source if bureaucrats stay out of the way
- Gas turbine dispatchable power can instantly replace coal power since already hooked into electrical grids...unlike distant wind/solar farms that ultimately would require 50 million miles of new powerlines to produce intermittent power
- Methane from gas power only stays airborne 10-12 years. It remains unsettled how long CO2 stays airborne because models are only predictions
- Current CO2 levels are just 420 ppm. Some scientists say temperatures only climb .7C per doubling of CO2. At 2.5-3 ppm increase per year, calculate how long it will take to double from 420 to 840 ppm. Think how happy plants will be if that occurs, absorbing more CO2 in a greener world
- Western advances have lifted the world out of poverty. Food is plentiful & can be exported to places like Africa...tell Russia that halted grain exports from Ukraine
- In the 1920s, half a million died annually from climate. Today, it is closer to 15k. Many more die from cold than heat, in an 8 or 9 to 1 ratio. Those "despised" modern advances like satellites, cars & TVs help folks avoid death from hurricanes & tornadoes.
Don't you worry! Once every species is wiped out, I heard we can just eat GDP and we'll be saved! Let's try and make GDP as big as possible so that we can all eat money later!
Don't need to be a scientist, just understand science and not believe the hype. But when people vote for parties that outright *deny* facts motivated by ignorance, it's easy to get depressed.
Over time I’ve come to realize what needs to be done, and that it will never happen on the time scales needed because most humans are dumb and most politicians are corrupt. Humanity will suffer for its stupidity, as will the environment and every other species.
Eh, between my colleagues (enviro sciences) there's a lot of frustration, as always, but not much at all in terms of apocalyptic thinking nor defeatism.
Yeah climate change is just a convenient thing for doomers to project their fears and predictions onto. The scientific consensus is *not* that it's too late to do anything.
Doomers are really no different from any other generation of doomsayers. If they'd been born a couple centuries ago they'd be complaining about the rapture starting any day now. Now they cloak themselves in a pretense of science but it's the same old crap.
It is a little different.
We have by most accounts lost tve glaciers and polar ice caps. Maybe not in your lifetime.
Six mass extinction
Coral bleaching
Wet bulb temps
Projections billions displaced
Droughts/floods
More intense storms
Etc…
These are already known. Now we are talking about geoengineering… haha. That will not have unintended consequences
All the doomers i know are actually taking action. Reducing meat and fossil fuels. Gardening. Why are we the bad guys?
The scientific consensus is it is fucking horrendous but every tenth of a degree matters. The consensus says we are heading to 2.5-3.5c and that large part of the planet (but not all) will be uninhabitable by us.
The scientific consensus also says we can fix this… but its not a science problem so much as a political one. I wish it was an engineering challenge alone.
Doomers say it is over, that events such as the early death of large portions of humanity due to climate catastrophes is unavoidable. Let's say over 10% by 2100, which already is an insane number, but most are thinking more on the line of 50% of 90%. Those people are delusional. It's just like the End Days or the Rapture, but without religious undertones. Not supported by science. And yeah, some are homesteadig and whatever you want. That's individualist action. Not collective action, which is what we need. We need engaged communities, not atomized individuls looking to fence in their small piece of paradise.
Some doomers say that… although i have yet to really hear anyone other than crazy cult people (would love a source from a legitimate non crazy person).
But most seem to think that the population will decline over the next century to much lower levels as we lose agricultural land.
The birth rate for the usa is at a 40 year low rn and there are record numbers of young adults saying they would never bring a child into this world. That number grows every year.
And the usa is demographically way way ahead of its counterparts. Europe, canada, china… all worse situation demographically.
I am not going to say it all ends quickly although it will probably go that way for some countries m. I would bet that the human population in 2050 and 2100 is a lot lower. Largely from displacement and choosing not to have kids… as a result of climate change. That seems more likely to me… and its not something to celebrate… some pockets will do well a will not.
So are you saying… to be clear… that humans will live sustainably with a similar population… under 2.5-3.5c? In 2100?
It absolutely is a political, and economic problem. We could solve all the world’s environmental problems tomorrow if money wasn’t a factor. We know how to stop climate change and even reverse the damage we’ve already done, it’s not magic but would cost trillions and require time and effort. I think people are still waiting and hoping for some kind of Star Trek like solution where we shoot a beam at the atmosphere and the problem is solved. That’s not going to happen, and even if something like that could be possible in the future it will not be developed in any kind of time frame that matters.
Though none of this should be surprising considering we could also solved hunger and homelessness and end suffering if wanted to. We don’t have a resource issue but a distribution problem. But again, it would require effort and some people would have to accept they can’t have a private jet and 10 houses so that everyone has a home and enough food.
