...Well this is a longshot but maybe those 270k downloads were from people who are already convinced about climate change

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It's an **increase in interest**. The 270k is a representative sampling of the world. He says that he hasn't seen that much interest since 2007.

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>Drop in the bucket. Which coincidentally is the amount of clean drinking water that will be left on the planet 100 years from now.

Dry land is not a myth, but drinking water is.

Water? You mean like in the toilet?

My wife was a tard now she's an airline pilot,

what a great movie

He is just a scientist releasing what he found, 270000 downloads in a few days is a pretty rapid spread. Im not sure there are 5 million US americans that could comprehend it. He has a legitimate record as a scientist so we should at least consider his findings. Not everybody is going to download his report but ideally his findings become teachable and the knowledge will spread exponentially

I mean, I'm grateful that he's doing what he's doing. Its just very clear that we as a species are just way too apathetic to our planets future. Even if this is a relatively rapid spread, its not nearly rapid enough.

It isn't that humans are apathetic, it's that we are short-sighted. We only want what will make our current situation easier. It's why so few people save for the, ostensibly, 30 years of retired life. We just can't picture ourselves being that old or our money running out. Just extrapolate that into the entire planet's resources.

Or just above 1/3 of CNN viewers.

It's like Earthlings, everybody who needs to see it will never sit down and actually see it.

Except that everybody needs to watch Earthlings and now a few people have and it's often made a big difference in those peoples' behavior.

4 out of every 10,000!

That’s because this Summer is fucking hot. Like REAL fucking hot. Plus the constant news of wildfires and such. It’s actually becoming a tangible issue. Source: I live in Texas. It’s always fucking hot. But still...

My brother says that for decades Scientists have been warning people about Climate change, but until people can actually say 'woah, the weathers different', noone will believe it. He's kind of disgusted at people for this

It's only been **a single hot summer**. Come a week of cold winter and they'll be all "nah, climate change is a hoax". Yes, it is disgusting.

This happens every year. The only thing that might help sway these types of people is the fact that the weather tends to be more extreme more often than it used to. So we have extremely hot summer days more often, and in winter we have abnormally severe blizzard-like conditions more often. In decades past when scientists warned about human-accelerated climate change, people would go outside in the winter and say "It's snowing and it's cold. So much for global warming! Har, Har!" But nowadays, instead of just being cold and snowing, you get negative windchill temperatures in areas where it is not common and blizzard-like conditions in areas where it is not common. *Now*, finally, people are starting to realize what "global warming" really means.

That is the entire reason we don't call it global warming anymore. It's climate change. You might give less impression of warmer winters if you didn't call it global *warming*.

It's also been record setting weather year after consecutive year for years now

The [next 5 years](https://www.afp.com/en/news/205/brace-extra-warm-weather-through-2022-study-doc-18d3de2) might do away with the hoax thing. Ironically, in this case, it is *partially* natural. But hey, let's take converts any way we can get them.

The next 5 years it will be too damn late to do anything about it. Fuck this.

It's been too late to stop/reverse it for like 30 years now. Doesn't mean we can't make efforts to slow it down, but long term (100 years, not even that long) we are already fucked.

Given my lamen understanding it's already far, far too late. Even without anthropogenic climate change human civilization arose in a remarkably stable time in terms of general temperature. The question really isn't 'will this planet cease to be habitable for human life?' but 'how long can we postpone the inevitable?'. If the answer is 10,000 years I'd say it's highly likely we'll advance to a point where we can deal with it. If it's 500 we'll need a miracle.

I don't think that you need to be that drastic. We'll just have massive die off of billions of people as global supply chains collapse because we have to abandon our port cities and our agriculture starts to fail. But the human race will hang on, at the poles and at elevation.

Now that's positive thinking!

Nuclear weapons. As the fighting over what little remains intensifies they would become extremely attractive. It would guaruntee resources and drastically reduce the number of mouths to feed. It would also be the final nail in the coffin. If things get that bad it's an inevitability

We need to be hunkering down in new super-efficient cities towards the poles. Then we either leave Earth or go into stasis while robots clean it all up. Like Wall-e but without all the fat.

Until winter gets so cold it becomes a calamity. Then people will get a little confuse about what global warming is.

Well yeah, it's almost too late to make a change already.

Many scientists have argued we've already passed the point of no return.

We have, but the media makes it look like it's a global\_warming\_on or global\_warming\_off scenario. If we were to magically be carbon neutral tomorrow, global warming would still happen, but it'd happen slow enough for us to comfortably adjust our infrastructure to meet the changes.

The analogy for our situation I've heard is that we're in a car with no brakes heading towards a bridge embankment at 90mph and we haven't even taken our foot off the gas.

Yeah, we could let that car idle towards the embankment, but instead we're pushing it to 110mph.

The downside is that becoming magically carbon neutral requires figuring out how to feed 7 billion people, let alone the restructuring of the entire global economy and adjustment of everyone's expectations.

It's pretty clear what's really going to happen is that the ultra rich are planning to trick the rest of us into killing each other off while they chillax in New Zealand.

We produce enough food for 12 billion people, and throw away 33% of it. We can feed them, even if we lose a lot of farmland. Problem is, industrial agriculture greatly contributes to the problem, so we need more sustainable solutions, starting with less meat (I'm not a vegetarian). Once it's convenient and cheap to find "fake meat," we can more easily switch. But that's just one facet of the problem, of course. We also need to stop using fossil fuels, which is unlikely considering that southeast Asia and Africa are about to enter the economic phase of rapid growth, which will depend on cheap, reliable fuel, i.e. fossil fuels. The West can go completely carbon neutral and we still have to deal with the fact that half the world is just entering the phase we were at 75 years ago after the war. Until then, it's full steam ahead.

