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- cross-posted to:
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The planet’s average temperature hit 17.23 degrees Celsius on Thursday, surpassing the 17.18C record set on Tuesday and equalled on Wednesday.
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This is going to be painful for us as a species. I don’t think it will render us extinct, but the weather will get significantly worse and we will probably see widespread coastal flooding in this century, which will lead to hundreds of millions of refugees. We still have plenty of time to prepare and to change course, but I fear that we will wait until a global crisis is on our doorstep before we make serious changes.
I don’t think it will render us extinct.
Oh, it probably will, though the memory of us may live on after that.
In fact, arguably it happened long ago, and we’re currently in an echo of the past in a very immersive history lesson simultaneously teaching the grandeur and folly of humanity.
I mean, even if we went extinct tomorrow our mark on this planet is permanent because of all the damn plastic, much of which will probably fossilize. Even still, the extreme weather and extinction events on the way I don’t think are enough to end us, there will probably be some stragglers that struggle by in the ashes of the old world if nothing else.
Any corrections we make won’t take major effect until well after we are fucked. It’s why having kids is kind of insane to me because they are going to have a fucked future.
On the other hand, there is no one else, probably in the whole universe, who can preserve life as we know it. And I am not just talking about humans.
Think about philosophical questions like: “What is the reason life exists?”. Potentially, the answer is there is no reason. But what if there is something else out there which could give life a reason to exist?
Perhaps somewhere down a million years some lifeform could make the universe continue to exist. When we die now this is quite literally the end. No one else will preserve life beyond the existence of the earth or our solar system when someday the sun burns out. I highly doubt octopuses or cockroaches will evolve to build space ships and protect life any time soon. It’s just us.
Oh that’s an easy one, life exists to further the entropy of the universe. That’s the only reason. Entropy cannot be reversed, and it’s extreme is inevitable.
In agreement with your broader point but a different approach: to say that we should die out as a species due to climate change is over-simplifying, imo. Yes, there are hardships ahead and we truly need to look at ourselves as a species and ask what needs to change for the sake of ethics and others. However, we have been in dire situations before, albeit with less foreknowledge. Would someone living in, say, 1840 have wished that humanity had died out in the bronze age collapse, when the near-entirety of known civilization collapsed due to climate change?
When considering the entire species we can’t take such a short term view. Yes, hard times are ahead. Yes, we will get through it. I say if one is inclined not to have kids, he should not have kids. But if one is inclined to do so, he should do so
I’d strongly recommend the book “The Beginning of Infinity” by David Deutsch for a wider perspective on what you’ve stated. Humanity has always had problems and been in some ways on the verge of extinction perpetually, but we as a species find ways to solve these problems.
It’s weird how many users resort to instant doom and gloom (like not having kids?) when its another problem that will take hard work to solve. Just a quote from his book -
“It is inevitable that we face problems, but no particular problem is inevitable. We survive, and thrive, by solving each problem as it comes up. And, since the human ability to transform nature is limited only by the laws of physics, none of the endless stream of problems will ever constitute an impassable barrier. So a complementary and equally important truth about people and the physical world is that problems are soluble. By ‘soluble’ I mean that the right knowledge would solve them.”
Yes,but…
The problem as I see it, is we’d need to revert to what’s little better than subsistence farming (in a village model) in order to weather the storm that’s coming. That’s fundamentally at odds with people’s day to day interest and our greed…
Carbon sequestering helps, but we still need to drastically downsize our daily conveniences (oh, and fuck cars!), which our brain is basically wired against doing (in terms of a short term pain with an eye on the long term benefit).
I agree we likely need to downsize a lot of our daily conveniences (yeah fuck cars!) But I’d urge against trying to envision the solution before working on solving the problem. Saying we need to resort to subsistence farming in communities - why? We create food on a massive scale currently, and tons of it go to waste. Additionally so much of agriculture is lost to inefficiency through the meat industry.
Surely it would make more sense to focus on those two levers first before resorting to what sounds like feudal society.
