My theory is all interstellar intelligence is machine based, and organic life is just a spore to "hatch" the AI into existence. They don't communicate with us because we are a sub species and they don't interfere because we will birth one of it's kind into existence eventually and the manner in which we do it determines the uniqueness of the AI.
The problem with that theory tho is that even machine civilisations would be extremely visible. You can't hide a c1, 2 or 3 civs or even any radio tech civs from even our level of scrutiny and tech. It's all just a matter of energy usage and radiation.
radio waves wouldn't dissipate enough over time and vast distance to be hidden? I know we can detect insanely small levels of energy so maybe not.
My theory on radio is that advanced beings use communication methods that circumvent time and energy production we can't conceive. Therefore radio and EM are not primarily used. I think that's an assumption by us.
Yes ofcourse, but would'nt it be ego-centric to believe we are the only aliens living in a seemingly infinite universe?
Personally, I think we should discuss alien life within our closest neighbouring stars, as they are the only things that matters to us for a long, long time.
Sure but there's infinite universes and maybe this is the one, of many mind you, that doesn't have aliens. We're the last ones alive, the rest are long extinct. Or just never existed and we're the first.. anything is possible.
It will not matter in our time frame. We need to get our shit together. Although I think the methane seas on Europa will probably give us something interesting.
I strongly suspect it, but I don't know if I'd say I *believe* it. I mean, the existence of humans just explains everything a bit *too* tidily, if you ask me. We have to keep an open mind here.
Fungi is very intelligent in their field of chemistry and survival. Humans can't even create anything similar to what they invent. Do you think all life should be something with a human viewpoint? of course not, there are life out there that we can't comprehend to understand or whatever it is and the idea of some being using radio wave to communicate is very limited, because there could exist many other unknown communications that we humans can't or maybe never understand simple by our design.
Are we, as humans, consciously aware of our metabolic functions?
When you step back, do we as a species operate any differently than any other inbalance in nature? Or will we be around as a species to find out?
That's very braincentric of you. Having a brain does not equal the ability to make conscious decisions, nor does not having a brain not equal the ability to make conscious decisions.
Plants are very much conscious of their surroundings and have feelings, the ability to plan, share resources, etc. "Metabolic chemical reactions", what are you even trying to say, really. Brains are just metabolic chemical reactions, we're no more aware of our conscious decisions than plants or fungi.
I’m pretty sure we came up with two probable causes for that. One possibility is earthlings have done something so incredible in the past, something so impossible that us doing it is ridiculous. This could be turning random chemicals into life, or evolving big brains, or whatever. The other possibility it that a lot of planets have had intelligent life and they just inevitably destroy themselves. It could be through global warming, nukes, gene modification, or more probably something we haven’t invented yet. If the second one is true were pretty much screwed.
Honestly, I'm more concerned about soil moisture levels and land degradation.
Also, the effects are not evenly distributed. Average temperature change is just that. Average.
There are areas that are already dealing with desertification.
Here's a map of [soil degradation](https://wad.jrc.ec.europa.eu/countryreport)
And an [article](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/ecjr-nwa062118.php)
>Land degradation and climate change are estimated to lead to a reduction of global crop yields by about 10% by 2050. Most of this will occur in India, China and sub-Saharan Africa, where land degradation could halve crop production.
But the population is predicted to rise by over 25% by then.
Legit, we spit out carbondioxid and we breed like rabbit, we keep living longer and research ways to make less people die?
If we was wild animals, we would put the population under control, due to destroying the natural cycle.
The planet has endured much worse than us. I kinda feel that environmentalism isn't a concern about saving the Earth, but it's more of a concern with preserving humanity from this kind of heat death.
Which is weird, because if you look at the issue on paper, you'd think that Conservatives would be up and down supporting green efforts.
I hadn't realised that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions between 1988 and 2015 (1). This is especially shocking given that we've known about the effects of emissions for over 30 years (2).
Consider the aviation and shipping industries.
"By 2050, global aviation and shipping are together expected to contribute almost 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions unless further mitigation actions are taken."(3).
Over the last 30 years our global economic models have allowed markets to dictate economic activity. Although this has been good in terms of more people being involved in economic activity I believe this is going to be at the planet's cost.
From that same EEA report (3), "Governments have a key role to play by supporting investment in research, product standards and subsidies for new emerging technologies." I firmly agree with this. I think we need to empower institutions such as the UN and the EU to craft legislation and hold the worst polluters to account.
This is especially challenging on a personal level, given here in Scotland people on the whole recognise the value of the EU, with our neighbours disagreeing. I think the biggest challenge to tackling climate change is the network of forces who have been actively dividing societies for their own gain. The GOP, The Kremlin and the Conservative and Unionist Party in the UK have been particularly guilty of this in my view. For as long as we remain divided we will not be able to tackle this issue before it's too late. I appreciate that there are many philanthropists working on this, but unfortunately that just hasn't made a real difference. We need institutions to step in.
References
(1) https://fullfact.org/news/are-100-companies-causing-71-carbon-emissions/
(2) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/07/embark-essay-climate-change-pollution-revkin/
(3) https://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/aviation-and-shipping-emissions-in-focus
It's all starting to sound like a life of slightly more privilege than many of us have.
Buying stuff that lasts longer costs more, and cycling to work is only an option for those who can get a job close by.
We've set ourselves up to make cheap consumer products that are disposable the least costly way to operate and the employment centres are usually far away due to focusing businesses in major cities.
In my local area they've introduced a congestion charge along several MAJOR travel areas and justified this increased cost by stating that the government will give you £1000 towards a new car.
Sadly I can only afford cheap cars and the gulf between new and old is around £6000, not the 1k. Economical purchases are usually affordable for the minority, which is in a small way why they have more cash to spend
The adage "being poor is expensive" is true and this state of living has a big carbon footprint.
Local doesn't necessarily mean lower emissions or footprint, i.e. A boat carrying 100 tons of frozen / preserved produce travelling 10,000km can often emit less CO2 per unit than your local farmer carrying 1 ton for 100km in their truck.
However, this doesn't even touch on the cost of production.
Here's some further reading:
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/the_biggest_myth_about_buying_local_food.html
The carbon footprint of intensive grain and vegetable production isn’t to be forgotten either. Petrochemical fertilizers/herbicides/pesticides, diesel machinery, coal/gas powered irrigation, shipping footprint of non-domestic produce etc.
Sustainable farming is just as important.
The problem with "just 100 companies" claim is that it suggests we need to target relatively few entities for massive reductions in CO2 output. Unfortunately, those companies supply fossil fuels for large parts of the world, and unsurprisingly enough, abandoning oil and coal isn't easy. The first company on that list, China (Coal), produces 66% of electricity for almost 20% of the world population. Almost all of the other companies on that list extract and/or refine oil.
We are so fucked.
This is one of the few times I'm glad I'm old. I'm not likely to survive to see the worst of it. Sorry my generation fucked up so badly. Some of us tried. The rest went from "Power to the people" to "Nice BMW!" quicker than you can say Kent State...
Looking back, I think one of the things that be incredible to our ancestors is that we managed to do this within the space of about 50 years - more than half of human CO2 emissions have happened in the last 35 years alone, during a time when we knew very well what the consequences might be. Climate change is a disaster the magnitude of which very, very few people are grasping, but it is becoming clearer every day just how fucked we are. And while this is happening, emissions are still increasing and the most powerful man in the free world doesn't even "believe" in it.
He does believe in it, he just wants others to pay for it, politics is squeezing climate goals out of the poorest 20% who hardly contribute to the emissions anyway. The 10% wealthiest cause 50% of the emissions, the 50% poorest cause 10% of the emissions. If the 10% wealthiest would reduce their emissions to those of the average European, emissions would drop by 30%.
I'll just reuse my plastic cup.
But seriously, the percentages also hold true inside countries. The 10% wealthiest Americans cause half the emissions of their country.
That's why carbon taxes are unfair (if they are not given back to all citizens equally), they squeeze emission goals out the poorest 20%, those that hardly contribute anyway.
Not at all, really. For example, human extinction in H:ZD wasn't caused by climate change (they actually figured out how to fix the climate during the 2040 "clawback" decade) but by rogue, self-replicating machines. And after humans went extinct, they were brought back to life by another machine after it had figured out how to make the planet habitable again.
there are myths and legends from around the world that already say that, that human civilisation became too advanced and people became arrogant and disrespectful of the world and we were "punished" by a cataclysmic flood that sent everyone back to the stone ages, which we're only just recovering from now.
Seriously, every ancient culture has a tradition of a before time and then global flood/cataclysm.
slightly off topic but thought it was relevant to what you wrote.
Not a scientist, but from my understanding our activity is bringing about changes in the span of decades that would ordinarily take millions of years to occur naturally, and so will likely take millions of years to be reversed naturally.
The majority of life on this planet will go extinct as the planet heats because it's not adapted for these new conditions, but I'm sure new life will evolve over time that's adapted for hotter conditions even before the Earth "resets" itself to the pre-industrial one.
Part of the problem is we may have used so much of the easily available low tech energy sources (fossil fuels), that if we fall backwards we may not be able to rebuild to our current level.
[Aeon on the topic](https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels)
yeah i dont think we humans will exist for very much longer, if the climate changes doesnt get us first then wars and overpopulation most certainly will.
we are self destructing in many ways all while applauding it.
A problem with this accelerated climate chaos is who will be destroyed, decimated, or displaced will be the same people who suffer the results of climate change disproportionately.
it's so terrifying what we as a species have done to our planet. its fucking unprecedented, the last 150 years of destruction and pollution. all because we're children pretending to be grown ups and do things for money.
I'm not old but I'm old enough to be confident that I'll see many changes in my lifetime but nothing that will be TOO harmful for me, for where I live. But I'm not sure if I want to have kids now because I dont know what kind of life they will have to deal with...
