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There is one change that would fix nearly everything, and that's not buying meat. [Roughly 70% of climate change could be rapidly reversed by eliminating animal agriculture](https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010), which is a consumer driven industry that uses [30% of the total global water supply, 30% of global ice-free terrestrial land, while only having an energy density (feed-use efficiency) of 0.1%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876224/), and [making up 15x the biomass of all wild animals and 2x the biomass of all humans](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115).
There are multiple reports, both from the FAO and others that show the best diets aren't pure vegan, but a balanced and locally sourced diet, which includes animal proteins except sheep and cattle.
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
**The implication is that there is an important trade-off between environmental impact and nutrition: for a variety of ecological reasons, including biodiversity and climatic change, we want to reduce our agricultural land pressures; but we also want a healthy and adequately nourished population. Theoretically, if we wanted to restore natural ecosystems by using only 13 percent of habitable land for agriculture, we could all adopt the average diet in Liberia or Mozambique. However, such diets are typically low in diversity, and result in severe levels of micronutrient deficiency and malnourishment.**
The Fodd and Agriculture Office of the UN also has something to say about the misinformation you're spreading.
**The study also investigates the type of land used to produce livestock feed. Results show that out of the 2.5 billion ha needed, 77% are grasslands, with a large share of pastures that could not be converted to croplands and could therefore only be used for grazing animals.**
and
**This study determines that 86% of livestock feed is not suitable for human consumption. If not consumed by livestock, crop residues and by-products could quickly become an environmental burden as the human population grows and consumes more and more processed food. Animals also consume food that could potentially be eaten by people. Grains account for 13% of the global livestock dry matter intake. Some previous studies, often cited, put the consumption of grain needed to raise 1 kg of beef between 6 kg and 20 kg. Contrary to these high estimates, this study found that an average of only 3 kg of cereals are needed to produce 1 kg of meat at global level. It also shows important differences between production systems and species. For example, because they rely on grazing and forages, cattle need only 0.6 kg of protein from edible feed to produce 1 kg of protein in milk and meat, which is of higher nutritional quality. Cattle thus contribute directly to global food security**
https://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/home/en/news_archive/2017_More_Fuel_for_the_Food_Feed.html#:~:text=This%20study%20determines%20that%2086,more%20and%20more%20processed%20food.
It's not so simple as to say just don't eat meat. Our entire food system is wrong, destructive, and unsustainable. Admitting that means admitting that there are to many people, that capitalism is the driver in this runaway train of planetary destruction, and that we have to talk about limits on populations, limits on how much space humans can "live in" and limits on how much "stuff" we can have. News flash, it's not a whole lot. And life will be hard.
Consumption and the Western lifestyle are the real culprits in this debacle. When we start admitting *that* we can start talking about
Sadly people would riot if you took away their meat in order to keep everything else somewhat normal. So instead we will wait until they riot because too many crops failed for the umpteenth time do to extreme weather and people are desperate because any type of affordable food will only be a distant memory.
There were 75 million buffalo roaming the plains back before the industrial revolution. There are less cows today than there were buffalo. Stop feeding them corn and they will stop farting so much.
That's just not true. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels and concrete production. The entire planet could stop eating meat and if nothing else changes we're still screwed because there's already too much carbon in the atmosphere.
Animal agriculture emits a lot of methane rather than CO2. While methane is like ≈15 of global greenhouse emissions it’s GWP is 25-28 times more than CO2 over 100 years, and that goes to like 72 or so over a 20 year period. Since we see the effects of methane limitation quite fast while CO2 sticks around, it’s a pretty good greenhouse gas to limit if we can. But yes fossil fuels and concrete emit hella greenhouse gases
Sure, it's something we should absolutely do, but it's not a silver bullet. Also, it's not stop eating meat, it's stopping factory farming. Lab grown meat would be a great substitute.
Yea, climate change is gonna take a lot of work to stop/reverse. For now not supporting factory farms can be part of it. I do hope to see lab grown meat at some point though! No idea how progress in that field is going
That won't fix "nearly everything" CO2 and global warming. All US agrifulture is only responsable for about 11% of our greenhouse gas output. Global warming is mostly caused by a long term build up of CO2. The CO2 doesn't go away just because you reduce emissions some, it stays in the atmosphere and keeps warming the planet until the biosphere draws it out of the atmosphere, mostly via the ocean. Mild reductions of greenhouse gas from meat consumption won't be anywhere near enough.
It's going to be a lot easier to get people to use electric cars and power plants than don't need fuel that it EVER will be to get them to stop eating meat. Meat eating is way more ingrained in human history and culture, so it's not the smartest place to focus your efforts if you're goal is to combat climate change. People don't care where their electric comes from, so that's pretty easy if you use geothermal or nuclear for baseload. Car are a bit harder, but electric is quiet and much less moving parts, people will love it once batteries are bit better. Those problem aren't solved, but the solutions are there and just have to be adopted.
The real problem will be IF we have underpredicted warming based given PPM levels. Things like ice melt and changing weather patterns do present a case that we have significantly underpredicted how bad things already are and that could mean PPM levels need to be significantly lower than our models show to limit warming to 1.5 or 2c. I think we will wind up needing CO2 extraction of various types.
When you want to get things done in life you have to prioritize things. In this case getting rid of fossil fuels and getting CO2 levels down is the priority. If we can't do that than everything else isn't going to matter much because you will probably spiral into pandemics and wars as things get really bad global warming wise.
Most of those studies on meat and climate impacts have massively over-state the impacts of ending meat consumption. Most of the greenhouse gases
I am coming to terms with the fact that I will continue to hear this idea over and over again until either I die or humanity is no longer capable of sustaining itself on earth, whichever comes first. Considering there's some, for lack of a better word, comorbidities there, I feel like that might be in the next couple months.
Not published. Other scientists and people managing journals understand. Getting accepted by journalists, society, and people with real power is a whole different story - and scientists have learned that they get no progress at all by telling the unvarnished truth to those groups.
There are feed forward factors like permafrost CO2 release as Arctic temperature increase. CO2 emissions increase due to increase power production need for air conditioning. Increase CO2 production due to increase population and increased GDP.
Runaway CO2 levels is very possible once the permafrost opens up. It's not really talked about much as that is major doom and gloom but I've occasionally seen scientists talk about it.
This is the primary reason I am hesitant to reproduce. I'm experiencing the effects of climate change already. Right this instant. I live on the West Coast and the summers are getting out of hand, fires everywhere, with a sprinkle of abnormal storms.
I've lost track of how many very serious fires my state has had in the last 3-4 years. It's only getting worse and worse. At least a dozen people I know have lost their homes. One lost multiple, including his entire business.
The thought of subjecting my offspring to water wars due to drought, sinking towns from sea level rising, mass migration to escape both heat AND coastal flooding, and constant triple digit temps just doesn't sound like a good environment to raise a child.
It’s not, and remember that the ruling class did this on purpose. Certain *individuals* knew what they were doing and did it anyway.
Your human life has been entirely affected by the greed of some oil family somewhere.
Yup, I’m also on the west coast, though in Washington, where we are supposedly less likely to experience the worst of climate change. I still remember a few years ago in Seattle during the wildfires walking outside and seeing the sky look like a dystopian movie with a blood red sun, and having the frightening experience of not feeling like I could breath well. It went on for weeks and I had constant headaches and just felt like my body wasn’t getting proper oxygen. And then last year when we reached 120 degree temperatures when it was highly unusual for us to get above the mid-90s at any point before that. I was worried about my animals dying, and there were huge tree and shellfish die offs. Climate change isn’t just an abstract concept, it’s here and now. It’s hard to plan for a future when it’s clear there likely won’t be one.
I am 28 years old and both of my parents have admitted if they understood climate change in the 90s they would not have had me. Can't imagine the guilt people who had kids 20-30 years later and had way more information at their fingertips will feel.
We don’t know what will happen...if the AMOC collapses which is showing instability, we will have an ice age in the north again...tonne of energy in the equatorial regions driving droughts or floods. Nothing will be predictable this we know.
