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Results like this are some confirmation of what everyone not entirely swaddled in the virtual worlds of city and business is already entirely aware of: that our

Results like this are some confirmation of what everyone not entirely swaddled in the virtual worlds of city and business is already entirely aware of: that our living planet is dying. All the people I know who have lived in rural areas for decades (in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and SE. Asia) are in no doubt that their local ecologies are collapsing, and that the collapse is accelerating. I'm not sure how useful the knowledge is at this late stage. Turning things around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have no idea how to motivate and coordinate. Fork and done, I reckon.

wolco 9y ago
In other parts of the world like Canada things are becoming alive with the changes. The earth is a living ecosystem.
- andai 9y ago
  It's warming up, isn't it? I'm hearing about a loss of permafrost. Sounds like it's becoming more habitable up north.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    buy lots of land up there while its cheap. thats gonna be the only prime land in a few years.
    - sulam 9y ago
      A good chunk of it will be underwater. Make sure to buy something that is higher than 100m above sea level.
      - andai 9y ago
        You might be on to something. Long-term thinking is the single greatest predictor of long-term success!
colordrops 9y ago
I'm starting to think that as well. As a father it hits me much harder, and I think I'm at stage four of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The human race may just not be special and will be erased, sooner rather than later.
- abraae 9y ago
  I think when it comes to climate change, you can end up in one of three buckets: - denier (perhaps the happiest group) - defeatist (I recycle and cycle to work, but what can I do? I'm just one person, its all so bad, I'm depressed) - activist (I'm going to do something about this now, they can't do this to my children) I think one of the biggest problems facing us on climate change is somehow making better use of people who care than letting them fall into defeatist mode.
  - colordrops 9y ago
    Well, don't let my depression lead you to the wrong conclusion. I'm am (somewhat) active - I donate to climate causes, it's my number one issue when voting, I drive a hybrid, only buy organic food, minimize eating meat, minimize consumption, grow some of my own food, bike when I can, minimize electricity use, etc. I do recognize that it's not enough and we all need to basically go back pre-industrial lifestyles to really make enough of a change to matter.
    - abraae 9y ago
      Yeah, that wasn't aimed at you. More a general observation that one of the biggest problems with climate change is how we think about it. I'll bet there are a lot of people who have more or less given up. I've talked to some people who are not really deniers but rather people who don't want to know, and find it easiest to not think about it at all.
      - colordrops 9y ago
        I think part of that "giving up" comes from there not being a plausible vision to a sustainable future. If all it took was cutting down, even significantly, on daily indulgences, and a clear set of numbers showed that, then I believe we could get people on board. But the main issue is that power brokers, both in policy and in media, refuse to make those sacrifices, and their decisions have several of orders of magnitude more effect than individual actions. And the individuals know it.
Pxtl 9y ago
You can see the changes just fine in the city. New weather, different bugs, local forests ravaged by invasive pests, all that stuff is plainly visible to me.
- crispinb 9y ago
  Yes of course you can if you're sensitive and observant. That's why I limited my observation to those 'entirely swaddled' within the built & busy human world. I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in Australia, there are millions who never notice anything that doesn't happen on their pocket screens.
phil248 9y ago
" Turning things around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have no idea how to motivate and coordinate." Things like electricity, the automobile, air travel and the internet went from nonexistent to universal in developed countries in phenomenally short time spans. Renewable energy appears to be following a similar trajectory, leaving all the estimates in the dust and emerging faster than most people realize or can keep track of. Fast enough? Well, we'll find out. But at this point you can't say it's slow.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  > Things like electricity, the automobile, air travel and the internet went from nonexistent to universal in developed countries in phenomenally short time spans Oh, hey, thats about the same "phenomenally short time span" that everything started going to shit.
  - ryanx435 9y ago
    K. Let's get rid of electricity and go back to horses and sail boats as our prime travel options, then.
    - devmunchies 9y ago
      I was just stating that its the same timing. i think those things enabled globalization and too many hyper efficiencies but they themselves aren't the cause.
    - crispinb 9y ago
      > Let's get rid of electricity and go back to horses and sail boats as our prime travel options, then. Too late for that. And I don't see anyone offering easy answers. But pretending that what's happening in the real world isn't happening, or frantically waving totems of electronic consumer satisfaction about, won't make those physical realities go away.
      - CalRobert 9y ago
anigbrowl 9y ago
If you can't figure out what to do, that doesn't mean you have an excuse to do nothing. Get organized and act. Stop sitting there waiting for a plan to come along that you can get on board with, just start *doing stuff now.
nomass 9y ago
> Turning things around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have no idea how to motivate and coordinate Yes everything leads to that question: How can a problem of global scaled be solved, if it seems to be almost impossible to make some progress domestically? I think I begin to see what the "solution" is going to be like. The good news is: The planet is not going to die. The bad news: I guess you not gonna like the solution. I'm convinced that in 10-20 we are going to live much more eco friendly. It will become much more expensive to waste natural resources. But as a downside of this we will loose a lot of personal freedom. Our highly individualized society will come to an end and we will live in a much more controlled environment. Harmfull behaviour will either be punished with legal sanctions (like corruption) or in some form of social disaproval. TLDR: In the next 20 we will see a greener but also more unfree world.