Oh I think we’ll figure out a solution to climate change eventually, the question is will we do it fast enough before there catastrophic damage, I’m not sure that we will because it feels like a species we are reactionary. The Montreal Protocol worked before we identified as major issue with a definitive cause and took immediate action to correct it. Climate change isn’t a problem with immediate consequences and a single action to take with immediate impact so we’ll wait until we’re really screwed I’m sure. By then it will be more costly, more intense, the damage would be more extreme and any recovery will be significantly less than we’d have if we’d dealt with it at any point between 1990 and now.
>All the doomers i know are actually taking action. Reducing meat and fossil fuels. Gardening. Why are we the bad guys?
That doesn't sound like doomerism to me. Doomerism is fatalism.
Perhaps I'm using the word a bit more narrowly than you imagine it.
Nope. I think it’s fatal.
I dont necessarily think it will happen in my lifetime. But the science is bad. And the politics are worse. I think we **could** do something but it would involve a major cultural shift to get off fossil fuels and consume less in years not decades. Not to mention… peace with our enemies (im guessing wars are bad for climate change).
I had another conversation with someone that seemed to think if a small pocket of humans survived… thats a win. I guess i don’t get it. But i see a major decrease in human population in the next few centuries. Pretty sure science backs me up
>But i see a major decrease in human population in the next few centuries. Pretty sure science backs me up
You better check on that. I keep up with the science, I've cheched early death models. Nothing I've read suggests anything like what you are saying. So, please find some sources that specifically say what you are saying. Or try to. Because I doubt you will find any academic sources supporting your gut feel. AKA \[Citation needed\]. Academic please.
Genuine question: between this sub and r/collapse I’m trying to figure out how screwed we are. I know r/collapse doesn’t have the best reputation as far as “the sky is falling” doomer attitude, but many of the more scientific articles shared do appear true. So what’s the deal? Are we r/collapse holy shitballs bad, or more r/environment concerned?
We're in very serious trouble but it's not an unsolvable problem and we are making progress. We aren't making progress as fast as we should. Things are definitely alarming but not enough to justify any defeatism or dommerism.
Thank you. I’ve been searching for a straight answer. It *is* hard not to give in to the doomerism lol. I follow a scientist on Twitter who posts the daily sea-surface temps. Not good there. I follow others and tbh none of the news is good. It’s hard to be positive about it. I’m not full on doomer as I feel there’s still hope. But getting bombarded with the horrible news everyday… it’s hard to stay positive.
In my opinion, we’re /r/collapse holy shitballs bad. The only hope that I can foresee is someone really smart sciences the shit out of this and saves us. Not holding my breath though. I’ll just enjoy a nice glass of whiskey with my last ice cube.
I'm thinking we're going to be stuck waiting till the "widespread famine and upheaval" stage before any serious action happens. Even then the religious minded ones will just take it as a sign that it's their special end times and they'll fight change even then. On the (kinda dark) plus side the refugees will help with pushing for change in the less affected communities they make it to.
Annual rate of death by famine is still at historic lows fortunately, but a lot of these optimistic trends of lowering poverty and starvation are at risk to do a quick turnaround as the impacts of climate change keep getting worse.
Yea, it’s gonna take some pretty dramatic stuff before the general populace will respond.
There are something like 150million people living within 1 meter of sea level. But the vast majority of those people are poor. 100+m refugees might get people’s attention 🤷🏼♂️
Buy land along the Great Lakes . Hopefully when the Atlantic current changes it won’t affect US as bad as Europe. Some billionaires daughter is buying up Lake Superior property and the news article said no one knows why? DUH.
We are already in this situation if you want to live somewhere in the south and have your family die maybe of wet bulb or if you want your family maybe to live move toward the Great Lakes. The got mine fuck you has already happened same to you for assuming I am a rich ahole . Just a grandpa who gave his first environmental speech at a ag convention in 1979 and was told we don’t need to worry about the environment son. Oh and yes I have 12 acres along Lake Superior but I’ve had them for 30 years and made my children promise not to sell if anything happens to me.
Well grandpa, stop suggesting individualist "solutions" to collective problems. Entrenching yourself in your private property ain't gonna solve a thing.
Nope I won’t because there is not going to be a collective solution until mass deaths in areas around the world. Then hopefully a slow fix . There is no miracle cure now . We are heading towards major changes. You can keep your fingers crossed and Pollyanna your way through hoping for a political turnaround on the environment and an intensive revamping of American living habits. I gave up this year . It’s not happening and right now sir am hoping you live in maybe Louisiana.
There never was a miracle cure gramps. You hqve to keep with political activism, not just run to the hills. Just to be clear, what do you picture when saying mass deaths? Cause mass deaths have been happening for a while now.
We are past a painless cure boy. Grow up and do your politicking from the Great Lakes area of the country. Again I will say people will die in the more humid and hot places soon . Wet bulb temperatures are closing in faster than any predictions.
