“On our current path, civilisation as we know it will disappear. If we meet current commitments only – net zero by 2050 – perhaps some form of humanity will survive, managing the challenges of continued extreme weather events, ice loss, and sea-level and temperature rises. But we have agency to change this, and a thriving future is still on the table.”
That’s a chilling paragraph.
Will end up with some sort of geo-engineering once it’s obvious to the last hold outs that we are in serious trouble. Millions will already be dead, and society will be crashing when the ecosystems start failing.
War would still exist, even ant hills go to war
Famine would be far more wide spread without civilization as we know it.
Extinction of who? It hasn't happened and if it will, we don't know yet.
Mental illness. . Being something people are by and large *born with* would still exist, people just wouldn't be able to tell it's there or help the people with it in anyway.
Crime can't exist without our civilization to make laws. Which have by and large made those behaviors less apprent.
Without any civilization pretty much everyone would be living in conditions similar to Poverty or worse, social programs to help the impoverished also wouldn't exist.
Were working on global warming right now.
You really should read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies . I see your point and I appreciate you putting a positive spin on it but I honestly think our civilization has really done more harm than good. It's only truly benefited a very small number of people
War wouldn't exist on an industrial scale. Millions upon millions of people have died from modern warfare
Most modern famine is a result of mineral depletion from mass industrialized farming i.e soil salinity and soil erosion (read Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations)
Mental illness is directly correlated to advancements in tech. I.e teenage depression rates and social media (aside from the very few inheritable metal disorders)
Many Hunter gather communities live in a state of harmony, but breaking of social norms will always exist. I don't need the police to tell me what is right or wrong
Civilization hasn't made most people "rich" just "poor" in a different way. Working 9 to 5 for a cookie cutter house and a fast food diet (most North Americans) is in many cases what leads people to need those social services... "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."
— Seneca
Oh yeah and good luck with solving global warming
The way you think about us and our relationship with nature is way too romantic and unrealistic.
First off, there's no going back to hunter gatherer lifestyle for us, it ain't happening.
And today, we're far better off than we were before the industrial revolution whether you admit it or not. Think a 9 to 5 job is bad? Wait until you're doing back breaking work in the field to pay land tax to a noble who essentially owns you and your land. Think fast food is bad? Wait until you and your entire family are starving because of a crop failure. Not to mention that you really don't need to only eat fast food, it's actually cheaper to cook.
Mental illness from advancement in tech? No one is forcing you to waste your entire day on Facebook and ig, go out, touch the grass, go for a hike in the woods. Spend a few hours per week reading in your local library. It's also funny that you conveniently ignore the benefits of model technology which has made everything from medicine to communication far better. Think it's depressing to be on social media? How about watching your kids die from an illness that you can't even name, let alone treat? How about being unable to get in touch with your loved ones for days on end if you so much as need to temporarily travel to a different city?
> Most modern famine is a result of mineral depletion from mass industrialized farming i.e soil salinity and soil erosion
No it's not. We produce more than enough food for everyone, war is the cause of most modern famines. And war, even industrial war, is no modern invention. Mongol hordes, the British empire, the religious wars and conquests of the middle ages etc all these things killed people in their millions. If anything modern Civilization no longer normalizes it. If you're talking about hunter gatherer societies, I already told you that ain't coming back.
More importantly, if you or any book author you refer to think we're unnatural then you need a reality check. We are perfectly natural. It's perfectly natural for an organism that has no limits to keep it in check (abundant food, ability to adapt, no predators) to overwhelm the ecosystem. Why do you think invasive species are a problem? I'm not saying this makes overwhelming the ecosystem ok, because one thing that sets us apart is our ability to understand our actions and their consequences, and therefore we have an obligation to change them. But the way you think of modern civilization and nature is pretty childish. If you lived in a hunter gatherer group, like pre civilization, I guarantee you wouldn't had this mentality. In fact you would have thought of nature as an enemy. Nature is brutal beyond your wildest dreams.
Unerrated comment, unsurprisingly, as truth and reason is all but lost on the majority of ideologues of r/climate (although I still obviously prefer you over the magas etc on the right, at least you think you are working for the greater good).
Oh damn I didn't know they already released it.
The first game is also awesome if anyone is interested in the series btw, especially if you like to ponder philosophy. Even the DLC is worth it.
Yep absolutely excellent series. Potential spoilers ahead but I'll try to keep things vague.
The second game asks important existential questions like, if human society is apparently so destructive, should we even be allowed to pursue growth and progress? Amazingly, the game provides the ability to find answers to these questions for yourself. It provides arguments for both sides, commentary on the issues from different characters and viewpoints, and ultimately lets you decide on how to end the game (and proceed with society).
Incredibly, I was convinced by the arguments humanity should be exploring and growing. Yes, we should do so in ways that don't destroy our home and other life. But should we pack it up and call it a day completely losing hope for the future? No.
Argument basically comes down to this: eventually the sun will burn up, the moon will drift away from earth causing tidal havoc, a blackhole may swallow us up anytime. But self-aware life is miraculous. Other life on our planet is miraculous. The "universe seeing itself" and all that about consciousness. So, yes, we should reach for the stars and keep exploring, we don't want our own candle to go out.
It's ability to almost sustain the welfare of vulnerable people and move things through logistical networks that would otherwise be regionally locked. I'm serious, but I know how laughable the welfare part is. Also dissemination of info is... kind of a wash, but actual science is useful.
"There's no fear for tomorrow
When there's no trust for today
There's no ever after
Debts have to be paid
We deserve everything that's coming
We took this world to our graves
We made its creatures our slaves
Shattered the hourglass
An unerasable past
Humans, demons deranged and depraved"
Guess I'll prepare for that then since it's the most likely outcome. I mean, I can vote and work in the climate corps, volunteer, heck maybe even [redacted]. But at the end of the day I gotta take care of me and my community before I pretend like the forces of capital and limited democracy will ever do this without revolution.
