1.5°C Threshold Could Be Exceeded Before 2030
Threshold is based on rolling 10 year average. Every year since 2023 has had at least one dataset report 1.5C threshold. 2026 will continue that trend.
Hell, I detected a sharp acceleration in global warming 🥵
During the late 1970’s, ExxonMobil scientists predicted global warming would accelerate with use of fossil fuels. They were shockingly accurate and the f’ed up weather patterns are the result. Keep buying and driving gas guzzlers.
Crypto farming, feeding the ai bubble, large scale wars of aggression, commuters replacing cars with trucks, buying throwaway junk has never been easier. That’s the relatively new completely unnecessary hubris that I can think off atm. These should be the low hanging fruits to just not do, but apparently we’re going to continue doing them anyways. If we can’t address the low hanging fruits, then tackling the harder challenges will remain a pipe dream until it’s too late. Climate stability is fucked, and we’re in for a rough ride.
Hey! This is at least the tenth time I’ve seen this headline in the last twenty years!
Fucking shocker of the century right there
Unfortunately the problem with global warming is that it happens very slowly over time. Scientists were warning us of the impacts of global warming for at least a decade but we have somehow prioritized the short term gains and now we and our children will bear the fruits of our negligence.
Do you think burning more coal would help?
There is some hope if we chip at it as much as we can. No action is too small:
- less travelling. Life is fun near home. Happiness isn’t tied to an airplane and a beach far away
- eat less animals. You ll get used to whatever diet in a few weeks. It doesnt have to be vegan or nothing. Also, beans are delicious:)
- bamboo toilet paper. Grows fast, renewable.
- plant bushes, trees. Look up local resilient species. I’ve been planting everywhere I can. You can call your local municipality, they have regreening programs.
- buy less stuff. Available tech is already good enough.
- vote with your wallet. This is the only real power we have over corporations, imo. Lots of great easy to repair brands. Fair trade, etc.
If we convince ourselves we are screwed, we ll give up. Be the hero of your own story. YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET IT 100% RIGHT. Any improvement is improvement. We all live different lives, and the economy is hard on alot of us.
I believe:)
Edit: I get that industries/billionaires represent a majority of this issue. I also believe that change starts home. We gotta tackle this at every level, even if it seems lost. The alternative is watching it happen and wait for the others to change. This is a prime “tragedy of the common” problem. You drink filtered tap water? Well those plastic bottles dont get made, thrown away. Do this a lifetime and those bottles represent a hill of waste that never existed.
I m rooting for you, for us!
Unfortunately, you missed the mark. The individual is not the problem and will not make an iota of difference.
Billionaires are the enemy. They are useless. They are pitting the average citizen against one another. There is no good billionaire.
Individual action was a myth designed by FF companies to shift responsibility
bamboo toilet paper. Grows fast, renewable
The bidet gang would like a word with you.
(Seriously though: I agree that every action counts, but I also think that, even if the majority of the population followed that list perfectly, the globalized corporate structure would still be operating in such a way that the personal impact wouldn’t be noticeable. When agriculture produces more than what’s sold, they have no issue dumping the items that don’t sell into the ground. Clothing outlets will shred unsold merch instead of giving it away. The waste is built into the system and a structural change is needed NOW if we are to survive.)
If there was a decline in consumption of climate harming products, large enough that these companies could see it in thier financial reports, I cant believe it wouldnt have any effect on the market.
Youre points are valid, and I agree with them, but if a majority wanted to (ideally, and I dont think they will) I think “voting with our wallet” would work, it is simple, but not practical because humans seem to love convience.
Correct. Convenience is just too important. Also status symbols because people just want to be seen as big/successful/important/… regardless if that damages things.
The population grew 4 billion in the last few decades. Climate damaging corps that undercut the cost of responsibly produced products will still win out unless there’s regulation that forces them to be responsible. Snapple shifted from glass to plastic bottles. It’s simply cheaper to ship plastic with less damages, as an example.
You could have half of the world population buying responsibly, but these companies will still do large scale damage from the other half.