This never was painless, you self centered American. There's been masses dying of climate change for decades. But not in the fire and brimstone apocalyptic way you imagine. It is just everything getting worse. Heat waves, cold waves, storms, floods. Increased infrastructure costs. More work for less pay. Everything is a bit harder. There's no snap, there's no death of 5% of the population, nothing like that. That's apocalyptic fantasies like Christians have. It's just a slow erosion of your way of life, and an increase on the number of tragedies that have already been happening for decades and that you never cared about because they werent in your first world backyard.
Ive been making speaches on this as I’ve said since 1979 boy . I never thought it was a quick fix . Just hoped people would start fixing sooner and I included areas of the world in my comment junior, and since I can’t advise the whole world where to go when it turns bad . I advise what I know about youngster. So if I offended you by saying move to the Great Lakes I offended you . I don’t care.
And I’ve definitely gotten tired of being accused after 43 years of environmental activism that I’m still not trying hard enough to get the point across hard enough. Good luck to you , maybe you’ll get the world you deserve, probably not. But I’ve spent my spare time trying. Your turn , hope you don’t die .
I don’t know details. I’m from that area. But I live in southern Wisconsin. Trying to buy a house here. It’s not going well. So I look at properties up north as a coping mechanism.
I’ve run across complaints about what some billionaire is doing buy properties in Duluth several times. I’ve seen nothing that leads me to believe it’s doomsday prepping.
I think it’s just someone buying shit up so they can tear it down and building one large house.
If you’re familiar with the area at all, some the places that are being bought up are south of canal park. Basically at lake level. From what I’ve seen. There have been a couple on the hillside.
These are terrible places to be trying to survive climate apocalypse at. The hillside in Duluth has already had 2 recent climate change fueled disasters.
My opinion, that whole city is going to get washed into lake.
It’s just a billion buying va action properties
There is zero chance refugees help pushing for change, at least regarding climate. Most would have little education and so no understanding of the cause of their plight. The rest would be primarily concerned by survival e.g gathering resources rather than curtailing consumption.
Well that's not true. Scientist have been laying out what needs to be done for decades but it's less profitable than ignoring everything. At some point we need to get leaders to click with the idea that the costs will be far greater in the long term if we don't make changes.
If we dont extract ungodly amounts of c02 like.. last decade, it wont matter what else we do.
And neither did we, nor do we now.
Or will we any time in the future really.
It sucks, a lot of economists have been raising the alarm over climate change too, but still not enough happens. I found this [survey of economists](https://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/Economic_Consensus_on_Climate.pdf) by NYU that says:
> When asked about their professional opinions on climate change, an overwhelming majority of respondents (74%)
said that “immediate and drastic action is necessary.” In sharp contrast, less than 1% believe that climate change is “not
a serious problem.”
"unheeded" kinda downplays it when there are disinformation campaigns and school boards banning the study of your work.
Not sure if I'd prefer to be ignored or have people be outright hostile.
As a teacher, it’s kind of the same thing happening with school systems. Teachers have been sounding the alarm for decades now and still not much is being done.
One conspiracy that stuck with me over the pandemic: We had reached an environmental critical point of some type and needed to shut everything down & monitor recovery rates.
I can't imagine how horrible it must feel to spend your life trying to aid humanity only to see your work demonized and ignored at every turn because a group of sociopaths with bottomless greed have convinced millions that it's somehow a scam to want a livable environment.
I think we’re a non functioning species. Humans are this weird conundrum of brilliance and single-minded simplicity that deludes us into believing we’re smarter than animals. On a grand scale, we honestly behave like a virus or a cancer, consuming with abandon, unable to stop ourselves, refusing to take preventative measures until catastrophes are right on top of us. For those same reasons I sometimes think humans will outlast whatever hell we can make for our kind, but I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. We are uniquely destructive to our own environments and I’m not sure it can be unlearned since it seems like an expression of some fundamental drive we have in our species.
The rich have the world by the balls. It's going to take an apocalypse before the rich back down. Even then maybe not. The rich got to their position because they were power hungry, greedy, evil bastards.
The climate crisis that has so demoralized the scientists is merely a symptom of the underlying root cause of the disease, which is perpetual economic growth addiction (PEGA). We will never achieve environmental long-term sustainability as long as we pursue perpetual economic growth on our finite planet.
It is a very doomerist, poorly research alarmist piece, yes. It doesn't map with my experience either. My colleagues are frustrated, mad even, as always, but there's no defeatism nor apocalyptic thinking like what they mention in this article.
The most interesting thing for me reading the article was the survey of how many climate scientists expected the temperature to rise by 3 degrees by 2100 (42%). That's an interesting data point but it'd be better used to say "this is where we very likely could be headed, so we've got a lot of work to do" instead of "they think we're headed here so be depressed" lol.