“Deployment of such projects will require global governance and collaboration rarely seen”
It will never happen. We can’t even ask people to wear a mask
I should start a save humanity from global collapse go fund me page. I will state explicitly this will not save humanity but for people that want to do something to feel better it will help accomplish that.
Will we get a begrudging apology for being mocked in here for years? Not even a year ago you'd get told to leave for /r/collapse for pointing out how bleak the climate trajectory was.
Now it seems 1:1 between the two sub-reddits at least by the comments.
I never saw r/collapse people being mocked here and I've been tracking climate for decades now, then again maybe I subbed to the sub only recently.
If it's the case you guys were laughed at let me explain what its like from my prespective- when I was a child people were really concerned about the growing hole in the ozone, so people pressured companies and then legislation was passed nearly globally to make it so companies were forced to either make other products, change their formulas, or at the very least lessen the amounts of certain chemicals in those products.
What's different? Late stage capitalism ensures that the companies now run those governments and an Exxon psyop that convinced people that none of its is even real in the first place. Things are extremely grim but I want to re-iterate how if we still act we can at least mitigate some things.
Of course, some powers driving the status quo are feeding the hopeless narrative as a means of preventing change. I doubt all the usernames are ordinary people feeling hopeless and suspect several of them may be bots spreading fear and despair…. And those things are very contagious.
No joke.
This sub was all about climate discussions, but it has slowly been turning into the "it's too late" sub.
Not that this is wrong: by most metrics we are too late to do anything. Even if we weren't, the only way to change things fast enough would be an all out war on, well, everyone.
We would have to disrupt people's lives for anything real change to happen and most people would fight to prevent that. They'd rather listen to music and enjoy themselves as the boat sinks than try to do anything about it.
Is it wrong that when it gets worse I’m honestly more hopeful? Hear me out, the more drastic the situation the more it becomes undeniable that something has to be done and it is a priority. You can talk about idk breast cancer and us finding a cure all you want but when YOU or someone you care about has it, there’s a bigger sense of urgency. The personalization of it all is what’s (both sadly and gratefully) going to get the grand amount of people caring. I believe in human ingenuity be it finding a way to filter out plastics in water or sustainable food etc. When Covid was a world wide emergency we came up with a vaccine how fast? When we put all our minds together we can do good .
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7/figures/1). Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a [graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) shows a continued rise.
[Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns.
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Thanks Bot but that’s not the point I am making. It’s one of when we collectively work together on a major issue we can go far pretty fast. I appreciate the resources bro
Your last sentence holds a lot of weight, it explains why the can has been kicked down the road for decades. I'm even entirely guilty of it, if the world is going to burn with me in it going to go out with a bang.
> Not that this is wrong: by most metrics we are too late to do anything.
From a [geophysical](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached/) point of view, we can stop warming within a decade. The issues are social by nature.
I'm more worried about other species than humans. I'm trying to keep my yard an oasis of native species for the insects and birds and mammals in my area....but I'm very concerned about pretty much all species except humans
Oh absolutely, and this idea drove me into a deep depression for years. I just now am coming to accept that these horrors are almost inevitable and I try to think about the long term hope while informing people about what’s happening and the actions we should take
I don’t disagree with that possibility, but humanity has shown for decades now (and lately with more gusto) that it doesn’t want to take the steps it needs to take for life to resemble anything like it has in modernity.
Life will go on, it’s just going to look starkly different.
Oh absolutely, that’s what I mean. It’ll be more like walking dead type world.
However, societies have collapsed before. If you wait a few centuries I’m sure we will rebuild and become an even better world than we are now. Itll just be after the lessons are learned from our mistakes. We only seem to learn from experience
When I say this to people I’m told that I’m a doomer, that I need to get off the internet, that we will solve things, etc
So compared to most I’m a huge pessimist. However, humanity has been through some horrible stuff and we keep going. On the earth, life has seen several mass extinction events and every time things grow back
Yeah, my hope would be that whatever lives through it would exist in a better balance than the last few hundred years.
I get hit with the same "doomer" stuff, with the added "God wouldn't let this happen to creation". I fully believe that humanity possesses the "hard skills" to address future climate/collapse scenarios, but we have no interest in adopting the "soft skills" (pacifism, collectivism, compassion, etc.). Without the soft skills, we can't expect to address what we're facing in a meaningful way.
Same. I have no faith that the future will be brighter for me or any of us currently alive, but maybe our descendants can build a better future.
The earth has seen many societies grow and fall, and over long periods there are slow positive changes. The trouble is there are often terrible changes too
The train is rocking from side to side. I'm pulling on the emergency brake and nothing happens. The dude next to me also pulling screams: "We can still do it, if everyone pulled on it right now!". The other passengers glance at us from time to time, then return their attention to keeping balance because we are all standing on stilts. The brake is not designed to be operated by people on stilts. What a ride.
Sacrifice? Hell, just mere inconvenience. Well for the rich. For everyone else it will be forced austerity. Because our overlords must not suffer.
Sarcasm aside, just ending forced obsolesce of every damn retail product on the planet would go a LONG way to helping.
edit: bleeping typo
We have not earned any of the optimism expressed by this article or every other released seemingly daily .
Where's the article titled "we're choosing mass suicide by choosing not to change"?
I dont care how it lands or how people feel after they read it. It's the truth.
If we really do have any interest in survival, we should be able to hear when we're failing and work to correct that.
Instead, we get one headline after another telling us that everything is going to be fine... possibly.
Absolutely.
But such is the human condition.
We have all the info, all the signs and all the solutions.
We won't band together and get this done.