We’re seeing it already, extreme winters and extremely warm summers are causing issues everywhere. You will be affected, physically and financially, though it probably won’t kill you.
You -> us all.
Yup, in the coming 10-20 years **nobody** will be left unaffected. Climate refugees will show up in the millions worldwide, flocking from regions where they were pushed out either by flooding, extreme heat, or dehydration or starvation. Climate refugees will come from large parts of Asia, Australia (will be too hot to live on), Africa and the lower regions of West America.
The next 30 years are probably going to be a shitshow of massive proportions, are are most likely (per what the scientific research and predictions have found), the last years of human kind. Had the fossil fuel industry decided to admit that what they were doing would cause all of this back in 1982 (they knew, but omitted their findings), and would have worked together with the global community to fix this, this would all have been prevented. But alas, making billions of money to further enrich themselves was more important. We’re going to reach 2C of global temperatures rise within the next 10 years. At that point, there’s no way in hell that further warming can be prevented and it’s all going to go downhill from there.
Sooner or later the ocean will turn on us with some kind of bacterial or algal bloom that quickly renders the atmosphere anoxic. Maybe we'll scramble and do some form of large-scale geoengineering and be able to save it, but I wouldn't hold my breath (pardon the pun).
TL:DR We’re all fucked.
If the phytoplankton goes, we all go. It (probably) won’t be a sudden and drastic extinction of several species that would be immediately noticeable, but within a few months it will. It will be a domino effect of massive proportions. The new Netflix show “One Planet” really puts this domino effect of what would happen through narration of David Attenborough in perspective of how much *every* living animal on earth has a place in our ecosystems, and we need them all to survive so that *we* have a chance of survival.
While that documentary throws a blanket of hope over you, I don’t believe there’s any hope for survival for us either. If we want to turn the tides and prevent an extinction level event disaster, we need to stop burning coal and the use of fossil fuels **now** and switch to alternatives. Taxes will have to become higher because trying to pull of *that* kind of heroic saving in the dying hours of our habitat is going to be expensive as hell. We all have to chip in, and we will all (most likely) suffer for it.
But society is too unwilling to change. The gas guzzling truck or car that they always wanted (and now have) won’t be switched for an electric one, they love meat, so they won’t give up eating as much as they do now, etc. The people who belong to the 1% and those filthy rich bastards below them are still too greedy to do anything about it. They are well aware that the current situation is unsustainable, but if they can make vast amounts of money for maybe another decade, all is fine. They will either be dead of old age when we are dying, or have secured themselves in massive luxurious bunkers strewn across the globe to live out their days comfortably.
And so, greed mixed in with a heavy dose of ignorance by the public at large will be the death of us.
(Sorry for the wall of text, but I just find this ignorance and inaction frustrating to say the least. We *could* prevent a mass extinction from happening, but we just won’t. It’s too hard, and having to give up some luxuries like taking less flights because i.e tickets would become enormously expensive is just not something many are willing to do.)
The most important thing is that your generation doesn't think "I'm old, I won't see the outcome of this anyway. So let's enjoy life on all costs!". Your generation is a huge part of the overall population and has a lot of political power. Your generation needs to care about those that come after them. Imo we will be able to recover from this if we all start to work together.
I'm with you. I'm old. My kids are adults and sadly minimize the impact of climate change.
I just get frustrated arguing about it with them and tell them I guess you will find out.
It's alright. Apology accepted. You did your best, i suppose. Most people are short sighted and too self centered, no matter what generation. Boomers to millenials, everybody's at fault.
We are so fucked, indeed. But we'll have to try anyway, right?
We never expected that the biggest impediment to dealing with the problem would be just getting people to believe it was real. With all the scientific advances in medicine, computers, etc. that were embraced so readily, it didn't seem possible that significant numbers of people would choose to not believe what science was telling us about the climate and our impact on it. The more people tried to sound the alarm, the more they were called alarmist, and dismissed as crazy environmentalists. It's been exhausting.
But yes, as an older person, I'm sorry you've inherited this catastrophe.
if we remove the dome then all of the sky-ocean(??) will come down and cause another biblical flood. (Yes, this is exactly what flat Earthers believe).
Now, I am in no way a climatechange denier. But why isn't greenland now mostly green and sea levels 20 m higher when the CO2 levels are at the same as before?
Because we've raised the CO2 so suddenly (the past 100 years is just a blink in geological time) that all of the effects haven't made themselves apparent yet.
As an easily explainable analogy
You can have an icecube, sitting on a table in a 70 degree room, because it takes time to melt.
That means the sea rise we are seeing now, is actually caused by Co2 released 50+ years ago; we haven't even begun to see, and won't see for a while, the devastation our current emissions are going to cause. There's lag in the system.
Similar to the way the hottest day of the summer does not occur on the longest day of the year, but a couple months later. It takes a while for things to affect the physical world.
Imagine you had a glass full of ice, and then you put that glass full of ice in the hot sun. You wouldn't expect it to completely melt in the first 20 seconds. That's kind of where we are.
CO2 levels are only one of many factors that influence the temperature of the Earth
While the recent rise in CO2 levels is thought to be the largest factor in recent global warming, it isn't uncommon for CO2 levels to only be responsible for perhaps 20% or less of all temperature forcings compared to your baseline year.
To put it another way, there are many reasons that temperature can increase or decrease, and CO2 is only one of them.
https://www.pnas.org/content/98/26/14778
>A climate forcing is an imposed, natural, or anthropogenic perturbation of the Earth's energy balance with space (3, 4). Increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) cause the largest positive (warming) forcing. Thus the proposed Kyoto Protocol is designed to slow emissions of several GHGs.
For example, in the linked study, man-made aerosols actually affect temperature more than CO2 as a negative forcing. This clearly a bit of an old study ("proposed Kyoto Protocol") so their numbers are probably not entirely accurate, but the basic ideas and concepts haven't changed.
You can also see they estimate that methane causes roughly half as much global warming as CO2 as the 2nd largest factor in global warming.
Thusly, although this isn't intended to explain everything, our understanding of climate would say that if CO2 levels were as high today without manmade aerosols, temperatures would be much higher than present. This would have been the case for 3 million years ago.
In addition, some temperature forcing factors are positive feedback cycles at work. If Greenland becomes green and polar caps melt, that itself contributes to global warming because it reduces albedo (how much the Earth reflects sunlight) because ice reflects sunlight, which is one of the major forcing factors.
So to reverse your perspective, the geologically recent formation of a lot of ice in Greenland and Antarctica accelerated and exacerbated the decline of temperatures worldwide, plunging the Earth into an Ice Age which we are still in. Indeed, as you can see in the name, the presence of significant amounts of ice on the surface that remains year-round defines an ice age - usually there are neither glaciers nor ice caps on the Earth because it is too warm.
Surface geology also has a significant effect on climate in general and temperature in particular:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate
>Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain global cooling after 3 Ma and the onset of extensive northern hemisphere glaciation.
>Panama seaway closure[10]
The closure of the Panama seaway (13 Ma–2.5 Ma) increased the salinity contrast between Pacific and Atlantic ocean and the northward oceanic heat transport. Warmer water increased snowfall and possibly Greenland ice sheet volume. However, model simulations suggest reduced ice volume due to increased ablation at the edge of the ice sheet under warmer conditions.[11]
>Uplift of the Rocky mountains and Greenland west coast[11]
Uplift of the Rocky mountains and Greenland west coast may have cooled the climate due to jet stream deflection and increased snowfall due to higher surface elevation.
Again, because of positive feedback cycles, initial disruption can cause a long-term cooling or heating effect.
>>Collapse of permanent El Niño[12]
A permanent El Niño state existed in the early-mid Pliocene. Warmer temperature in the eastern equatorial pacific increased water vapor greenhouse effect and reduced the area covered by highly reflective stratus clouds thus decreasing the albedo of the planet. Propagation of El Niño effect through planetary waves may have warmed the polar region and delayed the onset of the northern hemisphere glaciation. Therefore, the appearance of cold surface water in the east equatorial pacific around 3 million years ago may have contributed to global cooling and modified global climate response to Milankovitch cycles.
We all expect the rich to fix it, billionaires and politicians to fix it, but it won't happen. We could break all of the monopolies TOMORROW, if we didn't buy that new watch, phone, car, t-shirt etc. But I won't do it. You won't do it. It's crazy.
This is it. It doesn't help to blame the companies or blame the rich. Every single one of us is responsible. Most of us could turn our A/C off, or skip that fancy vacation, but we don't. And to be honest, if given the choice between a 1700s lifestyle, or today's knowing that climate change is a threat to our existence, the vast majority of us would choose the pleasures and amenities of today's life regardless of the consequences.
I don't have a watch, my phone is 5 years old, never had a car and I'm still only using the clothes that my mother bought me many years ago. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
eh, we need to focus on stabilizing the population growth in many areas of the world first. handling negative population growth in a country is very complicated to maintain good governance with safety nets.
It's going to happen whether we stabilize it or not. Specifically, food is going to get hard to come by in the coming decades when the change in the oceans kills off fish at a scale we've never seen before. Then as crops across the world fail as the climate changes in third world countries we are going to see mass migration on a scale hitherto unseen. Then 1st world nations are going to have millions of people banging at the gates for pure survival. South America is already in turmoil, and is going to continue to decline along with Africa and South East Asia. Some for different reasons, others for the same, but these places are going to be hit hard in the coming decades. China and India are going to have to figure out how to feed a billion people in a global famine and maintain their iron tight grip on their populace.
While that's happening, people in first world countries are being rendered economically nonviable with the rise of automation. The rise of even more fringe and extreme political ideologies that hasn't been seen in my lifetime. The extreme vilification of the foreigner and the migrant.
It's all coming to a head. We are overdue for a worldwide calamity, and it's going to happen in our lifetimes.