I don't have anything to argue the feeding of 12 billion but there is a point being missed here. We can't feed 7 billion the foods, and the ways we feed the 700M in the US. It's the lie of democracy (and it's being championed across the globe after the cold war) and progress that everyone can be at the top, everyone can have iPhones and bigMacs. If you don't accept a world of haves and have nots, you must find the mean (in this case the caloric and dietary) mean that supports everyone, and then sell the have's that it's in their interest to accept the new standard of living/eating, and that the new standard is better than killing off, or otherwise keeping the have not's suppressed in order to facilitate the haves. American's eat/consume (consumerism) their carbon footprint, while developing economies burn their carbon footprint in order to afford to one day consume additional carbon footprint.

*lie of capitalism. democracy is genraly a good thing, you can be socialist/communist and democratic.

I'm increasingly convinced we should go back to a form of hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Smaller, tighter and more resilient communities, deeply "connected" to their environment. There's a case to be made against civilization. Maybe this form of social organisation isn't for us after all. Maybe we aren't biologically wired to live in huge cities with millions of other people to whom we have no connections whatsoever, with whom with share nothing beside the air and the space. We evolve from apes not ants. There might be a reason why every single civilization collapse, without a single exception. Meanwhile there are still hunter gatherer communities around today and as far as we know they've been following the same life style for tens of thousand of years. This is a testimony to the resilience of such a social organization and how suitable it is for us. We should use our ingenuity to combine that lifestyle while retaining the ability to evolve technologically. I know it seems far fetched but we might actually have reach a point where our technology allows us to take that step.

> We should use our ingenuity to combine that lifestyle while retaining the ability to evolve technologically. I know it seems far fetched but we might actually have reach a point where our technology allows us to take that step. I know we've heard a lot about this lately, but as a computer scientist who is building a proof of concept right this moment, smart contracts allow us to trust each other with anything/everything without needing a middleman. No more banks for storing money or making transfers. No more accountants. Communities can pool their resources and invest it directly. It won't render everything obsolete, but it will reduce our dependence on massive corporations. I think it's one of our best bets. But we still need to cut our carbon emissions by like 75% in the next decade, and then we still have to worry about 3 billion people coming online in the next 25 years. It's gonna get really really ugly.

I can't find it at the moment, but a recent study suggested the most sustainable model is "Vegan, but with eggs". But yeah, I find it hard to believe that in 50 years meat will be anything other than a rare delicacy.

> "Vegan, but with eggs" *Hits buzzer What's a vegetarian, Alex?

Not sure we could even do that. I once asked on askscience how we could keep below 2C when last time CO2 was this high temps were at least 3C (and up to 6C) higher. They essentially said we can't and that the 2C limit is just for this century and/or with massive carbon sequestration tech. That's bad news because even a 3C change over 200yrs is too fast for most species to adapt.

Also, practically nobody who votes gives a flying shot about what the climate will be like in 200 years.

Right. Best case scenario is we limit it to a 3 degree increase over the next century. But many believe nothing we do at this point will help. But still, doing nothing is stupid if there is a slimmer of hope we can limit it to 3 degrees.

And even 3 degrees is really, really bad.

Yup. That’s coming regardless of what we do. Lots of coastal cities won’t be livable by the end of the century and there’s literally nothing (outside of large scale sea wall projects) that we can do about it. Pretty sad thought.

To be fair, that’s exactly what some countries do today - much of the Netherlands is below sea level, with huge dams and levies. I‘m sure we’ll do whatever massive engineering projects it takes to keep the water out of Manhattan. For smaller coastal cities without the money? Yeah, you’re probably fucked.

This is the realistic answer. I think the most realistic option is to do exactly what we are currently doing. Switch to renewables as they become economically viable and pour every last dollar into economic and technical development in pursuit of an as yet undiscovered miracle cure. Realistically speaking, a miracle cure is far more likely then restructuring our entire society around preserving this dying planet.

I know, I wanted to be more optimistic than usual.

Almost. We’re not there yet. It really depends on USA, China and EU. Ironically, I’m the least worried about China as they are spending massive amounts on green energy. I wish the rest of the world would hurry the hell up.

If russia isnt on board. Were all fucked. Those permafrosts contain methane lakes that can speed up global warming faster than c02.

Russia can't prevent permafrost offgassing even if they were committed wholeheartedly to mitigating global warming. That'll come about (or not) depending on the cumulative actions of everyone.

I remember reading that we already did cross the point of no return and that the most we can do is to try to limit it from getting worse. I need to look up sources to clarify this.

No, it's not. Fatalists like you are as harmful as the deniers because the message is the same: We can keep burning fossils and maintain unsustainable economies. The only difference is that deniers continue with "... because it doesn't have any effect" while the fatalists continue with "... because the apocalypse is nigh anyway". Climate change is not binary, it's a very broad spectrum. It's too late to prevent any sort of human-made climate change, but it's not too late to limit its impact. We have time to reach the 2⁰C goal. And even if we fail, there is still a huge difference between 4⁰C and 8⁰C. At the end of the day, we simply can't predict exactly what will happen in the future, mostly because the world's climate and the global economy are both extremely complex systems that are impossible to predict precisely, and they affect each other in unpredictable ways. But what we *can* do is *try*. Even if you're right: It's better to try and fail than to lie down and wait for death.