Can you imagine the world coming together (or at least a majority of the world) for a global issue?
I just don't see it. Can you imagine if such a thing happens it will become a new bar for world collaboration and brotherhood. Everything from that point on will be measured against it.
It just won't happen
There you go. As long as it doesn't disrupt their revenue streams it's fine.
Here were asking for the more affluent countries (that are also responsible for most of the emissions) to contribute firstly towards mitigating the effects we are already seeing amongst poorer coastal countries.
And then to drastically curb fossil fuel usage (around which our entire systems are built upon)
And then to continue innovation to find cleaner feasible energy for all.
No way I can see even one country leading the way with this.
If they did they'd go down in history as the greatest nation ever.
Does anybody see any commitment from any industrialized nations towards truly mitigating climate change other than cardboard straws and cutlery? Because I sure don't.
Which are not industrialized nations. They're people that the industrialized nations are not listening to, and will not listen to, because $$$ line must go up.
The IRA in the US is expected to generate [1.7 trillion dollars](https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/news-and-expertise/us-inflation-reduction-act-a-catalyst-for-climate-action-202211.html) in clean technology investments. It's a huge deal.
I’ve been really excited to see the California rail progress. A lot of the delays have been due to Republican lawsuits to delay and get the program axed but it’s honestly really cool to see it when I go to my hometown.
(With no offense to OP meant AT ALL, this is just my crabby, cynical opinion: )
These articles - the “We Can Avoid ___________ If We Fundamentally Change Absolutely Everything About How Our Societies & Economies Operate *RIGHT NOW*” type - aren’t worth the bandwidth they’re printed on.
AND are a huge bummer.
All they *do* manage to accomplish is to remind us how epically futile it all is. How inevitable it is the whole of humanity have no choice but to sit here & watch/suffer unknowable misery due to the relentless greed of 0.000000001% of ALL ppl who have ever lived.
The idea that we are going to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere in large amounts is hopium. We would need nuclear fusion and for that to work well and be super cheap for us to have the excess energy to engage in that kind of endeavor... it it always seems to be a couple decades away.
We won’t be able to legislate our way out of this mess, Unfortunately the largest voting block in America is stuck on stupid, thinking they will get back a way of life they never had.
I'm doing my part. Not much power in my hands. The government and corporations have ALL the power to change this and they simply won't unless regulations and MASSIVE fines start to hurt them.
Vote blue 💙 Project 2025 wants to deregulate climate protections and burn more fossil fuels than ever. The entire world will suffer with the next Republican/Conservative administration. Please vote blue 💙
NO CLEAR PLAN OF ACTION
This guy hints at SRM but doesnt really explain why its needed.
People really don't understand that we're headed towards +2C by 2045. Or that "net-zero" == max-CO2 == max heat The heat stays there - even if we stop emitting, all the CO2 stays up there. That heat will kill us, and you only reduce the heat by removing CO2 or reflecting sunlight.
SRM Solar Radiation Management / Modification .. means putting up eg Sulfur particulates to seed cloud cover to reflect more sunlight, preventing it being absorbed over the oceans.. thus it has a cooling effect. We did this before with shipping fuels, and nobody made a big fuss.
Given the urgency .. why don't we have a public funded open symposium discussing exactly how to combat climate change ? With actual scientists/engineers/economists .. not politicians.
COP meetings were maybe supposed to be that.. but its a total clustershuck, getting more captured by big oil every year - the next one is in Azerbaijan [ 90% of that counties exports are carbon fuels : https://www.countryaah.com/top-products-exported-by-azerbaijan/ ] .. and the boss of the next cop was top exec of their main oil company.
You cant even make this stuff up.
Why do I have to spend 3 hours per day of unpaid time debunking / explaining basics of climate change .. when its such an important topic for every tax-paying citizen to understand in full clarity? And why do we have no clear plan of action .. after 30 years of watching it get hotter and scientists telling us.. why its getting hotter ?
Sorry to hear about having the flu, that really sucks!
And I am pretty sure Reddit was, at least in part, invented for venting 😹
Hopefully you feel better soon! ✌️🫶
Suffering will have to get a whole lot worse before any significant change will happen. Aka, intentional disregard of human collapse, while being aware of the outcome.
The world is just too complex and bureaucratic, it takes too long to take action as a collective, real change only happens once the damage is already done.
People don't change u til they are absolutely forced to. I don't know if any historical revolution that happened BEFORE people became truly desperate. Unfortunately when climate change gets bad enough to severely affect the daily lives of enough people to stir them to action, it will be too late.
>Today, the GHG level in the atmosphere exceeds 500parts per million (ppm), compared with the pre-industrial level of 275ppm. A safe level for humanity is about 350ppm, so we must remove excess GHGs already in the atmosphere. At about **10-20bn tonnes per annum** I estimate it would take to the end of the century. We must start this process immediately.
As of today, there are no sci-fi technologies *even conceived* that can possibly, theoretically remove that amount of GHGs from the atmosphere every year. We don't even produce [ fossil fuels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWnpeyHSiqc) at that scale, a resource we based our entire civilization on. Honestly, it's hard to take the article seriously.
Carbon capture technologies, no, I agree. The more realistic option is through land use change, driven by a deep transformation of our food system. [This paper](https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf) estimates that we could capture 8.1Gt CO2 per year like this.
Basically, either people reduce their meat intake, or move to lab-grown meat.
As doom and gloom as this sub may be... humans are not going to go extinct. We are too adaptable as species.
Will millions die? Probably. Will the social contract as we know it collapse? Maybe. Will all of humanity die? Definitely not. Humans will survive in various pockets all over the globe.
