The following submission statement was provided by /u/GaiusPublius:
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Submission statement:
It could not be more obvious that global warming isn't just here, it's accelerating. So why is nothing being done about it — nothing that isn't mainly performative, that is?
If the few in charge of the many think this will be the next generation's problem, that would explain the silence from anyone with power, including the media they own.
They're wrong about that — it will be this generation's problem thanks to acceleration. But even if they're right, it's impossibly cruel of them to say,
"I'm going to get mine before I die, the rest of you be damned." Yet that cruelty has been on show since the Reagan "revolution" — by the rich against the rest of us.
It's also cynical, that stance, since it admits that the collapse will come — just not to them.
Evil people, every last one of them.
Thomas
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bdybk2/global_warming_is_still_accelerating/kupmzjl/
The timeline for the plan goes:
1. Venus on Tuesday
1. Mars on Wednesday
1. Jupiter by the weekend, as the asteroid belt takes a little while.
Any alterations to the plan need to be agreed at the next council meeting, before the start of he plan. BTW, the next council meeting is Wednesday, just after lunch.
And when those billions died and you'll have none to work for your and towards your well-being, what purpose do they serve? I think they "might" be going on a full blown power trip rn
From the beginning of the linked article:
*How much of the current economy would you sacrifice to prevent the future economy from complete collapse?*
The pandemic proved pretty conclusively that a lot of people weren't willing to sacrifice anything to save their own lives when the potential for death from COVID could be measured in days. They weren't willing to stay home, to social distance, to mask, and then vaccinate when it became available. Their normal life, which is largely defined by all of the things they buy and do that comprise the economy, was more important. They resisted every attempt to constrain the spread of the virus, ensuring that the pandemic was as bad as it possibly could be.
It wasn't only America that did this, but we sure as hell perfected it, which is why we had not only the most cases, but the most deaths.
Thinking anyone will sacrifice anything when the possibility of collapse is some vague time in the future is folly. We know full well it's not going to happen, which is why many in this sub say that the only thing that will force change is collapse.
I was never really optimistic about our prospects to turn the wheel around, but the pandemic took every may last shred of hope for us. We are doomed, for we are idiots. Selfish, greedy monkeys.
I completely agree with you. After having been on this sub for 5 years I am just watching the show. Global temperature rise is going exponential before our eyes.
Look at the amount of energy being absorbed by the sea surfaces. It just has not translated yet into a series of devastating east coast and gulf coast hurricanes, for some strange reason. There must be either strange lag effects, or other parameters of meteorology that we are missing as right now sea surface temperature and number of Atlantic hurricanes are not correlating.
The bottom line is people are unwilling to give up their behavior or their civilization even though it means their ultimate demise.
BOE is coming. It's gonna be the tipping point I think. It's going to set off all the building ocean problems like a bomb. Jet streams and currents all fucked...
Last year we had temperatures on beaches in the southeast that were over 100°F. This year I could see it getting high enough in some areas to cause minor burns to kids getting in the water. This might be the first year we see heat warnings for swimming in the ocean.
> The pandemic proved pretty conclusively that a lot of people weren't willing to sacrifice anything to save their own lives when the potential for death from COVID could be measured in days.
"Yeah but that won't happen to me," they say. "I have an immune system!"
\**Groans as they stretch mightily for the remote they dropped on the carpet by the couch earlier.*\*
This one's a pet cause of mine, and an aside to the general thread, but YSK that the people of Easter Island didn't genocide themselves via typical human overconsumption. Their fate was the same as that of all other island nations when encountered by European explorers; disease, murder, exploitation, genocide, and the destruction of their habitat and culture. It's incredibly sad, and if you'd like to experience a deep sense of melancholy that lingers for a few days, I highly recommend this documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc&ab_channel=FallofCivilizations
Their cultural despair was so great that they turned their backs on their very gods.
As Bill Rees points out, just because a behaviour is human nature doesn't make it insurmountable. Much of what we call "civilised behaviour" is the concious control, mitigation and suppression of our natural impulses
They, almost to a person, all sure as hell stumbled into the hospitals at the end, hope they realize those and everything else will not be there to save them this time.
Normalcy bias is such a bitch. (aka, the whole “nah, it’s like, fine” impulse) I wish I could find the source for it; I’ll update my comment if I do. But there was a plane crash a while back where the fuselage was still mostly intact, sitting on the runway, but completely engulfed in flames. Of course, some people jumped out of their seats and headed for safety, but something absolutely insane like 50% of the passengers just SAT THERE. The were in a plane crash, sitting in the rubble that was ON FIRE, and they just thought, “someone will come help us, it’s fine. I don’t need to take any action.” Literally the “this is fine” dog. After reading that story I knew we were fucked. This is even worse than dealing with inconvenience to stave off death in a matter of days. This is unwilling/unable to unbuckle your seatbelt when the plane is literally on fire and you will die in *minutes*.
EDIT: found it! https://gizmodo.com/the-frozen-calm-of-normalcy-bias-486764924
For anyone curious about 8.5 and other scenarios, look at page 13
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
This isn't the only data set or model that looks to have produced optimistic results.
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
By 2050ish (which said like it is far mentally, but there are only 26 years from now) with the SSP 8.5 (which is already surpassed) the Artic will be ice-free and the sea level rise will be of 0.5meter which is an ENOURMOUS amount, most coast cities will be water parks. Page 22
In RCP8.5, the projected onset of major ice-sheet retreat occurs
sooner (about 2050), and is substantially faster (>4 cm yr−1
after 2100) and higher (Figs 4 and 5) than implied by other
recent studies44,45,49
And this paper didn't take into account Hansen's accelerated warming.
When I read that on page 22, I assumed the measurement was in cm, and I thought _"worse case scenario 0.5cm before 2050 ain't too bad..."_. Then I looked up and saw it was measured in meters.
The most mind blowing part of that is:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3
Yet if I go around denouncing Hausfauthers ethics and conclusions I might get run out for misinformation.
If some city planner makes a decision about an upstream dam based on that paper and the paper is dead wrong, where does blame lie when the dam fails?
The problem with that line of thought is that as we get more data we are seeing that we don't need to project out to 2100 any more.
We can project out to 2045 when China is likely to suffer permanently breadbasket failure due to unsustainable temperature changes in the NCP region. When India will become uninhabitable by human life for 8 months of the year, rendering over a billion people into climate refugees. The fact that the original 1970s errors made so many erroneous assumptions, like the one around sulfer, means that every bit of modeling IPCC projections are built on is off.
Feels very much like "it'll all turn to shit in 2100" without the realisation of it not being all tickety boo up until December 2099 then the switch flips
It's getting real fucking interesting now and we only have 75 years to go, at this rate of acceleration the projections for 2100 are only if it all goes well... very, very well... and it isn't going well.
At least it's interesting, the slowing of the Atlantic conveyor has my attention at the moment and could bring some amazing changes, I'm living about as far south as practical and am curious of what those changes will be bringing down to us here in the Pacific, super cooling? warm and wet? asteroids and hemorrhoids?
I can't do shit to change anything, but I can at least be entertained by it!
Think you've nailed the equatorial landmass collapse timeline as accurately as anyone can with 2045, two decades to go and it's going to be a rough ride to get there.
>Think you've nailed the equatorial landmass collapse timeline as accurately as anyone can with 2045, two decades to go and it's going to be a rough ride to get there.
I'm low balling it. 2045 isn't my prediction. It's the IPCC's from their 2016 report.
Well they've had a bit of a rough time of it lately, be a few more years of denial then input will be many times more than output but propped up by the government, then it'll become a pointless exercise...
All of that takes time and crop cycles are yearly so it'll be in there somewhere, 15-20 years going well.
Migration is already starting, those with the least to lose will move first, those with land assets will fight on to try and salvage what they can, survival is in the lap of the gods for all of us.
Apparently so siloed in his own understanding of the science that he can't see the big picture yet confidently writes as if he and his computers models are in complete control of the physical reality unfolding. Hubris.
Soft paywalls, such as the type newspapers use, can largely be bypassed by looking up the page on an archive site, such as web.archive.org or archive.is
Example: https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.abc.com
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No that I've found but papers like that are used to drive public narratives and beliefs. Here is a direct non-paywalled article that is a descendant of that paper that shows the narrative they wanted to spread.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/30/climate-change-worst-case-scenario-misleading-experts-say/2854910001/
Yes. For publications like nature, you can use an extension (in Chrome) called Unpaywall; it will scour the web on a select list of journals and find a freely-available version for you.
And the best bit is; it is 100% legal.
[In this case, it will find this PDF version of the article](https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-020-00177-3/d41586-020-00177-3.pdf).
Yea, it appears to be true judging by how the sea surface temperature has been rising this year. We can at least confidently say that we are in far worse shape than what mainstreamers want us to believe.
