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According to the bulletin of atomic scientists it's climate change and nuclear weapons [0]. I used to think when climate change was mentioned that it's somethi

According to the bulletin of atomic scientists it's climate change and nuclear weapons [0]. I used to think when climate change was mentioned that it's something that won't really impact us in the near term. After looking more into this, reading more about what James Hansen, Peter Wadhams, Dr Suzuki and other scientists are saying it's basically very very late, but not too late to avoid major catastrophe. We need major action now - real commitment and action from our governments that protecting our life-ground is top priority and not economic growth at all cost. Small things are already happening, like school kids striking, people doing civil disobedience etc, people reducing or not eating meat, trying to avoid buying too many plastic products, using public transport etc, but I'm thinking is this enough? It really doesn't help that we have a US government or president that doesn't really believe in human made climate change. And then we have the new president in Brazil who doesn't think it's important to protect the Amazon. What's your outlook for the next 10 - 15 years? Do you think we can make it? Change our ways and get off our fossil fuel addiction, change our destructive farming practices, change factory farming and move to a planetary diet (reduced meat intake) or even plant-based diet? Do you worry about food security issues caused by extended droughts? Will city life in 10 years or so be worse or better? [0] https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/ EDIT: typos

rocgf 8y ago
> Small things are already happening, like school kids striking, people doing civil disobedience etc, people reducing or not eating meat, trying to avoid buying too many plastic products, using public transport etc, but I'm thinking is this enough? It's not even close to enough. Things are not changing in any significant way. Then you have places like China, India, Brazil which are rising from poverty and into somewhat Western standards. If anything, pollution overall will probably get worse. We have already lost.
normal_man 8y ago
I am in my 30s. I think people around my age will be able to live out most of our lives in relative normalcy. I think children born today will inherit a world that's even more cruel, brutal, and difficult to survive in. The rich will wall themselves off in heavily guarded citadels while climate disasters and the resulting refugee crises tear the rest of the world apart.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  I am in my fifties. I have seen a dramatic enough change in my lifetime (lack of proper winters any more, massive loss of insects and wildlife, loss of diversity in the countryside and a terrifying[1] growth of consumerism and plastics) to think you will probably significantly reassess that relative normalcy. Or you might be lucky to live somewhere that will isolate you from most of it. My kids, of course, grew up with all those huge losses and changes being their baseline normal on which all expectations are set. They think fields without diversity or wildlife and everything in plastic packaging is normal, unless they see some archive footage or history of primitive pre-internet times. They've barely seen snow, so don't expect to, etc. [1] I grew up with slow consumerism 1.0 in the 70s. My parents generation mainly replaced their car, TV, appliance or even kitchen only when it broke or wore out. Not that much went in the bin, now the wheelie bin is filled with unavoidable packaging. We are apparently supposed to replace everything when the ads say there's a new colour, or the spec got bumped 2%, long before it becomes unusable or worn. Can't help but feel we're going backwards at a rate of knots.
makerofspoons 8y ago
City life in 10 years or so will be increasingly more expensive as food becomes increasingly expensive. There is a triple threat to our way of producing food and the degree we have over extended ourselves: - We are losing soil at a rate 10-40 times faster than it can be produced: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/3/443/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/3/443/htm. This has led the UN FAO to speculate we may only have 60 years of harvests left, likely much less in areas of intensive farming like the UK where soils could be infertile in as little as 40 years: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40-years-away-eradication-soil-fertility-warns-michael-gove https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40... - As much as 50-90% of our calories come from angiosperms which are dependent on insects: https://www.livescience.com/52752-what-if-all-insects-died.html https://www.livescience.com/52752-what-if-all-insects-died.h.... Insect biomass as recently reported has plunged globally and they may be largely extinct by 2100: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/why-are-insects-in-decline-and-can-we-do-anything-about-it https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/why-are-... - As you noted, climate change will cause areas like the American midwest to experience extreme drought, desertify, and starve the populations that are dependent on it for food. The problem comes down to people will not give up their lifestyle until they are starving, and by then it will be too late. How do you convince people that the sustainable way to live is to abandon the suburbs, the supermarkets, owning personal vehicles, air conditioning, clothes dryers, air travel, big box stores full of plastic junk - the list of wasteful things we have produced in the last century that needs to go away goes on and on. I'm guilty of partaking in it- I try to live sustainably but here I am making a living flipping 1's and 0's, burning fossil fuels on a machine that caused all sorts of environmental damage to produce. We live in a make-believe world and it's time to wake up.
pjc50 8y ago