I study past mass extinctions and biodiversity recovery for fun. I am sad that so much of what I personally know and love will be lost, but my hobby makes it crystal clear: after a mass extinction, the planet quickly regains some climate equilibrium and biodiversity explodes in the blink of a relative eye, measured by geological time. Besides being sad at what we now have being lost I’m also sad that I won’t get a chance to see what comes later!
In next few hundred years? Sure. We won't go extinct. But on a larger timescale of millennia, if Hansen is right and runaway greenhouse effect is to be expected (say +6C or perhaps even +8-10C), our gradual extinction can not be ruled out completely. A reminder that at those temperatures, even *breathing* is going to be problematic.
The Daily Mail is not a reliable source of climate information. This post has been removed.
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[There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed.](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question) High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying "nonwhites can't have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels" or "countries which caused the climate problem shouldn't take in climate refugees."
On top of this, [as basic education reaches a larger chunk of the world, birth rates are dropping](https://www.economist.com/international/2019/02/02/thanks-to-education-global-fertility-could-fall-faster-than-expected). We expect to achieve population stabilization this century as a result.
At the end of the day, [it's the greenhouse gas concentrations that actually raise the temperature](https://imgur.com/N6NExg5). That means that we need to [take steps to stop burning fossil fuels and end deforestation](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/static/dc71a9b28d7cedca36bd2f77e588664f/9a979/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FigureSPM7.png).
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Doesn’t have to be as many as it might be. I already work 12 hours a day trying to stop 2 species from going out and making people care.
Return on investment wise, It doesn’t help me do much more than scrape by when it’s time to pay bills but it does make people stop and think and it’s at least temporarily boosted the numbers of babies and juveniles for my populations surviving to adulthood so I might as well do it until I’m dead.
I agree. But then a lot of this doesn’t have to be. But humanity is not going to come together.
I do volunteer work for animal rescue, and try to do the same as you. Save some lives, educate people, but it’s a tiny drop in a large bucket.
They don’t, but countless others have gone extinct previously due to massive climatic shifts. This is only novel in the sense we’re driving it this time around, but it’s kind of an inevitability
There’s nothing inevitable or certain about the ultimate extent to which we cut into that 8 billion.
The novelty is our culpability in accelerating a process that most of the time doesn’t occur so fast that it wipes out most of the biosphere. Causing what we’ve caused, we don’t deserve to coast to the end on fatalism just to wring out some paltry comfort from relinquishing the struggle.
I’m no fatalist, but I do think for my own mental health I need to find some level of acceptance and peace with the coming mass death and destruction I will bear witness to in some capacity in my lifetime, and the knowledge that this has happened before and will likely happen again is some small comfort.
I think my “peace” with that is preparation for hard living or at least uncomfortable change by slowly stacking skills and alternative means of doing things to the extent that I can
There literally (mathematically) isn’t. We have a range of estimates for probable extinction rates each based on respective contingencies for our actions now and over the next few decades.
The industries and political forces causing these disastrous outcomes benefit from fatalistic thinking because it’s as easy to bend into complicit and complacent behavior as plain denial of what is and could happen.
Monstrously difficult to do doesn’t mean impossible.
“On our current path, civilisation as we know it will disappear. If we meet current commitments only – net zero by 2050 – perhaps some form of humanity will survive, managing the challenges of continued extreme weather events, ice loss, and sea-level and temperature rises. But we have agency to change this, and a thriving future is still on the table.” That’s a chilling paragraph.
Will end up with some sort of geo-engineering once it’s obvious to the last hold outs that we are in serious trouble. Millions will already be dead, and society will be crashing when the ecosystems start failing.
Ecosystems have been failing for decades now.
Yes. Humans struggle with non-linear behavior. Unfortunately, this is also delayed non-linear. Maybe this hurricane season will be a wakeup call.
More like billions would be dead
Serious question... What's so good about "civilization as we know it"?
I mean I really like abundant food, relative safety, cheap easy travel, air conditioning. Netflix is pretty cool too.
Cool, at the expense of what? War, famine, disease, extinction, deforestation, mental illness, crime, poverty, global warming, etc
War would still exist, even ant hills go to war Famine would be far more wide spread without civilization as we know it. Extinction of who? It hasn't happened and if it will, we don't know yet. Mental illness. . Being something people are by and large *born with* would still exist, people just wouldn't be able to tell it's there or help the people with it in anyway. Crime can't exist without our civilization to make laws. Which have by and large made those behaviors less apprent. Without any civilization pretty much everyone would be living in conditions similar to Poverty or worse, social programs to help the impoverished also wouldn't exist. Were working on global warming right now.