Not looking to debate details, just urging a rational and realistic approach through steps that are achievable.
We are not that special. And if we were, it wouldn’t matter anyway. We are just going to kill ourselves.
What other species do you know that can potentially travel the universe and perhaps even bring life to other planets? How is that not special?
Keep an eye on congress 👀
Until we find life on other worlds we can’t reallt say that for sure
Except we can… it’s an infinite universe with countless worlds just like our own. Life in the cosmos isn’t a possibility, but a certainty.
Ah, the cynics are truly everywhere.
Or realists?
Definitely sounds like something a cynic would say.
Millennials had the honour to participate in wars for pil. The coming generations will have the pleasure to kill over fresh water
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Also climate refugees will become a regular thing, people doing anything to pass borders as it’s life or death for particularly exposed nations. This is already happening but will no doubt get even worse, breeding even more extremism and nationalism that bring onto a whole other slew of issues as a package deal of extreme nationalism. Fun times.
I used to worry about this a lot, I still do but I used to too.
Joking aside, it’s a shit show that us plebians can’t really do anything about but I still try. I’ve driven a hybrid for the last 6 years, I have a smart thermostat to try to save energy, I try to eat less meat more often. I recycle a lot more than most. I even make my own bread and nut milks and many other things which is not only cheaper and healthier (and WAY more delicious) but requires less transport related greenhouse gas emissions than buying premade breads and nut milks. Nut milk is especially better than dairy milk in that matter.
Oh yeah! And yesterday I picked up 10 large trash bags of litter:
Bro you’re doing more than most of us, thank you.
But yeah, our carbon footprint is minuscule in comparison to corporate footprints. We need them to fucking play ball.
What’s more profitable: Exceptional profits for 30 years until civilization collapses, or sustainable profits forever?
Corporate footprints are done on our behalf, in order to manufacture the goods and services we buy.
The real problem is that “vote with your dollars” fundamentally doesn’t work because human nature is selfish and short-sighted, so regulation is necessary.
All I could think about when reading this post is corporate footprints. It’s great for us to all do our part, but sadly the corporations not doing their part is screwing everybody. We need more regulations on them, idc what product they’re making or how much profit they’d like or even how many people whine about not receiving that product it needs to stop.
Honestly, corporate footprints is all that needs to be thought about when thinking about climate change.
The shifting of blame to the individual or even putting it on the individual to “help” is avoiding the real issue. And even if individuals are contributing, which I acknowledge they are but at a much lower rate of impact, then probably the best way to change individual consumption/waste is once again by abolishing capitalism which guides the production of the material reality utilized to create such individual waste in the first place.
Sure, but it’s our fault too, at least in part - we’re the one’s buying the stuff that the corporations produce. Of course some of it is due to there not being any alternatives (for example decent public transport so you don’t have to own a car) but some of it is also because we actively choose cheaper products, buy new things instead of second-hand and so on.
What we need (which we all seem to agree on) is more regulations so that corporations have to their part and then the individuals simply won’t have the option to choose the more polluting product.
btw note that the carbon footprint of one person’s lifetime is equiv to 1 second of worldwide factory emissions (source: kurzgesagt), so it’s not a necessity to do some of the things you’re doing, but i would recommend that everyone in the world do some farming, even if it’s a small garden of radishes or smth, or tomatoes on a windowsill
also this is only tangentially related, but i still drink cow milk, because: -A it tastes good
-B I am allergic to all nut milks
-C soy milk sounds like crap, soy is already in basically everything (rip the few people who are allergic to it), so i wouldn’t want to consume more of it
btw note that the carbon footprint of one person’s lifetime is equiv to 1 second of worldwide factory emissions (source: kurzgesagt)
I love kurzgesagt but this comparison is… it’s like two abstractions multiplied.
A: if we know cow milk is bad for the planet and bad for the animal, and we use “but I prefer it!” as an excuse, couldn’t we apply that to everything? Sexual assault? “It feels good!”. Theft? “I like having stuff!”