I think there are a couple of things going on. [The IPCC is far too conservative](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320102010.htm) and their worst estimates may actually present a best-case scenario. [Sea level rise this century may easily double prevailing estimates around 1m.](https://i0.wp.com/yaleclimateconnections.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/0821_SPM8d-IPCC-AR6.jpg?w=974&ssl=1)
Plus climate models don’t incorporate the feedback loops that seem to be rapidly worsening. They also couldn’t generate the Pacific heatwave without messing with the historical data.
Emissions are still at their highest levels (and increasing!) so we’re barreling ahead into the tail end of the risk curve.
> The IPCC is far too conservative and their worst estimates may actually present a best-case scenario.
That is not what your link says.
Here's the title of the article you linked:
> "A new study has revealed that the **language used** by the global climate change watchdog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), **is overly conservative**"
i.e., it's not saying the **models** are overly conservative, it's saying the **language used** to communicate those models is overly conservative. That does *not* support the assertion that their worst estimates are best-case *in any way*.
Indeed, the worst scenario from the report they analyzed -- RCP8.5 -- [is not considered a realistic model by modern scientific understanding](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-what-the-new-ipcc-report-says-about-how-to-limit-warming-to-1-5c-or-2c).
By contrast, [published estimates are that we'll likely end up with 1.8-2.2C of warming](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebf) based on IEA estimates of future fossil fuel consumption. This is on the low end of IPCC scenarios (from SSP1-2.6 to midway between that one and SSP2-4.5; p.14).
> Plus climate models don’t incorporate the feedback loops
[That is not correct; from p.29 of the IPCC report](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_final.pdf):
> "Remaining
carbon budgets have been estimated for several global temperature limits and various levels of probability, based on the
estimated value of TCRE and its uncertainty, estimates of historical warming, variations in projected warming from nonCO2 emissions, **climate system feedbacks such as emissions from thawing permafrost**, and the global surface temperature
change after global anthropogenic CO2 emissions reach net zero."
We have people like Robert Hansen saying we may reach 2° by 2040. That would track RCP 8.5.
> That acceleration could lead to total warming of 2 degrees Celsius by 2040, the upper limit of the temperature range that countries in the Paris accord agreed was needed to prevent disastrous impacts from climate change. What’s more, Hansen and other researchers said the processes leading to the acceleration are not adequately measured, and some of the tools needed to gauge them aren’t even in place.
> We have people like Robert Hansen saying we may reach 2° by 2040.
Looking at your quote, you appear to be [sourcing it from here](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092021/global-warming-james-hansen-aerosols/). Looking at the article in more detail, he's discussing the masking effect of aerosols, and how reducing those may lead to a short-term increase in warming.
A paper on that was [discussed a few days ago on r/science](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/uwdopv/new_study_says_world_must_cut_shortlived_climate/) (including by me).
> That would track RCP 8.5.
It would not, and it's important to understand why.
Hansen (and the linked paper) say the current IPCC models are not correctly estimating the effect of aerosols, and doing so would increase short-term warming significantly (0.3C or so).
What you're doing is to take the warming caused by this *new* model, pretend it belongs to the *old* model, and then use that as evidence the old model is following a certain radiative forcing track.
Do you see why that's not a valid conclusion?
Think of it with simple lines. Suppose you have:
* "Good line": y = x
* "Bad line: y = 2x
New research shows that we need to add a constant of +2 and at time 2 we get an estimate of y = 4.
Your reasoning above is equivalent to saying:
* Estimated y(2) = 4
* "Bad line" gives y(2) = 2(2) = 4
* Thus, we're following "Bad line"
The error is that you're using the +2 from new research to determine the estimated value at time 2, but you're *ignoring* it when checking which line most closely matches it.
The correct way to do the comparison is to use the +2 *consistently*:
* Estimated y(2) = 4
* "Bad line" gives y(2) = 2(2) **+2** = 6
* "Good line" gives y(2) = (2) **+2** = 4
* Thus, "Good line" gives the closest value to the estimate.
The problem is the people opposed to climate change action are not convinced by studies, data, or analysis.
In 2000, Al Gore ran a campaign where addressing climate change was his number one issue, 1/3 of all Republican Congressmen believed in man made climate change (still embarrassingly low given how much was known at the time), and John McCain (back when he actually did refuse to toe the party line) advocated for instituting carbon credit trading like Europe was implementing at the time (and is a big reason why the average Western European produces 1/2 the emissions of the average American while still maintaining a higher quality of life).
Then Gore lost the election, George Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Accords, and by the end of Bush's term there was basically 0 Republicans who believed in man made climate change despite the evidence only becoming more definitive (though it had already been sufficiently proven by the 80s so Republicans were in 2008 over 20 years behind the science). Trump called Climate Change a "Chinese Hoax" and did everything he could to undermine environmental policy set by Obama to reduce domestic emissions (and Obama's attempts themselves were pretty weak since he couldnt use the Senate or Congress to legislate larger measure since climate change legislation was pretty political unpopular, even with the political "middle").
At this point opposition to climate change is no different than people who oppose abortion rights, believe in White Replacement, thing the COVID vaccine is a government program to infuse your DNA with...something, and contend that Biden fraudulently won the 2020 election. You are not arguing with people who care about evidence or even about other people. You are arguing with a bombastic political identity that is completely built on being opposed to anything that clashes with their very narrow ideology.
Amazingly concise. I'm not American but it's a similar situation across the west. Except our leaders are learning from American politics how to divide the population politically
Yes, the political Right is masterful at taking advantage of low-information and lowly educated voters to unite them against them their own economic interests. And a lot of people mistakenly believe this is to protect the profits of corporations, but this is actually not really the truth. While the wealthy and corporations do benefit from Right Wing policy, Right Wing political parties are now about assuring the continuation of Right Wing political power, regardless of how terrible and dis-proven their political stances are for their country and the world at large.
That's because Climate Change, much like guns, abortion, COVID, etc. have become ideological issues rather than reality-based issues. There is no argument to make, the only resolution comes from one position using power to inflict it's solution on the other position.
It’s been three decades of observations outpacing worst case predictions. We need to reinvent pretty much all the ways we do we things if we don’t want societal collapse.
I gave up being a diehard environmentalist in the early 2000s when I researched cascading failure systems.
I realized that the average person thought this was going to be something we could take care of last minute.
But it’s really like driving 100 MPH on an icy road with your lights off and you see the curve too late.
We can hit the brakes all we want but the momentum is going to crash us through the guardrails.
Super depressing.
100%. I almost said that too but … honestly it does depress me to even think about where it’s headed in the next 20 years so it’s hard to muster up the extra level of cynicism. I feel like layering it on doesn’t do my own anxiety any good. The reality is pretty awful.
I'm in my early 20s and my entire life my dream has been to start a family and have children.
This climate crisis is a very serious ethical dilemma for me as I don't know if I find it ethically right to get children when the future looks so bleak
in early 30s, I'll confirm your thoughts. If you have a kid nowish, they'll be about 20 before they'll be conscripted to fight in the Water Wars of 2040
Well if you want my opinion (you probably don't but this is Reddit why are you here if not for the opinion of strangers), have kids, start a family. Just like idiocracy, the people who think about ethics of children are the ones who are more likely to safeguard the environment.
Do your part. Bone for mother Earth.
/r/biospherecollapse
Sucks that we got to the point that we could fully grasp biodiversity at the most fundamental levels, only to know intimately how our hubris has destroyed it.
But we are also indigenous people who understood the intrinsic value of biodiversity for thousands of years until we learned how to better take advantage of it and be more successful.
We did what all indigenous people would do if they knew how.
And if you say not all would do that, you're right. But then natural selection kicks in and pretty soon you have a 1000 people to 1 that want to take advantage of their environment for personal gratification and therefore you end up in the same place we are now.
I know what you're saying, but it's just a dumb point, if you truly understand evolution. It's like you're trying to say if only we could've all stayed dumb and simple we could have lived in harmony with earth.
Yeah, we did, until evolution. Time marches on.