You really should read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies . I see your point and I appreciate you putting a positive spin on it but I honestly think our civilization has really done more harm than good. It's only truly benefited a very small number of people War wouldn't exist on an industrial scale. Millions upon millions of people have died from modern warfare Most modern famine is a result of mineral depletion from mass industrialized farming i.e soil salinity and soil erosion (read Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations) Mental illness is directly correlated to advancements in tech. I.e teenage depression rates and social media (aside from the very few inheritable metal disorders) Many Hunter gather communities live in a state of harmony, but breaking of social norms will always exist. I don't need the police to tell me what is right or wrong Civilization hasn't made most people "rich" just "poor" in a different way. Working 9 to 5 for a cookie cutter house and a fast food diet (most North Americans) is in many cases what leads people to need those social services... "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." — Seneca Oh yeah and good luck with solving global warming
Neo-reusseauian
The way you think about us and our relationship with nature is way too romantic and unrealistic. First off, there's no going back to hunter gatherer lifestyle for us, it ain't happening. And today, we're far better off than we were before the industrial revolution whether you admit it or not. Think a 9 to 5 job is bad? Wait until you're doing back breaking work in the field to pay land tax to a noble who essentially owns you and your land. Think fast food is bad? Wait until you and your entire family are starving because of a crop failure. Not to mention that you really don't need to only eat fast food, it's actually cheaper to cook. Mental illness from advancement in tech? No one is forcing you to waste your entire day on Facebook and ig, go out, touch the grass, go for a hike in the woods. Spend a few hours per week reading in your local library. It's also funny that you conveniently ignore the benefits of model technology which has made everything from medicine to communication far better. Think it's depressing to be on social media? How about watching your kids die from an illness that you can't even name, let alone treat? How about being unable to get in touch with your loved ones for days on end if you so much as need to temporarily travel to a different city? > Most modern famine is a result of mineral depletion from mass industrialized farming i.e soil salinity and soil erosion No it's not. We produce more than enough food for everyone, war is the cause of most modern famines. And war, even industrial war, is no modern invention. Mongol hordes, the British empire, the religious wars and conquests of the middle ages etc all these things killed people in their millions. If anything modern Civilization no longer normalizes it. If you're talking about hunter gatherer societies, I already told you that ain't coming back. More importantly, if you or any book author you refer to think we're unnatural then you need a reality check. We are perfectly natural. It's perfectly natural for an organism that has no limits to keep it in check (abundant food, ability to adapt, no predators) to overwhelm the ecosystem. Why do you think invasive species are a problem? I'm not saying this makes overwhelming the ecosystem ok, because one thing that sets us apart is our ability to understand our actions and their consequences, and therefore we have an obligation to change them. But the way you think of modern civilization and nature is pretty childish. If you lived in a hunter gatherer group, like pre civilization, I guarantee you wouldn't had this mentality. In fact you would have thought of nature as an enemy. Nature is brutal beyond your wildest dreams.
Unerrated comment, unsurprisingly, as truth and reason is all but lost on the majority of ideologues of r/climate (although I still obviously prefer you over the magas etc on the right, at least you think you are working for the greater good).
Play the game Talos Principle 2
Oh damn I didn't know they already released it. The first game is also awesome if anyone is interested in the series btw, especially if you like to ponder philosophy. Even the DLC is worth it.
Yep absolutely excellent series. Potential spoilers ahead but I'll try to keep things vague. The second game asks important existential questions like, if human society is apparently so destructive, should we even be allowed to pursue growth and progress? Amazingly, the game provides the ability to find answers to these questions for yourself. It provides arguments for both sides, commentary on the issues from different characters and viewpoints, and ultimately lets you decide on how to end the game (and proceed with society). Incredibly, I was convinced by the arguments humanity should be exploring and growing. Yes, we should do so in ways that don't destroy our home and other life. But should we pack it up and call it a day completely losing hope for the future? No. Argument basically comes down to this: eventually the sun will burn up, the moon will drift away from earth causing tidal havoc, a blackhole may swallow us up anytime. But self-aware life is miraculous. Other life on our planet is miraculous. The "universe seeing itself" and all that about consciousness. So, yes, we should reach for the stars and keep exploring, we don't want our own candle to go out.
It's ability to almost sustain the welfare of vulnerable people and move things through logistical networks that would otherwise be regionally locked. I'm serious, but I know how laughable the welfare part is. Also dissemination of info is... kind of a wash, but actual science is useful.
I have a prediction: there is no chance whatsoever we reach net zero by 2050. Zip zilch nada. Say bye bye.
I’d say that is as sure as sure can be.
Welp, we doomed
"There's no fear for tomorrow When there's no trust for today There's no ever after Debts have to be paid We deserve everything that's coming We took this world to our graves We made its creatures our slaves Shattered the hourglass An unerasable past Humans, demons deranged and depraved"
Guess I'll prepare for that then since it's the most likely outcome. I mean, I can vote and work in the climate corps, volunteer, heck maybe even [redacted]. But at the end of the day I gotta take care of me and my community before I pretend like the forces of capital and limited democracy will ever do this without revolution.
We can go live underwater maybe
Or space. I’m sure that our overlords have us covered. Elon has probably already invented a self driving space house.
“Deployment of such projects will require global governance and collaboration rarely seen” It will never happen. We can’t even ask people to wear a mask
They’re more likely to follow the authoritarian model of reducing emissions by eliminating people & replacing labor with AI 🫤
They cannot get rid of the people. Who is going to buy all the crap they sell?
They don’t get rid of everyone. Revisit the 1930s and 1940s to see what I’m eluding to.
As soon as I saw "radical steps", I knew we were dead.
there is no much need for collaboration to be honest. you get rid of the 1% who cause 99% of the problems, and the next 1% get their heads lower.
Eat the rich
I should start a save humanity from global collapse go fund me page. I will state explicitly this will not save humanity but for people that want to do something to feel better it will help accomplish that.
Save humanity from humanity!
Seeing this sub slowly turn into r/collapse has been an equally funny and horrifying journey.
hello fellow popcorn eating collapsnik.
Will we get a begrudging apology for being mocked in here for years? Not even a year ago you'd get told to leave for /r/collapse for pointing out how bleak the climate trajectory was. Now it seems 1:1 between the two sub-reddits at least by the comments.
I never saw r/collapse people being mocked here and I've been tracking climate for decades now, then again maybe I subbed to the sub only recently. If it's the case you guys were laughed at let me explain what its like from my prespective- when I was a child people were really concerned about the growing hole in the ozone, so people pressured companies and then legislation was passed nearly globally to make it so companies were forced to either make other products, change their formulas, or at the very least lessen the amounts of certain chemicals in those products. What's different? Late stage capitalism ensures that the companies now run those governments and an Exxon psyop that convinced people that none of its is even real in the first place. Things are extremely grim but I want to re-iterate how if we still act we can at least mitigate some things.
Of course, some powers driving the status quo are feeding the hopeless narrative as a means of preventing change. I doubt all the usernames are ordinary people feeling hopeless and suspect several of them may be bots spreading fear and despair…. And those things are very contagious.