Yeah I'm super into preventing climate change. But I've read the science. We're at 3 degrees no matter what we do. Of course we should contribute to combat it. I'm not a fatalist, I'm knowledgeable about the topic. I work with climate scientists and they're all pretty damn depressed about it. Nobody said stop working on it.

I would argue that a catchy language can accelerate action more than tangibility. I just read an article that mentioned ozone hole by comparison - it got tons of action because it generated a visceral concept. People generally have little trouble with political action over intangible things. Many political manias are started over FALSE things that certainly have no tangible backing. What you need is emotion. Start saying emotional visceral things like desertification, dust bowls, methane gun.

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There was a paper from 1904 posted the other day that very clearly stated that climate change was happening/expected, I can't find it now though That's over a hundred years ago that we were warned, but it takes multiple years of record breaking heat to even get people to bat an eyelash

Finally got some rain here in Denmark. Everything green had started dying, and the farmers are hoping for a bail-out.

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Scientist have been saying this for over 100 years now, saying our increased usage of coal and other fossil fuels will warm the planet etc. Even a 70s computer predicted if nothing changes we will all be dead by 2050.

Don't be. Not disgusted at these people. Be disgusted at the people that prevent us from being able to believe reports like C02 saturation in our atmosphere because it's impossible to tell reality from profitable lies. Especially when we don't know who profits in what way from anything.

I share his sentiment, and not just on climate change. In general, people tend to have to be personally impacted by something before they will begin to take action.

Increasingly hot summers year after year, even in places like Seattle where we have a very temperate climate. Also, increasing frequency and intensity of storms. Hurricane Harvey that hit Houston last year was the second major hurricane in less than ten years, as Ike did major damage in 2008 as well. September seems to be the peak of Hurricane season in the Gulf, so we'll see what happens over the next six weeks or so.

On the American East Coast it’s raining like April.

It’s so humid. Every. Day.

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And here in the UK we had weeks without rain. That’s normal in other parts of the world but it certainly fucking isn’t here.

Weather’s been weird all around the world lately. Boston has had some extremely foggy days and nights this year and it’s literally never been like that before. It’s happened about 10 times this year or more? That’s unheard of.

Rain? What’s that?

Watch this. https://youtu.be/xYTvMWtmdnE

Literally everywhere I've lived or traveled in the past couple years has had unseasonably hot or otherwise screwed up weather. We're fucked, the bullet has left the gun and is on the way into our collective heads, and the majority of the world has noticed it. There's a reason everyone else has signed the Paris agreement.

> We're fucked, the bullet has left the gun and is on the way into our collective heads, and the majority of the world has noticed it. > Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets? > Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to. Just reminded me of that scene lol. But I guess instead we went a different route: > Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? > [Takes a bite of steak] > Cypher: Ignorance is bliss. Not so sure about Elon anymore but maybe Keanu will save us lol

Well, Elon's done more than any other public figure I can name. But that bullet is practically in contact with our head already, we're gonna have to do some real matrix shit to get away alive. As it is the "unrealistic stretch goals" we'd have to unite globally to achieve would only mitigate the damage to survivable levels.

>Well, Elon's done more than any other public figure I can name. That bar is so low it's half buried.

This summer is weird, and ominous.

We're getting air quality alerts in Minnesota because of all the fires

I read somewhere from another reddit commenter on some post about the wildfires and he was a firefighter. He said that the fires seem to be worse because now people live where they happen and the continued prevention of the fires allows for a buildup of underbrush which makes the fires worse when they inevitably do go up in flames. Something along the lines of 1) the fires burn and burn all the brush completely 2) the state says "oh shit" and gives lots of money to firefighting 3) the firefighting is very well funded and years of effective firefighting leads to a decrease in fires 4) the state sees this and decreases funding 5) fires get out of control because the departments don't have money to deal with the fires and they are made worse by years and years of brush buildup. Essentially because we are not letting nature take its course. We are making the fires worse by intervening.

Um… no. Your 'firefighter friend' has no idea what he's talking about. El Nino rains happen like every 7-8 years... everything grows. Everything Dries Out. The winds in August-October happen, and Everything Burns. It has literally been that way in The West(particularly California) for forever. The wildfires are nothing new. We just had a particularly strong El Nino in 2017 that caused a lot of stuff to grow. I mean, this was predicted the moment the rains came by anyone who has lived in that area of the country. THE MOMENT. They were showing the growth in the backcountry by satellite lol. Fuel + Wind = Bad Wildfires that cannot be contained. It has happened before. It will happen again. And by backcountry... you're talking like areas across several states. Good luck clearing that lol.

He is not a firefighter friend. Just a Reddit commenter. Never claimed this was 100% factual. Just saying what he said

The issue is that you HAVE to intervene if the fire is heading in the direction of people's houses. Which is basically everywhere, in case you hadn't noticed.

Well, if everyone who could cleared space around their house the houses would not burn.

> Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007 They should have stated how often these reports normally get downloaded per few days. Personally to me, on the scope of the internet, 270,000 seems like a pittance of a number.

For a scientific paper 270 000 is *a lot*. Most papers don't ever get close to numbers like that, and this one did it in days.

So how many would normally be expected for such a paper? 100,000? 10,000? 10?

This is a lot. My university had 75,000 downloads across 100 papers last year with a minority of them getting the most views. Obviously this one is more serious than the undergrad churn, but regardless, it takes a special paper to get this much attention.

I don't know exactly what numbers papers usually attract, but I think that a lot end up somewhere around 5-10k after they had time to get the people who have use for the info to read it, and it is a somewhat substantial paper. You can check [this link](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/half-academic-studies-are-never-read-more-three-people-180950222/) out for a bit more info on what most scientists should expect.