Plastic bottles are a good example. They are much lighter, so far less handling and transportation cost. Having multiple shapes for various products/companies makes it harder for collection etc. of glass. And glass simply takes a shit ton of energy (natural gas) to produce and recycle. So the climate cost is not simply “yes glass is better for the climate”. It only is when it gets refilled a ton of times and the transportation is only short distances (so when there is a high population density)
Anyway, when halve stop buying cheap shit they don’t even need, we will not only save that many resources but also avoid all of the trash that it inevitably ends up being a few years later. Companies would not continue production of the things.
Anyway, when halve stop buying cheap shit they don’t even need, we will not only save that many resources but also avoid all of the trash that it inevitably ends up being a few years later. Companies would not continue production of the things.
I doubt half will make them stop production. They’d shift to another wasteful market.
The faster fix would be for companies to purposefully stop producing the garbage that isn’t needed, and to improve the goods that are needed so they aren’t as harmful.
No way… billionaires with yachts and private planes releasing more carbon in an afternoon then I use in a lifetime and I’M the one you think should wipe his ass with bamboo… get the fuck out of here. Eat the rich then tell me I’m not doing enough because I eat a burger and use proper toilet paper
and yes, more putting the onus on us, when all of our individual yearly pollution barely amounts to a day of pollution released by average industry.
You know it was industrial propaganda that started the whole personal responsibility thing to begin with right? to shift blame away from themselves and onto you and me.
I mean, yeah, you can make yourself feel good by reducing, but its doing fuckall compared to industrial release.
I understand the sentiment, but doesn’t “the industry” essentially produce things that are for “us”, even if indirectly?
Factories don’t exist for their own sake, they exist to make an end product for people. So if you want to change that, we do need to consume less, like the parent you replied to said.
CEOs burning tons of fuel riding luxury jets does nothing for us. AI data centers clamoring for more electricity will do nothing for us.
I get what you’re saying. It’s a both are true type of thing in my opinion. Our impact pales in comparison to the ultra wealthy. What gets left out of the conversation is that the AI data centres, factories, and transport trucks exist because there is demand. Each and every one of us is part of that demand and by significantly changing our lifestyles we can change our demands.
Your argument is valid though, the wealthy need to be the first to reduce their demand and by the most. Also that they’re not going to do that without the threat of state violence, just like we’re obligated to be lawful on the threat of state violence. It’s just that we’re not absolve of our contribution to climate change because the ultra wealthy have contributed more.
The point I poorly made, is that it’s capitalists/capital interests, the uber rich and techno-fascists that are clamoring for AI. It’s not “EVERYONE.”
Demand for a thing doesn’t mean that the poor and rich are demanding the thing equally.
The point I poorly made was the uber rich, and their greed are driving global warming far more than your average person.
I recycled like a good little soldier through the 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s, 2010’s and early 2020’s, only to find out that much of our plastic waste was just sold to third world countries rather than ACTUALLY being recycled. I’ve eliminated plastic everywhere I can in my life, and reuse it until it degrades and it’s got to be tossed.
I keep my thermostat set at 62 in the winter, and 78 in the summer to reduce my demand for electricity, even though these aren’t comfortable temperatures, they are tolerable. I already eat a primarily vegetarian diet, not because I want to, but because I am being priced out of meat. I repair my shoes and clothes to get a second life out of them. I don’t own a car and ride a bicycle. (Before I moved closer to work I’d average 45 miles a day between commute and errands on the way home.)
Corporate interests have actively hampered transitions to greener energy and public transportation, and bicycle infrastructure, (at least in the USA where I am.)
The point I am trying to make here is that the poor, and lower middle class don’t have large footprints to begin with, and have reduced consumption due to inflation and shit pay. Corporate interests and the uber wealthy are the biggest drivers of climate change.
I understand the sentiment, but doesn’t “the industry” essentially produce things that are for “us”, even if indirectly?
No. They produce for income. For brand imaging. To keep shelf space and maintain market presence.
And they do that by producing significantly more than the market requires. More than customers would ever want to buy.