B: (in order of ease and taste) Oat milk, rice milk, flax milk, hemp milk
C: Soy milk… “sounds like crap”? We might be at the end of carnivore arguments. You know cow milk literally has faeces in it, right? The fact “soy is in everything” being used to not have it is also not logical. Water is in everything.
Cow milk has faeces in it?
No it does not.
It’s like saying municipal water has shit in it if it is treated water. Yeah it did once…. That’s why we have filtering and sterilizing technologies.
If milk had cow shit in it people would constantly be getting sick from it it.
That said, dairy farming is pretty horrific in many ways. It’s good to cut down on dairy consumption as much as is tolerable for each person.
The poop in cow milk is referring to the bacteria in unpasteurized milk if I’m interpreting it correctly (or it could be waste from cells in the cow’s blood, since cow milk starts out as cow blood iirc)
It’s like saying municipal water has shit in it if it is treated water.
Water? Awful stuff, don’t drink it. Fish fuck in it.
It doesn’t. Unless you live in US. US food is full of shit no matter what you eat, lol.
I’m not going to go point by point because I think it’s not productive to act as if this kind of argument has only two sides. When we talk about subjects in a persuasive fashion, where we’re trying to win someone over to our side, it frequently has the opposite effect, entrenching is into our already polarized views.
We need to concern ourselves with moral relativism to make appropriate decisions. In an ethical sense, I believe sexual assault of a human is at least an order of magnitude worse than milking a cow. But that opinion comes largely from the fact that I’m a human and I’m not a cow.
If we want to sway someone’s opinion, I think we should focus less on absolutes and more on quantities. We should meet people where they are. Maybe instead of driving home all the disturbingly true reasons we should never milk or even breed cattle, we should use those same arguments to highlight the absurdly destructive impact of doing those things at the scale which we are.
If half of society has a burger and a milkshake once a month, there is a significant environmental impact on milking those cows and raising those cattle to be slaughtered, as well as a very real moral cost. There is also some emotional benefit to the human of consuming fats and proteins from those sources. And both positive and negative nutritional effects as well.
It’s already difficult to compare costs and benefits from such wildly different categories when it’s just one burger a month. Humans are emotional beings and even a well-reasoned argument may not trump the emotional feeling one gets from a hamburger and a shake.
But consider the changing of factors if those same people go from one beef product and one dairy product a month to one every other day. Or even more frequent. How much more land it takes, how much more suffering the livestock go through in conditions designed for maximum profit and minimum concern for moral costs. The additional methane production, the deforestation, the added risk of heart attacks. All the bad parts multiplied wholesale, while the good parts all experience diminishing returns.
If you take one of those semi-daily beef and dairy consumers, and give them a hard line, where any consumption of beef or dairy is unacceptable, is that going to generate a positive or a negative effect on the system as a whole? Some may be convinced to quit consuming, but I feel their difference will be swallowed by those who feel called out in such a way that they would rather consume even more out of principle than face the hard truth that their lifestyle is wrong. It’s easy for humans to build walls of cognitive dissonance, where we know what we’re doing is harmful, but we make excuses for ourselves to avoid facing that reality.
If you want the masses to face their collective reality, we need to meet people where they are. Maybe burgers and milkshakes will always be part of your life. But there are alternatives that can be a different part of a life rich in variety. If someone currently eats a burger every other day, maybe they can strive for once a week. And if that goes well, once a month. And then, once they have a greater familiarity with the culinary variety that’s possible, they may start to forget to eat that meal entirely.
We should remember that we’re all just people. We don’t need to be on different sides. You don’t need to be wrong and neither do I. We’re just earthly passengers connecting electronically in a wide cosmos. Our lives are all so different and yet uncannily familiar. So we’ll get more mileage out of sharing our experiences than prescribing them to others. Because if we feel we’re being talked down to, we’ll decide we’ve already picked a side. But if we’re just sharing, then we’re all on the same endless side. In that spirit, none of what I’m saying is meant to invalidate anything you’ve said. Only add to it.