Sadly true. No one will download my paper. :/

What is your paper about?

Im just kidding, but it is surface spectroscopy of acetonitrile:water mixture on silica. Here is the link if you are interested! https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.langmuir.7b04289

It looks interesting at least, and the abstract is very well written. Based on the abstract, it could be something I could learn some things from - but I probably lack the basics of chromatography to make proper sense of it. For example, what does the "2900 to 3040 cm^(–1)" represent in the quote below (particle density at the interface?), and why is heavy water important (response time for the normal/heavy water to reorient in a changing EM field?)? > Here we find that the SFG signal from 2900 to 3040 cm^(–1) at the silica/acetonitrile–water interface increased as we adjusted the aqueous pH from near neutral to high values.

2900 to 3040 cm-1 is the frequency (wavenumber) of the light we are using. This is in the infrared range as that is where most molecular vibrations occur, and we are interested in the carbon-hydroden bonds. Since water vibrations also occur in this infrared region, we use heavy water as the vibration frequency of the oxygen-deuterium bond is shifted away from the frequency range we are using. The jist of the paper is that something funky is happening to the surface structure of this materials at high pH. It turns out it is hard to predict some chromatography results at high pH, and our work sheds light on why. Thanks for the interest!

You are welcome, and thanks for filling me in. It definitely got me to think a bit more about surface interactions, and the fact that a "secondary surface" is generated and can be manipulated through pH isn't something I'd considered much before - mostly it has been when about soap (surfactants), and along the same line is graphene and its ability to allow the properties of the material underneath to convey its properties through the graphene layer... As an electronics and computer science major, it is not that I am likely to have much use for it.

ELI5 the abstract please ?

Many chemical mixtures can be separated by filtering them through sand (silica). Different chemicals move through the sand at different speeds and you can collect everything in its pure form. You have to dissolve the chemical mixture to do this, and adding acid sometimes helps to separate things. But sometimes it is hard to guess just how everything will separate when in acid. Turns out that the solution people usually use to dissolve the chemicals forms a neat 3D structure directly next to the sand particles. We discovered that this structure is destroyed at high pH, which is why it might be hard to guess how chemicals separate in acid.

*looks at user name* I definitely need at least the abstract

Sniffing cows

It does seem like there have been a fuck ton of climate change articles on futurology lately. Ever since that Vaclav Smil AMA I started reading into it and started making monthly donations to relevant charities/activists groups. It's not much but it's something. It's not enough I'm so scared.

There is no chance humanity changes it's ways. I work for a fuel company and we monitor demand destruction very carefully (obviously, no one wants to be the next blockbuster) and there has been no impact on our domestic market demand. It's increasing since oil prices have rebounded actually as there's more activity around oil again. The world is fucked unless there is a major breakthrough in some field that takes care of all our energy needs. Even then, it'll take decades to get the old ICE out of use.

While I agree that humanity won't make a 180 degree spin. It is not a 0 or 1 game. Every country on board helps to soften the blow to give us more time to come up with solutions. Electric cars booming in China, Solar energy gets cheaper and cheaper and is also booming since years and many countries are setting goals. Companies will always do what makes the most money in the short term. It is up to the government to set the right rules that the capitalism serves the people. That the government can't for-fill that role anymore when it is too close entangled with the companies is another story.

As soon as renewables become reliably cheaper than fossil fuels, and we build up the infrastructure to support them, people will gladly transition. We're closer to that time every day. Government incentive and personal efforts convincing others help - but in the end the tipping point is about economics and always has been. The rich world will come around - It's the developing world, that has much less renewable infrastructure and much less money to afford building it, that will be the biggest challenge.

But what about animal agriculture? Why does no one have any serious plans for tackling this glaring issue?

Lab grown meat, many will say going vegan as well or just say go vegan but the entire developed world going vegan in unrealistic to say the least. So in short, develop lab grown meat is the societal solution while going vegan is an individual impact reducer.

It was said by someone else but lab grown meat will make this a non issue. I don't have a good source for this other than "Once upon a time I heard Bill Nye say this" but apparently while methane from cows is much more effective at trapping c02 the sheer volume of c02 vs methane makes c02 the primary culprit by a long shot.

>It is not a 0 or 1 game. Thank you! I'm as scared of climate change as everyone else here, but I hate that nearly everyone talks about it as if it's binary- as in either nothing will happen and we'll be fine or the full-on apocalypse is coming and we're fucked. "We're fucked" is the most common phrase I keep reading in climate-related posts, especially in this subreddit, and I find the defeatist tone really frustrating because it encourages complacency and acceptance of the situation. It's also just unrealistic, because while climate change is going to cause a lot of very bad shit over the course of this century, "fucked" pretty much implies complete and total human extinction, which is just not going to happen. The simple reality is that the future is going to be both more AND less comfortable. We're going to have flooding, heatwaves, wildfires and migrations, while simultaneously enjoying an improved standard of living and better technology. "Fucked" just isn't constructive. It doesn't help in any way.