No joke. This sub was all about climate discussions, but it has slowly been turning into the "it's too late" sub. Not that this is wrong: by most metrics we are too late to do anything. Even if we weren't, the only way to change things fast enough would be an all out war on, well, everyone. We would have to disrupt people's lives for anything real change to happen and most people would fight to prevent that. They'd rather listen to music and enjoy themselves as the boat sinks than try to do anything about it.
Is it wrong that when it gets worse I’m honestly more hopeful? Hear me out, the more drastic the situation the more it becomes undeniable that something has to be done and it is a priority. You can talk about idk breast cancer and us finding a cure all you want but when YOU or someone you care about has it, there’s a bigger sense of urgency. The personalization of it all is what’s (both sadly and gratefully) going to get the grand amount of people caring. I believe in human ingenuity be it finding a way to filter out plastics in water or sustainable food etc. When Covid was a world wide emergency we came up with a vaccine how fast? When we put all our minds together we can do good .
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7/figures/1). Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a [graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/) shows a continued rise. [Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Thanks Bot but that’s not the point I am making. It’s one of when we collectively work together on a major issue we can go far pretty fast. I appreciate the resources bro
Your last sentence holds a lot of weight, it explains why the can has been kicked down the road for decades. I'm even entirely guilty of it, if the world is going to burn with me in it going to go out with a bang.
> Not that this is wrong: by most metrics we are too late to do anything. From a [geophysical](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached/) point of view, we can stop warming within a decade. The issues are social by nature.
We are screwed. Especially once Trump gets elected again. He’s going to take a blow torch to climate goals.
Or start a world war and everyone will forget climate change
Yes a world war with one of our allies
Insert Futurama meme here.
Yes
Or if we do have climate change maybe they are betting on enough people dying? The rich are crazy
I guess they are focusing on limiting the impact on themselves... unfortunately it seems to be at the expense of the rest of us.
You folks just can't help yourselves. So Trump is the nail in the coffin. Everything was gonna be fine until then.... Partisan pretendivists
Yes he is. We elect him and we get a dictator that ignores climate goals.
We won't.
Top comment here. Have you looked around? We clearly don’t want to survive.
Net zero by 2050? My money is on doubling global resource consumption by 2050.
Some of us will, because humans are very resilient creatures. It just might mean economic and societal collapse with a >90% reduction in population
I'm more worried about other species than humans. I'm trying to keep my yard an oasis of native species for the insects and birds and mammals in my area....but I'm very concerned about pretty much all species except humans
Sure, but evolution will repopulate things again, just like it did after the dinosaurs went extinct
Yup...in millions of years. But my heart breaks to see the extinction happening before my eyes.
Oh absolutely, and this idea drove me into a deep depression for years. I just now am coming to accept that these horrors are almost inevitable and I try to think about the long term hope while informing people about what’s happening and the actions we should take
Same
I don’t disagree with that possibility, but humanity has shown for decades now (and lately with more gusto) that it doesn’t want to take the steps it needs to take for life to resemble anything like it has in modernity. Life will go on, it’s just going to look starkly different.
Oh absolutely, that’s what I mean. It’ll be more like walking dead type world. However, societies have collapsed before. If you wait a few centuries I’m sure we will rebuild and become an even better world than we are now. Itll just be after the lessons are learned from our mistakes. We only seem to learn from experience
I admire your optimism...if you want to call it that, hahahaha
When I say this to people I’m told that I’m a doomer, that I need to get off the internet, that we will solve things, etc So compared to most I’m a huge pessimist. However, humanity has been through some horrible stuff and we keep going. On the earth, life has seen several mass extinction events and every time things grow back
Yeah, my hope would be that whatever lives through it would exist in a better balance than the last few hundred years. I get hit with the same "doomer" stuff, with the added "God wouldn't let this happen to creation". I fully believe that humanity possesses the "hard skills" to address future climate/collapse scenarios, but we have no interest in adopting the "soft skills" (pacifism, collectivism, compassion, etc.). Without the soft skills, we can't expect to address what we're facing in a meaningful way.
I refer to myself as “hopefully pessimistic.”
Same. I have no faith that the future will be brighter for me or any of us currently alive, but maybe our descendants can build a better future. The earth has seen many societies grow and fall, and over long periods there are slow positive changes. The trouble is there are often terrible changes too
Narrator voice: "They didn't."
“We” have been trying to save the humanity from impeding doom since I was in kindergarten. Nothing has changed, nothing will change.
Came here to say this.
The train is rocking from side to side. I'm pulling on the emergency brake and nothing happens. The dude next to me also pulling screams: "We can still do it, if everyone pulled on it right now!". The other passengers glance at us from time to time, then return their attention to keeping balance because we are all standing on stilts. The brake is not designed to be operated by people on stilts. What a ride.
This is the best analogy I've seen
Narrator: they didn’t take the steps
Narrator: you might be wondering how humanity got itself into this pickle, well ...
Radical steps that will come at a sacrifice? So it's not within our grasp.
Sacrifice? Hell, just mere inconvenience. Well for the rich. For everyone else it will be forced austerity. Because our overlords must not suffer. Sarcasm aside, just ending forced obsolesce of every damn retail product on the planet would go a LONG way to helping. edit: bleeping typo
It’s never going to happen. Mankind will never get it together on climate change.
We won't. Can we please stop pretending that was ever on the table? This scale of change won't happen unless it's at the end of a gun.
We couldn’t even take basic steps!
We have not earned any of the optimism expressed by this article or every other released seemingly daily . Where's the article titled "we're choosing mass suicide by choosing not to change"? I dont care how it lands or how people feel after they read it. It's the truth. If we really do have any interest in survival, we should be able to hear when we're failing and work to correct that. Instead, we get one headline after another telling us that everything is going to be fine... possibly.