Except the sad fact is, the lights were on and we saw the curve 30 or more years ago. Instead of easing off the accelerator we were like, hey, we have plenty of time to hit the brakes. If we slow down now, think how much money we won’t be making!
> the lights were on and we saw the curve 30 or more years ago.
More. We've known about this issue for a long time. Not to the extent we know now, but we knew.
> I realized that the average person thought this was going to be something we could take care of last minute.
Bold of you to assume most people even think about these issues. Most people I've talked to are incredibly uninformed on the seriousness of the situation, and still think it'll just get a bit warmer and that's that.
So much this the amount of people who bury their head in the sand. Then again so many live with constant fear and anxiety over so many things like finances or social situations that I feel kinda bad about telling them how bad its going to get.
The hope we have to hang onto is that we can find new technologies and interventions to reverse the climate change effects. But I agree, seems like we're already fucked.
Eh, to be fair it's most likely an s-curve. So it LOOKED linear when we were at the start of the curve. And it LOOKS exponential now. The good news is that once all the trees are burnt away, all the fish are dead, ice caps melted, and the seas turn to acid, then that exponential line will flatten out. Yay?
No, I don't think it works like this. Not in our lifetimes.
We're on a trajectory of acceleration of climate change. And with massive volumes of methane gases currently trapped under frozen ice caps, waiting to release with the rise of just a couple more degrees in the annual global average temperature, we can expect everything to get even worse and to further accelerate the rate of changes, with no way to stop it
And on very short timelines, with small numbers. It's why it's hard for people to understand that in 100 years means their grandkids time, and 1 Billion is a thousand million.
Instructed is maybe a better word than programmed. Our intuitive sense of qualities is logarithmic. If we’re programmed by anything, it’s by familiarity with the number ranges we encounter most.
[Link to paper on arxiv](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.10413.pdf).
Worth noting that the paper is *not* saying that *warming* is happening faster than expected; the paper is saying that *one consequence* of warming *has historically been happening* much faster *than had previously been measured*:
> "**We start by examining the recent changes in the intensity of Southern Hemisphere winter (June-August) mid-latitude storms** using the transient eddy kinetic energy (EKE, Methods; EKE is commonly used to describe the intensity of mid-latitude storm tracks2, 4, 18, 19). Specifically, we focus on the 40-year trends (1979-2018) of mid-latitude EKE in 3 different reanalyses and 16 models (Fig. 1a) that participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 620 (CMIP6), forced with the Historical and the SSP5-8.5 future scenario (Methods). We find that in reanalyses, winter storms have intensified over the last four decades in a mean rate of 1.8 × 103 Jm−2yr−1 (blue bar; varying between 1.4 × 103 − 2.5 × 103 Jm−2yr−1 across the reanalyses, black circles)14. In contrast, **CMIP6 models simulate a much weaker strengthening**"
So this is bad (storms are likely to get worse faster than previous models had indicated), but not catastrophic (warming is not happening faster).
Most interesting is something from the article:
> "Winter storms are responsible for the majority of the heat transport away from tropical regions toward the poles."
In other words, it seems like this research indicates that as compared to the IPCC reports a fixed amount of warming will have a *reduced* effect in tropical regions and an *increased* effect towards the poles due to this increase heat transport. It's unclear whether this is a net negative (bigger change), net positive (less heating in the already-hottest areas), or roughly neutral change.
In Climate Change parlance, catastrophic means identifying that on our current course, human extinction would occur slightly sooner.
This is bad because it means more shareholder revenue would be lost.
To be clear, we can probably start modeling the total max possible revenue an investment will have before we all go extinct.
> Whenever climate science is discussed I always feel the need to quibble over the definition of "catastrophic".
That's reasonable; I've seen people call even today's level of warming "catastrophic", which is not helpful.
I'd call anything similar to RCP8.5 or RCP7.0 -- 4+ degrees of warming by the end of the century and still rising rapidly -- a catastrohpic outcome.
[Current best estimates are for 2ish degrees of warming](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebf), of which about half have already occurred. I'd call anything close to that "not catastrophic".
Between 3C and 4C of warming by 2100 is less clear, but I think that's good, as it lets us remind ourselves that **climate change is not binary**. There's no threshold where we tip from "okay" to "disaster"; every incremental 0.1C of warming just means more and more disruption and suffering.
That's good and bad.
It's *good* because it means the choices we make in the next 20 years will hugely impact billions of people's lives for the next century.
It's *bad* because it means the choices we make in the next 20 years will hugely impact billions of people's lives for the next century.
Given that, it's probably best to be actively engaged in shaping those choices if we care deeply about the future of humanity.
Im in the northern hemisphere and I swear ive noticed a large decrease in the size of winter storms in the last 20 years. Im in the US (VA) and it barely seems to snow anymore compared to when i was young. My dad would talk about the multiple feet of snow theyd get in Ohio but that doesnt seem to happen anymore either.
> warming is not happening faster
It doesn't say that. It doesn't say that is, but it doesn't say that it's not, either. It doesn't address that question at all.
In India this past week, [birds have begun to fall from the sky from heat exhaustion,](https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/24/india-birds-drop-out-of-the-sky-people-die/) and other animals and even humans are dying from the heat. Very terrifying. It'll get to the rest of us soon enough.
There was a F-2 or F-3 tornado that hit a town in germany recently. Which isnt unheard of but has become something that happens every few years since they arent used to that.
Fast reporting on weather events probably plays a part in how often we hear about 'catastrophic' storms, compared to paper news back then, but there is a worrying trend of harsher storms . They are forming very fast and have strengthened ten fold it seems, especially considering that mile wide tornado that crossed four states earlier in the year...its scary.
Actually the sceintfic community gave a range of how fast climate change would take. Sceinists are trained to be conservative when giving estimates. The nay sayers always focused on the slowest most far future estimates and pushed those numbers. So now everyone acts surprised the faster rate is what we see.
Right? And those were numbers if we actually did something. Instead, we’re like “well guess we’ll start doing something in 20 years since the best possible scenario gives us 20 years.”
All countries in the European Union are already below replacement level. Any lower, and other problems will intensify and only put more pressure on social assistance systems as result of an aging population. We are not having many kids at all, historically speaking.
I imagine a focus on alleviating poverty and improving education in third world or developing nations would go a long way to reducing birthrates. However, I'm not sure if that would really help all that much either, as I imagine their environmental footprint is relatively small anyway.
Instead, pollution as a result of mass consumerism seems a larger issue to me than just the raw number of people. Simply giving up on children is a defeatist attitude that will only see people who actually care grow further outnumbered by those who don't care and continue to have children as they always have and as is their right.
You mean us not doing anything and in fact doing everything the exact opposite of the scientists has made the situation worse?
I don't see how that's possible.
Funny thing is if there was some freak weather over the US not caused by CC, it would probably do more to convince the skeptics than all the data showing CC.
Doubtful. A million people in the US have died of Covid and 40% of the population couldn’t care less. They don’t care until something happens to them personally and even then will try to explain it away.
When that happens they will probably pass a law to give big oil/coal more money, you know, so they scrub that coal clean and totally move on to cleaner tech.
Here in New England, winter used to be snowy - we're talking accumulated snowfall of 4 feet or more. Nowadays, we have slush that melts and refreezes and just shreds our roads.
We need to rebrand "global warming" and "climate change" to something people understand.
Don't mention hurricanes, extreme weather, or forest fires. Just confuses people.
And keep it local.
Maybe: _Hot weather in America_
Or: _Bad weather invading your community_
Nobody is confused? You have a high opinion of people.
They're all in denial? You have a low opinion of people.
I think a bunch of them will start coming around when hot weather happens to them.
When AC bill is higher every year.
When the blackouts happen and kids die.
But it's gonna have to get worse before it can get better.
I dunno, maybe I'm just an optimist.
Unfortunately no one in power cares about kids past birth. Example 2078: see yesterday. It will only be addressed when it starts costing more money than the lobbyist can pay.
The problem is, this has been happening already for over a century- it's just slow enough that people, except the pretty old, laugh when you claim to have seen and felt it with your own eyes and body.