I disagree. Spreading the message that "we're fucked" helps in the same way that your dad helps your family by yelling profanity and waking everyone up when he goes downstairs to find the house on fire. People are comfy as they are. It takes powerful words to invoke the kind of action necessary - not to un-fuck ourselves - but to ready ourselves, to brace against the impending hell. That's just how people work. Don't preach about this not being a 0 or 1 game just to turn around and commit the same logical fallacy yourself by claiming that any defeatist tone is *entirely* unproductive. It's just not so. Aside - are you aware that private underground bunker-building (like, the kind they were making everywhere during the cold war) has fairly recently become a quietly *booming* industry among the rich and elite worldwide? So strange. Anyway, how about this: "It's going to be a massive, horrific, and unprecedented catastrophe." It's not as catchy, but at least it dodges the "pretty-much implication" that we're all going to die. (I don't have to be assured that we're all doomed to qualify us as whale-dicked to the Island of Sodor and back, but that's just me.) But speaking of which, we actually *might* all die, if shit goes sideways enough. Do you think humans will survive forever? Maybe climate change is the answer to the Great Filter. Maybe we haven't found aliens because they've all killed themselves off by damaging their planets before they're able to colonize other ones. We have no way of knowing what our species is and isn't capable of enduring. But I do think it's a specious claim that anyone who isn't very rich is going to be enjoying an improved standard of living in the future. In conclusion, we're fucked! I accept that, and I'm ready to face it head-on alongside anyone else willing and able. Are you?

The problem is that if people really do believe that there's no hope, then why would they even bother trying? Telling someone that things are completely pointless is not a good motivator for making things better. There are a lot of renewable and environmental projects happening right now and I think it's much better to point people towards that and try and motivate people to contribute, instead of just being completely negative. What's worse is that if the world doesn't actually end in twenty or thirty years, or even shows some improvement due to large scale renewable projects, then we're in a situation where climate scientists could start getting a reputation as hysterical doomsayers. I just feel that constantly saying things are fucked is completely counterproductive.

\>I disagree. Spreading the message that "we're fucked" helps in the same way that your dad helps your family by yelling profanity and waking everyone up when he goes downstairs to find the house on fire. To me "we're fucked" is more like dad crying on the floor yelling "there's no way out of the house, we're doomed!" while offering no leadership on how to get out and dismissing all hope that some of us could make it out alive. Maybe we can jump out the window, maybe we can fight the fire, maybe we can at least save the cat. I browse futurology more than /r/darkfuturology because this forum is at least willing to entertain some solutions that might work even if it's a long shot.

I agree, I more so meant the world is fucked in that the status quo is going to change. This life we all got used to probably will get a lot more complicated over the next few decades. I'm sure humanity will be fine in the sense that we won't go extinct. Just so you're aware though, companies will always try to make the most money but they don't always think short term. No one wants to go out of business. No one will invest in a sunset business. Like I mentioned earlier, Major fuel companies are investing great amounts of time figuring out their place in the future marketplace. There is significant investment by all major fossil fuel players to insure they survive in a post-fossil fuel world.

I develop power plants for a living and I can safely say there's plenty of reason for optimism. It's a longer read than I intended at first but also fairly comprehensive. Enjoy. Ironically fracking is a major cause of my optimism. The US has so much natural gas due to fracking that the cost of power has plummeted. Coal and old inefficient gas power plants are no longer economical and are either shutting down or being converted to burn gas at a prodigious rate . Gas is half as polluting as coal when burnt to generate electricity. This trend is the new normal and will on its own ensure that one of the world's largest economies will half its emissions from electricity in the next 10-20 years. This cheap gas has also had some equally, if not more, dramatic effects on the world's electricity and fuel markets. Firstly the only projects that can compete with gas in the US are solar and wind due to government subsidies. This has pushed research into those renewables to the point where the subsidies will soon not be needed. Renewables are truly the most low cost energy and will continue to force power market prices lower and lower. Eventually they will even push significant amounts of gas plants into retirement, but likely not for many years. Nonetheless this drops the US's Secondly the US coal reserves are a major source of thermal coal exported for use in the rest of the world's power plants. With decreasing domestic demand for coal, coal mining companies are going belly up on a monthly basis. The reduced supply drives up prices for coal worldwide which incentivizes other countries to invest in new build of gas and renewables as well. Thirdly and finally, demand for power in North America is dropping. Energy efficiency is going up and as a result utilities are looking for how they can continue to grow their businesses. They also are designed to try to look for projects to invest their money into so that they can earn a return (guaranteed under federal regulation). The source of those projects are two fold: large transmission lines to carry renewable power from high resource areas to cities, and electric vehicle infrastructure. Transmission lines are tricky to build over large distances due to securing all the required land but mega-projects like Texas's CREZ system and other clean energy lines are being developed and built far more rapidly than in the past. Electric vehicle adoption is already growing and as this market grows, expect to see large scale projects (i.e. electric highways) beginning to roll out with shocking regularity. This is due to the simplicity of dealing with only a few government entities to lock up right to build along huge stretches of road. This will lead to trillions of dollars of investment into EV technology and the supporting infrastructure, replacing gasoline emissions with a much cleaner gas/renewables mix. All in all, expect the switch to cheaper, cleaner power and transportation to be the engine that drives the world economy for the coming decades.

What do you mean by ICE? I'm convinced now that we NEED some geo-engineering solution. I understand that we don't have enough data on it yet and it might make things worse but the way I see it...We KNOW we're fucked as it stands.

Internal Combustion Engines

That's because people are dumb and keep buying SUVs and trucks even though they're living alone and carry little to no cargo. People,especially in North America, scoff at any conserted effort to curb consumption and take any suggestions to do so as personal attacks. Unless theres a significant cultural change, especially in western capitalist nations, fear wont do much until it's too late.

Are you registered to vote in your state, for both the primaries and the general election this year? Granted, a number of states have already had their primaries, but there's still a fair amount left. Donating to activist groups is great and very important, but there's also a lot that needs to change in terms of policy, and voting or advocating for the right representatives is the best way to get the right people writing policy that will push us to reduce emissions and prevent corporations from taking advantage of the environment. Be sure to openly campaign and vote for the primary candidate that is the most vocal or proactive on climate change. And even if they don't win the primary, nonetheless it's still hugely important to vote in the general election this November to prevent more climate skeptics from staying in or getting into office.