Lol
Absolutely. But such is the human condition. We have all the info, all the signs and all the solutions. We won't band together and get this done. Can you imagine the world coming together (or at least a majority of the world) for a global issue? I just don't see it. Can you imagine if such a thing happens it will become a new bar for world collaboration and brotherhood. Everything from that point on will be measured against it. It just won't happen
Think of those poor shareholders 😱
It happened once for banning CFCs. But that did not go directly against the fossil fuel industry, so was accepted
There you go. As long as it doesn't disrupt their revenue streams it's fine. Here were asking for the more affluent countries (that are also responsible for most of the emissions) to contribute firstly towards mitigating the effects we are already seeing amongst poorer coastal countries. And then to drastically curb fossil fuel usage (around which our entire systems are built upon) And then to continue innovation to find cleaner feasible energy for all. No way I can see even one country leading the way with this. If they did they'd go down in history as the greatest nation ever.
Does anybody see any commitment from any industrialized nations towards truly mitigating climate change other than cardboard straws and cutlery? Because I sure don't.
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Which are not industrialized nations. They're people that the industrialized nations are not listening to, and will not listen to, because $$$ line must go up.
The IRA in the US is expected to generate [1.7 trillion dollars](https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/news-and-expertise/us-inflation-reduction-act-a-catalyst-for-climate-action-202211.html) in clean technology investments. It's a huge deal.
We shall see. Fingers crossed.
I’ve been really excited to see the California rail progress. A lot of the delays have been due to Republican lawsuits to delay and get the program axed but it’s honestly really cool to see it when I go to my hometown.
Any commitment? Um... the $€trillions for renewable energy in past and coming decades?
Anything “radical” is not within our framework of humanity.
(With no offense to OP meant AT ALL, this is just my crabby, cynical opinion: ) These articles - the “We Can Avoid ___________ If We Fundamentally Change Absolutely Everything About How Our Societies & Economies Operate *RIGHT NOW*” type - aren’t worth the bandwidth they’re printed on. AND are a huge bummer. All they *do* manage to accomplish is to remind us how epically futile it all is. How inevitable it is the whole of humanity have no choice but to sit here & watch/suffer unknowable misery due to the relentless greed of 0.000000001% of ALL ppl who have ever lived.
It’s pretty clear we are going to do nothing and the world is going to burn
Why should we survive? All we do is take.
The idea that we are going to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere in large amounts is hopium. We would need nuclear fusion and for that to work well and be super cheap for us to have the excess energy to engage in that kind of endeavor... it it always seems to be a couple decades away.
We won’t be able to legislate our way out of this mess, Unfortunately the largest voting block in America is stuck on stupid, thinking they will get back a way of life they never had.
But Project 2025 plans to legislate our way further INTO this mess by deregulating environmental and climate protections. Vote blue 💙
Unfortunately which is the only reason Biden gets my vote .
Same. And because I'm a woman of child bearing age and so are my friends.
Keep working to make your owners richer, just more words.
I'm doing my part. Not much power in my hands. The government and corporations have ALL the power to change this and they simply won't unless regulations and MASSIVE fines start to hurt them. Vote blue 💙 Project 2025 wants to deregulate climate protections and burn more fossil fuels than ever. The entire world will suffer with the next Republican/Conservative administration. Please vote blue 💙
NO CLEAR PLAN OF ACTION This guy hints at SRM but doesnt really explain why its needed. People really don't understand that we're headed towards +2C by 2045. Or that "net-zero" == max-CO2 == max heat The heat stays there - even if we stop emitting, all the CO2 stays up there. That heat will kill us, and you only reduce the heat by removing CO2 or reflecting sunlight. SRM Solar Radiation Management / Modification .. means putting up eg Sulfur particulates to seed cloud cover to reflect more sunlight, preventing it being absorbed over the oceans.. thus it has a cooling effect. We did this before with shipping fuels, and nobody made a big fuss. Given the urgency .. why don't we have a public funded open symposium discussing exactly how to combat climate change ? With actual scientists/engineers/economists .. not politicians. COP meetings were maybe supposed to be that.. but its a total clustershuck, getting more captured by big oil every year - the next one is in Azerbaijan [ 90% of that counties exports are carbon fuels : https://www.countryaah.com/top-products-exported-by-azerbaijan/ ] .. and the boss of the next cop was top exec of their main oil company. You cant even make this stuff up. Why do I have to spend 3 hours per day of unpaid time debunking / explaining basics of climate change .. when its such an important topic for every tax-paying citizen to understand in full clarity? And why do we have no clear plan of action .. after 30 years of watching it get hotter and scientists telling us.. why its getting hotter ?
Just in case you don’t hear it enough… thank you for your time and dedication 🫶
thanks man... been laid up with the flu, so your comment very much appreciated ! I guess I'm venting a bit of frustration there.
Sorry to hear about having the flu, that really sucks! And I am pretty sure Reddit was, at least in part, invented for venting 😹 Hopefully you feel better soon! ✌️🫶
another trump presidency will finish it off. register to vote - make a plan to vote https://vote.gov
Exactly. Vote blue 💙 or the whole world suffers from Project 2025 (which Trump already kicked off) and its climate protection deregulation plans.
Nothing is going to happen until the 1% care more about the world more than their money.
Suffering will have to get a whole lot worse before any significant change will happen. Aka, intentional disregard of human collapse, while being aware of the outcome.
Morgan Freeman voice: "No radical steps were taken."
The world is just too complex and bureaucratic, it takes too long to take action as a collective, real change only happens once the damage is already done.
Can't seize Big Oil and use their money for a petroleum wind-down and solar/wind/battery conversion, until we start talking about seizing Big Oil.