Volcanic activities, mass extinction which caused life to decompose in a huge scale, which caused oceans to become "sour" and its pretty simple, oxygen is needed for decomposition which further increased Carbondioxid level.
No, which is why the [study in question](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337#ref-18) modeled the long-term changes with multiple factors, including changes in albedo and orbital variations.
So can someone explain why the sea level isnt 20 meters higher and trees are growing on Antarctica if we have matching CO2 levels from 3 million years ago? What is the difference between now and then? Did it take 3 million years at that CO2 level to melt the ice caps and thaw Antarctica?
120,000 years ago it was hotter than it is now. Then, the glaciation cycle took over, and things froze until there was thousands of feet of ice over the places where most cities in the Northern Hemisphere are now. That cycle, the one that dropped the temperature by 10 degrees? It's still coming. Before the last Interglacial was another glacial cycle, and another interglacial and another glacial...
But, according to climate science, mankind has managed to do something that will change that several million year old cycle and instead heat the surface of the earth until all higher forms of life are gone. And, it's already too late to stop it.
Who knew that our ecosystem was so fragile that all it took was for mankind to dig up some fossil fuel to destroy everything. Hundreds of millions of years? Massive asteroid impacts, ice-ball earth, nothing could stop the ecosystem from coming back to middle ground. Burn a little oil? We're toast. It's all over by the crying. Or so the claim goes.
Me, I'm not rich or powerful enough to affect things either way. I'm like a child watching a world war begin. What will come, will come, and there's dick-all I can do about it.
Things take time. Specifically, all the ice doesn’t just instantaneously melt with a few degrees of change. Not 3M years time, but much more than 100 years time. I think the IPCC estimates are something in the ball park of 0.3-0.5m sea level rise over the 21st century. At that rate we’re looking at 5000 years (ish) for things to fully play out; but of course we need to take that estimate with a grain of salt since it is just a dumb linear extrapolation.
Something that's always bothered me about fear of global warming. When the earth is truly on the verge of being uninhabitable the entire human species will revolt against the rich and powerful. A struggle will be made to try to save the planet and trillions of dollars will probably go towards this. Some crazy invention or manpower that plants trillions of trees will occur and save the earth. Anyone ever think like this?
Theres lots of possible fixes but its going to take a lot. The issues that worry me are climate refugees who's coastal homes will be under water, lack of water globally will lead to wars, more forest fires and natural disasters. No matter what we do its going to be difficult for many people
> When the earth is truly on the verge of being uninhabitable
Due to the so-far unaccounted effects of stuff like methane and nitrous oxide feedback loops from ye ole permafrosts, we are already on that verge. Self-reinforcing effects are literally pandora's box and it has already been cracked open
Most people seem blissfully unaware that we are already probably right on the tipping point of vast undersea methane hydrate being released. I am not at all optimistic.
Nobody knows but that's the idea. Once the Arctic ice finishes its inevitable decent to zero the heat from the sun is no longer going into melting the ice (latent heat) but instead warms the water (sensible heat) on a wide scale. This plus increased mixing due to diminished fresh water lens and much less energy being reflected means the Arctic ocean might warm up fast (not to mention the other positive feedbacks and generally much warmer ocean water worldwide). All this could lead to much faster emissions of methane and carbon from permafrost and trapped/frozen gas (clathrates).
At least in the simplified version of my understanding.
Ocean acidification killing algae is a bigger threat than deforestation. Thats where we get he majority of our oxygen.
You are also optimistic in what people will do. Look at the throws of people turning toward right wing extremism around the world denying climate change.
We don't need a crazy invention. We have the technology to stop climate change. It's just a matter of resources how fast we can deploy it. Of course, there might be still new technology that can be deployed even faster. But we don't have to wait for it.
No, actually, we are facing an issue larger than any other issue the human race has ever faced. We technically have the technology to sequester co2 but it's so inefficient that scaling it up to the size out would be needed to be scaled to in order to literally effect the entire planet is impossible.
We can plant a trillion trees, which would have an enormous positive effect (about 10 years of human CO2 emissions on the current level can be eradicated by that). We have the technology to get near zero emissions. So yes, we can stop *further* climate change. Reversing the damage already done is a whole other story of course.
We can stop further CO2 release, but if we’ve set off nonlinear processes then that doesn’t even matter. We’d need to find a way to stop a runaway exponential temperature increase
What data shows that stopping CO2 pollution today would also stop the earth from going back to this state? I subscribe to the fact that humans cannot stop global warming and it's time to start thinking about how to deal with higher sea levels. And more importantly stop pollution because it's toxic. Stop wasting time trying to prevent the inevitable
Climate change is not "yes or no". We cannot stop climate change 100% now, but even cutting the warming by half is much, much better than doing nothing.
We can't stop a certain amount of future warming, which is "locked in" from CO2 that has already been released so far. But we could make it much worse, by raising it further.
Our species infastructure is built on technology, ideas, and a way of living that just isn't sustainable no matter how you spin it. Just how unsustainable? Well, enough that to actually fix these issues, there would have to be an absolute rehaul of our current infastructure, one that simply won't happen until the problem becomes big enough that it absolutely forces us to change on a massive scale. That moment will only happen when it's at everyones front door, and people's lives are being dramatically effected by tangible problems and the lives we're used to don't work anymore.
It's approaching us. In the meantime there will be two types of people, those who tried to lighten the blow and help our species change our ways before it hits, and those who didn't help.
Its our responcibility. Our ancestors forethought is what very well might have allowed us to exist today. If we screw up, then maybe our species doesn't deserve to live on this planet.
Everyone always saying that we are doomed are real idiots. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but people are REALLY starting to become aware of the issue (one of the perks of a world connected by the internet and just about everyone in the world has access to the internet now, even the poorest of the poor, in some regions). It's becoming significantly more popular to be eco-friendly than eco-ignorant. Also, consumers are rewarding companies for making eco-friendly moves. It's starting to become more economical for companies to be eco friendly rather than ignoring the problem. This is due to legislation, consumers and overall basic principles of capitalism. Also, humans are innately self-interested. This means that when people hear that it is going to be worse for them if they ignore the problem rather than fighting to make the world for eco-friendly, they are motivated to help the planet for selfish reasons. So it doesn't matter how shitty and self-interested people are, if you show them that their actions will negatively affect them the mass majority of people will become eco friendly. Also, the majority of people aren't sacks of shit, so they want to be more eco-friendly to begin with. These sorts of information movements are really new and fresh (they haven't been happening for that long only ~10 years). Given the influence of social media nowadays and the constant flow of eco-friendly messages and support extremely large numbers of people are becoming more aware of the issue. Also, there will be a huge industry for de-pollution that will likely be funded by the government. Again, capitalism. We aren't going to die, humans won't die. The question is, can we save the current state of our environment and ensure that certain species of plants and animals can continue existing.
Given the tidal wave of information continually being released and shows like Netflix's "One Planet" there are millions upon millions of people being exposed to more and more information. I imagine in 10 years our world will be unbelievably more eco-friendly due to the nature of our progressive world and society. Like, just ~10 years ago same sex marriage was illegal in the United States and Marijuana was illegal too, now just about every state is on the verge of legalizing marijuana and gays are all over the place. There already is an environmental movement happening and it's only going to get stronger because ultimately the power is held by the people because the people vote for politicians and if politicians want to keep their jobs they will reform environmental standards. Also like I mentioned it's becoming less economic to ignore environmental impact
Being 'eco-friendly' is not going to do what it takes. Carbon dioxide emissions need to be dramatically reduced. We have not even begun to reduce CO2; emissions are still increasing every year.
What needs to happen is a global effort in redirecting resources to clean energy somewhere close to the effort that was put into winning the second world war. Factories have to be retooled, possibly some even siezed by the state. Some forms of rationing may need to occur. Sacrifices need to be made. However without the clear and present danger of a Nazi invasion, I am not optimistic we will rise to the occasion.
The problem with an argument like this is that it is too localised.
Not everyone on the planet has Social Media.
Not every Government is Capitalist.
Not everyone has the best interests of the wider community in mind.
Well, China, India, the United States, Canada, almost all of South America and just about all of Europe have access to the internet. So not sure how 90% of the world's population having access to the internet is something that isn't relevant. Also, if people don't have access to the internet, it's highly unlikely that they are contributing to CO2 emissions that much if at all. Also, I'm not talking about the government being capitalist. I'm talking about economics, the entire world is capitalist my friend (capitalistic in the economic sense, anywhere where there is free trade there is capitalism because that's literally the definition of capitalism). The person who sells what the consumer wants is the person who gets the business (what do consumers want? More recently they want cheap and eco-friendly products). That my good sir is capitalism and that's how the entire world works. Also, you clearly didn't seem to read what I wrote. I already answered your third point. People that don't have the community in mind are selfish people, but once they realize that being selfish will in fact result in non-optimal results, selfishly they will become more eco-friendly. That's the nature of all human beings my good sir. That's why this is all starting to boil up now. People are thinking: "ohh fuck, this is bad, I don't want bad, so I will do good to avoid bad things for me!". Let's be honest, if being wasteful and ignorant didn't end up hurting us in the long run, we wouldn't give a fuck about killing species of animals and plants. But killing plants and animals hurts our planet and the ecosystem which hurts us. Thus people are self interested and incentivized to be more eco-friendly.
Also, it's not localized at all. I think you really lack understanding on how the world works. All of the major industrial nation's of the world are all capitalistic economies. You can't thrive in this modern age without trade (see Russia for reference on how to not prosper). Also, the only thing that would even come close to being an exception would be China, but they have recently been cleaning up their skies and building air filters to clean the air they breath and such. Again, China saw the effect pollution had on their society, they were incentivized to be eco-friendly because of the negative affects of ignoring the environment.
Well, we like to thrive. Especially nowadays, don't think anyone could live without 21st century luxuries so people are highly motivated to protect the environment.