And just to add, I don’t mind if there’s a bit of feces in my milk. It looks perfectly white, so I imagine it’s in low enough quantity that it’s not a health risk after pasteurization, and as far as I know, the quantity is also low enough that it doesn’t effect taste. But I think cows should have good lives even at the expense of productivity, and milking should be a voluntary behavior, perhaps in exchange for appropriate compensation, rather than something that’s forced on them. Just my two cents (plus about a buck fifty).
I’m not going to argue against anything you’ve said, I’m not going to try to fact check it, & I believe to be largely correct.
I also think its irrelevant.
In the next few years (couple of decades) we are going to see increased wildfire burning of the boreal forests in the global north which is going to release (what I believe is technically called) “a catastrophe fuck-ton” of gasses into the atmosphere. We’ve tipped over the tipping point.
About the wildfires, they aren’t just caused by heatwaves, but also indiscriminate firefighting. If you stop fires in a forest over and over, the amount of flammable material keeps increasing due to new plants growing, and if there’s a lot of flammable material, and the same amount of water as before, things are overall drier, and would also create a bigger fire should one ignite.
And no, I don’t have a peer-reviewed study/source concerning this; I just used reasoning to construct this argument.
You’re on point. That’s why Reduce is the first of the three R’s. I was educated to the horrors of dairy farming a couple years ago and just stopped buying milk completely, switching to nut milk then finally oat milk. But I still eat cheese and yogurt. I stopped eating steak every other week but I still have one a few times a year. And since it’s so infrequent, I don’t mind buying the really nice cuts. So it became quality over quantity.
It doesn’t have to be a binary choice. You can still enjoy the tasty things. But a reduction in volume and frequency will still have a big impact if enough people do it.
What a chad you are
Amazing work! I would also like to note that the biggest contributors to the problem are corporations. Individuals couldn’t out pollute corporations if they tried.
You could say we’re really on a hot streak.
A toast to everyone in this thread that decided to not have kids! 🥂
Exponentially increasing heat is when toddlers amirite
(also you should still adopt kids)
Ditto. Not that I’d have the opportunity, but decided I’d only adopt if I desired to raise a child.
That’s a good call! If I ever get the hankering to have kids I’ll just do that. We do that with dogs (rescue), why not humans?
a toast to everyone in this thread that will be burnt to toast because unchecked greed and capitalism.
Hear hear!
I’m never having kids. Had things been easier, maybe I would’ve had kids but it’s hard enough to look out for myself as it is and having kids anyway like many people do is the worst move I could possibly make. Not having kids will have consequences against the absolute tyrants in charge of it all some day. Not having kids in protest to the system (or at least until things improve for the common person) is just doing your patriotic duty at this point.
I will never create and subject a human being to the world our negligence has created.
About 15 years ago I was going somewhere with my family. Stepmom and I were talking about Climate Change then, how if things didn’t change that massive starvation was likely, that crazed weather would be irreversible, etc. and she noticed that my 10 year old niece’s eyes were getting huge. She was genuinely disturbed by the conversation and began to say is this really going to happen? Before I could plainly reply my stepmom reassured her that no, things were going to be fine, and we changed the subject.
Niece is in mid twenties now and subject to the reality of the situation as it slowly unfolds, like an asteroid headed toward the earth at 5 mph. The future is dreadful to her.
I want to have kids. But bringing them into a poisoned and dying world where they have to earn the right to exist? That just seems cruel
If we get past the next few decades, I’ll bring them into a world worth living in
As a side benefit, I also have all the money and free time to spend with furry children instead!
that’s one of the biggest reasons for my decision not to
Yeah, it’s great to know we’ll die off!
I mean, it’s also great that we’re not leaving behind offspring to have progressively poorer lives until it’s just Event Horizon: Earth.
If we all had this point of view, that’d be the end of us.
The consequences of inaction in the late 20th and early 21st centuries will be the end of us. 😀 To hope otherwise or lament over is just wasting time. Enjoy life before it gets worse!
That’s a rather pessimistic view. Yes, it will be hard as fuck. Yes, unfortunately it will be the end of some us. But I think we as a race will prevail and I don’t think simply giving up right now is an option.