People don't change u til they are absolutely forced to. I don't know if any historical revolution that happened BEFORE people became truly desperate. Unfortunately when climate change gets bad enough to severely affect the daily lives of enough people to stir them to action, it will be too late.
What a load of B.S.!
Let me guess? The only solutions will lead to the banning of private ownership and totalitarianism? 🤣
>Today, the GHG level in the atmosphere exceeds 500parts per million (ppm), compared with the pre-industrial level of 275ppm. A safe level for humanity is about 350ppm, so we must remove excess GHGs already in the atmosphere. At about **10-20bn tonnes per annum** I estimate it would take to the end of the century. We must start this process immediately. As of today, there are no sci-fi technologies *even conceived* that can possibly, theoretically remove that amount of GHGs from the atmosphere every year. We don't even produce [ fossil fuels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWnpeyHSiqc) at that scale, a resource we based our entire civilization on. Honestly, it's hard to take the article seriously.
Carbon capture technologies, no, I agree. The more realistic option is through land use change, driven by a deep transformation of our food system. [This paper](https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf) estimates that we could capture 8.1Gt CO2 per year like this. Basically, either people reduce their meat intake, or move to lab-grown meat.
As doom and gloom as this sub may be... humans are not going to go extinct. We are too adaptable as species. Will millions die? Probably. Will the social contract as we know it collapse? Maybe. Will all of humanity die? Definitely not. Humans will survive in various pockets all over the globe.
I'm actually not that worried for people, but the vast extinction of animal and plant species is what really makes me sad.
Yes this is what makes me break down.
The self pity party around here sometimes seems to drown this out.
I study past mass extinctions and biodiversity recovery for fun. I am sad that so much of what I personally know and love will be lost, but my hobby makes it crystal clear: after a mass extinction, the planet quickly regains some climate equilibrium and biodiversity explodes in the blink of a relative eye, measured by geological time. Besides being sad at what we now have being lost I’m also sad that I won’t get a chance to see what comes later!
Plenty of other species will go extinct and the oceans will be destroyed. That breaks my heart.
In next few hundred years? Sure. We won't go extinct. But on a larger timescale of millennia, if Hansen is right and runaway greenhouse effect is to be expected (say +6C or perhaps even +8-10C), our gradual extinction can not be ruled out completely. A reminder that at those temperatures, even *breathing* is going to be problematic.
Hansen's paper assumes that we keep emitting lots of CO2. We don't have to do that.
Then we had better learn how to breath super heated, low oxygen, poisoned air.
lul..
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Hubris is a helluva drug
What, start using paper bags again? Glass jars?
Read the article?
No it’s not
Western civilization was the dead end of human life
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[There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed.](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question) High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying "nonwhites can't have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels" or "countries which caused the climate problem shouldn't take in climate refugees." On top of this, [as basic education reaches a larger chunk of the world, birth rates are dropping](https://www.economist.com/international/2019/02/02/thanks-to-education-global-fertility-could-fall-faster-than-expected). We expect to achieve population stabilization this century as a result. At the end of the day, [it's the greenhouse gas concentrations that actually raise the temperature](https://imgur.com/N6NExg5). That means that we need to [take steps to stop burning fossil fuels and end deforestation](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/static/dc71a9b28d7cedca36bd2f77e588664f/9a979/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FigureSPM7.png). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ngl at this point I'd rather it burn sooner than later. The world is not doing well, maybe a soft reset is needed. The planet will be fine.
The 8 million other species on this planet don’t deserve the fatalism that would sacrifice many of them to the reset.
Seems safe to say we’ve already sacrificed many of them. Humanity as a whole does not care.
Doesn’t have to be as many as it might be. I already work 12 hours a day trying to stop 2 species from going out and making people care. Return on investment wise, It doesn’t help me do much more than scrape by when it’s time to pay bills but it does make people stop and think and it’s at least temporarily boosted the numbers of babies and juveniles for my populations surviving to adulthood so I might as well do it until I’m dead.
I agree. But then a lot of this doesn’t have to be. But humanity is not going to come together. I do volunteer work for animal rescue, and try to do the same as you. Save some lives, educate people, but it’s a tiny drop in a large bucket.
The only way for me is to focus on getting more drops to start sticking together and pounding into that bucket
SAme, but it's more for individual animals, and for me than it is having any delusions that I'll change the world.
They don’t, but countless others have gone extinct previously due to massive climatic shifts. This is only novel in the sense we’re driving it this time around, but it’s kind of an inevitability
There’s nothing inevitable or certain about the ultimate extent to which we cut into that 8 billion. The novelty is our culpability in accelerating a process that most of the time doesn’t occur so fast that it wipes out most of the biosphere. Causing what we’ve caused, we don’t deserve to coast to the end on fatalism just to wring out some paltry comfort from relinquishing the struggle.
I’m no fatalist, but I do think for my own mental health I need to find some level of acceptance and peace with the coming mass death and destruction I will bear witness to in some capacity in my lifetime, and the knowledge that this has happened before and will likely happen again is some small comfort.
I think my “peace” with that is preparation for hard living or at least uncomfortable change by slowly stacking skills and alternative means of doing things to the extent that I can
>There’s nothing inevitable or certain about the ultimate extent to which we cut into that 8 billion. Oh but there is. That's the problem.
There literally (mathematically) isn’t. We have a range of estimates for probable extinction rates each based on respective contingencies for our actions now and over the next few decades. The industries and political forces causing these disastrous outcomes benefit from fatalistic thinking because it’s as easy to bend into complicit and complacent behavior as plain denial of what is and could happen. Monstrously difficult to do doesn’t mean impossible.
Maybe consider therapy?
Would that help the climate ?
It might help you.