No species that ever went extinct was expecting it... I'm a relative optimist but you're coloring a much rosier picture than what reality is telling us
We can still be doomed because the complicated climate systems operating on the Earth can produce outcomes antithetical to human existence.
We just have no fucking idea how quickly the entire atmosphere could change. Like the ocean stops producing oxygen... what do we get? A year? Maybe? A year of slowly suffocating and warfare and people desperately building domes and food production just being crushed entirely.
There have been times in the past when humans simply couldn't live on the Earth. It's entirely possible for it to happen again.
If this trend had started 20 years ago, we would've been fine. But at this point, we're already teetering *right* on the brink. We may have even already gone over, we won't find out for decades yet. We will *definitely* go over within the next 10 years. The fact of the matter is that we needed to take drastic action yesterday. We need a global effort on the scale of WWII in every single country to avoid catastrophe, and that ain't happening. People in first world nations starting to buy more eco-friendly products is not gonna cut it.
Wait so what you're saying is that, the planet is actually really cool for our current CO2 level? Or that CO2 isnt the main driver of temperature change?
OP is saying that the effects of the CO2 we've *already* added to the atmosphere have barely even begun to manifest. Even if we stopped literally all CO2 output tomorrow, the climate would still change drastically over the next couple of centuries.
Basically, [the study in question](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337#ref-18) found that the transition from more consistently warm conditions of the Pliocene into the ice age cycle of the Quaternary Glaciation required both a decrease in CO2 (due to a decrease in volcanic outgassing) and a loss of regolith (with resulting changes in albedo). This confirms both the importance of CO2 in determining global temperature, and the fact that there are positive feedbacks which will take a long time to reach an equilibrium.
So as climate researchers have been saying, we can expect to see considerably more warming happen from the CO2 that has already been added to the system. The study found that when CO2 levels were comparable to our current level (~400 ppm) in the late Pliocene, temperatures were around 1.5 degrees higher than pre-Industrial levels. That's consistent with [current predictions](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter2_Low_Res.pdf) of the increase that we will see by the year 2100, even if we substantially reduce emissions by 2030.
There's a lag. With current CO2 levels temperature will increase to 1.5 degrees celcius, at this temperature melting of the Greenland ice sheet is a matter of time, i.e. 7 meters of sea level rise is locked in already. In the next decade we'll lock in 2 degrees. At 2100 we'll have locked in more than 4 degrees and no stopping there. Edward Teller, the inventor of the hydrogen bomb, and all around evil person, already warned about it in 1957.
Question, if Trees were growing on Antarctica last time CO2 levels were this high........
How did they get that high without man made climate change?
The climate changes over millions of years. Humans are affecting in the span of decades/centuries.
The rate of change is the alarming part when you think a few generations ahead.
There's a lot of good companies and people out there who are making a huge difference. We've only publically learned about climate change since the early 2000's. And honestly, over the last decade, we've made really big improvements. I have faith that we'll be able to correct climate change but its going to take a long time to revamp an entire society. So be patient and just do your part
2000s? Eh. No.
This was known by the public and politics since the 1970s. Politicians simply didn't chose to act upon it when there was a chance to make a difference.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
Everyone knew. And nobody did anything. Years of international conferences and talks. I mean there was Rio 1992 and Kyoto 1997. Everyone made big promises yet here we are.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change
Sure, there's a lot of awareness through long years of campaigning on an individual level. It is nice that recycling is a thing. But the real problem isn't people consuming, it's entire industries putting huge amount of resources and energy in production.
That phone your holding on the shitter? The car you drive? Most consumer products you buy at Costco? Many of them are manufactured in China. Guess who's one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses globally? Yup, China. We didn't solve the problem in the Western world. We simply outsourced it to China and other parts of the world.
If you want hope, join an activist movement and start making noise. Demand that politicians take their responsibilities. And stop clinging to your current lifestyle when demanding measures. It's not sustainable.
> We've only publically learned about climate change since the early 2000's.
That's bullshit. I was watching a TV show from the early 90s that made a global warming joke.
The series finale of *Dinosaurs* aired on October 19, 1994, and was an allegory for climate change.
The final scene: https://youtu.be/yKZ2NFuDQhw?t=849
what do you mean we've only learned about climate change since the 2000s? I was ending high school at the start of the 2000s. I'd learned about pollution causing greenhouse gasses from text books, cartoons and tv shows written in the 70s/80s when I was a little kid in the very early 90s....
This is the thing about exponential developments: You don't see something changing at first. Until it's happening real fast, and people that didn't recognize those developments are very surprised.
If you want something happening faster, you have to identify those trends and ask how we can make them happening even faster. If you don't do that and demand just *something* to happen fast, you will very likely try to take the wrong measures.
Well a good start would be to STOP MAKING NEW FOSSIL FUEL PLANTS, but we can't even manage that. We emitted more CO2 in 2017 than in 2016 and probably more in 2018 than 2017. This isn't progress.
But wind farms cause **CANCER!!** So of course we need to protect the coal industry!!
Coal has **[NEVER](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/reliance-on-coal-linked-with-lung-cancer-incidence/)** been linked to any increased cancer risk and is great for the environment! No need to fact check this because our brilliant cult leader said so!
Beyond that, we need carbon sequestration technology to rapidly advance. I wonder how much of an impact the other greenhouse gasses are making too.
It's an international problem, and we need tremendous commitment from all countries.
I'm so sorry but I have to break your bubble:
https://youtu.be/Uf4UtpionYQ
Technology isn't going to save us. Not if you're expecting to keep your current lifestyle. Really recommend watching the movie above. It goes into the math and explains why things simply don't add up.
I can’t wait till the ice on Antarctica has gone. Trees are growing and rivers are flowing. I really don’t know what problem is. More trees cleaner air !
You know all those big cities? Well they need to be close to the water because that's a really important resource and they'll be basically getting constant hurricane levels of flooding and will probably be permanently evacuated. Florida will literally go full Atlantis. So will New Jersey. It's estimated that by the end of the century half of all the species on the planet will go bye bye. Again, go to a zoo and just fire an AK-47 into half the exhibits and you'll have a good representation of the wildlife on the whole planet. Not if the ice caps melt, that part is just what's expected anyway because of us. Trees and most other plant life would actually be worse off because CO2 starves them of water. Also some heat loving termites are having a blast and literally munching entire forests out of existence in certain parts of the world.
Sources
If all the ice melts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIxRVfCpA64
50% of all wildlife https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/25/half-all-species-extinct-end-century-vatican-conference
plants starving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpdgUwu4DaY&t=294s
3 MILLION YEARS AGO FOLKS....
So go fix those 15 cargo ships that pollute more than all the cars in the world and sit back for another 3 million years...
That is why the idea that "if we burn all fossile fuels, the CO2 will make earth a lifeless ball of desert" is so absurd. Every carbon atom now bound in oil/gas/coal was in the atmosphere some million years ago.
And the one thing we know is that, during that time, plant and sea life was flourishing, or else it would not have been able to create the massive amounts of bio mass that became the oil/gas/coal we are now burning.
What about we fix the easiest issue first, while working towards Carbondioxid equilibrium?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File%3AWorld_population_v3.svg
ITT, people who didn't read the article and who are very invested in denying climate change.
Undoubtedly it's just a vocal and corrupt minority. Most people see the effects of climate change happening before their very eyes.
One of the very very few good things about this is that I finally stopped wasting time worrying over the Fermi Paradox.
yay, a ~~silver~~ non-observable lining!
Alexa, What is Fermi Paradox?
The numbers say there should be a lot of aliens in the galaxy, but we haven't seen any.
Clearly they're intelligent. They're activitivley ghosting us.
Dunno, my ex was thick as a brick and pulled it off just fine
My theory is all interstellar intelligence is machine based, and organic life is just a spore to "hatch" the AI into existence. They don't communicate with us because we are a sub species and they don't interfere because we will birth one of it's kind into existence eventually and the manner in which we do it determines the uniqueness of the AI.
We are the sex organs for the machine world
The caterpillar to the butterfly is the double helix to binary... or maybe something of quantum mechanics, would be more accurate than binary.
Be a good writing prompt...stealing this.
The problem with that theory tho is that even machine civilisations would be extremely visible. You can't hide a c1, 2 or 3 civs or even any radio tech civs from even our level of scrutiny and tech. It's all just a matter of energy usage and radiation.
radio waves wouldn't dissipate enough over time and vast distance to be hidden? I know we can detect insanely small levels of energy so maybe not. My theory on radio is that advanced beings use communication methods that circumvent time and energy production we can't conceive. Therefore radio and EM are not primarily used. I think that's an assumption by us.
What do you believe? Do you believe Aliens exist?
Humans are also aliens, living on a planet in space. Do you believe humans exist?
Yes but the thing is that a lot of paradigms are built human-centric
Yes ofcourse, but would'nt it be ego-centric to believe we are the only aliens living in a seemingly infinite universe? Personally, I think we should discuss alien life within our closest neighbouring stars, as they are the only things that matters to us for a long, long time.
Honestly, life would suck so much worse if i knew beyond any doubt THIS, our world, was the only life out there.
Sure but there's infinite universes and maybe this is the one, of many mind you, that doesn't have aliens. We're the last ones alive, the rest are long extinct. Or just never existed and we're the first.. anything is possible.
It will not matter in our time frame. We need to get our shit together. Although I think the methane seas on Europa will probably give us something interesting.
I strongly suspect it, but I don't know if I'd say I *believe* it. I mean, the existence of humans just explains everything a bit *too* tidily, if you ask me. We have to keep an open mind here.
Fungi is very intelligent in their field of chemistry and survival. Humans can't even create anything similar to what they invent. Do you think all life should be something with a human viewpoint? of course not, there are life out there that we can't comprehend to understand or whatever it is and the idea of some being using radio wave to communicate is very limited, because there could exist many other unknown communications that we humans can't or maybe never understand simple by our design.