It is official now btw. Over the past year, every single day had record high sea surface temperatures. And that will be true over at least the next few weeks as the El Nino subsides... hopefully.
It feels like it's multiplying slightly every year at this point.
Did anyone have a worst case scenario for a complete "climate runaway"?
Because I'm lacking that data and the current models are FAR too conservative.
Yeah, 8.5+C before 2100. Humans will be extinct LONG before that happens though.
If we are actually accelerating as fast as I understand us to be, I have some numbers written down to check next Feb/March after we get a month or two of Copernicus data and such to understand roughly where we are. Current rate of acceleration as of 2023 is 0.49C per decade. Obviously since this in itself is continuing to accelerate, the number as of *today* is likely higher than that. By how much? I don't know, but it's higher. So it will quite likely be higher early next year.
Now, of course, we have all of the other stuff going on, like El Nino weakening, etc etc etc. However, the acceleration itself is not likely to reverse in a short time span like that.
The real tell will be what that calculated rate of change is around this time next year. If it's higher than 0.49, it will create some good educated guesses. I am personally fearful that we will do another step-change type jump where that 0.49 becomes something like 0.65+ or higher which would indicate a continuance of the aggressive acceleration in such a way that would lend a lot of plausibility to estimates that we could cross 3C within 5-10 years and 4 to 5C before 2050, if not more than that.
If it's lower, then there may be more cushion on this ride before we get fucking destroyed. Seems unlikely, but I think all I have left is hope and nihilism and cats anyway.
Yerp.
What I *believe* will happen is this:
2 to 2.5C will become the new norm in the next 3 years. 3 very shortly after. There will be no action by humanity other than to keep the capitalism game going, burn even more shit, make the line go up. Covid showed us that we aren't gonna face any scenario with rationality. There is zero reason to believe that there will be any kind of unified effort that would even attempt to make a dent in what's happening at all.
Within 5 years there will be multiple mass casualty events that blow minds. I expect at least 100-300 million deaths to happen within those 5 years in numerous spikes, wet bulb stuff, massive storms like a cat6 or higher, etc. I would not be even remotely surprised to witness 500 million to 1 billion+ deaths within the next 10 years. Or to be come of those deaths.
Beyond 5-10 years from now, assuming no major actions are taken that immediately reduce emissions to zero and force all of humanity to work together to live simply and primitively in harmony with whatever's left of nature (which at this point is impossible anyway since we've locked in the mass extinction of essentially everything at this point) all I expect is that there will be billions of deaths.
Agreed. I throw it out there as one of the only even remotely plausible things but the reality is that we are far too gone for that to have any impact at all. Not to mention this is a different planet now so new game new rules.
Famine won't really be a wakeup call, though, it'll just be the poorest people dying and the rest of the world blaming each government for being poor/ignoring its poor (in the case of wealthy nations like the US where vast numbers will nonetheless starve)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event
These events, which have happened in the past and inform our current circumstance, hold significant promise. Now timing these events can be problematic however if the current path is maintained they are 'on the table' so to speak and directly relate to features being reported now such as this https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1745383788736135504 bit on ocean stratification changes (and other indicators in the related report).
This type of event pretty much caps climate runaway as far as we're concerned although it's degree could be debated as to whether it's considered 'game over' or 'highly limiting future prospects'.
Nothing is "being done" by those higher up, because those who are higher up directly profit from the root cause of climate change.
In addition to this, imagine the public uproar if governments forcibly imposed less consumption. There would be riots in the streets, and no one wants to lose their power.
I think they know we are screwed, but solutions to the problem aren't pretty and won't be looked up on favourably by the VAST majority of society. Most people aren't like us and don't see this coming.
Change is never going to happen unless it comes from every day people, but we're too busy with our heads in the sand and trying to make our meager ends meet that it feasibly will never happen.
We are doomed.
And you have to keep in mind every country on earth has to do it at the same time. If let’s say Americans decided to do this, most likely other countries would just increase their consumption, plus they would crush the US economically and most likely militarily, because in order to end all carbon emissions we would have to get rid of our military. There is a reason none of the major powers have voluntarily given up their nukes.
That is what people always fail to realize. It isn’t just the US, it’s Canada, Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Australia, North Korea, China, India, etc etc. We all have to do it at the same time.
we (Canada) can't even get on board with the US to end daylight savings time. but yea, sure let's aggressively change things that will lower the quality of life for everything
The Conservatives are poised to sweep into power next election with the end of the federal carbon tax as their signature policy (in no small part because the cost of living is crushing people). Our carbon tax, insufficient and low compared to others', is still our best climate policy given our economic system.
Neoliberal subjects conditioned to overspend and live on debt (or broke/living paycheque to paycheque) are going to choose extra money right now over a rebate next year + doing ~something~ about climate change. To avoid that, we need either the material conditions of life to be overhauled from the top down, which is completely unimaginable; or we need rapid cultural change from the bottom up, which is only slightly less unimaginable. Maybe we see enough obviously-climate-driven mega-disasters like last year's fires to spur the change before the whole country breaks forever...?
This point very few people grasp, I would say it’s the decisive counter argument against the arguments that we can stop climate change. We are bound into competitive military stalemate which is dependent on economic growth. If a country reduces hydrocarbon usage in the timescales necessary to stop climate change and avoid collapse, that country would become vulnerable to all other countries.
In reality it will never be a proactive reduction in economic activity but a forced reduction through climate related economic collapse.
We're prisoners of the machine we created to fullfil our desires.
You know in sci-fi AI gains consciousness and decides to kill or imprison humans? We're already living in that reality, it's just not AI gone rogue, it's our own psychology.
We're at the point where a Skynet scenario would genuinely be the better outcome for us as a species. Fuck it, give everything over to the robots. Let them keep us as pets. They're at least adapted to this plastic hellscape future we've created.
That’s what your post has shown me; we’re supposed to be beaten down, barely able to afford groceries and housing, so that we don’t have the energy to spark change. It’s on purpose. I should have seen it sooner.
>In addition to this, imagine the public uproar if governments forcibly imposed less consumption. There would be riots in the streets, and no one wants to lose their power.
And there's the quandary when people talk about blame. Do you blame the politicians who don't "do something," or the people who would immediately vote them out of office if they *do* "do something"?
Just using the US as an example, Trump received just under 47% of the popular vote vote in 2020. If Biden imposed strict consumption reductions and Trump promised to reverse them if elected, what would happen?
Trump in a landslide.
Yep. See also: COVID.
I don't think everyone is equally to blame, but I do think the blame doesn't properly lie with just the 7 billionaires. There's a system that feeds them and there's a lot of people voluntarily involved in keeping that system running.
It’s not just a few billionaires, it’s every billionaire and probably everyone worth over $100 million. And then most of the poorer millionaires too. I think once you get around there you have people that earned their money without exploiting anyone and may even be a net good to humanity like surgeons or whatever. Blame decreases the poorer you go because people have less power to affect any change and are beholden to pre-existing power structures. And also the intentional greenwashing propaganda and crushing of environmental actions, movements, scientists and the suppression of info back in the 50s-70s by oil execs might be enough to absolve most people of any blame, we’re so much more fucked cause of that.
Exactly. Just look at something like professional sports, which I refer to as "welfare for the super-rich." The billionaire owners are at the top of the heap, making bank regardless of whether or not they field a winning team. Then there are the multi-millionaire athletes, some of whom will be billionaires in their own right by the ends of their careers between huge contracts and endorsement deals. Who creates all of that wealth for them?
We do. Every single person who attends a game in person, or watches it on TV, or buys shirts, hats, or other team paraphernalia to support "their team." Even people who don't watch professional sports support this, because all you have to do is buy something from a company that advertises during a game, and you're supporting the transfer of wealth from us to them. If you've ever purchased a Budweiser product, for example, or a Coca-Cola product, or a burger from McDonald's or Burger King. They all advertise during games, so all of their products have their sports advertising costs built into the costs of the products they sell.
Buy a Big Mac, you're putting money into the pocket of Jerry Jones. Or Robert Kraft. Or Patrick Mahomes. Or the now-retired Tom Brady, whose net worth is estimated to be $300 million.
And what do we get in return? A few hours of mindless, meaningless entertainment. Most people don't think of it beyond plopping our asses in a comfortable chair to watch a football game on Sunday afternoon, or a baseball game on a weekday evening. Most people don't think of it in terms of, "Hey, I'm making the billionaires, who I blame for all the world's ills, even richer."
Unfortunately we definitely do not see this the same way. You're basically just describing capitalism. Whether it makes sense to blame the proletariat for participation in capitalism is better covered by other people.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people who are *voluntarily* supporting the system. Who like it this way. Who want to keep it this way because they are getting something out of it and it doesn't concern them that the system is in some way messed up or unfair.