They do it by making low quality slop products that they specifically engineer to be as unrepairable as possible, to fail as soon as they can get away with it, to force consumers to buy replacements more frequently than they would ever want to.
Do you go to the store and go “Wow, I wish this brand would generate more waste to take up shelf space so (competitor) cant have it?”
Do you look at a brand and go “I will only support this company if it fills the landfills every 3 months with perfectly usable products?”
Do you go “Wow, I wanna pay 500 dollars for this device thats gonna fail in 18 months and need to be replaced, because repairing it is gonna cost so much that its better just to get a new one again”?
Do you go “god, I like this product, I really hope entire communities lost their access to clean water to cool the AI’s that generated the design?”
No?
Neither do I.
Because they don’t serve the interest of the customer. They serve the market, which has taken a life of its own (which is especially apparently with the AI scam bubble, where companies keep making promises to buy future products from each other with the same imaginary trillion dollars that keeps getting passed around, generating endless imaginary value without producing anything… and when the AI bubble pops, its going to crash harder than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs)
If they served the interests of the customers, they’d keep prices low, and pay high, and produce quality goods that people would have the money to buy.
By putting the burden on the end consumer for climate change and pollution, they are escaping blame, and are allowed to continue to pollute and accelerate the decline of our climate. Its like blaming you for growing a tomato, while ignoring the industrial farm that mowed down 2 million acres of south american rainforest to produce alfalfa for saudi horses.
If people stop buying a thing, any company that wants money is going to stop making that thing.
They have no financial incentive to pay the cost of manufacturing if they can’t sell their widget.
No. They produce for income
I never said they were altruistic. I’m saying: at the end of the line, there is a consumer buying the stuff they polluted for.
PREACH. Can I get a hallelujah!
If people didn’t consume so much corporations would have to change. But people need the latest phone, car and whatever else.
If that was true landfills wouldnt be filled at the end of every season with perfectly usable goods.
I don’t think you should think about it in terms of blame, I think that’s a big part of the propaganda. Seeding of anger, frustration, and apathy. Rather than allowing empowerment, organizing, and hope.
Blame should only be reserved for those that act with careless disregard. And doing things that are good for the environment shouldn’t be seen as ‘paying back’. You are actively doing more than you should and letting your actions speak louder than your words. And those actions can (and should) be part of building the collective that will force those truly responsible from stopping.
That’s my one wish for lists like OP posted. It should always contain that the only lasting change is organizing.
This sounds like some empty corporate focus tested “Don’t blame us, its not our fault” BS.
Did you respond to the wrong person?EDIT: Okay, you’re responding elsewhere, so you’re just not going to respond to leaving a nonsensical but also kind of vile comment? Crazy, considering I was mostly agreeing with you, other than saying you shouldn’t accept the propagandized idea that people are or should be doing something to make up for some perceived guilt. Rather than doing it to empower themselves and foster collective action.
industry doesn’t need to pump out so much product if we consume less
Industry doesnt need to overproduce so much product right now, but it does, and sends tons of it to landfill every quarter
So if its already doing it, what makes you think they’ll stop doing it if sales reduce a few % points.
I was coming here to say this how does traveling less make a difference when a million (unknown if a true number but I didn’t look up how many trucks are in the USA) semi trucks are on the road every day (and the rest of the world too). None of those things even significantly reduce anything until industry stops wasting so much. J just look at the food and retail products thrown away every day. Dumpsters full all across the country, all that pollution to produce some shit and they just throw it away
EDIT: WHOOPS! Wrong comment.
Where did I even allude to that?
I very clearly laid out where the problem is that we have to deal with. Which is the actual drivers of climate change. Not you choosing to drive to work instead of walking 8 miles in the heat.
I replied to the wrong comment. My bad, dude.
No worries.
less travelling
Lol. I don’t think anyone reading this is going to stop the minimal traveling they do in the short breaks from The Grind that they get while dipshit rich people are yachting and jetting all over the planet. And they shouldn’t. Average people shouldn’t have to give up any travelling whatsoever because their budgets prevent them from doing enough to actually cause significant harm anyway. We need to use force to make the real culprits adjust their habits.