Food security issues will appear more and more, but they won't appear to be climate issues, they'll appear to be money or politics issues. The huge rise in referrals to foodbanks in the UK: is this a food security issue or a poverty issue? Either way there are people struggling to get food.
- dTal 8y ago
  It's a Tory party issue. Their Universal Credit system is designed to restrict people's welfare payments, and if possible eject them from the system by hook or by crook. I'm not playing politics here - all the metrics show large jumps in 2014, when the system was introduced (replacing the older benefits). Rough sleeping spiked. Unemployment (as measured by people on benefits) plummeted. The UK is plenty rich enough to feed all its citizens. It just chooses not to.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    Amber Rudd even admits that rising food bank use has been caused by Universal Credit: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/11/universal-credit-rollout-linked-to-rising-food-bank-use-amber-rudd-admits https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/11/universal-cr... I don't know whether this is admirable honesty or complete cynicism.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    They chose to design in a five week wait for first payment for the poorest and least able to cope. Then sanction people at every possible turn and have a refusal and appeal apparently as a standard part of claiming sickness benefits[1]. How could food bank use not grow? Even Rudd recently admitted UC caused the rise of food banks. It's an appalling, vindictive, punitive system that's been designed to be exactly that. [1] The rate of successful sickness appeals reached 60% in 2015, not sure of figures since: https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3481-dwp-recruits-180-presenting-officers-to-cut-esa-and-pip-appeal-success-rates https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3481-dwp-recruits-180...
moosey 8y ago
I have gone through the existential angst that I read in your comment. The ugly depression, the hopelessness. I understand that outcome is a very real possibility. I also believe that humanity will defeat climate change, and before we lose all major megafauna on the planet. I think that this is the most radical position to take: a faith in the ability of humanity, after thousands of years following the path of exploitation, changing to the path of restoration. Perhaps it's because of the changes that I'm willing to make, and that could be my folly. I see highly compact cities feeding a world of vegans. I see us doing everything in our power to restore the natural world to its splendor. The zeitgeist that we must shift to is alien and extreme to modern cultures, primarily because we have become so accustomed to the exploitation of people and nature that escaping it seems unecessary to many, and therefore impossible. I have a sense that it will happen. I have a sense that people are tired of this life, and even if they must themselves not live in nature, the act of restoring it will bring meaning to a broken society. For the first time since we left the forests, we will return to the path of peace.
- SuddsMcDuff 8y ago
  That's a lovely thought, but I don't think it's based in reality. Change, by it's nature, is disruptive, painful, sometimes unbearable. Human nature is to avoid pain. In all of human history, I'm not aware that the human race has ever collectively, proactively changed it's behavour in the way you describe, and I see no evidence that we'll suddenly start now. Ultimately the changes will happen, but they will happen in the same way they have always happened: mother nature will compel us to change by making us suffer.
  - moosey 8y ago
    I agree that we'll have to have an "Oh shit" moment and that moment will have to happen in the United States for things to happen. I don't deny there will be pain. I don't deny that time is short. I just think that we can move towards being a more perfect species, and that it will soon happen.
    - SuddsMcDuff 8y ago
jsingleton 8y ago
It's going to be tough, not technically but politically. We're not doomed just yet but serious action is required right now. Something on the scale of Facebook and Google getting behind it and using their reach to motivate people. I do think individual actions can add up, particularly when we use the magnifying power of tech. I wrote a lot on this recently and I can't fit it all in a comment so I'll just link to them at the end. I'd strongly encourage anyone in tech who cares about this to get involved in https://climateaction.tech/ https://climateaction.tech/ where there are some very active slack channels. Lots of knowledgeable people on there and some of us old cleanweb peeps too. It boils down to a three step process: - Understand - Organise - Amplify There's a long post for each on my blog and a bonus one. https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-1/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-2/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-3/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-4/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t...
- uxcolumbo 8y ago
  Thanks for this. Will check this out. I'm always looking for 'world positive' projects.
- edcastano 8y ago
  I built www.writegreen.org in 2011, specifically to channel my own energy and angst around this topic to drive policy change (don't change your lightbulbs, change your laws). Unfortunately, the realities of having a family to feed kept me from fully promoting and developing it. Would be great to get feedback and partner with others looking to make a dent on this problem.
snarf21 8y ago
No, I don't think we can collective choose to be better. We need a bacteria or disease to wipe out half the population (Thanos style) in order to give us a chance. I don't think even controlling birth rate right now will be enough. We are causing a multiplier by living lives that are 2x as destructive as 20 years ago at the same time we are doubling population. We've always been a greedy species but before the last 200 years it was out of our grasp. It no longer is and we keep stoking the furnace higher.