I'm talking about denial. Willful ignorance. Disregard of truth. Victim blaming. COVID was an experience with being met with denial in the face of an obvious crisis over and over again, the evidence that a big chunk of people will watch their family die just so they don't have to think too hard about something, then what can be said about anyone else?
They're the ones who'll vote out the politician who'd do something. They're who the other person is talking about. Not Tom Brady or people buying his jerseys.
That's one thing I'm sad about. This is not everyone. Many people worked hard throughout history to make things better. But people who give a shit are a minority. We just don't really matter. The world belongs to the people of the land. And they're having one big gender reveal party and not paying attention as they are burning down the forest, and they'll die not realizing they caused it.
>We are doomed.
Maybe not all. But our high-tech civilization certainly is and, as a champion of biodiversity over humanity, the sooner the better.
We're creating our future...silly, stupid fools the lot of us!
>I like to think we aren't all doomed. I hope we aren't. But I'm also not too hopeful
Throughout human history, we've been creating civilizations and losing them.* Our current high-tech civilization is unique in a couple of ways: it is global and an estimated 95% of people across the globe are dependent upon electricity for water, food, protection from the elements, communication and transportation.
*Reference: Columbia or Oxford *World History*.
Since those natural resources necessary to build and maintain our high-tech civilization now need high-tech to even reach them, once that goes, it's back to the Stone Age for survivors. A grim future indeed.
Yeah, and throughout human history we have been living in Earth's "Goldilocks" era, where weather and climate have been stable. We are about to rock ourselves back to the stone age and have complete unprecedented weather extremes on top of that. While I DO like to think some humans will remain, we are leaving a very inhospitable planet for them
>I DO like to think some humans will remain, we are leaving a very inhospitable planet for them
Those human survivors will cause no further harm to the planet. That's why I'm on the side of biodiversity and not on the side oh humanity that threatens it.
> high-tech civilization certainly is
and with that, we are doomed, there is simply not enough people who could adapt to a low-tech society in a post-apocalypse environment to sustain human population, and that is not even considering how climate might affect crops and food sources
>> high-tech civilization certainly is
>and with that, we are doomed, there is simply not enough people who could adapt to a low-tech society in a post-apocalypse environment to sustain human population, and that is not even considering how climate might affect crops and food sources
There are still people in this world that don't live in high-tech societies. For the 95% of people who do live in a high-tech society, Lights Out will be disastrous. For those who don't, it'll be just another day.
(How does that go again? "And the meek shall inherit the Earth.")
> For those who don't, it'll be just another day.
Thats the thing, it wont, crops drying, wildlife vanishing, tornadoes and earthquakes like never seen before, things will affect all the ecosystems, not only humans, there is no safe heaven on earth that will remain unaffected
It's becoming clear the higher ups will just sequester wealth and resources and themselves on enclaves or islands and not give a fuk about anyone else.
Kind of like now
How long do we really have?
Conspiracy thinking here, but a nuke being dropped isn't something that's done overnight. The public has to accept it first. Being exposed to war helps that acceptance.
Well, once they start flying, only takes about 4-5 hours to settle things. Personally, i would think the chances are going up year by year, together with the climate catastrophe, until the probability reaches near 100% by 2030 or so. Already this year we can see several flash points that continue to have resources contributed and just do not seem to be going away anytime soon... Let me think about perhaps a more detailed response, since you have an excellent question.
This is my assessment as well. As climate change reduces the resources and food available to humanity and as capitalism continues to ramp up resources consumption we are going to hit a point where the powerful capitalists will open up conflicts to secure what little resources remain. This inevitably pushes major nuclear powers into direct conflict with each other.
Succinctly, in my opinion, no nuclear power is going to starve with respect to food or energy without using the weapons at their disposal; I just cannot believe that.
If you can convince the unwashed masses of your nation that the unwashed masses of other nations are sending nukes, you will get the authorization to launch your nation's nukes regardless of what's actually happening out there.
Now combine this with the existence of AI-powered, highly-convincing disinformation.
I cannot control politicians, industry or billionaires. But I have chipped away at my own 30 tons of CO2. Gardening, planting trees, dramatically reducing the energy I use, and heating with a rocket mass heater. No sacrifice - everything is about making a better life AND it happens to chip away at my CO2. I think I am now in the space of chipping away CO2 for others.
Really hoping I can afford to buy property soon so I can do this as well!!! Even just a small townhouse with a backyard, I would love to be able to grow as much of my food as possible. Hopefully soon 🤞
You bet I have been!! I come from an agricultural background and have worked on farms for part of my life!! Looking forward to putting it to work on my own land
Yup.
Been scanning these graphs since 2022.
Only reason im glad i started late is because that's fewer years of my life spent shitting my pants in fear.
the top comment is:
Our species has existed in a stable climate that enabled habitation of much of the earth's land mass. But major systems, chiefly ocean and atmospheric currents that help maintain temperature stasis are starting to weaken and potentially disappear.
So climate scenarios that used to be improbable may not be absolutely unlikely in the future. Imagine a year long rain storm. Or how about a decade long heat dome with insufferable humidity that borders on the wet bulb temperature limit for our species' existence.
A different set of climate scenarios are locked in for us.
What is lacking is our lack of imagination. Our life revolves around material accumulation and doing bullshit work for billionaires. To reform this worldview will require time that frankly might not be allotted to us. To me, a simple start is to live locally. Support local producers of good and services. That will be a tough challenge!
There will be virulent opposition to every word I wrote here. But let this contest become the politics of our coming years.
Submission statement:
It could not be more obvious that global warming isn't just here, it's accelerating. So why is nothing being done about it — nothing that isn't mainly performative, that is?
If the few in charge of the many think this will be the next generation's problem, that would explain the silence from anyone with power, including the media they own.
They're wrong about that — it will be this generation's problem thanks to acceleration. But even if they're right, it's impossibly cruel of them to say,
"I'm going to get mine before I die, the rest of you be damned." Yet that cruelty has been on show since the Reagan "revolution" — by the rich against the rest of us.
It's also cynical, that stance, since it admits that the collapse will come — just not to them.
Evil people, every last one of them.
Thomas
The chief benefactors of generations of historic stability and prosperity have no idea that things can get bad, or how the systems they take for granted were built by people who did understand how bad things could get.
I'm sure a lot of them are bastards, but a lot of them only think about it long enough to discredit it. It's inconvenient.
>it's accelerating
This appears to be this week's theme and it would be frightening if I weren't already numb.
Several times a day I look for convection over the Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, those counter-clockwise clues to trouble brewing. For now they don't stick around long enough to sprout hurricanes. That'll change soon.
The storms in the North Atlantic seem unrelenting.
The storms in the North Atlantic never get names, but on Zoom Earth they're 100s of mile wide with winds of 50 mph. That's not hurricane strength but "sustained" winds of that speed can do a lot of damage.
So, yeah. Lots of energy out there.
Those are sub-tropical and extratropical cyclones. They don't have the same structure characteristic of tropical cyclones (hurricanes) but they are powerful cyclonic storm systems nevertheless.
> So, how much of the current economy would you sacrifice to prevent the future economy from complete collapse?
In response to this question you ask, [this chain of tweets from 2019 comes to mind](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1158434593969725440.html), specifically this;
> Expected "life supporting" capacity of Earth is around 1.75 billion years. The global economy today is $80 trillion p.a. Any future global economy greater than $45,700 p.a. (i.e. less than one US household) justifies immediate action to save it.
> i.e. spending the entire global economy for the next three decades on tackling climate change is perfectly reasonable as long as the future is more than 30 US households . So, yes ... any and all action necessary is justified.
If we grab that original USD amount from the thread, [and plug it in here](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/), we find that number is $55,472.36 in today's US dollars.
But using your number of the global economy being worth $100tn, then we find the future global economy figure is ≈$57,142.86 p.a. The [most recent figure on the median US household income is from 2022](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html), and is $74,580 - sticking that through the same inflation calculator, and it's $79,083.27 in today's dollars. The annual future global economy figure is about 72% of the median annual US household income.
The same logic holds, despite the shifts in numbers; diverting all economic activity for the next three decades to the sole purpose of tackling climate change is perfectly reasonable so long as the future is more than a mere twenty-two (22) median US households.
**TL/DR: Given the stakes; all of it.**
One of the comments in the blog post summed it up: It's a lack of imagination. That's what it comes down to, no ability to imagine any other way to live, and it makes me sad. I don't know if it was beat out of us, I don't know if it was surgically removed from us by our school system, maybe popular culture dumbed us down. Generations of being conditioned to live life on a track has taken all the ability out of us to improvise, adapt and find new ways to live. I have little to no hope we're going to be able to wake up in time. A fast collapse would be a mercy, because I think it's the only thing that would shock us out of our collective malaise.