Other than that I fully agree.
What a show of willful misunderstanding in comments. Thank you, and I am rooting for you too
Sure, we can do that, but keep in mind that unilateral individual actions will not make the difference, all you can do is trying to create more broad awareness, form coalition and support for tighter laws and regulation, in order to have meaningful effect.
Also avoid blaming or moralizing individuals for their own choices, this will cause fatigue and infighting, which will distract from focus on policy change.
If we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide today, crashing the world economy in the process, we would still have to deal with the same temperature levels we have right now. We not only need to reduce emissions, but we now have to reverse it. Nothing short of an immediate global transition to nuclear power and/or nuclear fusion coming online will stop what is happening.
Nothing short of immediate global transition to
nuclear power and/or nuclear fusionrenewable energy + storage coming online will stop what is happening.ftfy
Also, nobody alive today will see the effect of any reversing we do in our time, even if we manage to find something and start tomorrow. But it’ll get much worse if we do nothing.
"If all human emissions of heat-trapping gases were to stop today, Earth’s temperature would continue to rise for a few decades as ocean currents bring excess heat stored in the deep ocean back to the surface. Once this excess heat radiated out to space, Earth’s temperature would stabilize. Experts think the additional warming from this “hidden” heat is unlikely to exceed 0.9° Fahrenheit (0.5°Celsius). With no further human influence, natural processes would begin to slowly remove the excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and global temperatures would gradually begin to decline.
It’s true that without dramatic action in the next couple of decades, we are unlikely to keep global warming in this century below 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Celsius) compared to pre-industrial temperatures—a threshold that experts say offers a lower risk of serious negative impacts. But the more we overshoot that threshold, the more serious and widespread the negative impacts will be, which means that it is never “too late” to take action."
And you trust an American government website… Why?
It just showed up at the top on search results. Sems totally legit, with references to scientific studies. Must be pre-Trump.
Considering they’re talking about possibly passing 1.5 by the end of the century, and that we haven’t blown past it in the last 5 years, I would take it with a grain of salt.
vote with your wallet
“I don’t think I’ll super size it after all”, I saw as I drive past the MegaCity One GigaChad data center.
No. Just no.
This is not an “individual action will solve this” case anymore. WE can’t do jack about it, individually. If we get the corporations to stop doing harm, and the rich cut down traveling in their superjets, maybe then. But some schmuck driving a Toyota corolla a few hundred miles on a vacation, or taking a commercial passenger jet on a vacation with 100-some-odd people isn’t the problem here.
Your first point is so huge IMO. If you can’t enjoy being at your own home then trying to have some kind of fulfilling life is going to be a steeper uphill battle than it already was.
Look at it like the Buddhists and stoics. Thinking your happiness is out there waiting on some beach, or in some fancy car or McMansion, is only going to perpetuate your suffering in the actual real now.
Or put another way, if you decide to find happiness and fulfillment in your home and your local community, and it works, then THEY can’t stop you. Whoever that is in your case.
Your first point is so huge IMO. If you can’t enjoy being at your own home then trying to have some kind of fulfilling life is going to be a steeper uphill battle than it already was.
Been on the dating apps recently. The number of people who present “travel” as their entire personality is unsettling. Every photo somewhere exotic, every prompt answer is about traveling. It makes me wonder what they’re all running from. I don’t disagree that vacationing can be enjoyable, but there’s more to life.
And don’t get me started on the people who try to say that “traveling” is different from “vacationing” and that what they’re doing is travelling and not vacationing. Egads.
I bet it’s some of what you said, and maybe some of the well-known “buy experiences, not things” saying.
I’m not suggesting that saying is wrong, but I think people can mechanically go through the process of acquiring fancy-looking experiences because that is what you’re SUPPOSED to do, just like people can collect fancy-looking posessions on auto pilot because that’s what it means to be a successful person.
The last thing you said about people who claim they are “traveling” and not “vacationing” just REEKS of a hollow charade trying to prove that they are part of the upper crust of society.