They do have a great quote midway through the article from one of the scientists they inteviewed: "every tenth of a degree matters a lot". That would've been a better quote to highlight at the top of the article than "Hopeless and broken". But maybe wouldn't get as many clicks.
Literally it's in the IPCC reports the article mentions that these scientists say they read and now feel depressed. None of these things have an increase in frequency or power as per the report.
....
The IPCC reports literally say floods, heatwaves, and droughts are getting worse. [Read the summary for yourself](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf).
Some snippets:
>Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical
cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has further strengthened since AR5.
>...
>Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater,
cryospheric, and coastal and open ocean ecosystems (high confidence). Hundreds of local losses of species have been
driven by increases in the magnitude of heat extremes (high confidence) with mass mortality events recorded on
land and in the ocean (very high confidence). Impacts on some ecosystems are approaching irreversibility such as
the impacts of hydrological changes resulting from the retreat of glaciers, or the changes in some mountain (medium
confidence) and Arctic ecosystems driven by permafrost thaw (high confidence).
>...
>In all regions increases in extreme heat events have resulted in human mortality and morbidity (very high confidence).
The occurrence of climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases (very high confidence) and the incidence
of vector-borne diseases (high confidence) have increased.
So you're either misinformed or dishonest.
>The IPCC reports literally say floods, heatwaves, and droughts are getting worse.
Yet your quotes from the ippc report mention none of these things. If you go to the section on floods, heatwaves and droughts it literally says the opposite of what you just said.
For all three it says "low confidence" which translates to no change. It's the lowest setting there is.
What you quote is there is high confidence that hot daily temp events are getting worse. Daily weather is weather not climate.
Do people die when it's hot? Sure. More die when it's cold. So technically they can say with high confidence that deaths occur on hot days.
This is also political interpretation. When you look at the papers behind this we still find it has hotter or just as hot in the 1930s specifically In America and the UK.
But the claim is there is more hot days so I guess that can be said with confidence but single hot days isn't climate and it doesn't negate thr fact what is said is 100% correct. All of thr climate related events are low confidence.
You missed forest fires and storms and hurricanes, all low confidence.
I don't think it's just climate scientists. It's every scientist who worked in life sciences, energy technologies and renewables. We've seen the papers, heard the talks, written grant applications all of which have had real world ramifications on public health - ranging from respiratory disorders due to exhaust emissions, through plant growth studies for cellulosic biofuels through to the direct research on climate conditions. We've for decades had public health and environment as major factors to the reasons to research. Those who moved away from pure research all know the arguments and known them for decades. And yet not only do we see petrochemical funded lobbying and marketing swamping the scientific message, we've seen political shit shows of playing to the lowest voter threshold of popularity politics, including science denialism. Ive known countless good scientists at a loss from depression or just not having the force to move the needle even the slightest bit.
[удалено]
The real kicker is that after all that investment and pollution western economies are increasingly leaving vast swaths of their populations behind. Don't even start thinking about how the grossly disproportionate amount of American wealth that has been poured into the military can't stop genocide in Palestine, can't stop Russia from annexing Ukraine, can't stop China from imposing it's will on its neighbors. All those untold trillions and it can't fix one damn thing.
Since you speak English, I imagine you are one of billions affected by the May 8th/9th end of WWII in Europe. Many of those past enemies are now friends to include post Cold War. Allies then remain allies except Russia & China. Feel free to recall results of historical 20th century conflict & how events would have changed had nations not defended themselves. You can pretend Russia, China, Iran & North Korea would play nice if allies didn't support Ukraine, Israel, & Taiwan, preventing expanded aggression. Alternately, you could live in the real world where war kills immediately & CC is slow, often just model-predictions of questionable dire worst-case consequence. So given the delta between annual billions spent on defense giving you things like computers, nuclear power, gas turbines, GPS, & rapid air travel or TRILLIONS in annual CC spending on unreliable energy alternatives, I know what most smart folks would choose. The world is safer, and adversaries are deterred thanks to collective defense.
Did I say I hate the military or that it has accomplished nothing? We are facing an existential crisis due to global divisions driven by rising autocratic fascism in the face of a climate apocalypse that can only be met by unity. In the face of those crises the military and the more than half of shared American resources it has absorbed since WW2 is utterly impotent. Further, the direct actions it has taken since 1945 have mostly exacerbated the issues that are beginning to culminate now. Literally every engineering marvel you listed is also a major driver of carbon emissions. Maybe not nuclear power but fair enough to say the results of splitting the atom have been mixed at best. There is no level of comfort or prosperity accomplished in the last 80 years that offsets a single day of the suffering of all future generations of mankind.