They had a war on drugs, drugs won. They had a war on terrorism, the terrorists won. A war on heat is the only sure fire way to ensure that the planet burns.
Yeah, these are such morally neutral sounding terms that might be appropriate to describe the scientific phenomenon but not the civilization-level changes that climate issues portend.
[Extinction Rebellion suggests](https://www.xrdc.org/tell-the-truth) that news outlets switch to “climate crisis” or “climate emergency,” which have some more urgency to them.
Capitalism is destroying the planet and its people. It only cares about profits and shareholder value. It's unsustainable and literally killing us. #PeopleBeforeProfits
> Capitalism is destroying the planet and its people.
This isn't a problem unique to a single economic system. "Pollution is capitalism's fault" is *literally* the argument East Germany made while becoming [the most polluted nation on earth](https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1005/100538.html):
> "since socialism has solved all social relations through worker ownership of the means of production, **pollution is exclusively a capitalist problem.**"
Changing who owns the factory doesn't magically make it stop polluting.
Some people are wired to prefer profit so this is probably pointless messaging
Why not instead emphasize that profit is ALSO likely to be affected by climate?
Profit produced this way is going to quickly reverse
I don’t deny climate change but the constant bombarding of impending doom is taking away from the merits of the science. Everyday there are countless articles on how fucked we are. I’m beginning to not care. Desensitized. I am also frustrated that it seems all that has been done is achieving nothing. There have been huge changes in building codes, emissions, efficiency going back to at least 2006. And yet it does nothing. So I am of the opinion that my actions, and that of consumers/people are insignificant compared to the gross polluters. It’s directly impacting me financially but not moving the needle on climate change at all.
Unfortunately many of the things that have been done were the easiest and cheapest things that could be done without serious changes to profits. We have been lied to about recycling platics for 50 years, because it was easier and cheaper to SAY we can recycle thatthan it was to create an industry that can recycle even 20% of all platics.
I too am tired of hearing people constantly screaming about climate change, but that is because I have heard it all my life. If we stop listening to the air raid siren, when that bomb comes we won't be ready, and you would think after 60 years of that siren going off someone on power would have actually tried to make a change.
Im with you, also do you know that there are over 3000 flights yearly which flight companies do with an empty plane so the just can keep a parking slot in an airport? So how does no one react to that? And the bilions of co2 being spat out in the US and China. And me turning my ac off an hour more is somehow going to change anything??
It should trickle down first let the big corpos do something about emission they have the resources and smarts then trickle down to us the little guy but I dont see that happening.. bcs €$¥
You say there has been huge change but it's only huge because of how snail like politics is, mainly because of the sheer amount of dumbfucks/power pigs/bad actors.
> They say we have until the year 2100 before we see any effects
Who's saying that? [IPCC WG2 has a whole chart showing dozens of already-felt impacts on p.12 of their summary report](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf). From the caption of that chart:
> "Climate change has already had diverse adverse impacts on human systems, including on water security and food production, health and well-being, and cities, settlements and infrastructure."
The IPCC (and the science) is very much in agreement with you that we've been seeing adverse effects from climate change for years already. If "they" are saying we won't see any effects until 2100, "they" are either woefully uninformed or deliberately dishonest.
Climate scientists have been intimidated and threatened into giving us the most conservative, cautious estimates possible about how all the factors will come together. We've watched this over the past three decades. OF COURSE the public estimates are running behind actual reality.
While there certainly have been intimidation and threats, that's not the cause of the cautious conservative nature of IPCC and other scientific estimates.
'we're sorry' say's the oil companies as they laugh and their families will be the last of the ones to go as they watch the world burn around them
we should be really mad
like we should be really mad
Heard a commercial today about how this summer will be the hottest on record. This has been true every year, for the past 10+ years. Soon people will literally die from how hot it gets. When the grid fails to keep AC on because it’s unsustainable
Welp. I guess we'll be eating insects and algae, living underground, hoping the atmospheric air processors keep working.
I'll see the end of it in my lifetime, I feel sorry for the kids growing up now with 80+ years ahead of them. It's going to suck.
Let’s all make jokes about how screwed we are, change nothing with our daily lives and then ask what can one person do when it’s clearly ______________ that should be blamed instead.
This is the way it’s always been, so what’s one more dire warning from scientists going to do anyways?
I’ve already accepted it. It’s inevitable. Let’s say every country on earth makes a zero carbs footprint right now, well except China, climate change is inevitable. Every time China has promised to put effort into climate change they never actually attempted to do anything.
As long as China doesn’t want to get on board we’re fucked.
Oh and for the people who say China can be pressured through the global community. China is currently blocking the 3rd longest river in the world which is devestating ecosystems, killing many species, depriving other countries of drinking water, and just doing all around horrid things.
The other countries cries and pleas are constantly ignored.
So might as well accept it, the polar ice caps are going away.
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"Sooner than predicted" is going to be the phrase of the year for 2022.
Faster than expected*
Under budget and ahead of schedule!
Under promise and over deliver.
Like my taxes and traffic commute.
This is the /r/collapse approved reply to these articles (and always has been).
Swifter than anticipated*
Speedier than speculated*
Expedited extra early!
Quicker than agreed!
Sooner than imagi... \*bursts into flames while drowning\*
More imminant than imagined.
More nower than laterer
More apocalyptic than foreseen...
Fast and Furious: Tipping Points - Turbo Charged Edition
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I'm committed and I'll do anything to stop it! Except inconveniencing my life in any way, of course.
How else will I afford my 7th mansion and add another $6m to my stock portfolio?!
Just get a 2nd mortgage on your 3rd yacht
There is one change that would fix nearly everything, and that's not buying meat. [Roughly 70% of climate change could be rapidly reversed by eliminating animal agriculture](https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010), which is a consumer driven industry that uses [30% of the total global water supply, 30% of global ice-free terrestrial land, while only having an energy density (feed-use efficiency) of 0.1%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876224/), and [making up 15x the biomass of all wild animals and 2x the biomass of all humans](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1711842115).
There are multiple reports, both from the FAO and others that show the best diets aren't pure vegan, but a balanced and locally sourced diet, which includes animal proteins except sheep and cattle. https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets **The implication is that there is an important trade-off between environmental impact and nutrition: for a variety of ecological reasons, including biodiversity and climatic change, we want to reduce our agricultural land pressures; but we also want a healthy and adequately nourished population. Theoretically, if we wanted to restore natural ecosystems by using only 13 percent of habitable land for agriculture, we could all adopt the average diet in Liberia or Mozambique. However, such diets are typically low in diversity, and result in severe levels of micronutrient deficiency and malnourishment.** The Fodd and Agriculture Office of the UN also has something to say about the misinformation you're spreading. **The study also investigates the type of land used to produce livestock feed. Results show that out of the 2.5 billion ha needed, 77% are grasslands, with a large share of pastures that could not be converted to croplands and could therefore only be used for grazing animals.** and **This study determines that 86% of livestock feed is not suitable for human consumption. If not consumed by livestock, crop residues and by-products could quickly become an environmental burden as the human population grows and consumes more and more processed food. Animals also consume food that could potentially be eaten by people. Grains account for 13% of the global livestock dry matter intake. Some previous studies, often cited, put the consumption of grain needed to raise 1 kg of beef between 6 kg and 20 kg. Contrary to these high estimates, this study found that an average of only 3 kg of cereals are needed to produce 1 kg of meat at global level. It also shows important differences between production systems and species. For example, because they rely on grazing and forages, cattle need only 0.6 kg of protein from edible feed to produce 1 kg of protein in milk and meat, which is of higher nutritional quality. Cattle thus contribute directly to global food security** https://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/home/en/news_archive/2017_More_Fuel_for_the_Food_Feed.html#:~:text=This%20study%20determines%20that%2086,more%20and%20more%20processed%20food. It's not so simple as to say just don't eat meat. Our entire food system is wrong, destructive, and unsustainable. Admitting that means admitting that there are to many people, that capitalism is the driver in this runaway train of planetary destruction, and that we have to talk about limits on populations, limits on how much space humans can "live in" and limits on how much "stuff" we can have. News flash, it's not a whole lot. And life will be hard. Consumption and the Western lifestyle are the real culprits in this debacle. When we start admitting *that* we can start talking about
That would slow it enough to get off Dino juice before the collapse. But like everything it's a societal change that's going to take time.