I do agree the human race will prevail, but honestly I just wish we didn’t. like wtf just look around us and all the shit we caused.
I thought that too until I learned about what could happen if ocean acidification gets a lot worse.
It will be either way
Not surprising, I was hoping we’d not hit the tipping point but it’s looking grim at this point.
I think it’s safe to say we are certainly hitting the tipping point, and then some! Our governments are useless, and these people running these companies and their shareholders, and the politicians responsible for the VAST majority of this mess are devoid of all morals and should be on trial for crimes against humanity.
Is that even remotely achievable? ~Strawberry
I know it’s entirely coincidental, but we dealt with a heat-exhaustion-approaching-heat-stroke emergency this week, and it definitely made me pause. Summer heat is taking on a new meaning.
I’m a landscaper and I joked about dealing with wildfires becoming part of my job duties in ten years last year. This year, I was lucky enough to deal with both the Pine Barrens wildfires and the Canadian Wildfire smoke in NJ
What they don’t want you to know is that the Earth’s orbit changed and we’re swinging in closer and closer to the Sun. The vaccine was actually nanites meant to help protect us from upcoming radiation and other atmosphere changes.
That’s a fun conspiracy theory. It’s gibberish of course, but fun nonetheless.
Holy tinfoil hat batman!
It’s actually aluminum foil.
Gotta save that foil to protect our devices from the next big CME guys
This comment was for fun. I’m currently reading the Silo books.
“sooner than expected”, “tipping point”, “nonbinding resolution”, “climate scientists warn”
Everything is fine…
Nothing to see here!
My local oil exec said that it’s fine.
Phew!
How about my dividends, are they safe?
I feel like one sad thing is you could go back ten or twenty years and it was the exact same and it not much has really changed. The same warnings that everybody has seen but nothing has really come of it. The same almost pointless resolutions that almost no country sticks to. We have more wind turbines and a few electric cars, but mostly it’s the same non-action as before.
I remember reading a geography textbook at school twenty years ago and it was warning of climate change but here I am two decades later and everything is basically heading in the same terrifying direction as it was then.
How is this not a bigger story? What the fuck?? This is cataclysmic. It should be all we’re fucking hearing about. Fuck.
All my fellow Aussies we’re going to be in for a rough summer
I’m up in QLD, still waiting for winter.
Is it still called summer after you have 200 days of over 35 degrees? And in “winter” the max temperature drops to 25?
Would you move co in ntries I’d this occured?
clang bring out yer dead
Clearly this is a liberal conspiracy /s
Doesn’t matter, I’d be dead before the world ends. - some asshole probably.
Just about the entire ruling class who refuse to give up power and retire.
I am one of these “assholes”. Explain to me why I should care. Don’t want kids, don’t have much influence in what is gonna happen, just wanna enjoy the time I have on this planet. Don’t think this population growth is sustainable in any scenario, and humankind would do better with a few billion fewer.
Fatalism is not gonna change a thing except making your experience on Earth less enjoyable. Turn off the news, live a good life, otherwise you will regret it.
Exactly this, because there is literally fuck all any of us can do to change this. Climate change is largely the result of a couple hundred mega corporations, not the masses choosing plastic drinking straws.
Downvoted but right. Average people did play a part of this though. The part we played was supporting the big businesses that were fucking us over. Oh, a new sports car even though my old one works fine? COOL. Give me that, I’ll pay whatever you ask.
Excess. We live a life of excess. They provide it, we accept.
Unfortunately people are greedy and material oriented. Even the good people have so much excess. They don’t think twice to see anything wrong with it. Everyone driving brand new cars to keep up with the “Joneses” played a big part. This never should have been a thing. Vehicles should’ve been for transport and nothing else, vanity should have never been a factor but… people.
Same with fashion. Never should’ve been a thing. Clothes are for covering your body. Never should’ve mattered so much how we look. Again, vanity.
Makeup. Same story. People want to look a certain way so resources are obtained, money is spent, excess is gained. Vanity satiated.