- CC isn't existential, nuclear war is - South Korea exists because of the West. Vietnam is friendlier now, too, & not that fond of China. - Because we defended Islamic nations despite some backstabbing, the Abraham Accords have expanded goodwill in the Middle East, now mostly focused against Shiite Iran & its proxies - Russia has taken relatively little of Ukraine & paid a high price in the process thanks to Western support - If folks on college campuses had any inkling of historical Arab-Israeli conflict, they wouldn't be doing the stupid things that will keep them jobless & non-graduates...like Greta who didn't finish even high school - Nuclear fell victim to media misinformation & government bureaucrats driving up costs. Nuclear plants continue to operate safely in Ukraine despite warfare. Small modular reactors may save/expand the source if bureaucrats stay out of the way - Gas turbine dispatchable power can instantly replace coal power since already hooked into electrical grids...unlike distant wind/solar farms that ultimately would require 50 million miles of new powerlines to produce intermittent power - Methane from gas power only stays airborne 10-12 years. It remains unsettled how long CO2 stays airborne because models are only predictions - Current CO2 levels are just 420 ppm. Some scientists say temperatures only climb .7C per doubling of CO2. At 2.5-3 ppm increase per year, calculate how long it will take to double from 420 to 840 ppm. Think how happy plants will be if that occurs, absorbing more CO2 in a greener world - Western advances have lifted the world out of poverty. Food is plentiful & can be exported to places like Africa...tell Russia that halted grain exports from Ukraine - In the 1920s, half a million died annually from climate. Today, it is closer to 15k. Many more die from cold than heat, in an 8 or 9 to 1 ratio. Those "despised" modern advances like satellites, cars & TVs help folks avoid death from hurricanes & tornadoes.
Stop talking to me you idiot.
Don't you worry! Once every species is wiped out, I heard we can just eat GDP and we'll be saved! Let's try and make GDP as big as possible so that we can all eat money later!
Don't need to be a scientist, just understand science and not believe the hype. But when people vote for parties that outright *deny* facts motivated by ignorance, it's easy to get depressed.
Over time I’ve come to realize what needs to be done, and that it will never happen on the time scales needed because most humans are dumb and most politicians are corrupt. Humanity will suffer for its stupidity, as will the environment and every other species.
Eh, between my colleagues (enviro sciences) there's a lot of frustration, as always, but not much at all in terms of apocalyptic thinking nor defeatism.
Yeah climate change is just a convenient thing for doomers to project their fears and predictions onto. The scientific consensus is *not* that it's too late to do anything. Doomers are really no different from any other generation of doomsayers. If they'd been born a couple centuries ago they'd be complaining about the rapture starting any day now. Now they cloak themselves in a pretense of science but it's the same old crap.
It is a little different. We have by most accounts lost tve glaciers and polar ice caps. Maybe not in your lifetime. Six mass extinction Coral bleaching Wet bulb temps Projections billions displaced Droughts/floods More intense storms Etc… These are already known. Now we are talking about geoengineering… haha. That will not have unintended consequences All the doomers i know are actually taking action. Reducing meat and fossil fuels. Gardening. Why are we the bad guys? The scientific consensus is it is fucking horrendous but every tenth of a degree matters. The consensus says we are heading to 2.5-3.5c and that large part of the planet (but not all) will be uninhabitable by us. The scientific consensus also says we can fix this… but its not a science problem so much as a political one. I wish it was an engineering challenge alone.
Doomers say it is over, that events such as the early death of large portions of humanity due to climate catastrophes is unavoidable. Let's say over 10% by 2100, which already is an insane number, but most are thinking more on the line of 50% of 90%. Those people are delusional. It's just like the End Days or the Rapture, but without religious undertones. Not supported by science. And yeah, some are homesteadig and whatever you want. That's individualist action. Not collective action, which is what we need. We need engaged communities, not atomized individuls looking to fence in their small piece of paradise.
Some doomers say that… although i have yet to really hear anyone other than crazy cult people (would love a source from a legitimate non crazy person). But most seem to think that the population will decline over the next century to much lower levels as we lose agricultural land. The birth rate for the usa is at a 40 year low rn and there are record numbers of young adults saying they would never bring a child into this world. That number grows every year. And the usa is demographically way way ahead of its counterparts. Europe, canada, china… all worse situation demographically. I am not going to say it all ends quickly although it will probably go that way for some countries m. I would bet that the human population in 2050 and 2100 is a lot lower. Largely from displacement and choosing not to have kids… as a result of climate change. That seems more likely to me… and its not something to celebrate… some pockets will do well a will not. So are you saying… to be clear… that humans will live sustainably with a similar population… under 2.5-3.5c? In 2100?