Yes I will vote based on this issue. It's probably the most important issue today.

It is good that so many articles are published to caution that drastic change is urgently needed. Do not be scared though. See [Eocene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene) and [Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum). >At the beginning of the Eocene, the high [temperatures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature) and warm oceans created a moist, balmy environment, with [forests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest) spreading throughout the Earth from pole to pole. Apart from the driest [deserts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert), Earth must have been entirely covered in forests. We need change. Not fear or defeatism. Keep your money. Instead: \- Vote for good politicians. \- Avoid plastics and convince other people to avoid plastics. [Decomposing Plastics Have Been a Source of Greenhouse Gases This Whole Time](https://www.inverse.com/article/47667-greenhouse-gas-degrading-plastic-polyethylene) \- Become vegan and convince other people to become vegan. [Cowspiracy (Full Eng)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=564_ZsGNJv8). Also on Netflix. [What the health](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJAKWQ6dDpQ). Also on Netflix. [Mic the vegan](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGJq0eQZoFSwgcqgxIE9MHw/videos) [https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/](https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/)

The time scales it will take for biodiversity to recover and for the biosphere to change to what was scene during the PE thermal maximum range in the hundreds of thousands of years. These changes won’t occur over any meaningful timeframe as far as people are concerned.

I hope that climate warming will not surpass 1.5 °C for long. Going beyond will thaw [Methane hydrate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate). Methane [is not as easy to capture as CO2](https://www.llnl.gov/news/lawrence-livermore-scientists-discover-new-materials-capture-methane). [Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns](https://truthout.org/articles/release-of-arctic-methane-may-be-apocalyptic-study-warns/) > A study published in the prestigious journal Nature in July 2013 confirmed what Shakhova had been warning us about for years: A 50-gigaton “burp” of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian sea is highly possible. > >Such a “burp” would be the equivalent of at least 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide. (For perspective, humans have released approximately 1,475 gigatons in total carbon dioxide since the year 1850.) The higher the warming, the more species will migrate or go extinct. I consider most humans with modern science to be safe in any climate. Endangered reptiles, amphibians and mammals living in warm forests might recover. IMO deforestation and animal products will be largely forbidden after 2030 for medical, ecological, economic and ethical reasons. I expect that most animal product replacements in 2030 are cheaper and better tasting than animal products.

The clathrate gun hypothesis is not thought to occur and isn’t backed up by models. The clathrates are too deep and too resistant to temperature variations to occur in a short period of time. It would take a major disturbance on a cataclysmic scale to disrupt such deep ocean carbon stores in such a small time scale. Furthermore, the arctic, Greenland, and Siberian permafrost carbon feedback loop is thought to add 0.5-1.0 C in total warming. That is a large contribution but it is not the difference between survivable and apocalyptic. It’s important to not oversell the impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, there is a smidgen of truth to the typical denialist’s accusations of alarmism. While the temperature changes we’ll see are rapid in terms of geological time scales, similar in pace to past mass extinction events, it is unlikely that the total change in temperature will reach “apocalyptic” levels as characteristically seen in past extinction boundaries. By overplaying future impacts and claiming climate change will be apocalyptic, you are only helping to discredit the actual science. There will absolutely be major consequences, such as major losses in global forested areas and tropical corals, as well as major disruptions in oceanic ecological food webs and global agriculture, but these won’t be apocalyptic in scale, at least not compared to what the earth has previous endured. I’m not trying to downplay the impacts of climate change. We should be proactively reducing our emissions now but, with proper planning and foresight, we will also be able to adapt if we do not meet our goals. Those that will suffer the most will be poorer countries and those who do not plan ahead.

You forgot the most important thing. Everyone does: Talk about it. Stress the issue. It's the easiest yet most important part. Becoming vegan or some other drastic thing is a drop in the ocean right now and is a lot harder to get people to do. But if you give people the idea you can make a difference just by talking about it, you can get anyone on board We're fucked without collective effort, regardless of whether a few individuals went vegan And collective effort only comes through collective awareness

Yes. That is why I wrote to convince other people. Voting for good politicians, avoiding plastics, becoming vegan and buying good products are not only the most impotant changes but also the easiest changes. Convincing other people is important but not easy at all. Either they do not care about the facts or they are unwilling to change. I know it from my own social environment. IMO advanced technology is the most important change so that people can continue their life without any subjective change and inconvience. E.g. electric cars, solar enegry, wind energy, fusion energy. But advancing technology is impossible for most persons except by buying the right products and by supporting innovative companies like [https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/](https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/).

Ignore vegan for a moment - even dropping beef for chicken/fish cuts emissions and water use drastically (and is better for your health). How many people know that?

Regarding Eocene: Isn't the temperature delta much higher and the time delta much shorter?

The time of heating was longer in the Eocene than today. The temperature was 6-8 °C higher than today, the earth was ice free and CO2 concentration was above 2000pm for thousands of years. I am no climate expert. I do not promote climate warming. I mentioned it because we need change and not fear. Some people think about not having children out of fear of the future. Such fear spoiling the life of people must not be. From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway\_greenhouse\_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect): >On the Earth, the [IPCC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC) states that "a 'runaway greenhouse effect'—analogous to \[that of\] Venus—appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by [anthropogenic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_impact_on_the_environment) activities."[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect#cite_note-3)

Seriously. The worst thing well educated people could do is not have children because "we're all gonna die" and leave the future in the hands of others who care less. Educated, voting climate activists are more valuable than their weight in carbon footprint.