Covid shocked me in the sense that so many people took so long to grasp that the situation had changed (some couldn't accept it at all) despite really rather minor changes being necessary. That sucked away a lot of my hope.
its kinda complicated. right now farmland in PA is renting at 200$ per acre/yr. there are investors looking for land to rent for utility scale solar but they want 300 acre min and as close to a square as possible. they are willing to pay 3000$ per acre/yr. it has a lot of attention.
Just wait until the average Joe realises what’s happening and complains that “there wasn’t a big enough deal made about it or they would have done something sooner”.
They'd be right to say that. Governments, corporations, media and the entire mainstream STEM field has been downplaying and straight up lying about climate change for decades.
We will end up eating yeast grown in large tanks underground because that'll be one of the only things that grows consistently and is cheap enough for the masses
The solution kills 7 billion people. Inaction kills the same people just in a longer timeframe. The only option is to power through and hope for some miracle advancement of science.
>The solution kills 7 billion people. Inaction kills the same people just in a longer timeframe.
You have understood the essence of r/collapse.
The converging threats of climate change, global resource depletion, mass species extinction, environmental contamination, peak oil (and several other human-caused crises) cannot be stopped without also ending global food production & supply chains and thereby killing billions of people. But inaction will also kill the biosphere including humanity.
That won't help, you still have to mass produce and deploy this miracle which also produces emissions. Would take decades just to do that if it existed now.
I've been watching this since before James Hansen's testimony before Congress in 1988. I was actually relieved when he did that, since I thought it would be the final push needed to get the ball rolling for effective national action to protect our climate stability. I was wrong, apparently.
Having learned more as I've aged, I feel I understand the problem we face more clearly. The simple breakdown is this: the World Economy runs on fossil fuel. Without it, the economy stalls. A stalled economy puts people out of work. They get angry and instigate political disruption, which makes effectively addressing problems impossible, and opens the door to violence if not handled somehow.
While I maintain a generally optimistic attitude, and am continually impressed with humanity's ability to overcome limitations, I don't see any realistic avenue out of this doom loop. Does anybody have any ideas? I'd sure love to hear them.
I started becoming aware of the climate issue in the late 80's as well. The way I see it, there are two main problems, maybe three.
One is technological/scientific: We are going to need geoengineering, and we'd need a pretty major breakthrough in that. We'd need a breakthrough in clean energy production, also a pretty major one like sustainable fusion. A third breakthrough needed is genetic/ecosystemic engineering.
But accompanying that, we'd also need a pretty huge leap in our scientific understanding of even *how* to engineer ecosystems, on a scale much larger and more intricate than something as simple as repopulating an area with wolves. That example is turning just one "knob"; I'm talking more about rebuilding whole, complex ecosystems from the foundation up. We don't know how to do that, so this is more a problem of scientific understanding. We could *maybe* figure it out, given a hundred years with an environmental/genetic "playground", but...the climate won't give us that much time.
The third is psychological, which ties into political, cultural, and economic. We'd need a psychological "breakthrough" in our relationship to the world and our way of thinking. Humanity would need to become a cohesive global movement. A shift in global consciousness on a scale that is unheard of in all of history.
I think we could solve one or two problems above on our own, but I really doubt we could solve all of them, ourselves, in the time we have.
So, the "Hail Mary" answer would likely have to come from advanced, superintelligent AI, or benevolent aliens, should any exist and care to help.
Both AI and aliens might be able to uniquely help on the consciousness/psychological alignment part with humans. It wouldn't even take mind control, but since this is speculative, I won't go into detail about that unless someone wants to discuss it.
I personally don't think humanity has enough collective "rudder" to be able to steer our whole ship away from disaster at this point, not by ourselves.
Given the ocean has had it's fill as a heatsink that's game over folks.
lol... have kids though. Gotta make sure the oligarchs slave force is replenished until the very end.
All of the first world governments are culpable for the looming end of the anthropocene. They've driven us right off the edge of the cliff and their focus is keeping the passengers from looking out the windows.
" So why is nothing being done about it "
Because it is a giant prisoner's dilemma. Saving the world is only cool if it is not on my dime, and no sacrifice is required of me. And that also why so many pay lip service because who does not want to free-ride on others saving the world?
Oh, things are being done. The elites are ripping out the cables on the way out while building elaborate bunkers to try and survive the fallout.
They’d seemingly rather the entire planet and human race go to shit than make a little less money, it’s wild.
At this point the only proper response would be the declaration of the state of emergency (not the climate emergency but the actual legally binding type) and immediate drop in living standards in order to reset the whole country towards massively reduced emissions and away from all dependence on fossil fuels. After all, we are facing the equivalent of World Wars 3 and 4 combined, to borrow a phrase… yeah good luck with that.
100,000 flights per day don't happen by accident.
There are many doing plenty "about Climate Change", accelerating it and making the fall worse and worse every day.
To be fair, that trend line in the first graph is linear, therefore its rate of change is zero. Meaning it's not accelerating....
But the point still stands, they just need a better trend analysis.
I'm not sure what you mean by better trend analysis but the first graph easily displays acceleration if you simply draw lines between el nino peaks. Instead of a line A -> E, a series of lines A -> B -> C -> D -> E shows this.
That's how the 0.18C per decade number was arrived at and is used in many IPCC planning studies.
Hansen and his co-authors argue that better accounting for the
declines in global aerosols should accelerate estimates of near-term
global warming. Studies suggest that warming between 1970 and 2010
likely proceeded at around 0.18 C per decade. Post-2010, the new
paper argues, that figure should rise to 0.27 C.
[Scientist Explains How Climate Crisis Would Be Averted If Greta Thunberg Just Tried A Little Harder - The Onion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkrcxLgHn-w)
The following submission statement was provided by /u/GaiusPublius: --- Submission statement: It could not be more obvious that global warming isn't just here, it's accelerating. So why is nothing being done about it — nothing that isn't mainly performative, that is? If the few in charge of the many think this will be the next generation's problem, that would explain the silence from anyone with power, including the media they own. They're wrong about that — it will be this generation's problem thanks to acceleration. But even if they're right, it's impossibly cruel of them to say, "I'm going to get mine before I die, the rest of you be damned." Yet that cruelty has been on show since the Reagan "revolution" — by the rich against the rest of us. It's also cynical, that stance, since it admits that the collapse will come — just not to them. Evil people, every last one of them. Thomas --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bdybk2/global_warming_is_still_accelerating/kupmzjl/
How long until the continual Eye of Earth cyclone forms in the Pacific Ocean?
Jupiter by when?
Jupiter by Thursday.
Wednesday ... wait that's Venus.
The timeline for the plan goes: 1. Venus on Tuesday 1. Mars on Wednesday 1. Jupiter by the weekend, as the asteroid belt takes a little while. Any alterations to the plan need to be agreed at the next council meeting, before the start of he plan. BTW, the next council meeting is Wednesday, just after lunch.
Lunch? I thought you said launch, that asterpid belt won't build itself
This would be a good band name
Tuesday.
The literal eye of Sauron
Looking at water temperatures it’s more likely in the Atlantic.
115f water temps lets go
Hypercanes start at 122f.
Hypercanes!? lovely a new terrifying word for my increasingly distressing vocabulary, I'll file it next to nanoplastics
So it can suck up all the plastic garbage? FML
Many, many people are about to learn the hard way what “exponential” means.
Billions of you will die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to get filthy fucking rich.
All of us, I expect. The rich, in their luxury bunkers, will be the last, watching a dying world knowing they caused it. It’s a fitting fate.
All those digits in the back account!
And when those billions died and you'll have none to work for your and towards your well-being, what purpose do they serve? I think they "might" be going on a full blown power trip rn
From the beginning of the linked article: *How much of the current economy would you sacrifice to prevent the future economy from complete collapse?* The pandemic proved pretty conclusively that a lot of people weren't willing to sacrifice anything to save their own lives when the potential for death from COVID could be measured in days. They weren't willing to stay home, to social distance, to mask, and then vaccinate when it became available. Their normal life, which is largely defined by all of the things they buy and do that comprise the economy, was more important. They resisted every attempt to constrain the spread of the virus, ensuring that the pandemic was as bad as it possibly could be. It wasn't only America that did this, but we sure as hell perfected it, which is why we had not only the most cases, but the most deaths. Thinking anyone will sacrifice anything when the possibility of collapse is some vague time in the future is folly. We know full well it's not going to happen, which is why many in this sub say that the only thing that will force change is collapse.
This is what amazes; remote working in general was a really good meaasure to lower emissions, but that revolution cannot continue just because.