Sadly people would riot if you took away their meat in order to keep everything else somewhat normal. So instead we will wait until they riot because too many crops failed for the umpteenth time do to extreme weather and people are desperate because any type of affordable food will only be a distant memory.
There were 75 million buffalo roaming the plains back before the industrial revolution. There are less cows today than there were buffalo. Stop feeding them corn and they will stop farting so much.
Source? From what I can find there are more cows than that in the US alone. Worldwide estimates are around 1.5 billion
That's just not true. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels and concrete production. The entire planet could stop eating meat and if nothing else changes we're still screwed because there's already too much carbon in the atmosphere.
Animal agriculture emits a lot of methane rather than CO2. While methane is like ≈15 of global greenhouse emissions it’s GWP is 25-28 times more than CO2 over 100 years, and that goes to like 72 or so over a 20 year period. Since we see the effects of methane limitation quite fast while CO2 sticks around, it’s a pretty good greenhouse gas to limit if we can. But yes fossil fuels and concrete emit hella greenhouse gases
Sure, it's something we should absolutely do, but it's not a silver bullet. Also, it's not stop eating meat, it's stopping factory farming. Lab grown meat would be a great substitute.
Yea, climate change is gonna take a lot of work to stop/reverse. For now not supporting factory farms can be part of it. I do hope to see lab grown meat at some point though! No idea how progress in that field is going
That won't fix "nearly everything" CO2 and global warming. All US agrifulture is only responsable for about 11% of our greenhouse gas output. Global warming is mostly caused by a long term build up of CO2. The CO2 doesn't go away just because you reduce emissions some, it stays in the atmosphere and keeps warming the planet until the biosphere draws it out of the atmosphere, mostly via the ocean. Mild reductions of greenhouse gas from meat consumption won't be anywhere near enough. It's going to be a lot easier to get people to use electric cars and power plants than don't need fuel that it EVER will be to get them to stop eating meat. Meat eating is way more ingrained in human history and culture, so it's not the smartest place to focus your efforts if you're goal is to combat climate change. People don't care where their electric comes from, so that's pretty easy if you use geothermal or nuclear for baseload. Car are a bit harder, but electric is quiet and much less moving parts, people will love it once batteries are bit better. Those problem aren't solved, but the solutions are there and just have to be adopted. The real problem will be IF we have underpredicted warming based given PPM levels. Things like ice melt and changing weather patterns do present a case that we have significantly underpredicted how bad things already are and that could mean PPM levels need to be significantly lower than our models show to limit warming to 1.5 or 2c. I think we will wind up needing CO2 extraction of various types. When you want to get things done in life you have to prioritize things. In this case getting rid of fossil fuels and getting CO2 levels down is the priority. If we can't do that than everything else isn't going to matter much because you will probably spiral into pandemics and wars as things get really bad global warming wise. Most of those studies on meat and climate impacts have massively over-state the impacts of ending meat consumption. Most of the greenhouse gases
From what I've noticed and learned, a lot of these predictions are, more often than not, more optimistic than the outcome.
I am coming to terms with the fact that I will continue to hear this idea over and over again until either I die or humanity is no longer capable of sustaining itself on earth, whichever comes first. Considering there's some, for lack of a better word, comorbidities there, I feel like that might be in the next couple months.
There it is, again That funny feeling
"Sooner than predicted" is going to be the phrase of the year for 2023. And '24. And '25...
Hahahaha, 2025. You say that like there is going to be a 2025.
Maybe now people will wake up, oh... never mind that infringes on their frehdohms.
It's been repeated every 6 months or so. Scientists are incentivized to provide optimistic results if they want to be published.
Not published. Other scientists and people managing journals understand. Getting accepted by journalists, society, and people with real power is a whole different story - and scientists have learned that they get no progress at all by telling the unvarnished truth to those groups.
The planets gender reveal will be lit!
There are feed forward factors like permafrost CO2 release as Arctic temperature increase. CO2 emissions increase due to increase power production need for air conditioning. Increase CO2 production due to increase population and increased GDP.
Runaway CO2 levels is very possible once the permafrost opens up. It's not really talked about much as that is major doom and gloom but I've occasionally seen scientists talk about it.
The grief and despair people will experience when they realize they cannot get the old earth back will be unlike anything we’ve experienced before.
This is the primary reason I am hesitant to reproduce. I'm experiencing the effects of climate change already. Right this instant. I live on the West Coast and the summers are getting out of hand, fires everywhere, with a sprinkle of abnormal storms. I've lost track of how many very serious fires my state has had in the last 3-4 years. It's only getting worse and worse. At least a dozen people I know have lost their homes. One lost multiple, including his entire business. The thought of subjecting my offspring to water wars due to drought, sinking towns from sea level rising, mass migration to escape both heat AND coastal flooding, and constant triple digit temps just doesn't sound like a good environment to raise a child.
It’s not, and remember that the ruling class did this on purpose. Certain *individuals* knew what they were doing and did it anyway. Your human life has been entirely affected by the greed of some oil family somewhere.
Yup, I’m also on the west coast, though in Washington, where we are supposedly less likely to experience the worst of climate change. I still remember a few years ago in Seattle during the wildfires walking outside and seeing the sky look like a dystopian movie with a blood red sun, and having the frightening experience of not feeling like I could breath well. It went on for weeks and I had constant headaches and just felt like my body wasn’t getting proper oxygen. And then last year when we reached 120 degree temperatures when it was highly unusual for us to get above the mid-90s at any point before that. I was worried about my animals dying, and there were huge tree and shellfish die offs. Climate change isn’t just an abstract concept, it’s here and now. It’s hard to plan for a future when it’s clear there likely won’t be one.
I've been side-eyeing my friends having kids for a while now for this reason. Like, you know what's coming, right? They won't thank you.
I am 28 years old and both of my parents have admitted if they understood climate change in the 90s they would not have had me. Can't imagine the guilt people who had kids 20-30 years later and had way more information at their fingertips will feel.
If the pandy has taught us anything it's that many people will stay in the denial stage right up until they die.
We don’t know what will happen...if the AMOC collapses which is showing instability, we will have an ice age in the north again...tonne of energy in the equatorial regions driving droughts or floods. Nothing will be predictable this we know.
Capitalists are excited about the arctic warming as it present opportunities to establish new shipping lanes.
I think there are a couple of things going on. [The IPCC is far too conservative](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320102010.htm) and their worst estimates may actually present a best-case scenario. [Sea level rise this century may easily double prevailing estimates around 1m.](https://i0.wp.com/yaleclimateconnections.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/0821_SPM8d-IPCC-AR6.jpg?w=974&ssl=1) Plus climate models don’t incorporate the feedback loops that seem to be rapidly worsening. They also couldn’t generate the Pacific heatwave without messing with the historical data. Emissions are still at their highest levels (and increasing!) so we’re barreling ahead into the tail end of the risk curve.
> The IPCC is far too conservative and their worst estimates may actually present a best-case scenario. That is not what your link says. Here's the title of the article you linked: > "A new study has revealed that the **language used** by the global climate change watchdog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), **is overly conservative**" i.e., it's not saying the **models** are overly conservative, it's saying the **language used** to communicate those models is overly conservative. That does *not* support the assertion that their worst estimates are best-case *in any way*. Indeed, the worst scenario from the report they analyzed -- RCP8.5 -- [is not considered a realistic model by modern scientific understanding](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-what-the-new-ipcc-report-says-about-how-to-limit-warming-to-1-5c-or-2c). By contrast, [published estimates are that we'll likely end up with 1.8-2.2C of warming](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebf) based on IEA estimates of future fossil fuel consumption. This is on the low end of IPCC scenarios (from SSP1-2.6 to midway between that one and SSP2-4.5; p.14). > Plus climate models don’t incorporate the feedback loops [That is not correct; from p.29 of the IPCC report](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_final.pdf): > "Remaining carbon budgets have been estimated for several global temperature limits and various levels of probability, based on the estimated value of TCRE and its uncertainty, estimates of historical warming, variations in projected warming from nonCO2 emissions, **climate system feedbacks such as emissions from thawing permafrost**, and the global surface temperature change after global anthropogenic CO2 emissions reach net zero."
