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I'm terrified. For example: The ice cap melts are accelerating a lot faster than modelled. The mechanisms are not yet perfectly understood. The major flows of

I'm terrified. For example: The ice cap melts are accelerating a lot faster than modelled. The mechanisms are not yet perfectly understood. The major flows of sea water (e.g. Gulf Stream) are at risk of changing completely with the temperature changes, which means dramatic changes in climate for Europe (colder), USA (warmer) (for example) are possible. Who knows - and the answer is nobody really. The acidification of the oceans as they absorb more and more CO2 is making it harder for phytoplankton to grow. Take away this basic building block of the ocean ecosystem and the ultimate outcome is dead sea, with no ability to generate oxygen, and toxic gases emitted. That will change our atmosphere to be deadly. These and so many others are not just exponential trends, but have unknown knowns (e.g. methane released from Arctic) and unknown unknowns that will magnify the impact. As people involved in high growth companies and the internet we understand exponential growth - but the politicians and even scientists are reluctant to understand and embrace the consequences. Meanwhile we are still increasing, not decreasing CO2e emissions. Emissions need to decrease sharply now, to zero, for us to have a chance, and even then it's hard. There is no political will. We are too comfortable. And then it will be too late. We should ask ourselves the question - what can we do that's more important than helping to reduce global emissions? And then do something. There are lots of ways to help, and none of us can do it all, but we all need to do something, and take leadership roles to make the changes.

agentultra 7y ago
Agreed. I think one of the ways we could survive this is to radically reform our philosophies and politics. We need to make amends with and reform indigenous rights. LBGTQ+ and women's rights. Abandon capitalism. Accept immigrant and migration. Change our perception of what it means to be happy from endless consumerism to self-actualization and social acceptance. We may have to scale back our modern lives: abandon international tourism, next-day delivery, unlimited energy and clean water, built-in obsolescence, disposable culture etc. Re-design the technology too useful to abandon to be low-impact: as little energy as possible, reliable and interchangeable components, peer-to-peer networks and protocols, etc. Design our lives for near-zero emissions, near-zero waste. Re-learn lost arts like ship building, wood working, forestry, cloth making, foraging, water management, perma-culture, and what it's like to live without plastic, etc. I believe we have as much capacity for making the environment better as we do for destroying it. It's a matter of will, perception, determination and luck. I hope we all make it.
- primroot 7y ago
  I can't upvote this enough. The way I see it, the Holocene is over, no more neolithic civilization, unless we keep powering the machines with lots of energy in order to cling to the past (which is a big part of the use we have been giving to machines, and the reason why Modernity is a sham) as mythified by our collective amnesia. We need to integrate our lives with the ecosystem in order to create virtuous cycles of soil restoration, reconsider ways of living that would make us more resilient in the face of modern technology being unavailable, and start questioning the institutions of civilization such as marriage and private property. When collapse arrives the latter too are just unavoidable, the Earth will ruthlessly desecrate our myths and idols, so it's better if we ourselves do it in a more orderly fashion, waking up from the dreams for which we have abused technology as a sort of hallucinogenic soporific.
  - futureastronaut 7y ago
    You won't find much neolithic civilization outside of North Sentinel Island and the deep Amazon.
    - primroot 7y ago
      Thanks, I stand corrected. I abused the term. I meant to say civilization as a society where humans depend primarily on agriculture for their survival, as the appearance of such a society coincides with the start of the Holocene.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  How can rights movements fix the environment? The rest is indeed true, the problem being if you drop consumerism capitalism fails and at the same time people realise they are doing irrelevant things such as arguing on the internet instead of doing. Since even with currently more intelligent (though not experienced with revolts) masses the average is not great, things would turn ugly. (Including more terrible leaders.) The primary problem is that outrage is extremely easy to divert and push. To any ends, including violent. The other problems are that people still do not know to cooperate in general, and still prefer short term feel-good measures to long term results. (And ecology used to work on geological scales...)
vixen99 7y ago
Why the 'we'? https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-carbon-emissions-in-2017-fell-to-levels-last-seen-in-1890 https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-carbon-emissions-in-... - etc., https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#8875a7353558 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-... (2017 admittedly).

agentultra 7y ago

Agreed. I think one of the ways we could survive this is to radically reform our philosophies and politics. We need to make amends with and reform indigenous rights. LBGTQ+ and women's rights. Abandon capitalism. Accept immigrant and migration. Change our perception of what it means to be happy from endless consumerism to self-actualization and social acceptance. We may have to scale back our modern lives: abandon international tourism, next-day delivery, unlimited energy and clean water, built-in obsolescence, disposable culture etc. Re-design the technology too useful to abandon to be low-impact: as little energy as possible, reliable and interchangeable components, peer-to-peer networks and protocols, etc. Design our lives for near-zero emissions, near-zero waste. Re-learn lost arts like ship building, wood working, forestry, cloth making, foraging, water management, perma-culture, and what it's like to live without plastic, etc. I believe we have as much capacity for making the environment better as we do for destroying it. It's a matter of will, perception, determination and luck. I hope we all make it.

primroot 7y ago
I can't upvote this enough. The way I see it, the Holocene is over, no more neolithic civilization, unless we keep powering the machines with lots of energy in order to cling to the past (which is a big part of the use we have been giving to machines, and the reason why Modernity is a sham) as mythified by our collective amnesia. We need to integrate our lives with the ecosystem in order to create virtuous cycles of soil restoration, reconsider ways of living that would make us more resilient in the face of modern technology being unavailable, and start questioning the institutions of civilization such as marriage and private property. When collapse arrives the latter too are just unavoidable, the Earth will ruthlessly desecrate our myths and idols, so it's better if we ourselves do it in a more orderly fashion, waking up from the dreams for which we have abused technology as a sort of hallucinogenic soporific.
- futureastronaut 7y ago
  You won't find much neolithic civilization outside of North Sentinel Island and the deep Amazon.
  - primroot 7y ago
    Thanks, I stand corrected. I abused the term. I meant to say civilization as a society where humans depend primarily on agriculture for their survival, as the appearance of such a society coincides with the start of the Holocene.
AstralStorm 7y ago
How can rights movements fix the environment? The rest is indeed true, the problem being if you drop consumerism capitalism fails and at the same time people realise they are doing irrelevant things such as arguing on the internet instead of doing. Since even with currently more intelligent (though not experienced with revolts) masses the average is not great, things would turn ugly. (Including more terrible leaders.) The primary problem is that outrage is extremely easy to divert and push. To any ends, including violent. The other problems are that people still do not know to cooperate in general, and still prefer short term feel-good measures to long term results. (And ecology used to work on geological scales...)

vixen99 7y ago

Why the 'we'? https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-carbon-emissions-in-2017-fell-to-levels-last-seen-in-1890 https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-carbon-emissions-in-... - etc., https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#8875a7353558 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-... (2017 admittedly).