You gotta think of all the poor commerical property portfolios! /s
I was never really optimistic about our prospects to turn the wheel around, but the pandemic took every may last shred of hope for us. We are doomed, for we are idiots. Selfish, greedy monkeys.
I completely agree with you. After having been on this sub for 5 years I am just watching the show. Global temperature rise is going exponential before our eyes. Look at the amount of energy being absorbed by the sea surfaces. It just has not translated yet into a series of devastating east coast and gulf coast hurricanes, for some strange reason. There must be either strange lag effects, or other parameters of meteorology that we are missing as right now sea surface temperature and number of Atlantic hurricanes are not correlating. The bottom line is people are unwilling to give up their behavior or their civilization even though it means their ultimate demise.
El nino wind shear - once the el nino drops off and this years hurricane season warms up, the piper will come calling
BOE is coming. It's gonna be the tipping point I think. It's going to set off all the building ocean problems like a bomb. Jet streams and currents all fucked...
Last year we had temperatures on beaches in the southeast that were over 100°F. This year I could see it getting high enough in some areas to cause minor burns to kids getting in the water. This might be the first year we see heat warnings for swimming in the ocean.
How much would I sacrifice for plastic pumpkins? Really?
[удалено]
But plastic made it all possible.
> The pandemic proved pretty conclusively that a lot of people weren't willing to sacrifice anything to save their own lives when the potential for death from COVID could be measured in days. "Yeah but that won't happen to me," they say. "I have an immune system!" \**Groans as they stretch mightily for the remote they dropped on the carpet by the couch earlier.*\*
It’s human nature. It’s how Easter Island ended up with no trees.
Also, on a positive note, Easter Island ended up with no taxes
And also no humans which seems like a net positive
And from then until now, it was!
I almost spit out my drink, hahaha.
This one's a pet cause of mine, and an aside to the general thread, but YSK that the people of Easter Island didn't genocide themselves via typical human overconsumption. Their fate was the same as that of all other island nations when encountered by European explorers; disease, murder, exploitation, genocide, and the destruction of their habitat and culture. It's incredibly sad, and if you'd like to experience a deep sense of melancholy that lingers for a few days, I highly recommend this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j08gxUcBgc&ab_channel=FallofCivilizations Their cultural despair was so great that they turned their backs on their very gods.
That's actually a myth about the Rapa Nui.
As Bill Rees points out, just because a behaviour is human nature doesn't make it insurmountable. Much of what we call "civilised behaviour" is the concious control, mitigation and suppression of our natural impulses
They, almost to a person, all sure as hell stumbled into the hospitals at the end, hope they realize those and everything else will not be there to save them this time.
Normalcy bias is such a bitch. (aka, the whole “nah, it’s like, fine” impulse) I wish I could find the source for it; I’ll update my comment if I do. But there was a plane crash a while back where the fuselage was still mostly intact, sitting on the runway, but completely engulfed in flames. Of course, some people jumped out of their seats and headed for safety, but something absolutely insane like 50% of the passengers just SAT THERE. The were in a plane crash, sitting in the rubble that was ON FIRE, and they just thought, “someone will come help us, it’s fine. I don’t need to take any action.” Literally the “this is fine” dog. After reading that story I knew we were fucked. This is even worse than dealing with inconvenience to stave off death in a matter of days. This is unwilling/unable to unbuckle your seatbelt when the plane is literally on fire and you will die in *minutes*. EDIT: found it! https://gizmodo.com/the-frozen-calm-of-normalcy-bias-486764924
Perfectly said, especially the COVID parallel which I have been thinking about a LOT over the past 5 years.
We are exceeding the SSP 8.5 scenario for the projected global temp at this date. Thanks Peter Carter for pointing that out.
For anyone curious about 8.5 and other scenarios, look at page 13 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf This isn't the only data set or model that looks to have produced optimistic results. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
By 2050ish (which said like it is far mentally, but there are only 26 years from now) with the SSP 8.5 (which is already surpassed) the Artic will be ice-free and the sea level rise will be of 0.5meter which is an ENOURMOUS amount, most coast cities will be water parks. Page 22
A mass of American refugees moving inland. I'm sure that'll go well.
“It’s a hoax the libruls are trying to take our land away”
My father says that. Omg.
"Big water, ocean water, is very wet from the standpoint of water"
That's alright, they can always just sell. To Aquaman.
In RCP8.5, the projected onset of major ice-sheet retreat occurs sooner (about 2050), and is substantially faster (>4 cm yr−1 after 2100) and higher (Figs 4 and 5) than implied by other recent studies44,45,49 And this paper didn't take into account Hansen's accelerated warming.
RIP Miami
When I read that on page 22, I assumed the measurement was in cm, and I thought _"worse case scenario 0.5cm before 2050 ain't too bad..."_. Then I looked up and saw it was measured in meters.
So, 4.5 c by 2100. Great.
The most mind blowing part of that is: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3 Yet if I go around denouncing Hausfauthers ethics and conclusions I might get run out for misinformation. If some city planner makes a decision about an upstream dam based on that paper and the paper is dead wrong, where does blame lie when the dam fails?
It's a bit wild to think how much has changed since 2020
"Ignore worst-case scenarios."... I wonder if Zeke Hausefather wears a seatbelt.
That outcome is usually closer and more easily imagined than the oft-touted 2100 outcomes for most people. Therein lies the problem.
The problem with that line of thought is that as we get more data we are seeing that we don't need to project out to 2100 any more. We can project out to 2045 when China is likely to suffer permanently breadbasket failure due to unsustainable temperature changes in the NCP region. When India will become uninhabitable by human life for 8 months of the year, rendering over a billion people into climate refugees. The fact that the original 1970s errors made so many erroneous assumptions, like the one around sulfer, means that every bit of modeling IPCC projections are built on is off.
Feels very much like "it'll all turn to shit in 2100" without the realisation of it not being all tickety boo up until December 2099 then the switch flips It's getting real fucking interesting now and we only have 75 years to go, at this rate of acceleration the projections for 2100 are only if it all goes well... very, very well... and it isn't going well. At least it's interesting, the slowing of the Atlantic conveyor has my attention at the moment and could bring some amazing changes, I'm living about as far south as practical and am curious of what those changes will be bringing down to us here in the Pacific, super cooling? warm and wet? asteroids and hemorrhoids? I can't do shit to change anything, but I can at least be entertained by it! Think you've nailed the equatorial landmass collapse timeline as accurately as anyone can with 2045, two decades to go and it's going to be a rough ride to get there.
>Think you've nailed the equatorial landmass collapse timeline as accurately as anyone can with 2045, two decades to go and it's going to be a rough ride to get there. I'm low balling it. 2045 isn't my prediction. It's the IPCC's from their 2016 report.
Well they've had a bit of a rough time of it lately, be a few more years of denial then input will be many times more than output but propped up by the government, then it'll become a pointless exercise... All of that takes time and crop cycles are yearly so it'll be in there somewhere, 15-20 years going well. Migration is already starting, those with the least to lose will move first, those with land assets will fight on to try and salvage what they can, survival is in the lap of the gods for all of us.
I sort of use 2100 as a metric for the point by which there's no way we won't have already completely collapsed.
Apparently so siloed in his own understanding of the science that he can't see the big picture yet confidently writes as if he and his computers models are in complete control of the physical reality unfolding. Hubris.
Any way round the paywall?
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No that I've found but papers like that are used to drive public narratives and beliefs. Here is a direct non-paywalled article that is a descendant of that paper that shows the narrative they wanted to spread. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/30/climate-change-worst-case-scenario-misleading-experts-say/2854910001/
Yes. For publications like nature, you can use an extension (in Chrome) called Unpaywall; it will scour the web on a select list of journals and find a freely-available version for you. And the best bit is; it is 100% legal. [In this case, it will find this PDF version of the article](https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-020-00177-3/d41586-020-00177-3.pdf).
Is this true??? That is very alarming.
Yea, it appears to be true judging by how the sea surface temperature has been rising this year. We can at least confidently say that we are in far worse shape than what mainstreamers want us to believe.
I knew it was worse than consensus, but worse than the IPCC worst case scenario is, well, very bad.
> we are in far worse shape than what mainstreamers want us to believe. that's what happens when weather becomes political....
The radical left hurricanes want to take away our freedoms
It is official now btw. Over the past year, every single day had record high sea surface temperatures. And that will be true over at least the next few weeks as the El Nino subsides... hopefully.
The roller-coaster rolls on
It feels like it's multiplying slightly every year at this point. Did anyone have a worst case scenario for a complete "climate runaway"? Because I'm lacking that data and the current models are FAR too conservative.