Sports stadiums? Malls filled with bs no one needs?
Wants vs needs. People don’t know how to separate the two anymore.
Even those that claim to. Often especially not those people.
Excess. So much excess.
My area used to be filled with farms. All you’d see is trees and farms.
They sustained themselves. Grew their own food, mowed their own grass, usually had a creek for water etc. Self sustainable and produced an abundance of food.
Now the entire fucking area is just… businesses to provide the excess. No need to rely on ourselves anymore. The corporations got our back right? Bought up all the land and replaced farms that could feed hundreds with… A smoke shop. Grocery stores everywhere. People aren’t growing their food anymore, they’ve got corporations to do that for them as long as they work for the corporations enough to earn the funds.
It’s so fucked up. I miss the trees, miss nature. It amazes me that people aren’t outraged and protesting this. They’re turning my entire region into a massive strip mall and the people are…
Okay with it because it provides the excess.
Okay with it because they lost touch with nature long ago and can’t fathom the value of it.
We’ve traded self sufficiency for reliance on corporations.
We’ve traded strength for dependency.
We’ve traded church for Twitter.
Clean water for fluoride laced tap water.
Roaming buffalo for cars.
It’s fucked up. Everything is fucked up.
We just don’t know it yet because our needs are met and then some
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You can have a healthy dose of both being informed and practicing self care. Being empathetic is also a good thing, actually.
FYI reincarnation exists. We’re all fucked.
At least we can live in the real life set of Mad Max, which may be pretty cool for 5 min
Carl Sagan on reincarnation - https://thetattyjournal.wordpress.com/2021/03/25/the-astonishing-evidence-that-made-carl-sagan-believe-reincarnation-deserves-serious-study/
“FYI reincarnation exists”
Says who?
Woopty doo. As if anyone should ever give a fuck about what some random thinks about reincarnation. He isn’t an authority on any subject.
Show me the science. If you can’t then that’s more then enough for me to say you’re all full of shit.
Many spiritual movements.
For a more modern assessment, have a look at Mark Viber’s audio series “Where is my mind”
There is evidence that NDEs are real, the conclusion being that one’s clnsdio9can leave the body.
Past live experiences have strong evidence.
Have a listen to the podcast and make up your own mind.
Hell no. Show me the science. Prove it.
Problem is you can’t. Your pod cast isn’t proof. It’s just someone giving you some janky opinion and you gobble it up.
You haven’t heard it yet you judge.
I don’t care whether you, an anonymous person ?though you may be a bot) believes in it or not.
As a medical doctor I was a total akeptic until I looked at the evidence with an open mind.
Good luck with your closed minded attitude in life.
Thanks. Good luck with your religion. It’s always worked out so well for you folks.
The podcast I referenced gave evidence.
If you’re to closed minded to listen to it that’s your loss.
And, no, it’s not a religion lol
literally an entire generation of them
It’s getting hot in here
So take off all your clothes
I am, getting, so hot. I want fresh water and socialized healthcare.
I live in the UK, so I have them both yea
I am gettin so hot I wanna take my clothes off
Well, time to capitulate to Big Energy
We’ve tried making the problem worse and now we’re all out of ideas.
Personally I think we should redirect to individual energy.
I’m all for nuclear power and do believe more plants would obviously be better than continuing to use FF.
But I also don’t see why we don’t just use solar panels/turbines etc. On every home. They sustain my home just fine, just some solar panels and a few batteries. Expensive initial investment but people are paying out the ass for electric in my area anyway.
Knowing that if the power grid fails I’ve nothing to worry about feels great.
I just can’t see why our governments don’t band together and mass produce solar panels. Yes, it’s going to be expensive but the way we’ve been obtaining power has been much more costly. The second the tech for solar panels became available the gov should’ve began attempting to mass produce and distribute them. Why they haven’t? My guess is that it’s because big corporations require more power than average people. Also, power itself is a big corporation. None of our power companies wanted to go out of business, they wanted to leech our $ instead even though it was a detriment to our future.