rocgf 8y ago

> Small things are already happening, like school kids striking, people doing civil disobedience etc, people reducing or not eating meat, trying to avoid buying too many plastic products, using public transport etc, but I'm thinking is this enough? It's not even close to enough. Things are not changing in any significant way. Then you have places like China, India, Brazil which are rising from poverty and into somewhat Western standards. If anything, pollution overall will probably get worse. We have already lost.

normal_man 8y ago

I am in my 30s. I think people around my age will be able to live out most of our lives in relative normalcy. I think children born today will inherit a world that's even more cruel, brutal, and difficult to survive in. The rich will wall themselves off in heavily guarded citadels while climate disasters and the resulting refugee crises tear the rest of the world apart.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
I am in my fifties. I have seen a dramatic enough change in my lifetime (lack of proper winters any more, massive loss of insects and wildlife, loss of diversity in the countryside and a terrifying[1] growth of consumerism and plastics) to think you will probably significantly reassess that relative normalcy. Or you might be lucky to live somewhere that will isolate you from most of it. My kids, of course, grew up with all those huge losses and changes being their baseline normal on which all expectations are set. They think fields without diversity or wildlife and everything in plastic packaging is normal, unless they see some archive footage or history of primitive pre-internet times. They've barely seen snow, so don't expect to, etc. [1] I grew up with slow consumerism 1.0 in the 70s. My parents generation mainly replaced their car, TV, appliance or even kitchen only when it broke or wore out. Not that much went in the bin, now the wheelie bin is filled with unavoidable packaging. We are apparently supposed to replace everything when the ads say there's a new colour, or the spec got bumped 2%, long before it becomes unusable or worn. Can't help but feel we're going backwards at a rate of knots.

makerofspoons 8y ago

City life in 10 years or so will be increasingly more expensive as food becomes increasingly expensive. There is a triple threat to our way of producing food and the degree we have over extended ourselves: - We are losing soil at a rate 10-40 times faster than it can be produced: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/3/443/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/3/443/htm. This has led the UN FAO to speculate we may only have 60 years of harvests left, likely much less in areas of intensive farming like the UK where soils could be infertile in as little as 40 years: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40-years-away-eradication-soil-fertility-warns-michael-gove https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40... - As much as 50-90% of our calories come from angiosperms which are dependent on insects: https://www.livescience.com/52752-what-if-all-insects-died.html https://www.livescience.com/52752-what-if-all-insects-died.h.... Insect biomass as recently reported has plunged globally and they may be largely extinct by 2100: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/why-are-insects-in-decline-and-can-we-do-anything-about-it https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/why-are-... - As you noted, climate change will cause areas like the American midwest to experience extreme drought, desertify, and starve the populations that are dependent on it for food. The problem comes down to people will not give up their lifestyle until they are starving, and by then it will be too late. How do you convince people that the sustainable way to live is to abandon the suburbs, the supermarkets, owning personal vehicles, air conditioning, clothes dryers, air travel, big box stores full of plastic junk - the list of wasteful things we have produced in the last century that needs to go away goes on and on. I'm guilty of partaking in it- I try to live sustainably but here I am making a living flipping 1's and 0's, burning fossil fuels on a machine that caused all sorts of environmental damage to produce. We live in a make-believe world and it's time to wake up.

pjc50 8y ago

Food security issues will appear more and more, but they won't appear to be climate issues, they'll appear to be money or politics issues. The huge rise in referrals to foodbanks in the UK: is this a food security issue or a poverty issue? Either way there are people struggling to get food.