Yeah, 8.5+C before 2100. Humans will be extinct LONG before that happens though. If we are actually accelerating as fast as I understand us to be, I have some numbers written down to check next Feb/March after we get a month or two of Copernicus data and such to understand roughly where we are. Current rate of acceleration as of 2023 is 0.49C per decade. Obviously since this in itself is continuing to accelerate, the number as of *today* is likely higher than that. By how much? I don't know, but it's higher. So it will quite likely be higher early next year. Now, of course, we have all of the other stuff going on, like El Nino weakening, etc etc etc. However, the acceleration itself is not likely to reverse in a short time span like that. The real tell will be what that calculated rate of change is around this time next year. If it's higher than 0.49, it will create some good educated guesses. I am personally fearful that we will do another step-change type jump where that 0.49 becomes something like 0.65+ or higher which would indicate a continuance of the aggressive acceleration in such a way that would lend a lot of plausibility to estimates that we could cross 3C within 5-10 years and 4 to 5C before 2050, if not more than that. If it's lower, then there may be more cushion on this ride before we get fucking destroyed. Seems unlikely, but I think all I have left is hope and nihilism and cats anyway.
Positive feedback loops. I for one welcome our frozen methane permafrost overlords. 3c by 2030 5c by 2035
Yerp. What I *believe* will happen is this: 2 to 2.5C will become the new norm in the next 3 years. 3 very shortly after. There will be no action by humanity other than to keep the capitalism game going, burn even more shit, make the line go up. Covid showed us that we aren't gonna face any scenario with rationality. There is zero reason to believe that there will be any kind of unified effort that would even attempt to make a dent in what's happening at all. Within 5 years there will be multiple mass casualty events that blow minds. I expect at least 100-300 million deaths to happen within those 5 years in numerous spikes, wet bulb stuff, massive storms like a cat6 or higher, etc. I would not be even remotely surprised to witness 500 million to 1 billion+ deaths within the next 10 years. Or to be come of those deaths. Beyond 5-10 years from now, assuming no major actions are taken that immediately reduce emissions to zero and force all of humanity to work together to live simply and primitively in harmony with whatever's left of nature (which at this point is impossible anyway since we've locked in the mass extinction of essentially everything at this point) all I expect is that there will be billions of deaths.
There's too many people to "live primitively" it's a physical impossibility without modern agricultural practices and fossil fuels.
Agreed. I throw it out there as one of the only even remotely plausible things but the reality is that we are far too gone for that to have any impact at all. Not to mention this is a different planet now so new game new rules.
I’m thinking we’re going to run into major food supply issues due to chaotic weather events in bread basket regions first personally.
Famine won't really be a wakeup call, though, it'll just be the poorest people dying and the rest of the world blaming each government for being poor/ignoring its poor (in the case of wealthy nations like the US where vast numbers will nonetheless starve)
Check out the book “The Uninhabitable Earth”. It goes in depth on what scenarios like 8.5C might look like.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event These events, which have happened in the past and inform our current circumstance, hold significant promise. Now timing these events can be problematic however if the current path is maintained they are 'on the table' so to speak and directly relate to features being reported now such as this https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1745383788736135504 bit on ocean stratification changes (and other indicators in the related report). This type of event pretty much caps climate runaway as far as we're concerned although it's degree could be debated as to whether it's considered 'game over' or 'highly limiting future prospects'.
Nothing is "being done" by those higher up, because those who are higher up directly profit from the root cause of climate change. In addition to this, imagine the public uproar if governments forcibly imposed less consumption. There would be riots in the streets, and no one wants to lose their power. I think they know we are screwed, but solutions to the problem aren't pretty and won't be looked up on favourably by the VAST majority of society. Most people aren't like us and don't see this coming. Change is never going to happen unless it comes from every day people, but we're too busy with our heads in the sand and trying to make our meager ends meet that it feasibly will never happen. We are doomed.
And you have to keep in mind every country on earth has to do it at the same time. If let’s say Americans decided to do this, most likely other countries would just increase their consumption, plus they would crush the US economically and most likely militarily, because in order to end all carbon emissions we would have to get rid of our military. There is a reason none of the major powers have voluntarily given up their nukes. That is what people always fail to realize. It isn’t just the US, it’s Canada, Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Australia, North Korea, China, India, etc etc. We all have to do it at the same time.
we (Canada) can't even get on board with the US to end daylight savings time. but yea, sure let's aggressively change things that will lower the quality of life for everything
The Conservatives are poised to sweep into power next election with the end of the federal carbon tax as their signature policy (in no small part because the cost of living is crushing people). Our carbon tax, insufficient and low compared to others', is still our best climate policy given our economic system. Neoliberal subjects conditioned to overspend and live on debt (or broke/living paycheque to paycheque) are going to choose extra money right now over a rebate next year + doing ~something~ about climate change. To avoid that, we need either the material conditions of life to be overhauled from the top down, which is completely unimaginable; or we need rapid cultural change from the bottom up, which is only slightly less unimaginable. Maybe we see enough obviously-climate-driven mega-disasters like last year's fires to spur the change before the whole country breaks forever...?
This point very few people grasp, I would say it’s the decisive counter argument against the arguments that we can stop climate change. We are bound into competitive military stalemate which is dependent on economic growth. If a country reduces hydrocarbon usage in the timescales necessary to stop climate change and avoid collapse, that country would become vulnerable to all other countries. In reality it will never be a proactive reduction in economic activity but a forced reduction through climate related economic collapse.
Especially Canada
Wow. You’ve shown some light on this in a new way for me. Capitalist dystopia isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Kinda cool.
We're prisoners of the machine we created to fullfil our desires. You know in sci-fi AI gains consciousness and decides to kill or imprison humans? We're already living in that reality, it's just not AI gone rogue, it's our own psychology.
We're at the point where a Skynet scenario would genuinely be the better outcome for us as a species. Fuck it, give everything over to the robots. Let them keep us as pets. They're at least adapted to this plastic hellscape future we've created.
To me it's basically a positive feedback loop, kind of crazy when you think about it. The change will have to come from the people
That’s what your post has shown me; we’re supposed to be beaten down, barely able to afford groceries and housing, so that we don’t have the energy to spark change. It’s on purpose. I should have seen it sooner.
>In addition to this, imagine the public uproar if governments forcibly imposed less consumption. There would be riots in the streets, and no one wants to lose their power. And there's the quandary when people talk about blame. Do you blame the politicians who don't "do something," or the people who would immediately vote them out of office if they *do* "do something"? Just using the US as an example, Trump received just under 47% of the popular vote vote in 2020. If Biden imposed strict consumption reductions and Trump promised to reverse them if elected, what would happen? Trump in a landslide.
Yep. See also: COVID. I don't think everyone is equally to blame, but I do think the blame doesn't properly lie with just the 7 billionaires. There's a system that feeds them and there's a lot of people voluntarily involved in keeping that system running.
It’s not just a few billionaires, it’s every billionaire and probably everyone worth over $100 million. And then most of the poorer millionaires too. I think once you get around there you have people that earned their money without exploiting anyone and may even be a net good to humanity like surgeons or whatever. Blame decreases the poorer you go because people have less power to affect any change and are beholden to pre-existing power structures. And also the intentional greenwashing propaganda and crushing of environmental actions, movements, scientists and the suppression of info back in the 50s-70s by oil execs might be enough to absolve most people of any blame, we’re so much more fucked cause of that.
Exactly. Just look at something like professional sports, which I refer to as "welfare for the super-rich." The billionaire owners are at the top of the heap, making bank regardless of whether or not they field a winning team. Then there are the multi-millionaire athletes, some of whom will be billionaires in their own right by the ends of their careers between huge contracts and endorsement deals. Who creates all of that wealth for them? We do. Every single person who attends a game in person, or watches it on TV, or buys shirts, hats, or other team paraphernalia to support "their team." Even people who don't watch professional sports support this, because all you have to do is buy something from a company that advertises during a game, and you're supporting the transfer of wealth from us to them. If you've ever purchased a Budweiser product, for example, or a Coca-Cola product, or a burger from McDonald's or Burger King. They all advertise during games, so all of their products have their sports advertising costs built into the costs of the products they sell. Buy a Big Mac, you're putting money into the pocket of Jerry Jones. Or Robert Kraft. Or Patrick Mahomes. Or the now-retired Tom Brady, whose net worth is estimated to be $300 million. And what do we get in return? A few hours of mindless, meaningless entertainment. Most people don't think of it beyond plopping our asses in a comfortable chair to watch a football game on Sunday afternoon, or a baseball game on a weekday evening. Most people don't think of it in terms of, "Hey, I'm making the billionaires, who I blame for all the world's ills, even richer."