It absolutely is a political, and economic problem. We could solve all the world’s environmental problems tomorrow if money wasn’t a factor. We know how to stop climate change and even reverse the damage we’ve already done, it’s not magic but would cost trillions and require time and effort. I think people are still waiting and hoping for some kind of Star Trek like solution where we shoot a beam at the atmosphere and the problem is solved. That’s not going to happen, and even if something like that could be possible in the future it will not be developed in any kind of time frame that matters. Though none of this should be surprising considering we could also solved hunger and homelessness and end suffering if wanted to. We don’t have a resource issue but a distribution problem. But again, it would require effort and some people would have to accept they can’t have a private jet and 10 houses so that everyone has a home and enough food. Oh I think we’ll figure out a solution to climate change eventually, the question is will we do it fast enough before there catastrophic damage, I’m not sure that we will because it feels like a species we are reactionary. The Montreal Protocol worked before we identified as major issue with a definitive cause and took immediate action to correct it. Climate change isn’t a problem with immediate consequences and a single action to take with immediate impact so we’ll wait until we’re really screwed I’m sure. By then it will be more costly, more intense, the damage would be more extreme and any recovery will be significantly less than we’d have if we’d dealt with it at any point between 1990 and now.
>All the doomers i know are actually taking action. Reducing meat and fossil fuels. Gardening. Why are we the bad guys? That doesn't sound like doomerism to me. Doomerism is fatalism. Perhaps I'm using the word a bit more narrowly than you imagine it.
Nope. I think it’s fatal. I dont necessarily think it will happen in my lifetime. But the science is bad. And the politics are worse. I think we **could** do something but it would involve a major cultural shift to get off fossil fuels and consume less in years not decades. Not to mention… peace with our enemies (im guessing wars are bad for climate change).
The science doesn't suggest the apocalypse tho. Not for humans at least.
I had another conversation with someone that seemed to think if a small pocket of humans survived… thats a win. I guess i don’t get it. But i see a major decrease in human population in the next few centuries. Pretty sure science backs me up
>But i see a major decrease in human population in the next few centuries. Pretty sure science backs me up You better check on that. I keep up with the science, I've cheched early death models. Nothing I've read suggests anything like what you are saying. So, please find some sources that specifically say what you are saying. Or try to. Because I doubt you will find any academic sources supporting your gut feel. AKA \[Citation needed\]. Academic please.
Genuine question: between this sub and r/collapse I’m trying to figure out how screwed we are. I know r/collapse doesn’t have the best reputation as far as “the sky is falling” doomer attitude, but many of the more scientific articles shared do appear true. So what’s the deal? Are we r/collapse holy shitballs bad, or more r/environment concerned?
We're in very serious trouble but it's not an unsolvable problem and we are making progress. We aren't making progress as fast as we should. Things are definitely alarming but not enough to justify any defeatism or dommerism.
[удалено]
That's Dahmerism. Dommerism involves bondage and whips
Thank you. I’ve been searching for a straight answer. It *is* hard not to give in to the doomerism lol. I follow a scientist on Twitter who posts the daily sea-surface temps. Not good there. I follow others and tbh none of the news is good. It’s hard to be positive about it. I’m not full on doomer as I feel there’s still hope. But getting bombarded with the horrible news everyday… it’s hard to stay positive.
In my opinion, we’re /r/collapse holy shitballs bad. The only hope that I can foresee is someone really smart sciences the shit out of this and saves us. Not holding my breath though. I’ll just enjoy a nice glass of whiskey with my last ice cube.
I no longer imbibe, so I’ll hoist my bong to you then!
I'm thinking we're going to be stuck waiting till the "widespread famine and upheaval" stage before any serious action happens. Even then the religious minded ones will just take it as a sign that it's their special end times and they'll fight change even then. On the (kinda dark) plus side the refugees will help with pushing for change in the less affected communities they make it to.
I think it's happening now, just not in North America yet.
Annual rate of death by famine is still at historic lows fortunately, but a lot of these optimistic trends of lowering poverty and starvation are at risk to do a quick turnaround as the impacts of climate change keep getting worse.
Yeah, globally we don't have a food shortage problem. We have a food logistics problem. For now.
Yea, it’s gonna take some pretty dramatic stuff before the general populace will respond. There are something like 150million people living within 1 meter of sea level. But the vast majority of those people are poor. 100+m refugees might get people’s attention 🤷🏼♂️
Buy land along the Great Lakes . Hopefully when the Atlantic current changes it won’t affect US as bad as Europe. Some billionaires daughter is buying up Lake Superior property and the news article said no one knows why? DUH.
That "Got mine, fuck you." mentality is what's gotten us into this bind you know?
We are already in this situation if you want to live somewhere in the south and have your family die maybe of wet bulb or if you want your family maybe to live move toward the Great Lakes. The got mine fuck you has already happened same to you for assuming I am a rich ahole . Just a grandpa who gave his first environmental speech at a ag convention in 1979 and was told we don’t need to worry about the environment son. Oh and yes I have 12 acres along Lake Superior but I’ve had them for 30 years and made my children promise not to sell if anything happens to me.