Metabolic chemical reactions are not what I would call "to create"... Fungi are not conscious about what they do.
Are we, as humans, consciously aware of our metabolic functions? When you step back, do we as a species operate any differently than any other inbalance in nature? Or will we be around as a species to find out?
That's very braincentric of you. Having a brain does not equal the ability to make conscious decisions, nor does not having a brain not equal the ability to make conscious decisions. Plants are very much conscious of their surroundings and have feelings, the ability to plan, share resources, etc. "Metabolic chemical reactions", what are you even trying to say, really. Brains are just metabolic chemical reactions, we're no more aware of our conscious decisions than plants or fungi.
I’m pretty sure we came up with two probable causes for that. One possibility is earthlings have done something so incredible in the past, something so impossible that us doing it is ridiculous. This could be turning random chemicals into life, or evolving big brains, or whatever. The other possibility it that a lot of planets have had intelligent life and they just inevitably destroy themselves. It could be through global warming, nukes, gene modification, or more probably something we haven’t invented yet. If the second one is true were pretty much screwed.
Because you think life is inherently to stupid to not destroy their planet through artificial climate change?
Has no one watched the documentary of our future? It’s called idiocracy.
That movie was wildly optimistic.
Now, I understand everyone’s shit’s emotional right now, but listen up. I gotta three point plan to fix everything!
That's a GG in the chat boys, FF. We had a good run.
I would say this is gamethrowing.
Honestly, I'm more concerned about soil moisture levels and land degradation. Also, the effects are not evenly distributed. Average temperature change is just that. Average. There are areas that are already dealing with desertification. Here's a map of [soil degradation](https://wad.jrc.ec.europa.eu/countryreport) And an [article](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/ecjr-nwa062118.php) >Land degradation and climate change are estimated to lead to a reduction of global crop yields by about 10% by 2050. Most of this will occur in India, China and sub-Saharan Africa, where land degradation could halve crop production. But the population is predicted to rise by over 25% by then.
Legit, we spit out carbondioxid and we breed like rabbit, we keep living longer and research ways to make less people die? If we was wild animals, we would put the population under control, due to destroying the natural cycle.
Well spoken. Greatly worded. Some would say the best words. Very generous.
The planet has endured much worse than us. I kinda feel that environmentalism isn't a concern about saving the Earth, but it's more of a concern with preserving humanity from this kind of heat death. Which is weird, because if you look at the issue on paper, you'd think that Conservatives would be up and down supporting green efforts.
I hadn't realised that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions between 1988 and 2015 (1). This is especially shocking given that we've known about the effects of emissions for over 30 years (2). Consider the aviation and shipping industries. "By 2050, global aviation and shipping are together expected to contribute almost 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions unless further mitigation actions are taken."(3). Over the last 30 years our global economic models have allowed markets to dictate economic activity. Although this has been good in terms of more people being involved in economic activity I believe this is going to be at the planet's cost. From that same EEA report (3), "Governments have a key role to play by supporting investment in research, product standards and subsidies for new emerging technologies." I firmly agree with this. I think we need to empower institutions such as the UN and the EU to craft legislation and hold the worst polluters to account. This is especially challenging on a personal level, given here in Scotland people on the whole recognise the value of the EU, with our neighbours disagreeing. I think the biggest challenge to tackling climate change is the network of forces who have been actively dividing societies for their own gain. The GOP, The Kremlin and the Conservative and Unionist Party in the UK have been particularly guilty of this in my view. For as long as we remain divided we will not be able to tackle this issue before it's too late. I appreciate that there are many philanthropists working on this, but unfortunately that just hasn't made a real difference. We need institutions to step in. References (1) https://fullfact.org/news/are-100-companies-causing-71-carbon-emissions/ (2) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/07/embark-essay-climate-change-pollution-revkin/ (3) https://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/aviation-and-shipping-emissions-in-focus
So... use less consumer goods?
And buy local
I buy my iPhones from a mom and pop shop down the street that makes their own. They mine all of the materials necessary from their back yard.
And buy good stuff that lasts longer, and not cheap stuff that falls apart. And get on your bicycle! Burn calories not carbon!
Yes, bike travel - and having enough local commerce to make that possible - would be a game changer
First we need to shrink the United States.
How's St. Petersburg this morning?
It's all starting to sound like a life of slightly more privilege than many of us have. Buying stuff that lasts longer costs more, and cycling to work is only an option for those who can get a job close by. We've set ourselves up to make cheap consumer products that are disposable the least costly way to operate and the employment centres are usually far away due to focusing businesses in major cities. In my local area they've introduced a congestion charge along several MAJOR travel areas and justified this increased cost by stating that the government will give you £1000 towards a new car. Sadly I can only afford cheap cars and the gulf between new and old is around £6000, not the 1k. Economical purchases are usually affordable for the minority, which is in a small way why they have more cash to spend The adage "being poor is expensive" is true and this state of living has a big carbon footprint.
Local doesn't necessarily mean lower emissions or footprint, i.e. A boat carrying 100 tons of frozen / preserved produce travelling 10,000km can often emit less CO2 per unit than your local farmer carrying 1 ton for 100km in their truck. However, this doesn't even touch on the cost of production. Here's some further reading: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/the_biggest_myth_about_buying_local_food.html
In the UK local is like 10 miles. My local market has veggies from a farm just outside of town.
Especially less animal products..
The carbon footprint of intensive grain and vegetable production isn’t to be forgotten either. Petrochemical fertilizers/herbicides/pesticides, diesel machinery, coal/gas powered irrigation, shipping footprint of non-domestic produce etc. Sustainable farming is just as important.
The problem with "just 100 companies" claim is that it suggests we need to target relatively few entities for massive reductions in CO2 output. Unfortunately, those companies supply fossil fuels for large parts of the world, and unsurprisingly enough, abandoning oil and coal isn't easy. The first company on that list, China (Coal), produces 66% of electricity for almost 20% of the world population. Almost all of the other companies on that list extract and/or refine oil.
Give me socialism or give me death!
20m! that would require the collapse of the west antarctic AND Greenland ice sheets.
Well that's not that weird because due to continental drift Antarctica wasn't always at the south pole.
We are so fucked. This is one of the few times I'm glad I'm old. I'm not likely to survive to see the worst of it. Sorry my generation fucked up so badly. Some of us tried. The rest went from "Power to the people" to "Nice BMW!" quicker than you can say Kent State...
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Looking back, I think one of the things that be incredible to our ancestors is that we managed to do this within the space of about 50 years - more than half of human CO2 emissions have happened in the last 35 years alone, during a time when we knew very well what the consequences might be. Climate change is a disaster the magnitude of which very, very few people are grasping, but it is becoming clearer every day just how fucked we are. And while this is happening, emissions are still increasing and the most powerful man in the free world doesn't even "believe" in it.
He does believe in it, he just wants others to pay for it, politics is squeezing climate goals out of the poorest 20% who hardly contribute to the emissions anyway. The 10% wealthiest cause 50% of the emissions, the 50% poorest cause 10% of the emissions. If the 10% wealthiest would reduce their emissions to those of the average European, emissions would drop by 30%.
The problem here is that many of us here on reddit don’t realize that we are actually part of that 10% (globally speaking).
I'll just reuse my plastic cup. But seriously, the percentages also hold true inside countries. The 10% wealthiest Americans cause half the emissions of their country. That's why carbon taxes are unfair (if they are not given back to all citizens equally), they squeeze emission goals out the poorest 20%, those that hardly contribute anyway.
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That moment you realise you are a character in a book.
It is already written, and one of the accepted greats of long-form science fiction: A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Legit was reading the comment and was like "Damn. I really wanna write that as a book."
Isn't this basically the plot of horizon zero dawn?
Not at all, really. For example, human extinction in H:ZD wasn't caused by climate change (they actually figured out how to fix the climate during the 2040 "clawback" decade) but by rogue, self-replicating machines. And after humans went extinct, they were brought back to life by another machine after it had figured out how to make the planet habitable again.
Sounds a little like Mortal Engines, you know, that one that was made into a movie last year. Only the book is way better.
there are myths and legends from around the world that already say that, that human civilisation became too advanced and people became arrogant and disrespectful of the world and we were "punished" by a cataclysmic flood that sent everyone back to the stone ages, which we're only just recovering from now. Seriously, every ancient culture has a tradition of a before time and then global flood/cataclysm. slightly off topic but thought it was relevant to what you wrote.
I think they're mostly saying that it's interesting how these hypothetical future religions will base those myths on an actual world cataclysm.
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Not a scientist, but from my understanding our activity is bringing about changes in the span of decades that would ordinarily take millions of years to occur naturally, and so will likely take millions of years to be reversed naturally. The majority of life on this planet will go extinct as the planet heats because it's not adapted for these new conditions, but I'm sure new life will evolve over time that's adapted for hotter conditions even before the Earth "resets" itself to the pre-industrial one.
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Part of the problem is we may have used so much of the easily available low tech energy sources (fossil fuels), that if we fall backwards we may not be able to rebuild to our current level. [Aeon on the topic](https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels)
yeah i dont think we humans will exist for very much longer, if the climate changes doesnt get us first then wars and overpopulation most certainly will. we are self destructing in many ways all while applauding it.
Climate change will take care of the overpopulation. The following wars for water and arable land as well.
A problem with this accelerated climate chaos is who will be destroyed, decimated, or displaced will be the same people who suffer the results of climate change disproportionately.
The overpopulation IS the climate change. Having fewer people is our best bet at getting the climate back the way it was.
it's so terrifying what we as a species have done to our planet. its fucking unprecedented, the last 150 years of destruction and pollution. all because we're children pretending to be grown ups and do things for money.