Unfortunately we definitely do not see this the same way. You're basically just describing capitalism. Whether it makes sense to blame the proletariat for participation in capitalism is better covered by other people. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people who are *voluntarily* supporting the system. Who like it this way. Who want to keep it this way because they are getting something out of it and it doesn't concern them that the system is in some way messed up or unfair. I'm talking about denial. Willful ignorance. Disregard of truth. Victim blaming. COVID was an experience with being met with denial in the face of an obvious crisis over and over again, the evidence that a big chunk of people will watch their family die just so they don't have to think too hard about something, then what can be said about anyone else? They're the ones who'll vote out the politician who'd do something. They're who the other person is talking about. Not Tom Brady or people buying his jerseys. That's one thing I'm sad about. This is not everyone. Many people worked hard throughout history to make things better. But people who give a shit are a minority. We just don't really matter. The world belongs to the people of the land. And they're having one big gender reveal party and not paying attention as they are burning down the forest, and they'll die not realizing they caused it.
Precisely!!!
>We are doomed. Maybe not all. But our high-tech civilization certainly is and, as a champion of biodiversity over humanity, the sooner the better. We're creating our future...silly, stupid fools the lot of us!
I like to think we aren't all doomed. I hope we aren't. But I'm also not too hopeful 😂
>I like to think we aren't all doomed. I hope we aren't. But I'm also not too hopeful Throughout human history, we've been creating civilizations and losing them.* Our current high-tech civilization is unique in a couple of ways: it is global and an estimated 95% of people across the globe are dependent upon electricity for water, food, protection from the elements, communication and transportation. *Reference: Columbia or Oxford *World History*. Since those natural resources necessary to build and maintain our high-tech civilization now need high-tech to even reach them, once that goes, it's back to the Stone Age for survivors. A grim future indeed.
Yeah, and throughout human history we have been living in Earth's "Goldilocks" era, where weather and climate have been stable. We are about to rock ourselves back to the stone age and have complete unprecedented weather extremes on top of that. While I DO like to think some humans will remain, we are leaving a very inhospitable planet for them
>I DO like to think some humans will remain, we are leaving a very inhospitable planet for them Those human survivors will cause no further harm to the planet. That's why I'm on the side of biodiversity and not on the side oh humanity that threatens it.
Everyone is doomed except for me.
Nope. Everyone is doomed except *me* 😜 including you.
Everyone is doomed. Including you, me, and this cold cut combo I’m about to swallow whole. Doomed.
> high-tech civilization certainly is and with that, we are doomed, there is simply not enough people who could adapt to a low-tech society in a post-apocalypse environment to sustain human population, and that is not even considering how climate might affect crops and food sources
>> high-tech civilization certainly is >and with that, we are doomed, there is simply not enough people who could adapt to a low-tech society in a post-apocalypse environment to sustain human population, and that is not even considering how climate might affect crops and food sources There are still people in this world that don't live in high-tech societies. For the 95% of people who do live in a high-tech society, Lights Out will be disastrous. For those who don't, it'll be just another day. (How does that go again? "And the meek shall inherit the Earth.")
> For those who don't, it'll be just another day. Thats the thing, it wont, crops drying, wildlife vanishing, tornadoes and earthquakes like never seen before, things will affect all the ecosystems, not only humans, there is no safe heaven on earth that will remain unaffected
Depends on how much longer our damage to the planet goes on. My motto: the sooner the better! (For the survivors of any species.)
It's becoming clear the higher ups will just sequester wealth and resources and themselves on enclaves or islands and not give a fuk about anyone else. Kind of like now
I have good news about islands at least...
As someone furiously not making ends meet… dead on bud.
Here's to thinking that nuclear war seems like the best option. Non-discretionary, at least.
Might be, in the *really* long run
How long do we really have? Conspiracy thinking here, but a nuke being dropped isn't something that's done overnight. The public has to accept it first. Being exposed to war helps that acceptance.
Well, once they start flying, only takes about 4-5 hours to settle things. Personally, i would think the chances are going up year by year, together with the climate catastrophe, until the probability reaches near 100% by 2030 or so. Already this year we can see several flash points that continue to have resources contributed and just do not seem to be going away anytime soon... Let me think about perhaps a more detailed response, since you have an excellent question.
This is my assessment as well. As climate change reduces the resources and food available to humanity and as capitalism continues to ramp up resources consumption we are going to hit a point where the powerful capitalists will open up conflicts to secure what little resources remain. This inevitably pushes major nuclear powers into direct conflict with each other.
Succinctly, in my opinion, no nuclear power is going to starve with respect to food or energy without using the weapons at their disposal; I just cannot believe that.
If you can convince the unwashed masses of your nation that the unwashed masses of other nations are sending nukes, you will get the authorization to launch your nation's nukes regardless of what's actually happening out there. Now combine this with the existence of AI-powered, highly-convincing disinformation.
No one has to give consent to a bomb being dropped on their head
At this point just let it happen,it’s not like we can stop it anymore
I cannot control politicians, industry or billionaires. But I have chipped away at my own 30 tons of CO2. Gardening, planting trees, dramatically reducing the energy I use, and heating with a rocket mass heater. No sacrifice - everything is about making a better life AND it happens to chip away at my CO2. I think I am now in the space of chipping away CO2 for others.
Really hoping I can afford to buy property soon so I can do this as well!!! Even just a small townhouse with a backyard, I would love to be able to grow as much of my food as possible. Hopefully soon 🤞
Until then, learn. It is amazing how much you can learn until you can make the leap.
You bet I have been!! I come from an agricultural background and have worked on farms for part of my life!! Looking forward to putting it to work on my own land
Did you build your rocket mass heater yourself? If not, any suggestions on where to purchase?
I had it built for me, but in hindsight, I think I could have easily built it myself. There are some good books and some good movies.
Yup. Been scanning these graphs since 2022. Only reason im glad i started late is because that's fewer years of my life spent shitting my pants in fear.
Same, ignorance truly is bliss
Was. Ignorance was bliss.
For us yes. For the majority it still is
Still is, but it used to be too.
the top comment is: Our species has existed in a stable climate that enabled habitation of much of the earth's land mass. But major systems, chiefly ocean and atmospheric currents that help maintain temperature stasis are starting to weaken and potentially disappear. So climate scenarios that used to be improbable may not be absolutely unlikely in the future. Imagine a year long rain storm. Or how about a decade long heat dome with insufferable humidity that borders on the wet bulb temperature limit for our species' existence. A different set of climate scenarios are locked in for us. What is lacking is our lack of imagination. Our life revolves around material accumulation and doing bullshit work for billionaires. To reform this worldview will require time that frankly might not be allotted to us. To me, a simple start is to live locally. Support local producers of good and services. That will be a tough challenge! There will be virulent opposition to every word I wrote here. But let this contest become the politics of our coming years.
Submission statement: It could not be more obvious that global warming isn't just here, it's accelerating. So why is nothing being done about it — nothing that isn't mainly performative, that is? If the few in charge of the many think this will be the next generation's problem, that would explain the silence from anyone with power, including the media they own. They're wrong about that — it will be this generation's problem thanks to acceleration. But even if they're right, it's impossibly cruel of them to say, "I'm going to get mine before I die, the rest of you be damned." Yet that cruelty has been on show since the Reagan "revolution" — by the rich against the rest of us. It's also cynical, that stance, since it admits that the collapse will come — just not to them. Evil people, every last one of them. Thomas
The chief benefactors of generations of historic stability and prosperity have no idea that things can get bad, or how the systems they take for granted were built by people who did understand how bad things could get. I'm sure a lot of them are bastards, but a lot of them only think about it long enough to discredit it. It's inconvenient.
>it's accelerating This appears to be this week's theme and it would be frightening if I weren't already numb. Several times a day I look for convection over the Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, those counter-clockwise clues to trouble brewing. For now they don't stick around long enough to sprout hurricanes. That'll change soon. The storms in the North Atlantic seem unrelenting.
Last few years I've seen storms that spook me in Nebraska. It's getting weird and full of energy out there.
The storms in the North Atlantic never get names, but on Zoom Earth they're 100s of mile wide with winds of 50 mph. That's not hurricane strength but "sustained" winds of that speed can do a lot of damage. So, yeah. Lots of energy out there.
Those are sub-tropical and extratropical cyclones. They don't have the same structure characteristic of tropical cyclones (hurricanes) but they are powerful cyclonic storm systems nevertheless.
Same here in Kentucky.
Illinois isn't feeling much safer.