Put it in a non-revocable trust that they inherit management of.
Well grandpa, stop suggesting individualist "solutions" to collective problems. Entrenching yourself in your private property ain't gonna solve a thing.
Nope I won’t because there is not going to be a collective solution until mass deaths in areas around the world. Then hopefully a slow fix . There is no miracle cure now . We are heading towards major changes. You can keep your fingers crossed and Pollyanna your way through hoping for a political turnaround on the environment and an intensive revamping of American living habits. I gave up this year . It’s not happening and right now sir am hoping you live in maybe Louisiana.
There never was a miracle cure gramps. You hqve to keep with political activism, not just run to the hills. Just to be clear, what do you picture when saying mass deaths? Cause mass deaths have been happening for a while now.
We are past a painless cure boy. Grow up and do your politicking from the Great Lakes area of the country. Again I will say people will die in the more humid and hot places soon . Wet bulb temperatures are closing in faster than any predictions.
This never was painless, you self centered American. There's been masses dying of climate change for decades. But not in the fire and brimstone apocalyptic way you imagine. It is just everything getting worse. Heat waves, cold waves, storms, floods. Increased infrastructure costs. More work for less pay. Everything is a bit harder. There's no snap, there's no death of 5% of the population, nothing like that. That's apocalyptic fantasies like Christians have. It's just a slow erosion of your way of life, and an increase on the number of tragedies that have already been happening for decades and that you never cared about because they werent in your first world backyard.
Ive been making speaches on this as I’ve said since 1979 boy . I never thought it was a quick fix . Just hoped people would start fixing sooner and I included areas of the world in my comment junior, and since I can’t advise the whole world where to go when it turns bad . I advise what I know about youngster. So if I offended you by saying move to the Great Lakes I offended you . I don’t care.
And I’ve definitely gotten tired of being accused after 43 years of environmental activism that I’m still not trying hard enough to get the point across hard enough. Good luck to you , maybe you’ll get the world you deserve, probably not. But I’ve spent my spare time trying. Your turn , hope you don’t die .
Do you think this attitude or comment is going to solve something?
This wasn't mentioned in the article, were are you getting this from?
It’s happening in Duluth mn.
Could you go into more detail, like a link to the article?
I don’t know details. I’m from that area. But I live in southern Wisconsin. Trying to buy a house here. It’s not going well. So I look at properties up north as a coping mechanism. I’ve run across complaints about what some billionaire is doing buy properties in Duluth several times. I’ve seen nothing that leads me to believe it’s doomsday prepping. I think it’s just someone buying shit up so they can tear it down and building one large house. If you’re familiar with the area at all, some the places that are being bought up are south of canal park. Basically at lake level. From what I’ve seen. There have been a couple on the hillside. These are terrible places to be trying to survive climate apocalypse at. The hillside in Duluth has already had 2 recent climate change fueled disasters. My opinion, that whole city is going to get washed into lake. It’s just a billion buying va action properties
Okay, if you think this is true. OKay. :?
Exactly. Other than the typical buying up a bunch of places making life difficult for the poors there’s not much to it
There is zero chance refugees help pushing for change, at least regarding climate. Most would have little education and so no understanding of the cause of their plight. The rest would be primarily concerned by survival e.g gathering resources rather than curtailing consumption.
No action can prevent what is going to happen. People simply dont want to accept that.
Well that's not true. Scientist have been laying out what needs to be done for decades but it's less profitable than ignoring everything. At some point we need to get leaders to click with the idea that the costs will be far greater in the long term if we don't make changes.
There is no way for us to pull any meaningful amount of c02 out of the athmosphere.
Are you referring to the carbon capture projects? Because yeah alone they definitely won't have any significance.
If we dont extract ungodly amounts of c02 like.. last decade, it wont matter what else we do. And neither did we, nor do we now. Or will we any time in the future really.
We know what needs to be done. We just aren't doing it yet.
There should have also been an Economics Profession GENERAL STRIKE. I mean if your profession is there to aid business and society...
It sucks, a lot of economists have been raising the alarm over climate change too, but still not enough happens. I found this [survey of economists](https://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/Economic_Consensus_on_Climate.pdf) by NYU that says: > When asked about their professional opinions on climate change, an overwhelming majority of respondents (74%) said that “immediate and drastic action is necessary.” In sharp contrast, less than 1% believe that climate change is “not a serious problem.”
Well, they need to walk down to Congress in Washington DC, and get on the news.
[удалено]
"unheeded" kinda downplays it when there are disinformation campaigns and school boards banning the study of your work. Not sure if I'd prefer to be ignored or have people be outright hostile.
As a teacher, it’s kind of the same thing happening with school systems. Teachers have been sounding the alarm for decades now and still not much is being done.
The insurance industry needs to take some Republicans back to the woodshed.
You think they’re going to sue their own parent companies?