The catch in all this is that we all have our own individualized needs, and a big part of the self-care work we need to do is figuring out what those things are. Like traveling and having fun vacations is awesome, but for most of us it’s not going to be some instant key to life fulfillment. In my case, have always loved nature in general and aquatic life in particular. Some of my best vacation memories are swimming in little pockets of the ocean that looked like giant aquariums full of colorful fish and corals. But that’s a rare occurrence and I will also never want to live somewhere tropical. Solution? I built a nice koi pond in my little back yard (in addition to all the other pets my family has). And in addition to the whole “caring for and interacting with water critters” angle, I got to do a lot of learning about chemistry and biology that are nowhere near my professional field, and I got to do a lot of DIYing, and I got a lot of exercise and fresh air out of it too! It helped much more than just my brain.
Prolly they all live in a big city. And living in a big city sucks ass, but most people have no choice because that’s where the jobs are. I luckily live outside a big city in small village with forests and fields around me. But still near enough a medium-sized city so that I don’t have to commute for ages. But I see that not everyone can live in places like mine, so the big city it is, where it is loud and full. Kinda understandable that u want to get away from it, then. But yeah, it doesn’t mean that u need to fly to other side of the earth to do vacation, usually your own country has enough pretty spots to spend ur vacation.
Individual action won’t fix systemic issues like major polluters being almost exclusively from industry but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the suggested actions in any case. Just don’t fool yourself that it is enough.
I appreciate you. Thank you for posting that thoughtful and insightful comment.
You’re awesome.
And vote. Pay attention to issues and vote. Don’t get caught up in a single issue, or voting with emotions or spite: vote for your future
Taylor Swift’s jets alone cancel out any benefit all of your steps might have for a few million or hundreds of millions of people.
It’s wonderful to want to try to do something about this, but the only real way we have to do something about it is to stop the people and corporations who are the actual biggest contributors to the issue.
I’m thinking less along the lines of voting and more along the lines of stabbing.
I just wish people would stop acting like I am a “Doomer” over this shit.
Every year its record high summers and winters, tnado alley is moving, rain patterns are all fucked up, I am not even a professional and I can tell the extreme weather shifts from climate change are happening.
I’ve tried having this same conversation with my mum multiple times and she keeps saying that there has been no meaningful increase in temperatures in her lifetime and I’m just thinking what are you talking about?! I just don’t understand what they stand to lose by admitting that humans have demonstrably increased the global temperatures.
Some level of personal guilt for continuing to exist in a system where fossil fuels are burned on their behalf and we often need to burn them ourselves to live a nornal life because the alternatives may barely exist. For example see DEI bike lanes in the states and the banning of them in ontario in canada thus promoting more car use and discourage/making it more dangerous to bike.
I just don’t understand what they stand to lose by admitting that humans have demonstrably increased the global temperatures.
Cars.
yeah, we didn’t have fire season out here when i was growing up. we used to call it summer.
Europe somewhere? Like apparently Europe has California wildfires everywhere now. WTF.
yeah those “california wildfires” didn’t take over all of the pacific northwest for five months back when i was little. now they do. congratulations, Europe! all that coal and oil all y’all burned for your exclusive benefit, now you get the fires too!
I think it’s sunk cost. It’s too late for them to admit that they were wrong because now it’s too late to do anything. And admitting they were wrong this whole time would mean that there was time to do something and they squandered it to the detriment of not only their own descendants, but for literally every human on the planet.
Their ego will not allow it.
Remember that the fossil fuel industry knew what was going to happen in the 1970s and lied to governments around the world to ensure our future of maximal fossil fuel burning and damn the consequences came to pass.
We have words for people who betray their country, we have words for people who betray their family, we even have words for people who betray the firm they work for every day, but we have no words for people who betray their entire species.
On top of that, there are systemic problems that allow the situation to escalate out of control. Why should I do this expensive thing while everyone else gets the cheap option? This sort of thinking applies to governments, companies and individuals alike. Nobody wants to contribute to fixing the problem, because it’s expensive.
“Doomer” is just oligarch propaganda used against people who criticise the status quo. Notice that is a term mainly used by right wingers (and clueless mass media regurgitators).