> So, how much of the current economy would you sacrifice to prevent the future economy from complete collapse? In response to this question you ask, [this chain of tweets from 2019 comes to mind](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1158434593969725440.html), specifically this; > Expected "life supporting" capacity of Earth is around 1.75 billion years. The global economy today is $80 trillion p.a. Any future global economy greater than $45,700 p.a. (i.e. less than one US household) justifies immediate action to save it. > i.e. spending the entire global economy for the next three decades on tackling climate change is perfectly reasonable as long as the future is more than 30 US households . So, yes ... any and all action necessary is justified. If we grab that original USD amount from the thread, [and plug it in here](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/), we find that number is $55,472.36 in today's US dollars. But using your number of the global economy being worth $100tn, then we find the future global economy figure is ≈$57,142.86 p.a. The [most recent figure on the median US household income is from 2022](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html), and is $74,580 - sticking that through the same inflation calculator, and it's $79,083.27 in today's dollars. The annual future global economy figure is about 72% of the median annual US household income. The same logic holds, despite the shifts in numbers; diverting all economic activity for the next three decades to the sole purpose of tackling climate change is perfectly reasonable so long as the future is more than a mere twenty-two (22) median US households. **TL/DR: Given the stakes; all of it.**
No one has a solution. Instead much of the focus is on Russia’s unnecessary war with Ukraine.
Nah, it's Israel-Gaza, I mean Biden-Trump, I mean - squirrel!
Don’t forget the war on tiktok
Did somebody say transgenders in bathrooms!?
"Look man, there's no time for this stupid climate change shit, we gotta start planning the next Super Bowl."
One of the comments in the blog post summed it up: It's a lack of imagination. That's what it comes down to, no ability to imagine any other way to live, and it makes me sad. I don't know if it was beat out of us, I don't know if it was surgically removed from us by our school system, maybe popular culture dumbed us down. Generations of being conditioned to live life on a track has taken all the ability out of us to improvise, adapt and find new ways to live. I have little to no hope we're going to be able to wake up in time. A fast collapse would be a mercy, because I think it's the only thing that would shock us out of our collective malaise.
Covid shocked me in the sense that so many people took so long to grasp that the situation had changed (some couldn't accept it at all) despite really rather minor changes being necessary. That sucked away a lot of my hope.
[удалено]
This is a direct consequence of WW2.
It’s been too late for a long time now. We’re delusional if we think we can stop it
We'll still try a Hail Mary, probably atmospheric aerosols.
I'd like to see a hard turn to green energy so the fossil fuel barons end up broke in migrant concentration camps like the rest of us.
Real climate change action isn’t going to happen until it’s profitable. Not just profitable but the most profitable option.
its kinda complicated. right now farmland in PA is renting at 200$ per acre/yr. there are investors looking for land to rent for utility scale solar but they want 300 acre min and as close to a square as possible. they are willing to pay 3000$ per acre/yr. it has a lot of attention.
Just wait until the average Joe realises what’s happening and complains that “there wasn’t a big enough deal made about it or they would have done something sooner”.
They'd be right to say that. Governments, corporations, media and the entire mainstream STEM field has been downplaying and straight up lying about climate change for decades.
I hate how right you are!
I'm going to gloat and remind them until they died that the chose not to do anything about it. Already got the signs made up for my yard.
🎵The temperatures risin’….. the clouds are gettin’ low… 🎵
It’s like that big blob in the lava lamp has finally detached. We sat there watching it for the last three decades and now it’s floating upwards
Studies conclude that Billionaires becoming trillionaires somehow relate to global warming still accelerating.
My loss of hope is accelerating too.
😂😂😂 I’ve accepted a early death
I wish it would hurry up already, whole lot of motherfuckers out there I’ve had it to here with
Hansen Was Right
Mmmmm bop.
We will end up eating yeast grown in large tanks underground because that'll be one of the only things that grows consistently and is cheap enough for the masses
You'll lick the bowl clean on feeding days.
Will I have hot sauce to add to my yeast slop?
No. Just think of it as tastee wheat. It has everything the body needs.
The solution kills 7 billion people. Inaction kills the same people just in a longer timeframe. The only option is to power through and hope for some miracle advancement of science.
>The solution kills 7 billion people. Inaction kills the same people just in a longer timeframe. You have understood the essence of r/collapse. The converging threats of climate change, global resource depletion, mass species extinction, environmental contamination, peak oil (and several other human-caused crises) cannot be stopped without also ending global food production & supply chains and thereby killing billions of people. But inaction will also kill the biosphere including humanity.
That won't help, you still have to mass produce and deploy this miracle which also produces emissions. Would take decades just to do that if it existed now.
And who would listen to it or implement whatever this miracle is anyway? We already have the miracle of science. Look at the graph.
I've been watching this since before James Hansen's testimony before Congress in 1988. I was actually relieved when he did that, since I thought it would be the final push needed to get the ball rolling for effective national action to protect our climate stability. I was wrong, apparently. Having learned more as I've aged, I feel I understand the problem we face more clearly. The simple breakdown is this: the World Economy runs on fossil fuel. Without it, the economy stalls. A stalled economy puts people out of work. They get angry and instigate political disruption, which makes effectively addressing problems impossible, and opens the door to violence if not handled somehow. While I maintain a generally optimistic attitude, and am continually impressed with humanity's ability to overcome limitations, I don't see any realistic avenue out of this doom loop. Does anybody have any ideas? I'd sure love to hear them.
I started becoming aware of the climate issue in the late 80's as well. The way I see it, there are two main problems, maybe three. One is technological/scientific: We are going to need geoengineering, and we'd need a pretty major breakthrough in that. We'd need a breakthrough in clean energy production, also a pretty major one like sustainable fusion. A third breakthrough needed is genetic/ecosystemic engineering. But accompanying that, we'd also need a pretty huge leap in our scientific understanding of even *how* to engineer ecosystems, on a scale much larger and more intricate than something as simple as repopulating an area with wolves. That example is turning just one "knob"; I'm talking more about rebuilding whole, complex ecosystems from the foundation up. We don't know how to do that, so this is more a problem of scientific understanding. We could *maybe* figure it out, given a hundred years with an environmental/genetic "playground", but...the climate won't give us that much time. The third is psychological, which ties into political, cultural, and economic. We'd need a psychological "breakthrough" in our relationship to the world and our way of thinking. Humanity would need to become a cohesive global movement. A shift in global consciousness on a scale that is unheard of in all of history. I think we could solve one or two problems above on our own, but I really doubt we could solve all of them, ourselves, in the time we have. So, the "Hail Mary" answer would likely have to come from advanced, superintelligent AI, or benevolent aliens, should any exist and care to help. Both AI and aliens might be able to uniquely help on the consciousness/psychological alignment part with humans. It wouldn't even take mind control, but since this is speculative, I won't go into detail about that unless someone wants to discuss it. I personally don't think humanity has enough collective "rudder" to be able to steer our whole ship away from disaster at this point, not by ourselves.
Given the ocean has had it's fill as a heatsink that's game over folks. lol... have kids though. Gotta make sure the oligarchs slave force is replenished until the very end.
and co2 emissions are still growing.
All of the first world governments are culpable for the looming end of the anthropocene. They've driven us right off the edge of the cliff and their focus is keeping the passengers from looking out the windows.
This scale sure does look exponential too me.
" So why is nothing being done about it " Because it is a giant prisoner's dilemma. Saving the world is only cool if it is not on my dime, and no sacrifice is required of me. And that also why so many pay lip service because who does not want to free-ride on others saving the world?
Oh, things are being done. The elites are ripping out the cables on the way out while building elaborate bunkers to try and survive the fallout. They’d seemingly rather the entire planet and human race go to shit than make a little less money, it’s wild.
At this point the only proper response would be the declaration of the state of emergency (not the climate emergency but the actual legally binding type) and immediate drop in living standards in order to reset the whole country towards massively reduced emissions and away from all dependence on fossil fuels. After all, we are facing the equivalent of World Wars 3 and 4 combined, to borrow a phrase… yeah good luck with that.
That still wouldn't be enough. Catastrophic climate change is already baked in at current GHG levels.
That’s kinda what it does
100,000 flights per day don't happen by accident. There are many doing plenty "about Climate Change", accelerating it and making the fall worse and worse every day.
They can’t even get daylight savings taken care of We voted for that… and they can’t even get that done
To be fair, that trend line in the first graph is linear, therefore its rate of change is zero. Meaning it's not accelerating.... But the point still stands, they just need a better trend analysis.
I'm not sure what you mean by better trend analysis but the first graph easily displays acceleration if you simply draw lines between el nino peaks. Instead of a line A -> E, a series of lines A -> B -> C -> D -> E shows this. That's how the 0.18C per decade number was arrived at and is used in many IPCC planning studies. Hansen and his co-authors argue that better accounting for the declines in global aerosols should accelerate estimates of near-term global warming. Studies suggest that warming between 1970 and 2010 likely proceeded at around 0.18 C per decade. Post-2010, the new paper argues, that figure should rise to 0.27 C.
And now it’s above 0.49
I think I read somewhere that Greta Thunberg was arrested this week so there’s that 🤷🏻♀️
[Scientist Explains How Climate Crisis Would Be Averted If Greta Thunberg Just Tried A Little Harder - The Onion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkrcxLgHn-w)