dTal 8y ago
It's a Tory party issue. Their Universal Credit system is designed to restrict people's welfare payments, and if possible eject them from the system by hook or by crook. I'm not playing politics here - all the metrics show large jumps in 2014, when the system was introduced (replacing the older benefits). Rough sleeping spiked. Unemployment (as measured by people on benefits) plummeted. The UK is plenty rich enough to feed all its citizens. It just chooses not to.
- arethuza 8y ago
  Amber Rudd even admits that rising food bank use has been caused by Universal Credit: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/11/universal-credit-rollout-linked-to-rising-food-bank-use-amber-rudd-admits https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/11/universal-cr... I don't know whether this is admirable honesty or complete cynicism.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  They chose to design in a five week wait for first payment for the poorest and least able to cope. Then sanction people at every possible turn and have a refusal and appeal apparently as a standard part of claiming sickness benefits[1]. How could food bank use not grow? Even Rudd recently admitted UC caused the rise of food banks. It's an appalling, vindictive, punitive system that's been designed to be exactly that. [1] The rate of successful sickness appeals reached 60% in 2015, not sure of figures since: https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3481-dwp-recruits-180-presenting-officers-to-cut-esa-and-pip-appeal-success-rates https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3481-dwp-recruits-180...

moosey 8y ago

I have gone through the existential angst that I read in your comment. The ugly depression, the hopelessness. I understand that outcome is a very real possibility. I also believe that humanity will defeat climate change, and before we lose all major megafauna on the planet. I think that this is the most radical position to take: a faith in the ability of humanity, after thousands of years following the path of exploitation, changing to the path of restoration. Perhaps it's because of the changes that I'm willing to make, and that could be my folly. I see highly compact cities feeding a world of vegans. I see us doing everything in our power to restore the natural world to its splendor. The zeitgeist that we must shift to is alien and extreme to modern cultures, primarily because we have become so accustomed to the exploitation of people and nature that escaping it seems unecessary to many, and therefore impossible. I have a sense that it will happen. I have a sense that people are tired of this life, and even if they must themselves not live in nature, the act of restoring it will bring meaning to a broken society. For the first time since we left the forests, we will return to the path of peace.

SuddsMcDuff 8y ago
That's a lovely thought, but I don't think it's based in reality. Change, by it's nature, is disruptive, painful, sometimes unbearable. Human nature is to avoid pain. In all of human history, I'm not aware that the human race has ever collectively, proactively changed it's behavour in the way you describe, and I see no evidence that we'll suddenly start now. Ultimately the changes will happen, but they will happen in the same way they have always happened: mother nature will compel us to change by making us suffer.
- moosey 8y ago
  I agree that we'll have to have an "Oh shit" moment and that moment will have to happen in the United States for things to happen. I don't deny there will be pain. I don't deny that time is short. I just think that we can move towards being a more perfect species, and that it will soon happen.
  - SuddsMcDuff 8y ago

jsingleton 8y ago

It's going to be tough, not technically but politically. We're not doomed just yet but serious action is required right now. Something on the scale of Facebook and Google getting behind it and using their reach to motivate people. I do think individual actions can add up, particularly when we use the magnifying power of tech. I wrote a lot on this recently and I can't fit it all in a comment so I'll just link to them at the end. I'd strongly encourage anyone in tech who cares about this to get involved in https://climateaction.tech/ https://climateaction.tech/ where there are some very active slack channels. Lots of knowledgeable people on there and some of us old cleanweb peeps too. It boils down to a three step process: - Understand - Organise - Amplify There's a long post for each on my blog and a bonus one. https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-1/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-2/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-3/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t... https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-technologist-part-4/ https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t...

uxcolumbo 8y ago
Thanks for this. Will check this out. I'm always looking for 'world positive' projects.
edcastano 8y ago
I built www.writegreen.org in 2011, specifically to channel my own energy and angst around this topic to drive policy change (don't change your lightbulbs, change your laws). Unfortunately, the realities of having a family to feed kept me from fully promoting and developing it. Would be great to get feedback and partner with others looking to make a dent on this problem.

snarf21 8y ago

No, I don't think we can collective choose to be better. We need a bacteria or disease to wipe out half the population (Thanos style) in order to give us a chance. I don't think even controlling birth rate right now will be enough. We are causing a multiplier by living lives that are 2x as destructive as 20 years ago at the same time we are doubling population. We've always been a greedy species but before the last 200 years it was out of our grasp. It no longer is and we keep stoking the furnace higher.