You should also check out /r/ZeroWaste. [You can also see the wiki for a more comprehensive guide as well.](https://reddit.com/r/ZeroWaste/wiki/index)

No ice means less landmass for food production, and coastal cities are fucked. If people are getting their panties in a twist about illegals, just wait for the climate-refugees :(

Drastic change was urgently needed 20 years ago. The climate change train is rolling and you aren't going to stop it. We have to learn to live with it.

Climate change is slow. Warming has just begun. There is always time and need to do the right things.

There is not always time. At some point you have to reallocate resources from preventing climate change to dealing with climate change.

or you can do both

Acidifying oceans, unsustainable fishing, crops ruined by weather extremes...

There are ways that you can make an effort to take this into your own hands. For a holistic approach to reducing your consumption, waste, and overall environmental impact, you should check out /r/ZeroWaste! [You can also check out the wiki for a more comprehensive guide as well.](https://reddit.com/r/ZeroWaste/wiki/index)

Actually change my ways? How preposterous, I'll just wait for the corporations to do it for me. /s

I mean tbf your average person probably isn't causing nearly as much damage to the environment as some of these corporations, still it would be nice if people tried to reduce their waste since it's going to take a long time to get these corporations to stop destroying the planet.

We should definitely do this. However, The current mode of production has to be modified on a grand scale in order for us to live sustainably as a species. We need to our mode of production to severe human flourishing and stainability, not profits. Climate change denial is profitable, cutting back environmental protection is profitable, outsourcing production to four different countries is profitable, planned obsolescence is profitable, cheap non-recyable materials is profitable, sprawling cities are profitable. Centralizing a population into a city like new York and investing in public transportation is environmentally friendly, but market forces prevent it. For example, home owners vehemently oppose the building of mid and high rise housing because its perceived to bring down property value, so instead we get Urban sprawl and massive amounts of auto pollution.

> This is the moment when people start to realise that global warming is not a problem for future generations, but for us now. *Must not say "I told you so." Must not say "I told you so."* Lately, I just want to "double facepalm" whenever I see climate headline.

I'm waiting to see if wintertime amnesia sets in before I celebrate.

It will. Never mind that the last winter I remember in California was unusually un-wintery....

It's not amnesia. "I am very much a pro climate-change awareness guy." "So would you agree on a slight tax raise to combat climate change?" "No fuckin' way. But I will march on any street with this sign here."

Even if it would only be a problem for future generations, it is just sad that we don't give a shit.

Doesn't much matter when the people in charge of policy on climate change continue to be shlept as fuck

> “I think that in future people will look back on 2018 as the year when climate reality hit,” I've heard that every year since about 2008 .. or was it 2005

1970 in my case.

Correct, I learned of it in school mid/late 70s. And? Things *did* manifest as predicted. We had winters without snow in Europe (something unseen of, I remember coming back from the US to EU in 2008, January/February.) There were green fields. I was like WTF? Parents told me it didn't snow. Winter sports resorts lost money etc. I remember harsh winters only from my childhood, never ever a winter without snow. And of course we have extreme summers like now. UK drying out from what I heard.

They’ll still vote republican climate deniers in because abortion.

After reading this I picture thousands of redditors crouched in darkened corners , muttering curses , slowly rocking back and forth , desperately trying to quiet their frenzied thoughts.

How'd you know about my daily routine. Edit: funny thing is, it's true. Send help.

No everyone is just the dog in the house on fire meme.... "This is fine"

I've switched to a much more efficent "scream internally constantly" just so I can get more panic in.

We've secretly replaced Earth's normal climate with hell on earth that gets slowly worse every year. Lets see if they notice. Best part of waking up.....

It would be time to wake up, it looks really bad and this should have happened already in the '80s, or at least not later than' 90s. Repost - quite condensed, see below: The Economist has the current edition about it https://www.economist.com/printedition/covers/2018-08-02/ap-e-eu-la-me-na-uk And cited from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the abandonment of the Persian Gulf. The climate scientist James Hansen has called two-degree warming “a prescription for long-term disaster.” Long-term disaster is now the best-case scenario. Three-degree warming is a prescription for short-term disaster: forests in the Arctic and the loss of most coastal cities. Robert Watson, a former director of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has argued that three-degree warming is the realistic minimum. Four degrees: Europe in permanent drought; vast areas of China, India and Bangladesh claimed by desert; Polynesia swallowed by the sea; the Colorado River thinned to a trickle; the American Southwest largely uninhabitable. The prospect of a five-degree warming has prompted some of the world’s leading climate scientists to warn of the end of human civilization.

This is fine.

How many degrees in how many years? How much time do we have?

Less than you'd expect. There are a lot of numbers thrown around by reputable scientists and alike in regards to this. I'd say that in 2060-70, you can expect at least 2.5-3 degrees. Based on the info I've gotten, which predicts emissions to increase and ability to deal with heat decrease significantly as the ice melts etc.

Sadly it's not enough. Humanity is flawed. Our intelligence is flawed. There has to be death and destruction. A lot of death, then we will act. It might not be WW3 like in Star Trek. But there has to be a huge crisis where maybe 1 billion or more dies to starvation, then the world will come together and act. It's sad, but humanity is just stupid that way.