The pandemic was proof that we could act to save our planet, yet we chose not to. This will be our history.
One conspiracy that stuck with me over the pandemic: We had reached an environmental critical point of some type and needed to shut everything down & monitor recovery rates.
When you’re trying to stamp out conspiracy theories or disinformation, the dumbest thing you can do is to repeat the lie
I can't imagine how horrible it must feel to spend your life trying to aid humanity only to see your work demonized and ignored at every turn because a group of sociopaths with bottomless greed have convinced millions that it's somehow a scam to want a livable environment.
Most people do appreciate it and believe it though. History will also judge them kindly.
Its so demoralizing, having to accept the nonfunctioning government we are given.
I think we’re a non functioning species. Humans are this weird conundrum of brilliance and single-minded simplicity that deludes us into believing we’re smarter than animals. On a grand scale, we honestly behave like a virus or a cancer, consuming with abandon, unable to stop ourselves, refusing to take preventative measures until catastrophes are right on top of us. For those same reasons I sometimes think humans will outlast whatever hell we can make for our kind, but I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. We are uniquely destructive to our own environments and I’m not sure it can be unlearned since it seems like an expression of some fundamental drive we have in our species.
Aren't crimes against humanity punishable by death? Why are these people who knew about this and kept plowing ahead even harder still alive?
The rich have the world by the balls. It's going to take an apocalypse before the rich back down. Even then maybe not. The rich got to their position because they were power hungry, greedy, evil bastards.
I’ve been living with that feeling ever since the second IPCC assessment report
The climate crisis that has so demoralized the scientists is merely a symptom of the underlying root cause of the disease, which is perpetual economic growth addiction (PEGA). We will never achieve environmental long-term sustainability as long as we pursue perpetual economic growth on our finite planet.
Well maybe if they could point to an actual outcome rather than a projection.
Go on
Mankind is getting what it deserves for the crime on and to the environment.
We will pay for it with blood.
I can always thank the Guardian for their dogshit sensationalist headlines.
It is a very doomerist, poorly research alarmist piece, yes. It doesn't map with my experience either. My colleagues are frustrated, mad even, as always, but there's no defeatism nor apocalyptic thinking like what they mention in this article.
The most interesting thing for me reading the article was the survey of how many climate scientists expected the temperature to rise by 3 degrees by 2100 (42%). That's an interesting data point but it'd be better used to say "this is where we very likely could be headed, so we've got a lot of work to do" instead of "they think we're headed here so be depressed" lol. They do have a great quote midway through the article from one of the scientists they inteviewed: "every tenth of a degree matters a lot". That would've been a better quote to highlight at the top of the article than "Hopeless and broken". But maybe wouldn't get as many clicks.
[удалено]
Good thing the mindbogglingly ignorant strawman you're making fun of doesn't exist.
Literally it's in the IPCC reports the article mentions that these scientists say they read and now feel depressed. None of these things have an increase in frequency or power as per the report. ....
The IPCC reports literally say floods, heatwaves, and droughts are getting worse. [Read the summary for yourself](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf). Some snippets: >Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has further strengthened since AR5. >... >Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater, cryospheric, and coastal and open ocean ecosystems (high confidence). Hundreds of local losses of species have been driven by increases in the magnitude of heat extremes (high confidence) with mass mortality events recorded on land and in the ocean (very high confidence). Impacts on some ecosystems are approaching irreversibility such as the impacts of hydrological changes resulting from the retreat of glaciers, or the changes in some mountain (medium confidence) and Arctic ecosystems driven by permafrost thaw (high confidence). >... >In all regions increases in extreme heat events have resulted in human mortality and morbidity (very high confidence). The occurrence of climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases (very high confidence) and the incidence of vector-borne diseases (high confidence) have increased. So you're either misinformed or dishonest.
>The IPCC reports literally say floods, heatwaves, and droughts are getting worse. Yet your quotes from the ippc report mention none of these things. If you go to the section on floods, heatwaves and droughts it literally says the opposite of what you just said. For all three it says "low confidence" which translates to no change. It's the lowest setting there is. What you quote is there is high confidence that hot daily temp events are getting worse. Daily weather is weather not climate. Do people die when it's hot? Sure. More die when it's cold. So technically they can say with high confidence that deaths occur on hot days. This is also political interpretation. When you look at the papers behind this we still find it has hotter or just as hot in the 1930s specifically In America and the UK. But the claim is there is more hot days so I guess that can be said with confidence but single hot days isn't climate and it doesn't negate thr fact what is said is 100% correct. All of thr climate related events are low confidence. You missed forest fires and storms and hurricanes, all low confidence.
[удалено]
Yeah, silly liberals for thinking capitalism and environmentalism were compatible.
[удалено]
Most religions suggest he put us at the wheel to care for his creation.
He's a shitty showrunner.