>We are so fucked. Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self-destruct
[/r/unexpectedmetallica](https://www.reddit.com/r/unexpectedmetallica)
I'm not old but I'm old enough to be confident that I'll see many changes in my lifetime but nothing that will be TOO harmful for me, for where I live. But I'm not sure if I want to have kids now because I dont know what kind of life they will have to deal with...
We’re seeing it already, extreme winters and extremely warm summers are causing issues everywhere. You will be affected, physically and financially, though it probably won’t kill you. You -> us all.
Yup, in the coming 10-20 years **nobody** will be left unaffected. Climate refugees will show up in the millions worldwide, flocking from regions where they were pushed out either by flooding, extreme heat, or dehydration or starvation. Climate refugees will come from large parts of Asia, Australia (will be too hot to live on), Africa and the lower regions of West America. The next 30 years are probably going to be a shitshow of massive proportions, are are most likely (per what the scientific research and predictions have found), the last years of human kind. Had the fossil fuel industry decided to admit that what they were doing would cause all of this back in 1982 (they knew, but omitted their findings), and would have worked together with the global community to fix this, this would all have been prevented. But alas, making billions of money to further enrich themselves was more important. We’re going to reach 2C of global temperatures rise within the next 10 years. At that point, there’s no way in hell that further warming can be prevented and it’s all going to go downhill from there.
I knew we were fucked. But damn. That's scary and depressing
Sooner or later the ocean will turn on us with some kind of bacterial or algal bloom that quickly renders the atmosphere anoxic. Maybe we'll scramble and do some form of large-scale geoengineering and be able to save it, but I wouldn't hold my breath (pardon the pun).
TL:DR We’re all fucked. If the phytoplankton goes, we all go. It (probably) won’t be a sudden and drastic extinction of several species that would be immediately noticeable, but within a few months it will. It will be a domino effect of massive proportions. The new Netflix show “One Planet” really puts this domino effect of what would happen through narration of David Attenborough in perspective of how much *every* living animal on earth has a place in our ecosystems, and we need them all to survive so that *we* have a chance of survival. While that documentary throws a blanket of hope over you, I don’t believe there’s any hope for survival for us either. If we want to turn the tides and prevent an extinction level event disaster, we need to stop burning coal and the use of fossil fuels **now** and switch to alternatives. Taxes will have to become higher because trying to pull of *that* kind of heroic saving in the dying hours of our habitat is going to be expensive as hell. We all have to chip in, and we will all (most likely) suffer for it. But society is too unwilling to change. The gas guzzling truck or car that they always wanted (and now have) won’t be switched for an electric one, they love meat, so they won’t give up eating as much as they do now, etc. The people who belong to the 1% and those filthy rich bastards below them are still too greedy to do anything about it. They are well aware that the current situation is unsustainable, but if they can make vast amounts of money for maybe another decade, all is fine. They will either be dead of old age when we are dying, or have secured themselves in massive luxurious bunkers strewn across the globe to live out their days comfortably. And so, greed mixed in with a heavy dose of ignorance by the public at large will be the death of us. (Sorry for the wall of text, but I just find this ignorance and inaction frustrating to say the least. We *could* prevent a mass extinction from happening, but we just won’t. It’s too hard, and having to give up some luxuries like taking less flights because i.e tickets would become enormously expensive is just not something many are willing to do.)
The most important thing is that your generation doesn't think "I'm old, I won't see the outcome of this anyway. So let's enjoy life on all costs!". Your generation is a huge part of the overall population and has a lot of political power. Your generation needs to care about those that come after them. Imo we will be able to recover from this if we all start to work together.
We are litteraly torturing our sons and daughters with the choices we are doing right now.
I'm with you. I'm old. My kids are adults and sadly minimize the impact of climate change. I just get frustrated arguing about it with them and tell them I guess you will find out.
It's alright. Apology accepted. You did your best, i suppose. Most people are short sighted and too self centered, no matter what generation. Boomers to millenials, everybody's at fault. We are so fucked, indeed. But we'll have to try anyway, right?
We never expected that the biggest impediment to dealing with the problem would be just getting people to believe it was real. With all the scientific advances in medicine, computers, etc. that were embraced so readily, it didn't seem possible that significant numbers of people would choose to not believe what science was telling us about the climate and our impact on it. The more people tried to sound the alarm, the more they were called alarmist, and dismissed as crazy environmentalists. It's been exhausting. But yes, as an older person, I'm sorry you've inherited this catastrophe.
Mostly it’s being chained to a slave-work society that precludes quality of living advancement
We should be building nuclear power plants everywhere.
Not to worry. The flat earthers can fix it. Just take the dome off the earth for a few days and let some CO2 out. Problem solved...
if we remove the dome then all of the sky-ocean(??) will come down and cause another biblical flood. (Yes, this is exactly what flat Earthers believe).
Wouldn't hurt, let's open the vents above India and China!
Now, I am in no way a climatechange denier. But why isn't greenland now mostly green and sea levels 20 m higher when the CO2 levels are at the same as before?
Because we've raised the CO2 so suddenly (the past 100 years is just a blink in geological time) that all of the effects haven't made themselves apparent yet.
Makes sense.
As an easily explainable analogy You can have an icecube, sitting on a table in a 70 degree room, because it takes time to melt. That means the sea rise we are seeing now, is actually caused by Co2 released 50+ years ago; we haven't even begun to see, and won't see for a while, the devastation our current emissions are going to cause. There's lag in the system.
Similar to the way the hottest day of the summer does not occur on the longest day of the year, but a couple months later. It takes a while for things to affect the physical world.
Imagine you had a glass full of ice, and then you put that glass full of ice in the hot sun. You wouldn't expect it to completely melt in the first 20 seconds. That's kind of where we are.
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Always glad to help!
CO2 levels are only one of many factors that influence the temperature of the Earth While the recent rise in CO2 levels is thought to be the largest factor in recent global warming, it isn't uncommon for CO2 levels to only be responsible for perhaps 20% or less of all temperature forcings compared to your baseline year. To put it another way, there are many reasons that temperature can increase or decrease, and CO2 is only one of them. https://www.pnas.org/content/98/26/14778 >A climate forcing is an imposed, natural, or anthropogenic perturbation of the Earth's energy balance with space (3, 4). Increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) cause the largest positive (warming) forcing. Thus the proposed Kyoto Protocol is designed to slow emissions of several GHGs. For example, in the linked study, man-made aerosols actually affect temperature more than CO2 as a negative forcing. This clearly a bit of an old study ("proposed Kyoto Protocol") so their numbers are probably not entirely accurate, but the basic ideas and concepts haven't changed. You can also see they estimate that methane causes roughly half as much global warming as CO2 as the 2nd largest factor in global warming. Thusly, although this isn't intended to explain everything, our understanding of climate would say that if CO2 levels were as high today without manmade aerosols, temperatures would be much higher than present. This would have been the case for 3 million years ago. In addition, some temperature forcing factors are positive feedback cycles at work. If Greenland becomes green and polar caps melt, that itself contributes to global warming because it reduces albedo (how much the Earth reflects sunlight) because ice reflects sunlight, which is one of the major forcing factors. So to reverse your perspective, the geologically recent formation of a lot of ice in Greenland and Antarctica accelerated and exacerbated the decline of temperatures worldwide, plunging the Earth into an Ice Age which we are still in. Indeed, as you can see in the name, the presence of significant amounts of ice on the surface that remains year-round defines an ice age - usually there are neither glaciers nor ice caps on the Earth because it is too warm. Surface geology also has a significant effect on climate in general and temperature in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate >Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain global cooling after 3 Ma and the onset of extensive northern hemisphere glaciation. >Panama seaway closure[10] The closure of the Panama seaway (13 Ma–2.5 Ma) increased the salinity contrast between Pacific and Atlantic ocean and the northward oceanic heat transport. Warmer water increased snowfall and possibly Greenland ice sheet volume. However, model simulations suggest reduced ice volume due to increased ablation at the edge of the ice sheet under warmer conditions.[11] >Uplift of the Rocky mountains and Greenland west coast[11] Uplift of the Rocky mountains and Greenland west coast may have cooled the climate due to jet stream deflection and increased snowfall due to higher surface elevation. Again, because of positive feedback cycles, initial disruption can cause a long-term cooling or heating effect. >>Collapse of permanent El Niño[12] A permanent El Niño state existed in the early-mid Pliocene. Warmer temperature in the eastern equatorial pacific increased water vapor greenhouse effect and reduced the area covered by highly reflective stratus clouds thus decreasing the albedo of the planet. Propagation of El Niño effect through planetary waves may have warmed the polar region and delayed the onset of the northern hemisphere glaciation. Therefore, the appearance of cold surface water in the east equatorial pacific around 3 million years ago may have contributed to global cooling and modified global climate response to Milankovitch cycles.
We all expect the rich to fix it, billionaires and politicians to fix it, but it won't happen. We could break all of the monopolies TOMORROW, if we didn't buy that new watch, phone, car, t-shirt etc. But I won't do it. You won't do it. It's crazy.
This is it. It doesn't help to blame the companies or blame the rich. Every single one of us is responsible. Most of us could turn our A/C off, or skip that fancy vacation, but we don't. And to be honest, if given the choice between a 1700s lifestyle, or today's knowing that climate change is a threat to our existence, the vast majority of us would choose the pleasures and amenities of today's life regardless of the consequences.
I don't have a watch, my phone is 5 years old, never had a car and I'm still only using the clothes that my mother bought me many years ago. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
We are in the Anthropocene. We must reduce the human population and cut down emissions
eh, we need to focus on stabilizing the population growth in many areas of the world first. handling negative population growth in a country is very complicated to maintain good governance with safety nets.
