4 ms·
Many of these seem like wishful thinking on the part of the author. For example, take the first one: > The looming climate crisis will be to this century what
by aazaa 7y ago
Many of these seem like wishful thinking on the part of the author. For example, take the first one:
> The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars were to the previous one.
Oddly enough, if you go back to 2010 for predictions about the next decade, you'll see quite a few people talking about "peak oil." Almost nobody predicted a sharp turnaround in oil production and I don't think anyone in 2009 was predicting that the US would become a net oil exporter by the start of 2020.
I'll make a counter-prediction on the topic of climate crisis for the 2020s:
The climate crisis movement will become widely discredited for its attempts to manipulate scientific data and the scientific process for political ends. Grave prophecies of doom will not come to pass, causing loss of momentum and credibility. Climate research will continue, and as a result, new thermal regulatory mechanisms will emerge that lead to a more nuanced view of future climate change.
- commandlinefan 7y ago> Grave prophecies of doom will not come to pass, causing loss of momentum and credibility. Why would you think this? Grave prophecies of doom have failed to come to pass for nearly half a century now and the climate change tale is _gaining_ momentum.
- pmiller2 7y agoFailed to come to pass? Are you aware there’s an entire continent literally on fire right now?
- RookyNumbas 7y agoAustralia is always on fire. More of has burnt many times, many decades ago. I'm not saying that climate change isn't responsible. I do believe that it has increased the severity of the situation, and that is a big problem. But this is not a doomsday scenario. It's a once every 20 years going back as long as we can measure scenario. I think your reaction is a perfect example of what the parent comment is talking about.
- acdha 7y agoThose estimates have been right on the money for decades: https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projections-on-target-so-far/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projec... The problem is that since the late 1970s some very wealthy companies realized that this was happening and started spending money to try to muddy the scientific consensus and discourage action. Losing decades means that anything we do now is going to be harder since we’re starting much further behind.
- s_Hogg 7y agoI'm in a country that has seen the land mass of Indonesia (population: approx. 240 million), burn off in the last month or so. I'm not sure where you are (somewhere colder?), but it's real and happening now and there's no further argument to be had about it really. Talking about the credibility of institutions changes nothing of the actuality of what is actually going on.
- RookyNumbas 7y agoI agree. Activism, Politics, Inter-governmental cooperation and policies will not be what alleviates the dangers of climate change. A few major technological breakthroughs will rock the world and we will be having a much different discussion in 20 years. The area we will struggle with the most is fixing what we've done to our oceans.
- gfodor 7y ago100% agree. Simple economics, self interest, and riding technological curves seem likely to be the things which silently solve climate change compared to the ongoing advocacy towards creating a moral panic. The world wants and needs free, limitless energy, and there is no reason humanity can’t achieve that goal in the next decades.
- jopsen 7y agoHmm... I suspect the movements have been so scared of loosing credibility that the predictions we have might be underestimating what will happen. Notice, that the scientific consensus does not spell doom and gloom.. just bad warmer weather, raising oceans, etc.
- WizardAustralis 7y agoPeak oil is funny, there were a lot of people that were riding the doom train and predicting that we where heading to the sudden crash kind of collapse. Obviously it didn't happen and those ideas are comical. Peak oil didn't so much disappear as its ideas matured into a much more realistic depiction of it. Dr Hagans said that naming it peak oil was a bit silly and that it should have been called "Peak benefit of oil to society", that something that I can get behind. The current idea is that the second peak will occur somewhere in the mid 20's as the debt load on fracking slows down additional drilling locations, this will raise prices and thus bring on even more newer more costly supplies as ultra-deep sea drilling, coal liquefaction becomes viable. Wheather this leads to a new increase in supply of just sustaining a plateau is anyone guess. Hopefully demand decreases and we move to alternative energy sources in time. Some of the more reserved writers in the field did predict the production rebound and the higher prices that came with it, the idea that the issues of peak oil would be something that is a rocky road type of event that happens and fluctuates over a century not a sudden event. Folks like John Michael Greer and Dr Nate Hagans seem to be the most realistic folks in this area nowadays talking about the limits of oil production while focusing on possible future energy solutions. John Michael Greer is a staggeringly convincing writer that has a fairly solid concept of the future of western industrial society. Essentially the idea that due to a wide degree of economic, social and environmental factors that we are in a situation that cannot be recovered from. He writes things that I don't want to agree with but they appear to hold water at least on the short term. I would recommend his books 'The Long Decent' and 'Dark Age America'. The other reason why I mention his work is that his predictions are fairly in line with yours, the idea that the environmental movement is about to go quiet again because of the extreme message being pushed. That we are still learning how the climate reacts and that we do not have all the information. Climate blowback is going to be extreme but it will be a slow moving event.
- carapace 7y agoPeak oil is still a thing, it was delayed by fracking. Oil is still a non-renewable resource.