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This is unreasonably rosy. Acidification of the ocean and ecological breakdown from overly rapid environmental change appears likely to cause a catastrophic fai

This is unreasonably rosy. Acidification of the ocean and ecological breakdown from overly rapid environmental change appears likely to cause a catastrophic failure of the food chain. Rapid change is necessary. The status quo is not OK.

crankylinuxuser 7y ago
Rosy or not, we need to plan when it happens. The only if we don't know is how bad it will exactly be. And don't forget, that a very valid answer is "food chain collapses, causing mass starvation and death".
- WalterSear 7y ago
  It's happening. What's the plan? The rise of ISIS was driven by crop failure due to climate change. The temperature in India reached 123 degrees already this year.
  - briandear 7y ago
    The rise of ISIS was not due to climate change, it was a group that arose from AQI, which itself had it origins from Jordanian Jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who, in the 1990s ran jihadist paramilitary camps in Afghanistan. ISIS wasn’t driven by crop failure “due to climate change.” It was essentially a war due to Sunnis not liking Sh’ites — a conflict that has been ongoing for literally centuries. And, in this specific case was due to a power vacuum in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the roots of that conflict are as old as the 1975 Algiers agreement between Iraq and Iran. Attributing ISIS to climate change is about the same as blaming social media for ISIS; arguably social media’s existence actually helped ISIS propagate more than any causes attributed to climate change. ISIS and it’s origins are exceptionally complicated as are most conflicts in that region. To trivialize it by claiming it was because of climate change is to reveal a profound misunderstanding of the history of that region. We can discuss climate change and it’s causes and effects, but it weakens credibility when almost everything gets blamed on it. It’s getting to the point where when one used to say this bad thing happened because “it’s God’s will,” but now people say, “climate change.” It’s taking on religion-levels of influence to where actual causation gets ignored in favor of attributing everything to CO2. Every storm, every war, every bad thing that happens has a least some people trying to use those events to justify their belief systems. Sometimes weather is just weather, war is just war. If we ended all CO2 emissions tomorrow, the Middle East would still be a cauldron, wars would still happen, crops would still fail from time to time, hurricanes would still destroy things, tornados would still happen. Climate is an important issue, but let’s not turn it into a religion.
    - WalterSear 7y ago
      https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-change-drought-drove-isis-terrorist-recruiting-iraq/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-change-d... https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/world/climate-change-terrorism-extremism-africa-middle-east-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/world/climate-change-terroris... > As described here, water and climatic conditions have played a direct role in the deterioration of Syria’s economic conditions. There is a long history of conflicts over water in these regions because of the natural water scarcity, the early development of irrigated agriculture, and complex religious and ethnic diversity. In recent years, there has been an increase in incidences of water-related violence around the world at the subnational level attributable to the role that water plays in development disputes and economic activities. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1 https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-0005...
      - jessaustin 7y ago
        It might be psychologically satisfying to blame Mother Nature for a particular problem that is the direct result of recent USA military and diplomatic policy, but it seems sort of silly. Millions of people who are still alive right now witnessed the intentional destruction of Iraq's government and civil society, the deliberate transfer of weapons and matériel to nascent anti-civil-society groups, and the intentional weakening of Syria's government and civil society through sanctions and military attacks. We don't have to learn about this; we saw it happen in real time. The Middle East hasn't had rain forests at any time in recorded history. This line of argument is so ridiculous that one is tempted to speculate you're trolling us to make real warming enthusiasts look worse...
pseudosudoer 7y ago
I've always wondered what I, as an individual, could do to help. I work full time, and I have a chronic illness which makes it difficult to physically contribute. I am a software engineer, so I do have technical skills to contribute if there were problems that needed technical solutions, but I simply don't know where to look.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Nothing. We're far past the point of no return at this point. Minimizing the disastrous consequences of climate change requires a coordinated worldwide effort. In principle, the only thing you can do that might make a difference is get active politically. In practice, given the level of dysfunction exhibited in global politics right now, I'm extremely pessimistic that there's any hope of doing anything on that level either.
  - jogjayr 7y ago
    "It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope."
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - antisthenes 7y ago
    Seems like for the next 50 years, politics will be about passing the buck to the next guy in the office.
- kaybe 7y ago
  We do have one problem that could do with a technical solution: If we managed to invent a carbon removal technique scalable and cheap enough to deploy on a massive scale, we'd still be able to prevent the worst. The problem is, currently there is no money in it, so the efforts are not the size they should be. We'd need a war economy on all fronts here.
- 7y ago

crankylinuxuser 7y ago

Rosy or not, we need to plan when it happens. The only if we don't know is how bad it will exactly be. And don't forget, that a very valid answer is "food chain collapses, causing mass starvation and death".