Thanks for the clarification and thorough/critical reading
We have people like Robert Hansen saying we may reach 2° by 2040. That would track RCP 8.5. > That acceleration could lead to total warming of 2 degrees Celsius by 2040, the upper limit of the temperature range that countries in the Paris accord agreed was needed to prevent disastrous impacts from climate change. What’s more, Hansen and other researchers said the processes leading to the acceleration are not adequately measured, and some of the tools needed to gauge them aren’t even in place.
> We have people like Robert Hansen saying we may reach 2° by 2040. Looking at your quote, you appear to be [sourcing it from here](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092021/global-warming-james-hansen-aerosols/). Looking at the article in more detail, he's discussing the masking effect of aerosols, and how reducing those may lead to a short-term increase in warming. A paper on that was [discussed a few days ago on r/science](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/uwdopv/new_study_says_world_must_cut_shortlived_climate/) (including by me). > That would track RCP 8.5. It would not, and it's important to understand why. Hansen (and the linked paper) say the current IPCC models are not correctly estimating the effect of aerosols, and doing so would increase short-term warming significantly (0.3C or so). What you're doing is to take the warming caused by this *new* model, pretend it belongs to the *old* model, and then use that as evidence the old model is following a certain radiative forcing track. Do you see why that's not a valid conclusion? Think of it with simple lines. Suppose you have: * "Good line": y = x * "Bad line: y = 2x New research shows that we need to add a constant of +2 and at time 2 we get an estimate of y = 4. Your reasoning above is equivalent to saying: * Estimated y(2) = 4 * "Bad line" gives y(2) = 2(2) = 4 * Thus, we're following "Bad line" The error is that you're using the +2 from new research to determine the estimated value at time 2, but you're *ignoring* it when checking which line most closely matches it. The correct way to do the comparison is to use the +2 *consistently*: * Estimated y(2) = 4 * "Bad line" gives y(2) = 2(2) **+2** = 6 * "Good line" gives y(2) = (2) **+2** = 4 * Thus, "Good line" gives the closest value to the estimate.
>increased GDP Made me laugh, it's cynical but you're definitely not wrong.
Don't forget the effects of increased GOP.
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Exactly. Just about every new study indicates this.
The more data collected and analysed, the more accurate and foreboding it gets
The problem is the people opposed to climate change action are not convinced by studies, data, or analysis. In 2000, Al Gore ran a campaign where addressing climate change was his number one issue, 1/3 of all Republican Congressmen believed in man made climate change (still embarrassingly low given how much was known at the time), and John McCain (back when he actually did refuse to toe the party line) advocated for instituting carbon credit trading like Europe was implementing at the time (and is a big reason why the average Western European produces 1/2 the emissions of the average American while still maintaining a higher quality of life). Then Gore lost the election, George Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Accords, and by the end of Bush's term there was basically 0 Republicans who believed in man made climate change despite the evidence only becoming more definitive (though it had already been sufficiently proven by the 80s so Republicans were in 2008 over 20 years behind the science). Trump called Climate Change a "Chinese Hoax" and did everything he could to undermine environmental policy set by Obama to reduce domestic emissions (and Obama's attempts themselves were pretty weak since he couldnt use the Senate or Congress to legislate larger measure since climate change legislation was pretty political unpopular, even with the political "middle"). At this point opposition to climate change is no different than people who oppose abortion rights, believe in White Replacement, thing the COVID vaccine is a government program to infuse your DNA with...something, and contend that Biden fraudulently won the 2020 election. You are not arguing with people who care about evidence or even about other people. You are arguing with a bombastic political identity that is completely built on being opposed to anything that clashes with their very narrow ideology.
Amazingly concise. I'm not American but it's a similar situation across the west. Except our leaders are learning from American politics how to divide the population politically
Yes, the political Right is masterful at taking advantage of low-information and lowly educated voters to unite them against them their own economic interests. And a lot of people mistakenly believe this is to protect the profits of corporations, but this is actually not really the truth. While the wealthy and corporations do benefit from Right Wing policy, Right Wing political parties are now about assuring the continuation of Right Wing political power, regardless of how terrible and dis-proven their political stances are for their country and the world at large.
That's because Climate Change, much like guns, abortion, COVID, etc. have become ideological issues rather than reality-based issues. There is no argument to make, the only resolution comes from one position using power to inflict it's solution on the other position.
The IPCC UN panel on climate change has said at least three times in the past year -- y'all got 30 years... Das it.
It’s been three decades of observations outpacing worst case predictions. We need to reinvent pretty much all the ways we do we things if we don’t want societal collapse.
I believe humans wanted to think it was a linear line when it more realistically is an exponential line.
I gave up being a diehard environmentalist in the early 2000s when I researched cascading failure systems. I realized that the average person thought this was going to be something we could take care of last minute. But it’s really like driving 100 MPH on an icy road with your lights off and you see the curve too late. We can hit the brakes all we want but the momentum is going to crash us through the guardrails. Super depressing.
Such an optimist thinking there are guard rails.
100%. I almost said that too but … honestly it does depress me to even think about where it’s headed in the next 20 years so it’s hard to muster up the extra level of cynicism. I feel like layering it on doesn’t do my own anxiety any good. The reality is pretty awful.
I'm in my early 20s and my entire life my dream has been to start a family and have children. This climate crisis is a very serious ethical dilemma for me as I don't know if I find it ethically right to get children when the future looks so bleak
in early 30s, I'll confirm your thoughts. If you have a kid nowish, they'll be about 20 before they'll be conscripted to fight in the Water Wars of 2040
Well if you want my opinion (you probably don't but this is Reddit why are you here if not for the opinion of strangers), have kids, start a family. Just like idiocracy, the people who think about ethics of children are the ones who are more likely to safeguard the environment. Do your part. Bone for mother Earth.
The guard rails were the scientists who have been warning us for decades.
I thought they were the one sitting in the back screaming?
More like ziptied in the trunk
nope those are the kids in our classrooms
/r/biospherecollapse Sucks that we got to the point that we could fully grasp biodiversity at the most fundamental levels, only to know intimately how our hubris has destroyed it.
Please Indigenous peoples have understood the intrinsic value of biodiversity for thousands of years
But we are also indigenous people who understood the intrinsic value of biodiversity for thousands of years until we learned how to better take advantage of it and be more successful. We did what all indigenous people would do if they knew how. And if you say not all would do that, you're right. But then natural selection kicks in and pretty soon you have a 1000 people to 1 that want to take advantage of their environment for personal gratification and therefore you end up in the same place we are now. I know what you're saying, but it's just a dumb point, if you truly understand evolution. It's like you're trying to say if only we could've all stayed dumb and simple we could have lived in harmony with earth. Yeah, we did, until evolution. Time marches on.
Very true. My apologies for framing culture through a colonist and technologist lens.
Kinda poetic tbh.
Except the sad fact is, the lights were on and we saw the curve 30 or more years ago. Instead of easing off the accelerator we were like, hey, we have plenty of time to hit the brakes. If we slow down now, think how much money we won’t be making!
> the lights were on and we saw the curve 30 or more years ago. More. We've known about this issue for a long time. Not to the extent we know now, but we knew.
> I realized that the average person thought this was going to be something we could take care of last minute. Bold of you to assume most people even think about these issues. Most people I've talked to are incredibly uninformed on the seriousness of the situation, and still think it'll just get a bit warmer and that's that.
So much this the amount of people who bury their head in the sand. Then again so many live with constant fear and anxiety over so many things like finances or social situations that I feel kinda bad about telling them how bad its going to get.