People aren’t good at long term thinking. They have a hard time conceptualizing that actions now affect the entire following century. Our actions build on each other a little at a time, and keep adding up to worse
It urgent not because of what’s happening now, but what will continue to get worse. It’s urgent because we’re locking in climate change now
My government will do nothing until most politicians dies in not one but multiple tornadoes hitting the parliament… in the same year…
And then they would invest in better healthcare plans, and better security
*for the MPs
Why do they care about the Military Police?
Because who else is going to shoot those tornadoes?
MPs = members of parliament
Ah okay. Yes agreed. 💯
Kids today just love to complain about the weather. It was hot when i was young too and the rain didn’t stop us. Tornados have always happened outside their traditional range occasionally. If CO2 is to blame then volcanos are the real problem. /s
Doomerism is giving up, not accepting the reality that things are bad and getting much worse.
I mean, maybe, except we are way way way past the point where we can fix this. Very large numbers of humans, will die, likely in the next 20 years. From famine and fighting caused by mass migration from now unlivable areas.
Given our response level when we had time and resources and somewhat willing to work governments, vs now, its going to be a very large percentage, probably 100% within 40-50 years as it spirals and gets worse more and more rapidly.
People got all pissy during COVID when things became hard to get from shipping delays and they couldn’t go out to eat. Wait until things become hard to get because those things can no longer be manufactured and they can’t go out to eat because there is no food.
But hey, enough Doomer talk. Fidja see, Elon Musk isna Trillionaire! Everything is booming! MONEY!
we are way way way past the point where we can fix this
While it’s hard to make things better, it’s easy to make things worse. It can always get worse and giving up means it will
It’s more important than ever to advocate for change. To do what you can, both personally and with whatever influence you have, either in your social circle or through your consumer practices, or voting.
As a citizen of the US, we seem to be the main villain here. We are making some progress, maybe more than you’d think, but the denial, the politics, the spite and racism means we’re not getting as much done as we need to. A year ago we had corporations on board, we had half the stars on board, we had many major cities on board. Then we got run over by a giant coal rolling monument to excess that modern pickups are. Time to get up, dust ourselves off, and get things moving again
Even if everyone on the planet agreed to go completely “green” or whatever, we are pretty much past the tipping point of no return I feel.
Depends on what you mean by tipping point and it’s an important distinction.
You are right that we are not only stuck with climate change but have zoomed past the target that might have left reasonably adaptable changes. We’re leaving a real challenge for the next generation. But if that’s the result and civilization survives the resulting instability, the climate should recover for our great grandchildren.
The bigger challenge is “tipping point”. I don’t know if that’s what you meant but there are a series of projected climatic tipping points that will not only make things markedly worse for humans but are permanent (on the scale of human civilization). I don’t believe we’re able to predict any with any accuracy but I recall a prediction that were already greater than 50% of having triggered at least one. These are things like AMOC collapse, melting of Greenland glaciers, melting west Antarctic ice shelf, etc
We’ve seen in the news repeatedly this summer the Greenland ice sheet melting faster than ever, causing a slowdown of AMOC currents …. So they also build on each other and we don’t yet know whether/when the tipping point is locked in, when there’s no longer any hope of preventing it
You are really misreading what Im saying. Im not saying things should go on as usual. Im saying we need to fight to salvage what we can.
Your last paragraph is especially misrepresenting my point.
I get that.
I am.saying that we are already past any point of “salvaging what we can.”
Well past.
And I was mostly agreeing with the original comment.
People who call you a doomer over this are just those who want to keep their head in the sand.
We can’t even stop a rise in fascism, an incredibly stupid thing, across the globe. We don’t stand a chance against global warming. We’re cooked.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the billionaire pedophiles not giving a fuck.
Of course not. It’s not enough people recycling their grocery bags.
Not to say you shouldn’t recycle.
Of course not. But it does feel a little silly when there are town-sized data centres being built in every direction and billionaires are just “choosing” to break all laws. Meta’s got gas turbines running to power theirs and they just said they’re gonna do it for another year. Who’s gonna stop ‘em? Everyone is too busy working and trying to survive to stop them from pretty literally torching our futures and especially our children’s futures.