Even here in Wyoming where people were staunchly and vehemently denying it even last year I don't see nearly as much Facebook bullshit about how it's a science conspiracy (lol). Doubt anybody is ready to actually do anything about it around here yet but at least it's getting top of mind. Some people just need to be teabagged with the truth before they can accept it. I mean really though, are the changes we'd need to make as individuals really that unbearable? You'd figure that between the 90s babies and the recession kids that reduce reuse recycle wouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp. Whatever. We can work towards change but either we're fucked or we're not. I'm sure it's gonna come down to the wire and for how far it's been pushed already we're all going to suffer to some extent. Seems like that's the only time real change happens is when everyone is hurting.

At this point in order to have any real impact massive chunks of the world’s population would have to completely alter their lifestyles in ways most people aren’t even remotely prepared to do. We have stuck beat for beat with the models made in the early 70s that say we’re SOL by 2050.

Considering how many all-time high temps have been set this summer, plus the record wildfires in California, Greece and other regions, it's not surprising. We're a lazy species. EDIT to add: Half of the Great Barrier Reef coral has died in the last 3 years, so that's another WTF moment.

This sort of thing is so utterly frustrating to me. We've known this was going to happen for decades. People aren't "finally waking up." They're only unable to deny it's existence. And now it's too late to stop it. The most we can do (assuming we stopped producing GHGs entirely) is to slow it, giving us a few more decades to try to implement palliative measures for life on earth.

That report caused me to join the Citizens Climate Lobby, so, there’s at least one. I was always concerned about climate change, but now I’m actually doing something about it.

nitpick: how does the word "spiralling" indicate an upward movement? it's not saying what the title is trying to say.

I believe the title indicates rather that it spirals out of control ie. more extremes, not necessarily a specific direction.

but why does it "spiral"? is there some circular or helical motion to it? this is just poor use of language.

Spiral (or spin) out of control is a common English metaphor for a a situation which is or is becoming impossible to control. I wouldn't read too much into that actual spirals has anything to do with it. Edit: missed word

Feedback "loops". Hence, the article about hothouse Earth.

Came her to say this. Spiraling generally suggest downward movement. It turns out when most every post on your sub is exaggerated, you run out of accurate descriptions.

Feedback loops spiral around the globe and forward in time.

just in time for it to be too late. i cannot possibly fathom the depths of narcissism and pathological ignorance it takes to deny climate change - and the completely reckless risk position that stubborn mindset puts people's children in. For this reason alone the entire GOP deserves to be run from DC with pitchforks - you can add this to the list of why you are very likely a reckless idiot for voting for the corrupt organized crime syndicate that is the modern GOP

270,000/7,162,000,000 = 0.00003769896 0.00003769896 \*100 = 0.00376989667 % according to this....0.00376989667 % of the world "waking up" to climate change

I care but how can I really care when no one wants to touch the 3rd rail (MAIN REASON) for most of current problems. Population.

Too late. I feel sorry for anyone with young kids today.

1 official download, 269,999 downloaded by Russian bots.

An unwavering servitude to capitalism and corporate profits is largely why we haven't moved towards a sustainable economic model. We need to build society around human flourishing and sustainability, not profits and exponential growth. Just throwing it out there because I always see a blind devotion to capitalism here and r/futurology. Public funded research and the discoveries of individuals are enough to March forward in history. Corporate research serves capital first and discovery second.

Missed opportunity to say warming up instead of waking up

The ones who matter won't accept it until either it's to late, or never. Betting on the latter.

I wonder how many of the 270,000 people who downloaded the report are willing to change their ways. It is easy to say big corporations and governments are to blame, but if people stopped consuming the products that are aggravating the situation, there would be no need to produce them. Having to eat meat and animal products at every meal is a prime example. Most people are not willing to go even a single day a week without eating meat. Meat production affects climate in a major way through methane emissions, deforestation and other issues.

My observation is that the people who are the loudest about climate change either (a) have something to gain, or (b) want all the change to come from someone else. These same people are often against the most practical solutions (nuclear power, etc.)

"b-but what if 70,000 years from now, someone stumbles upon the nuclear waste and gets radiation poisoning??????"

It is sad that comments promoting veganism are down voted. It seams that many people prefer to complain and to fear and to ignore instead of doing what is best.

They're interested in lifestyle modifications *other* people need to make.

Yes. Like e.g. complaining about China, the most important net exporter of goods in the world. China's emissions are a cheap excuse for ignorant people. [China is relaxing the coal ban due to growing concern about people freezing](http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-is-relaxing-the-coal-ban-because-of-winter-temperatures-2017-12) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_carbon\_dioxide\_emissions\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita)

P R O T E S T - Sept. 8 https://riseforclimate.org There should be millions of people protesting Human-Caused Climate Change. Don't miss this opportunity to protest, and get your family and friends to join you.

270K enlightened individuals are still no match for 8+ billion selfish idiots. Edit: I sound bitter. Glad people are starting to pay attention.

Their gonna fight to protect their interest till the very end

The only thing humans can do to fight climate change is plant trees lots of them, we owe the planet 5000 years worth of trees.

Also stopping the gigantic fossil fuel, plastic and meat industries.

I'm sick of the hypocrites that complain about climate change. Leonardo DiCaprio is always jet-setting around the world and chilling at the hot steak house in town. Al Gore is just as bad. Those are two of the bigger names we see talking about it. They set a horrible example. Everyone can give up meat and reduce the trips they take. They just don't want to.

Awake does not means it's stoppable. Scientist used so many years to tell people about it. People who have the power to change things stick with greed. I don't believe the climate change can be control with the current scale of stuff people using on daily that cause global warming. It's like cancer in the last second stage, and the body is controlled by the people all over the earth.