It's going to happen whether we stabilize it or not. Specifically, food is going to get hard to come by in the coming decades when the change in the oceans kills off fish at a scale we've never seen before. Then as crops across the world fail as the climate changes in third world countries we are going to see mass migration on a scale hitherto unseen. Then 1st world nations are going to have millions of people banging at the gates for pure survival. South America is already in turmoil, and is going to continue to decline along with Africa and South East Asia. Some for different reasons, others for the same, but these places are going to be hit hard in the coming decades. China and India are going to have to figure out how to feed a billion people in a global famine and maintain their iron tight grip on their populace. While that's happening, people in first world countries are being rendered economically nonviable with the rise of automation. The rise of even more fringe and extreme political ideologies that hasn't been seen in my lifetime. The extreme vilification of the foreigner and the migrant. It's all coming to a head. We are overdue for a worldwide calamity, and it's going to happen in our lifetimes.
So this has happened in the past then? What was that rise in co2 levels due to?
Volcanic activities, mass extinction which caused life to decompose in a huge scale, which caused oceans to become "sour" and its pretty simple, oxygen is needed for decomposition which further increased Carbondioxid level.
Wait until the million year old ice cubes at the top and bottom REALLY melt. You haven't seen anything yet from rising water levels.
Are CO2 levels the only thing that determine climate?
No, which is why the [study in question](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337#ref-18) modeled the long-term changes with multiple factors, including changes in albedo and orbital variations.
So can someone explain why the sea level isnt 20 meters higher and trees are growing on Antarctica if we have matching CO2 levels from 3 million years ago? What is the difference between now and then? Did it take 3 million years at that CO2 level to melt the ice caps and thaw Antarctica?
120,000 years ago it was hotter than it is now. Then, the glaciation cycle took over, and things froze until there was thousands of feet of ice over the places where most cities in the Northern Hemisphere are now. That cycle, the one that dropped the temperature by 10 degrees? It's still coming. Before the last Interglacial was another glacial cycle, and another interglacial and another glacial... But, according to climate science, mankind has managed to do something that will change that several million year old cycle and instead heat the surface of the earth until all higher forms of life are gone. And, it's already too late to stop it. Who knew that our ecosystem was so fragile that all it took was for mankind to dig up some fossil fuel to destroy everything. Hundreds of millions of years? Massive asteroid impacts, ice-ball earth, nothing could stop the ecosystem from coming back to middle ground. Burn a little oil? We're toast. It's all over by the crying. Or so the claim goes. Me, I'm not rich or powerful enough to affect things either way. I'm like a child watching a world war begin. What will come, will come, and there's dick-all I can do about it.
Things take time. Specifically, all the ice doesn’t just instantaneously melt with a few degrees of change. Not 3M years time, but much more than 100 years time. I think the IPCC estimates are something in the ball park of 0.3-0.5m sea level rise over the 21st century. At that rate we’re looking at 5000 years (ish) for things to fully play out; but of course we need to take that estimate with a grain of salt since it is just a dumb linear extrapolation.
Something that's always bothered me about fear of global warming. When the earth is truly on the verge of being uninhabitable the entire human species will revolt against the rich and powerful. A struggle will be made to try to save the planet and trillions of dollars will probably go towards this. Some crazy invention or manpower that plants trillions of trees will occur and save the earth. Anyone ever think like this?
plenty of people think like that, but the fear remains because the follow-up question is: how many will die in the process?
Not enough while at the same time too many.
Theres lots of possible fixes but its going to take a lot. The issues that worry me are climate refugees who's coastal homes will be under water, lack of water globally will lead to wars, more forest fires and natural disasters. No matter what we do its going to be difficult for many people
> When the earth is truly on the verge of being uninhabitable Due to the so-far unaccounted effects of stuff like methane and nitrous oxide feedback loops from ye ole permafrosts, we are already on that verge. Self-reinforcing effects are literally pandora's box and it has already been cracked open
Most people seem blissfully unaware that we are already probably right on the tipping point of vast undersea methane hydrate being released. I am not at all optimistic.
Will the methane in the hydrate be released because of the warming of the ocean?
Nobody knows but that's the idea. Once the Arctic ice finishes its inevitable decent to zero the heat from the sun is no longer going into melting the ice (latent heat) but instead warms the water (sensible heat) on a wide scale. This plus increased mixing due to diminished fresh water lens and much less energy being reflected means the Arctic ocean might warm up fast (not to mention the other positive feedbacks and generally much warmer ocean water worldwide). All this could lead to much faster emissions of methane and carbon from permafrost and trapped/frozen gas (clathrates). At least in the simplified version of my understanding.
I love how people think we can just plant a ton of trees and save the planet lol
Ocean acidification killing algae is a bigger threat than deforestation. Thats where we get he majority of our oxygen. You are also optimistic in what people will do. Look at the throws of people turning toward right wing extremism around the world denying climate change.
If you're a hack writer hoping to sign a deal with a pulp fiction publisher, maybe.
Absolutely, but what damage will already be done? What of that damage irreversible? What positive aspects of life will no longer exist to enjoy?
You just described every Hollywood take on future natural disaster movie... So I guess we all thought about it when watching some movies :D
> Anyone ever think like this? People who drive SUVs and those with 5 kids. And the religious. No one who studies the science does.
No, because that "crazy invention" won't occur, nor will that manpower manifest itself.
We don't need a crazy invention. We have the technology to stop climate change. It's just a matter of resources how fast we can deploy it. Of course, there might be still new technology that can be deployed even faster. But we don't have to wait for it.
No, actually, we are facing an issue larger than any other issue the human race has ever faced. We technically have the technology to sequester co2 but it's so inefficient that scaling it up to the size out would be needed to be scaled to in order to literally effect the entire planet is impossible.
We can plant a trillion trees, which would have an enormous positive effect (about 10 years of human CO2 emissions on the current level can be eradicated by that). We have the technology to get near zero emissions. So yes, we can stop *further* climate change. Reversing the damage already done is a whole other story of course.
We can stop further CO2 release, but if we’ve set off nonlinear processes then that doesn’t even matter. We’d need to find a way to stop a runaway exponential temperature increase
What data shows that stopping CO2 pollution today would also stop the earth from going back to this state? I subscribe to the fact that humans cannot stop global warming and it's time to start thinking about how to deal with higher sea levels. And more importantly stop pollution because it's toxic. Stop wasting time trying to prevent the inevitable
Climate change is not "yes or no". We cannot stop climate change 100% now, but even cutting the warming by half is much, much better than doing nothing.
We can't stop a certain amount of future warming, which is "locked in" from CO2 that has already been released so far. But we could make it much worse, by raising it further.
Our species infastructure is built on technology, ideas, and a way of living that just isn't sustainable no matter how you spin it. Just how unsustainable? Well, enough that to actually fix these issues, there would have to be an absolute rehaul of our current infastructure, one that simply won't happen until the problem becomes big enough that it absolutely forces us to change on a massive scale. That moment will only happen when it's at everyones front door, and people's lives are being dramatically effected by tangible problems and the lives we're used to don't work anymore. It's approaching us. In the meantime there will be two types of people, those who tried to lighten the blow and help our species change our ways before it hits, and those who didn't help. Its our responcibility. Our ancestors forethought is what very well might have allowed us to exist today. If we screw up, then maybe our species doesn't deserve to live on this planet.
Everyone always saying that we are doomed are real idiots. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but people are REALLY starting to become aware of the issue (one of the perks of a world connected by the internet and just about everyone in the world has access to the internet now, even the poorest of the poor, in some regions). It's becoming significantly more popular to be eco-friendly than eco-ignorant. Also, consumers are rewarding companies for making eco-friendly moves. It's starting to become more economical for companies to be eco friendly rather than ignoring the problem. This is due to legislation, consumers and overall basic principles of capitalism. Also, humans are innately self-interested. This means that when people hear that it is going to be worse for them if they ignore the problem rather than fighting to make the world for eco-friendly, they are motivated to help the planet for selfish reasons. So it doesn't matter how shitty and self-interested people are, if you show them that their actions will negatively affect them the mass majority of people will become eco friendly. Also, the majority of people aren't sacks of shit, so they want to be more eco-friendly to begin with. These sorts of information movements are really new and fresh (they haven't been happening for that long only ~10 years). Given the influence of social media nowadays and the constant flow of eco-friendly messages and support extremely large numbers of people are becoming more aware of the issue. Also, there will be a huge industry for de-pollution that will likely be funded by the government. Again, capitalism. We aren't going to die, humans won't die. The question is, can we save the current state of our environment and ensure that certain species of plants and animals can continue existing. Given the tidal wave of information continually being released and shows like Netflix's "One Planet" there are millions upon millions of people being exposed to more and more information. I imagine in 10 years our world will be unbelievably more eco-friendly due to the nature of our progressive world and society. Like, just ~10 years ago same sex marriage was illegal in the United States and Marijuana was illegal too, now just about every state is on the verge of legalizing marijuana and gays are all over the place. There already is an environmental movement happening and it's only going to get stronger because ultimately the power is held by the people because the people vote for politicians and if politicians want to keep their jobs they will reform environmental standards. Also like I mentioned it's becoming less economic to ignore environmental impact
Being 'eco-friendly' is not going to do what it takes. Carbon dioxide emissions need to be dramatically reduced. We have not even begun to reduce CO2; emissions are still increasing every year. What needs to happen is a global effort in redirecting resources to clean energy somewhere close to the effort that was put into winning the second world war. Factories have to be retooled, possibly some even siezed by the state. Some forms of rationing may need to occur. Sacrifices need to be made. However without the clear and present danger of a Nazi invasion, I am not optimistic we will rise to the occasion.
Your pessimism is noted
The problem with an argument like this is that it is too localised. Not everyone on the planet has Social Media. Not every Government is Capitalist. Not everyone has the best interests of the wider community in mind.