Things will need to get pretty bad before we see any kind of justice or change of direction, I fear ☹️
Unfortunately we’ve been duped, a lot of it sadly ends up in landfills.
Yeah, I’ve become something of a refuse-police everywhere I go.
It pisses me off that you can just put whatever in the bin and it gets disappeared and you’ve done a great job caring for the planet.
Most of it is just plain not recyclable. Never was. Some can theoretically be downcycled into expensive ugly park benches that no one wants so no one bothers to do that. Only PET can be “re” cycled, but plenty isn’t.
Glass and metals are recycled pretty frequently, but yeah pretty much everything is just garbage
In some less advanced countries, like the United States of America.
Billionaires do give a fuck. They just don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves, and maybe close family/friends to some extent.
If I were to hazard a guess I’d guess billionaires fall into 3 camps regarding climate change. Those that still don’t believe in it or that their will be any consequences. They are probably in the minority of billionaires (I do believe most of them believe climate change is real at this point, but their unbridled greed won’t allow them to admit it in public).
Then you’ve got the billionaires who do believe in climate change split into 2 more camps. Those that are so old that they predict they won’t live long enough to see the large scale consequences effect them, and thus don’t care. Finally, those that are young, but believe they can save themselves, without having to help save the world. Those are the billionaires building underground bunkers and compounds. Planning to ride it out from their private utopias.
In any case the power factions’ agendas combined have the effects of accelerationism
Gotta make them dollas. /s
Yay we’re all going to die of heat death
Color me shocked.
Utah, now, is where Arizona was 20 years ago. We barely had any snow this last winter. I did not need to shovel my driveway at all.
‘Sharp acceleration’ meaning 75% faster warming in the last decade compared to the 40 years previous, and blowing past the 1.5° target in 3-4 years. No speculation was given, but I think it’s likely we’re seeing the limits of oceanic absorption of co2 and heat. The ocean’s latent heat capacity has flattened the curve for more than a century, and it’s very hard to predict when that will run out, but sea surface temperatures spiking all over have been good evidence that we have passed a major tipping point in the last few years.
They also banned sulphur oxide in ship fuel which would have had a cooling effect, that was hiding the full extent of the damage and is slowly dissipating
Won’t be long until we start doing that again on purpose
Good news is cloud seeding is viable? Bad news is we’re probably gonna need it.
How great fixing pollution with more pollution.
🎵 The solution to pollution is…more pollution? 🎵
Actually it’s kinda good news as it shows we can make direct impact to the climate. Just with a substance actually made for it.
Don’t take it too seriously, there is an effect but it’s not that large. And anyways, the change in maritime fuel standards happened in 2020, while this trend goes back to 2015. A geoengineering project is just going to cause more problems, we don’t know nearly enough about how the world works, truly.
Geoengineering is the only thing that can really blunt this at this point…
Delaying the collapse of civilization by changing the chemistry of the atmosphere further will only serve to hurt the entire ecosystem to allow a few more years of our planet-wide rape. Decarbonizing was the only hope for both human civilization and Earth to survive together. Our choice now is to accept that or possibly kill everything in desperation.
Death from overheating the entire earth < Death from near constant acid rain?
Acid rain is not that big of a deal, the amount of sulfur over oceans isn’t really a problem. Acid rain is only an issue in certain areas. Sulfur emissions aren’t global.
I’ve read that the models used to predict the rate of change were too optimistic or an assumption about them was too conservative and thus not very realistic. Now we have data showing the models under-predicted the rate of change, so one argument is that we were already on this path since decades ago, we just didn’t model it right.
In any case, we’re all fucked so who gives a shit anyway no?
Is there a name for when we know what the right thing to do is but we keep not doing it?
Great Filter.
No way in hell we’re facing an extinction event. Unimaginable human suffering, probably, but humanity will persist.
The Great Filter doesn’t necessarily mean we need to go extinct as a species. Destroying our capability of advanced technology is enough. Which it certainly will.