wolco 9y ago

In other parts of the world like Canada things are becoming alive with the changes. The earth is a living ecosystem.

andai 9y ago
It's warming up, isn't it? I'm hearing about a loss of permafrost. Sounds like it's becoming more habitable up north.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  buy lots of land up there while its cheap. thats gonna be the only prime land in a few years.
  - sulam 9y ago
    A good chunk of it will be underwater. Make sure to buy something that is higher than 100m above sea level.
    - andai 9y ago
      You might be on to something. Long-term thinking is the single greatest predictor of long-term success!

colordrops 9y ago

I'm starting to think that as well. As a father it hits me much harder, and I think I'm at stage four of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The human race may just not be special and will be erased, sooner rather than later.

abraae 9y ago
I think when it comes to climate change, you can end up in one of three buckets: - denier (perhaps the happiest group) - defeatist (I recycle and cycle to work, but what can I do? I'm just one person, its all so bad, I'm depressed) - activist (I'm going to do something about this now, they can't do this to my children) I think one of the biggest problems facing us on climate change is somehow making better use of people who care than letting them fall into defeatist mode.
- colordrops 9y ago
  Well, don't let my depression lead you to the wrong conclusion. I'm am (somewhat) active - I donate to climate causes, it's my number one issue when voting, I drive a hybrid, only buy organic food, minimize eating meat, minimize consumption, grow some of my own food, bike when I can, minimize electricity use, etc. I do recognize that it's not enough and we all need to basically go back pre-industrial lifestyles to really make enough of a change to matter.
  - abraae 9y ago
    Yeah, that wasn't aimed at you. More a general observation that one of the biggest problems with climate change is how we think about it. I'll bet there are a lot of people who have more or less given up. I've talked to some people who are not really deniers but rather people who don't want to know, and find it easiest to not think about it at all.
    - colordrops 9y ago
      I think part of that "giving up" comes from there not being a plausible vision to a sustainable future. If all it took was cutting down, even significantly, on daily indulgences, and a clear set of numbers showed that, then I believe we could get people on board. But the main issue is that power brokers, both in policy and in media, refuse to make those sacrifices, and their decisions have several of orders of magnitude more effect than individual actions. And the individuals know it.

Pxtl 9y ago

You can see the changes just fine in the city. New weather, different bugs, local forests ravaged by invasive pests, all that stuff is plainly visible to me.

crispinb 9y ago
Yes of course you can if you're sensitive and observant. That's why I limited my observation to those 'entirely swaddled' within the built & busy human world. I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in Australia, there are millions who never notice anything that doesn't happen on their pocket screens.

phil248 9y ago

" Turning things around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have no idea how to motivate and coordinate." Things like electricity, the automobile, air travel and the internet went from nonexistent to universal in developed countries in phenomenally short time spans. Renewable energy appears to be following a similar trajectory, leaving all the estimates in the dust and emerging faster than most people realize or can keep track of. Fast enough? Well, we'll find out. But at this point you can't say it's slow.

devmunchies 9y ago
> Things like electricity, the automobile, air travel and the internet went from nonexistent to universal in developed countries in phenomenally short time spans Oh, hey, thats about the same "phenomenally short time span" that everything started going to shit.
- ryanx435 9y ago
  K. Let's get rid of electricity and go back to horses and sail boats as our prime travel options, then.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    I was just stating that its the same timing. i think those things enabled globalization and too many hyper efficiencies but they themselves aren't the cause.
  - crispinb 9y ago
    > Let's get rid of electricity and go back to horses and sail boats as our prime travel options, then. Too late for that. And I don't see anyone offering easy answers. But pretending that what's happening in the real world isn't happening, or frantically waving totems of electronic consumer satisfaction about, won't make those physical realities go away.
    - CalRobert 9y ago

anigbrowl 9y ago

If you can't figure out what to do, that doesn't mean you have an excuse to do nothing. Get organized and act. Stop sitting there waiting for a plan to come along that you can get on board with, just start *doing stuff now.

nomass 9y ago

> Turning things around would require changes of a pace and scale that we have no idea how to motivate and coordinate Yes everything leads to that question: How can a problem of global scaled be solved, if it seems to be almost impossible to make some progress domestically? I think I begin to see what the "solution" is going to be like. The good news is: The planet is not going to die. The bad news: I guess you not gonna like the solution. I'm convinced that in 10-20 we are going to live much more eco friendly. It will become much more expensive to waste natural resources. But as a downside of this we will loose a lot of personal freedom. Our highly individualized society will come to an end and we will live in a much more controlled environment. Harmfull behaviour will either be punished with legal sanctions (like corruption) or in some form of social disaproval. TLDR: In the next 20 we will see a greener but also more unfree world.