WalterSear 7y ago
It's happening. What's the plan? The rise of ISIS was driven by crop failure due to climate change. The temperature in India reached 123 degrees already this year.
- briandear 7y ago
  The rise of ISIS was not due to climate change, it was a group that arose from AQI, which itself had it origins from Jordanian Jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who, in the 1990s ran jihadist paramilitary camps in Afghanistan. ISIS wasn’t driven by crop failure “due to climate change.” It was essentially a war due to Sunnis not liking Sh’ites — a conflict that has been ongoing for literally centuries. And, in this specific case was due to a power vacuum in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the roots of that conflict are as old as the 1975 Algiers agreement between Iraq and Iran. Attributing ISIS to climate change is about the same as blaming social media for ISIS; arguably social media’s existence actually helped ISIS propagate more than any causes attributed to climate change. ISIS and it’s origins are exceptionally complicated as are most conflicts in that region. To trivialize it by claiming it was because of climate change is to reveal a profound misunderstanding of the history of that region. We can discuss climate change and it’s causes and effects, but it weakens credibility when almost everything gets blamed on it. It’s getting to the point where when one used to say this bad thing happened because “it’s God’s will,” but now people say, “climate change.” It’s taking on religion-levels of influence to where actual causation gets ignored in favor of attributing everything to CO2. Every storm, every war, every bad thing that happens has a least some people trying to use those events to justify their belief systems. Sometimes weather is just weather, war is just war. If we ended all CO2 emissions tomorrow, the Middle East would still be a cauldron, wars would still happen, crops would still fail from time to time, hurricanes would still destroy things, tornados would still happen. Climate is an important issue, but let’s not turn it into a religion.
  - WalterSear 7y ago
    https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-change-drought-drove-isis-terrorist-recruiting-iraq/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-change-d... https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/world/climate-change-terrorism-extremism-africa-middle-east-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/world/climate-change-terroris... > As described here, water and climatic conditions have played a direct role in the deterioration of Syria’s economic conditions. There is a long history of conflicts over water in these regions because of the natural water scarcity, the early development of irrigated agriculture, and complex religious and ethnic diversity. In recent years, there has been an increase in incidences of water-related violence around the world at the subnational level attributable to the role that water plays in development disputes and economic activities. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1 https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-0005...
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      It might be psychologically satisfying to blame Mother Nature for a particular problem that is the direct result of recent USA military and diplomatic policy, but it seems sort of silly. Millions of people who are still alive right now witnessed the intentional destruction of Iraq's government and civil society, the deliberate transfer of weapons and matériel to nascent anti-civil-society groups, and the intentional weakening of Syria's government and civil society through sanctions and military attacks. We don't have to learn about this; we saw it happen in real time. The Middle East hasn't had rain forests at any time in recorded history. This line of argument is so ridiculous that one is tempted to speculate you're trolling us to make real warming enthusiasts look worse...

pseudosudoer 7y ago

I've always wondered what I, as an individual, could do to help. I work full time, and I have a chronic illness which makes it difficult to physically contribute. I am a software engineer, so I do have technical skills to contribute if there were problems that needed technical solutions, but I simply don't know where to look.

0xffff2 7y ago
Nothing. We're far past the point of no return at this point. Minimizing the disastrous consequences of climate change requires a coordinated worldwide effort. In principle, the only thing you can do that might make a difference is get active politically. In practice, given the level of dysfunction exhibited in global politics right now, I'm extremely pessimistic that there's any hope of doing anything on that level either.
- jogjayr 7y ago
  "It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope."
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- antisthenes 7y ago
  Seems like for the next 50 years, politics will be about passing the buck to the next guy in the office.
kaybe 7y ago
We do have one problem that could do with a technical solution: If we managed to invent a carbon removal technique scalable and cheap enough to deploy on a massive scale, we'd still be able to prevent the worst. The problem is, currently there is no money in it, so the efforts are not the size they should be. We'd need a war economy on all fronts here.
7y ago