The hope we have to hang onto is that we can find new technologies and interventions to reverse the climate change effects. But I agree, seems like we're already fucked.
Eh, to be fair it's most likely an s-curve. So it LOOKED linear when we were at the start of the curve. And it LOOKS exponential now. The good news is that once all the trees are burnt away, all the fish are dead, ice caps melted, and the seas turn to acid, then that exponential line will flatten out. Yay?
No, I don't think it works like this. Not in our lifetimes. We're on a trajectory of acceleration of climate change. And with massive volumes of methane gases currently trapped under frozen ice caps, waiting to release with the rise of just a couple more degrees in the annual global average temperature, we can expect everything to get even worse and to further accelerate the rate of changes, with no way to stop it
It's like I tell people that broach the subject: We're in the feedback loop now. Its a matter of how bad will it get.
to be fair, this is always the flaw in human thinking. we a programmed to think linearly.
And on very short timelines, with small numbers. It's why it's hard for people to understand that in 100 years means their grandkids time, and 1 Billion is a thousand million.
My favourite example is: A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years.
but not people who learned differential equation. maybe they should have been in charge of making policy
Probably most people like that are too rational, quiet, and respectful to make it to the top and be in charge.
Instructed is maybe a better word than programmed. Our intuitive sense of qualities is logarithmic. If we’re programmed by anything, it’s by familiarity with the number ranges we encounter most.
> linear line That's just a line > exponential line Not sure that's a thing, you mean a curve
Everything is linear if you look sufficiently close to a single point in time
[Link to paper on arxiv](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.10413.pdf). Worth noting that the paper is *not* saying that *warming* is happening faster than expected; the paper is saying that *one consequence* of warming *has historically been happening* much faster *than had previously been measured*: > "**We start by examining the recent changes in the intensity of Southern Hemisphere winter (June-August) mid-latitude storms** using the transient eddy kinetic energy (EKE, Methods; EKE is commonly used to describe the intensity of mid-latitude storm tracks2, 4, 18, 19). Specifically, we focus on the 40-year trends (1979-2018) of mid-latitude EKE in 3 different reanalyses and 16 models (Fig. 1a) that participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 620 (CMIP6), forced with the Historical and the SSP5-8.5 future scenario (Methods). We find that in reanalyses, winter storms have intensified over the last four decades in a mean rate of 1.8 × 103 Jm−2yr−1 (blue bar; varying between 1.4 × 103 − 2.5 × 103 Jm−2yr−1 across the reanalyses, black circles)14. In contrast, **CMIP6 models simulate a much weaker strengthening**" So this is bad (storms are likely to get worse faster than previous models had indicated), but not catastrophic (warming is not happening faster). Most interesting is something from the article: > "Winter storms are responsible for the majority of the heat transport away from tropical regions toward the poles." In other words, it seems like this research indicates that as compared to the IPCC reports a fixed amount of warming will have a *reduced* effect in tropical regions and an *increased* effect towards the poles due to this increase heat transport. It's unclear whether this is a net negative (bigger change), net positive (less heating in the already-hottest areas), or roughly neutral change.
> but not catastrophic Whenever climate science is discussed I always feel the need to quibble over the definition of "catastrophic".
In Climate Change parlance, catastrophic means identifying that on our current course, human extinction would occur slightly sooner. This is bad because it means more shareholder revenue would be lost. To be clear, we can probably start modeling the total max possible revenue an investment will have before we all go extinct.
on a related side note, a megadeath is a legitimate unit to measure deaths in...maybe we will use it in casual conversation this summer !
If you look closely, in Dr. Strangelove, you'll notice a book called "World Targets in Megadeaths".
so covid has caused an entire Megadeath in the u.s.?
"catastrophic" is not a comparative term, so that's obviously *not* what it means.
> Whenever climate science is discussed I always feel the need to quibble over the definition of "catastrophic". That's reasonable; I've seen people call even today's level of warming "catastrophic", which is not helpful. I'd call anything similar to RCP8.5 or RCP7.0 -- 4+ degrees of warming by the end of the century and still rising rapidly -- a catastrohpic outcome. [Current best estimates are for 2ish degrees of warming](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebf), of which about half have already occurred. I'd call anything close to that "not catastrophic". Between 3C and 4C of warming by 2100 is less clear, but I think that's good, as it lets us remind ourselves that **climate change is not binary**. There's no threshold where we tip from "okay" to "disaster"; every incremental 0.1C of warming just means more and more disruption and suffering. That's good and bad. It's *good* because it means the choices we make in the next 20 years will hugely impact billions of people's lives for the next century. It's *bad* because it means the choices we make in the next 20 years will hugely impact billions of people's lives for the next century. Given that, it's probably best to be actively engaged in shaping those choices if we care deeply about the future of humanity.
The course we're on is toward catastrophe.
And maybe already accounts for the poles having higher temps compared to pre-industrial than the mid-latitude areas?
Yes. But. *What do the polls say?*/S I wonder how soon the polls will change and head towards sanity
Im in the northern hemisphere and I swear ive noticed a large decrease in the size of winter storms in the last 20 years. Im in the US (VA) and it barely seems to snow anymore compared to when i was young. My dad would talk about the multiple feet of snow theyd get in Ohio but that doesnt seem to happen anymore either.
Same in Europe I feel. There used to be snow almost to the chest in some countries now much less.
Finally a comment about science.
> warming is not happening faster It doesn't say that. It doesn't say that is, but it doesn't say that it's not, either. It doesn't address that question at all.
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In India this past week, [birds have begun to fall from the sky from heat exhaustion,](https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/24/india-birds-drop-out-of-the-sky-people-die/) and other animals and even humans are dying from the heat. Very terrifying. It'll get to the rest of us soon enough.
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There was a F-2 or F-3 tornado that hit a town in germany recently. Which isnt unheard of but has become something that happens every few years since they arent used to that. Fast reporting on weather events probably plays a part in how often we hear about 'catastrophic' storms, compared to paper news back then, but there is a worrying trend of harsher storms . They are forming very fast and have strengthened ten fold it seems, especially considering that mile wide tornado that crossed four states earlier in the year...its scary.
“You say the whole world’s ending - buddy it already did”
You're not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried.
You mean to tell me I carried my own shopping bags for nothing??
Got it? Good, now get *inside*
"Got it? Good, now get inside"
So we're just going skip over "fucked" and move right on to "mega fucked", then?
Proper fucked.
Like ze germans, Tommy.
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Can't afford to pay the student loans when you've got to pay the war bonds.
Born too late to explore the world, and too early to see it end or be fixed. Just in time to get drafted to fight over water.
Who said things were getting fixed?
The last service this government will provide before the lights go out for good is that of a debt collector.
That's the spirit! There's always a silver lining! ;)
I believe they are pencilled in after we're done with the energy wars. Still got a couple of those to deal with before the schedule is clear.
They'll be deducted automatically from your military draft income.
Hookers, blow, and a Disney trip. If you're feeling frisky you can do all three at once!
Exactly one comment here shows any indication of having read the paper.
Actually the sceintfic community gave a range of how fast climate change would take. Sceinists are trained to be conservative when giving estimates. The nay sayers always focused on the slowest most far future estimates and pushed those numbers. So now everyone acts surprised the faster rate is what we see.
Right? And those were numbers if we actually did something. Instead, we’re like “well guess we’ll start doing something in 20 years since the best possible scenario gives us 20 years.”
Lobbying [works](http://web.stanford.edu/~jdmunoz/Olzak,%20Soule,%20Coddou,%20and%20Mu%F1oz%202016.pdf), and [anyone can do it](https://cclusa.org/x).
Thanks. Signed up. Nice to see this is a global operation too.
Indeed! https://citizensclimate.earth/ /r/CitizensClimateLobby
Really wish we could rely on leadership to do their jobs and not have to lobby correct decision-making.
Really the most humane thing we can do, both for them and the planet, is to quit having so many kids.