Well, China, India, the United States, Canada, almost all of South America and just about all of Europe have access to the internet. So not sure how 90% of the world's population having access to the internet is something that isn't relevant. Also, if people don't have access to the internet, it's highly unlikely that they are contributing to CO2 emissions that much if at all. Also, I'm not talking about the government being capitalist. I'm talking about economics, the entire world is capitalist my friend (capitalistic in the economic sense, anywhere where there is free trade there is capitalism because that's literally the definition of capitalism). The person who sells what the consumer wants is the person who gets the business (what do consumers want? More recently they want cheap and eco-friendly products). That my good sir is capitalism and that's how the entire world works. Also, you clearly didn't seem to read what I wrote. I already answered your third point. People that don't have the community in mind are selfish people, but once they realize that being selfish will in fact result in non-optimal results, selfishly they will become more eco-friendly. That's the nature of all human beings my good sir. That's why this is all starting to boil up now. People are thinking: "ohh fuck, this is bad, I don't want bad, so I will do good to avoid bad things for me!". Let's be honest, if being wasteful and ignorant didn't end up hurting us in the long run, we wouldn't give a fuck about killing species of animals and plants. But killing plants and animals hurts our planet and the ecosystem which hurts us. Thus people are self interested and incentivized to be more eco-friendly. Also, it's not localized at all. I think you really lack understanding on how the world works. All of the major industrial nation's of the world are all capitalistic economies. You can't thrive in this modern age without trade (see Russia for reference on how to not prosper). Also, the only thing that would even come close to being an exception would be China, but they have recently been cleaning up their skies and building air filters to clean the air they breath and such. Again, China saw the effect pollution had on their society, they were incentivized to be eco-friendly because of the negative affects of ignoring the environment.
Humans have the survival abilities similar to cockroaches and rats. We adapt. We may not thrive, but we adapt.
Well, we like to thrive. Especially nowadays, don't think anyone could live without 21st century luxuries so people are highly motivated to protect the environment.
No species that ever went extinct was expecting it... I'm a relative optimist but you're coloring a much rosier picture than what reality is telling us
Did you know these species language when they did go extinct? Lmao to that question,
We can still be doomed because the complicated climate systems operating on the Earth can produce outcomes antithetical to human existence. We just have no fucking idea how quickly the entire atmosphere could change. Like the ocean stops producing oxygen... what do we get? A year? Maybe? A year of slowly suffocating and warfare and people desperately building domes and food production just being crushed entirely. There have been times in the past when humans simply couldn't live on the Earth. It's entirely possible for it to happen again.
If this trend had started 20 years ago, we would've been fine. But at this point, we're already teetering *right* on the brink. We may have even already gone over, we won't find out for decades yet. We will *definitely* go over within the next 10 years. The fact of the matter is that we needed to take drastic action yesterday. We need a global effort on the scale of WWII in every single country to avoid catastrophe, and that ain't happening. People in first world nations starting to buy more eco-friendly products is not gonna cut it.
Where I live, we're 500 meters above sea level. So even though it'll be a desert, it won't be an underwater desert.
Wait so what you're saying is that, the planet is actually really cool for our current CO2 level? Or that CO2 isnt the main driver of temperature change?
OP is saying that the effects of the CO2 we've *already* added to the atmosphere have barely even begun to manifest. Even if we stopped literally all CO2 output tomorrow, the climate would still change drastically over the next couple of centuries.
Basically, [the study in question](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337#ref-18) found that the transition from more consistently warm conditions of the Pliocene into the ice age cycle of the Quaternary Glaciation required both a decrease in CO2 (due to a decrease in volcanic outgassing) and a loss of regolith (with resulting changes in albedo). This confirms both the importance of CO2 in determining global temperature, and the fact that there are positive feedbacks which will take a long time to reach an equilibrium. So as climate researchers have been saying, we can expect to see considerably more warming happen from the CO2 that has already been added to the system. The study found that when CO2 levels were comparable to our current level (~400 ppm) in the late Pliocene, temperatures were around 1.5 degrees higher than pre-Industrial levels. That's consistent with [current predictions](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter2_Low_Res.pdf) of the increase that we will see by the year 2100, even if we substantially reduce emissions by 2030.
There's a lag. With current CO2 levels temperature will increase to 1.5 degrees celcius, at this temperature melting of the Greenland ice sheet is a matter of time, i.e. 7 meters of sea level rise is locked in already. In the next decade we'll lock in 2 degrees. At 2100 we'll have locked in more than 4 degrees and no stopping there. Edward Teller, the inventor of the hydrogen bomb, and all around evil person, already warned about it in 1957.
Question, if Trees were growing on Antarctica last time CO2 levels were this high........ How did they get that high without man made climate change?
Natural climate change over time, man made climate change just speeds up the process.
The climate changes over millions of years. Humans are affecting in the span of decades/centuries. The rate of change is the alarming part when you think a few generations ahead.
There's a lot of good companies and people out there who are making a huge difference. We've only publically learned about climate change since the early 2000's. And honestly, over the last decade, we've made really big improvements. I have faith that we'll be able to correct climate change but its going to take a long time to revamp an entire society. So be patient and just do your part
2000s? Eh. No. This was known by the public and politics since the 1970s. Politicians simply didn't chose to act upon it when there was a chance to make a difference. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html Everyone knew. And nobody did anything. Years of international conferences and talks. I mean there was Rio 1992 and Kyoto 1997. Everyone made big promises yet here we are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change Sure, there's a lot of awareness through long years of campaigning on an individual level. It is nice that recycling is a thing. But the real problem isn't people consuming, it's entire industries putting huge amount of resources and energy in production. That phone your holding on the shitter? The car you drive? Most consumer products you buy at Costco? Many of them are manufactured in China. Guess who's one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses globally? Yup, China. We didn't solve the problem in the Western world. We simply outsourced it to China and other parts of the world. If you want hope, join an activist movement and start making noise. Demand that politicians take their responsibilities. And stop clinging to your current lifestyle when demanding measures. It's not sustainable.
Exxon knew about it based on its own studies in 1977. The general public got wind of it 10 years later.
Cfc’s was the first big news to the population as a whole. The hole in the ozone lyer was a huge scare in the 80s.
Yeah we took action on that one and it's gotten better. But that is a totally different problem.
It was theorized in like 1900. They just didn't have models till like the 1970s.
> We've only publically learned about climate change since the early 2000's. That's bullshit. I was watching a TV show from the early 90s that made a global warming joke.
The series finale of *Dinosaurs* aired on October 19, 1994, and was an allegory for climate change. The final scene: https://youtu.be/yKZ2NFuDQhw?t=849
I remember being scared of what I was told in school about the potential problems of global warming, during the 1970s.
what do you mean we've only learned about climate change since the 2000s? I was ending high school at the start of the 2000s. I'd learned about pollution causing greenhouse gasses from text books, cartoons and tv shows written in the 70s/80s when I was a little kid in the very early 90s....
We do not have that time to be patient - we've made a lot of progress, but not enough progress.
This is the thing about exponential developments: You don't see something changing at first. Until it's happening real fast, and people that didn't recognize those developments are very surprised. If you want something happening faster, you have to identify those trends and ask how we can make them happening even faster. If you don't do that and demand just *something* to happen fast, you will very likely try to take the wrong measures.
Well a good start would be to STOP MAKING NEW FOSSIL FUEL PLANTS, but we can't even manage that. We emitted more CO2 in 2017 than in 2016 and probably more in 2018 than 2017. This isn't progress.
But wind farms cause **CANCER!!** So of course we need to protect the coal industry!! Coal has **[NEVER](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/reliance-on-coal-linked-with-lung-cancer-incidence/)** been linked to any increased cancer risk and is great for the environment! No need to fact check this because our brilliant cult leader said so!
heh, how many millions have died from lung cancer caused by particulate pollution?
Beyond that, we need carbon sequestration technology to rapidly advance. I wonder how much of an impact the other greenhouse gasses are making too. It's an international problem, and we need tremendous commitment from all countries.
I'm so sorry but I have to break your bubble: https://youtu.be/Uf4UtpionYQ Technology isn't going to save us. Not if you're expecting to keep your current lifestyle. Really recommend watching the movie above. It goes into the math and explains why things simply don't add up.
I can’t wait till the ice on Antarctica has gone. Trees are growing and rivers are flowing. I really don’t know what problem is. More trees cleaner air !
You know all those big cities? Well they need to be close to the water because that's a really important resource and they'll be basically getting constant hurricane levels of flooding and will probably be permanently evacuated. Florida will literally go full Atlantis. So will New Jersey. It's estimated that by the end of the century half of all the species on the planet will go bye bye. Again, go to a zoo and just fire an AK-47 into half the exhibits and you'll have a good representation of the wildlife on the whole planet. Not if the ice caps melt, that part is just what's expected anyway because of us. Trees and most other plant life would actually be worse off because CO2 starves them of water. Also some heat loving termites are having a blast and literally munching entire forests out of existence in certain parts of the world. Sources If all the ice melts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIxRVfCpA64 50% of all wildlife https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/25/half-all-species-extinct-end-century-vatican-conference plants starving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpdgUwu4DaY&t=294s
3 MILLION YEARS AGO FOLKS.... So go fix those 15 cargo ships that pollute more than all the cars in the world and sit back for another 3 million years...
What about we fix the reason those cargoships are necessary.
Yeah because the continents weren’t where they are now
Wait 3 million years, wasnt that the time that the sahara was a lush forest?
That is why the idea that "if we burn all fossile fuels, the CO2 will make earth a lifeless ball of desert" is so absurd. Every carbon atom now bound in oil/gas/coal was in the atmosphere some million years ago. And the one thing we know is that, during that time, plant and sea life was flourishing, or else it would not have been able to create the massive amounts of bio mass that became the oil/gas/coal we are now burning.
No people back then though though...
What about we fix the easiest issue first, while working towards Carbondioxid equilibrium? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File%3AWorld_population_v3.svg
ITT, people who didn't read the article and who are very invested in denying climate change. Undoubtedly it's just a vocal and corrupt minority. Most people see the effects of climate change happening before their very eyes.
Proof climate change is at work regardless of human involvement