Isolated pockets in relatively protected areas. Global society won’t survive it. Most of the places we grow food won’t be able to grow food, that’s already accelerating. Ocean acidification kills that food source. Blue ocean event accelerates runaway heating leading to massive hurricane force continental storms. Amoc shuts down and Europe ices over. Humanity may persist but civilization won’t.
Most of the places we grow food won’t be able to grow food
that’s just not true! higher temperature makes food grow better, not worse.
Not if it includes lots and lots of drought. Besides of course that lots of the now commonly used crops definitely have an upper limit where heat is beneficial.
Not if it includes lots and lots of drought
yeah but typically, the hottest regions on earth (tropical rain forest, directly on the equator) are also the wettest regions on earth at the same time.
that the sahara and arizona are dry, has nothing to do with the solar irradiation itself, but instead with the wind patterns.
Vast current areas become arid but vast areas in Siberia and Canada become arable. Very bad but not extinction for humans. Likely extinction for many species though.
We are driving 200 species extinct a day and that figure is increasing every year. Eventually we run out of nature and we go with it.
The temperature on the planet has never in its history changed so abruptly, which means plants and animals don’t have enough time to adapt.
that’s also not true! vast current areas become
aridtropical. see the tropical rainforest. it’s the hottest and simultaneously wettest regions on earth.None of that thawed soil will be worth a damn for growing at any scale. Like yeah there will be areas that are more or less hospitable but large scale agriculture will not recover
Humanity may persist
Yes, that’s what I said
We are adaptable creatures with command of technology. So we’ve got that going for us. We also have temperature limitations in which we can live, and so do our food sources. Then there’s the issue of potable water.
It really depends on how far we’re pushed the planet’s ecosphere. It could do like before (most recent is the PETM) and hover high, then eventually equalize back into something not the same as we had, but similar. It’s done this before, albeit after millions of years. Or it could find a new equilibrium in another state, aka hothouse. Not Venus-like, as some media has spun it, but its own version of feedback to retain a lot more heat than now. Not great for anything that evolved in this climate.
Fun fact: the PETM was the most recent heating event, 56 million years ago. Some species went extinct, others were able to adapt and survive as they evolved into smaller forms. The fun fact is that they adapted because the rate of heating change was over a large amount of time, many hundreds of thousands of years. Now look at us, a spike on the geological temperature graph in (looks at data) less than a 100 years (a few decades, really). So what kind of inertia does a more rapid acceleration usually give compared to a slower one? But hothouse Earth is just a speculation, just a guess. We don’t know how far this will go.
Really depends on what happens with phytoplankton; if they can adapt well enough to survive the excessive heat. Some of them can but others are dying out. If we lose all of them, then everything that breaths oxygen is extremely fucked since they make ~70-80% of that oxygen. Then we only have plants and forests like the amazon to make O2 (and we all know how that ones going), and then we would also have to deal with the gasses produced by all the oceans on the face of the earth dying and everything in them rotting… if they’re not par-boiled.
But will that subsequent civilization get to space again?
I’ve often wondered… What if we are way wrong about the level of danger, and ultimately climate change will turn Earth into another Venus, and we only find out once it’s too late?
History has taught that humanity wont stop until it has gone too far.
Is there a name for when we know what the right thing to do is but we keep not doing it?
Hubris.
All of the climate models have adjustable parameters. We are still within the bounds of the worst case scenarios but scientists are always afraid to claim too much. An academic’s reputation is a lot less recoverable than a pop star or politician in the sense that they, and their colleagues, actually take their words and predictions seriously. I don’t want to completely dismiss the effect of lobbying and corruption toward the downplaying of global warming, but making smaller-than-necessary claims is a common sight in most academic fields.
I think it’s mostly in fields with exponential outcomes, which experiences the too conservative estimates.
We as a species has a really hard time understanding exponential/accelerant movement, we expect the next decade to change as much as the previous one. Despite every decade has been changing more than the previous one did
Sometimes I open up nullschool and just stare at the El Niño on the southern pacific. Looks like a gaping wound.