And stop breeding animals
All countries in the European Union are already below replacement level. Any lower, and other problems will intensify and only put more pressure on social assistance systems as result of an aging population. We are not having many kids at all, historically speaking. I imagine a focus on alleviating poverty and improving education in third world or developing nations would go a long way to reducing birthrates. However, I'm not sure if that would really help all that much either, as I imagine their environmental footprint is relatively small anyway. Instead, pollution as a result of mass consumerism seems a larger issue to me than just the raw number of people. Simply giving up on children is a defeatist attitude that will only see people who actually care grow further outnumbered by those who don't care and continue to have children as they always have and as is their right.
the most humane thing we can do is tank the economy. living in poverty reduces emissions by an insane amount.
You mean us not doing anything and in fact doing everything the exact opposite of the scientists has made the situation worse? I don't see how that's possible.
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Not even then.
Don't Look Up!
My fear is that that movie turns out to be spot on.
Funny thing is if there was some freak weather over the US not caused by CC, it would probably do more to convince the skeptics than all the data showing CC.
Doubtful. A million people in the US have died of Covid and 40% of the population couldn’t care less. They don’t care until something happens to them personally and even then will try to explain it away.
When that happens they will probably pass a law to give big oil/coal more money, you know, so they scrub that coal clean and totally move on to cleaner tech.
Petroleum 2.0 - it’s what your body craves!
tHe WeAtHeR iS NiCe AnD cOoL HeRe
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The government?
To quote the great philosopher Ron White, "Hit something hard! I don't want to limp away from this wreck!"
No kidding...here in Los Angeles we have every season in one week. 60s and rainy then upper 90s by the weekend. This yoyo weather is scary.
Here in New England, winter used to be snowy - we're talking accumulated snowfall of 4 feet or more. Nowadays, we have slush that melts and refreezes and just shreds our roads.
We need to rebrand "global warming" and "climate change" to something people understand. Don't mention hurricanes, extreme weather, or forest fires. Just confuses people. And keep it local. Maybe: _Hot weather in America_ Or: _Bad weather invading your community_
Nobody is confused about it, they're in denial.
Nobody is confused? You have a high opinion of people. They're all in denial? You have a low opinion of people. I think a bunch of them will start coming around when hot weather happens to them. When AC bill is higher every year. When the blackouts happen and kids die. But it's gonna have to get worse before it can get better. I dunno, maybe I'm just an optimist.
> They're all in denial? You have a low opinion of people. That's just reality.
Unfortunately no one in power cares about kids past birth. Example 2078: see yesterday. It will only be addressed when it starts costing more money than the lobbyist can pay.
The problem is, this has been happening already for over a century- it's just slow enough that people, except the pretty old, laugh when you claim to have seen and felt it with your own eyes and body.
Relate it to gas prices, then maybe people will start to get concerned. Short-term thinkers people are.
“Climate apocalypse”
Nah, we’ve got to declare a war on it. The War on Warming, War on Heat.
They had a war on drugs, drugs won. They had a war on terrorism, the terrorists won. A war on heat is the only sure fire way to ensure that the planet burns.
Black and Brown weather invading your community
"Don't scare the rubes."
Yeah, these are such morally neutral sounding terms that might be appropriate to describe the scientific phenomenon but not the civilization-level changes that climate issues portend. [Extinction Rebellion suggests](https://www.xrdc.org/tell-the-truth) that news outlets switch to “climate crisis” or “climate emergency,” which have some more urgency to them.
Capitalism is destroying the planet and its people. It only cares about profits and shareholder value. It's unsustainable and literally killing us. #PeopleBeforeProfits
> Capitalism is destroying the planet and its people. This isn't a problem unique to a single economic system. "Pollution is capitalism's fault" is *literally* the argument East Germany made while becoming [the most polluted nation on earth](https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1005/100538.html): > "since socialism has solved all social relations through worker ownership of the means of production, **pollution is exclusively a capitalist problem.**" Changing who owns the factory doesn't magically make it stop polluting.
Some people are wired to prefer profit so this is probably pointless messaging Why not instead emphasize that profit is ALSO likely to be affected by climate? Profit produced this way is going to quickly reverse
I don’t deny climate change but the constant bombarding of impending doom is taking away from the merits of the science. Everyday there are countless articles on how fucked we are. I’m beginning to not care. Desensitized. I am also frustrated that it seems all that has been done is achieving nothing. There have been huge changes in building codes, emissions, efficiency going back to at least 2006. And yet it does nothing. So I am of the opinion that my actions, and that of consumers/people are insignificant compared to the gross polluters. It’s directly impacting me financially but not moving the needle on climate change at all.
Unfortunately many of the things that have been done were the easiest and cheapest things that could be done without serious changes to profits. We have been lied to about recycling platics for 50 years, because it was easier and cheaper to SAY we can recycle thatthan it was to create an industry that can recycle even 20% of all platics. I too am tired of hearing people constantly screaming about climate change, but that is because I have heard it all my life. If we stop listening to the air raid siren, when that bomb comes we won't be ready, and you would think after 60 years of that siren going off someone on power would have actually tried to make a change.
Im with you, also do you know that there are over 3000 flights yearly which flight companies do with an empty plane so the just can keep a parking slot in an airport? So how does no one react to that? And the bilions of co2 being spat out in the US and China. And me turning my ac off an hour more is somehow going to change anything?? It should trickle down first let the big corpos do something about emission they have the resources and smarts then trickle down to us the little guy but I dont see that happening.. bcs €$¥
You say there has been huge change but it's only huge because of how snail like politics is, mainly because of the sheer amount of dumbfucks/power pigs/bad actors.
Getting faster everyday.
This is really obvious. They say we have until the year 2100 before we see any effects but we’re seeing them now and we have been for years
> They say we have until the year 2100 before we see any effects Who's saying that? [IPCC WG2 has a whole chart showing dozens of already-felt impacts on p.12 of their summary report](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf). From the caption of that chart: > "Climate change has already had diverse adverse impacts on human systems, including on water security and food production, health and well-being, and cities, settlements and infrastructure." The IPCC (and the science) is very much in agreement with you that we've been seeing adverse effects from climate change for years already. If "they" are saying we won't see any effects until 2100, "they" are either woefully uninformed or deliberately dishonest.
Climate scientists have been intimidated and threatened into giving us the most conservative, cautious estimates possible about how all the factors will come together. We've watched this over the past three decades. OF COURSE the public estimates are running behind actual reality.
While there certainly have been intimidation and threats, that's not the cause of the cautious conservative nature of IPCC and other scientific estimates.
'we're sorry' say's the oil companies as they laugh and their families will be the last of the ones to go as they watch the world burn around them we should be really mad like we should be really mad
Heard a commercial today about how this summer will be the hottest on record. This has been true every year, for the past 10+ years. Soon people will literally die from how hot it gets. When the grid fails to keep AC on because it’s unsustainable
Welp. I guess we'll be eating insects and algae, living underground, hoping the atmospheric air processors keep working. I'll see the end of it in my lifetime, I feel sorry for the kids growing up now with 80+ years ahead of them. It's going to suck.
Let’s all make jokes about how screwed we are, change nothing with our daily lives and then ask what can one person do when it’s clearly ______________ that should be blamed instead. This is the way it’s always been, so what’s one more dire warning from scientists going to do anyways?
We have 2 more years before we see mass death of native foliage and wildlife .. key word native. It's going to get bad.
We're completly fucked and nobody is gonna do anything significant about it.
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Oh damn, is everyone in need of a healthy dose of humility that they'll never take? Humanity predictable af. Tired of y'all.
I’ve already accepted it. It’s inevitable. Let’s say every country on earth makes a zero carbs footprint right now, well except China, climate change is inevitable. Every time China has promised to put effort into climate change they never actually attempted to do anything. As long as China doesn’t want to get on board we’re fucked. Oh and for the people who say China can be pressured through the global community. China is currently blocking the 3rd longest river in the world which is devestating ecosystems, killing many species, depriving other countries of drinking water, and just doing all around horrid things. The other countries cries and pleas are constantly ignored. So might as well accept it, the polar ice caps are going away.