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We ABSOLUTELY need to make people panic about heatwaves. We need to make people lose sleep about it. Get distracted by it. Feel sick about. Climate change is g

We ABSOLUTELY need to make people panic about heatwaves. We need to make people lose sleep about it. Get distracted by it. Feel sick about. Climate change is going to kill millions if we don't act hard, and fast. We need a global, coordinated, war-like effort immediately to prevent the displacement of billions and a new world war. Coronavirus lockdown is not even going to be a blip on the radar compared to life on this planet if we don't start removing carbon from the atmosphere on a global scale. The fact that it's inconvenient for your stress levels is irrelevant.

chrisseaton 6y ago
We want effective solutions. Panic, sleep deprivation, making people feel sick and stressed is not the way to get those.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  Couldn’t any form of bad news make people panic, sleep deprived, and stressed? I don’t think communicating the science or real world impacts is too hard for people to handle. If it is, we are going to have a lot more problems as the climate continues to warm. Edit: We told citizens about Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks and it caused panic, sleep depravation, and stress. Why is this risk different?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Couldn’t any form of bad news make people panic, sleep deprived, and stressed? Yes... and that's unavoidable but the person I'm replying to is talking about deliberately inducing more panic, sleep deprivation and stress by increasing the dramatics of bad news. That seems bonkers to me. > I don’t think communicating the science or real world impacts is too hard for people to handle. I don't think giving dangerous heatwaves whimsical names is any kind of honest 'science communication.' > We told citizens about Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks and it caused panic, sleep depravation, and stress. Why is this risk different? I think you've imagined that I wrote 'don't tell people about the risks'. I wrote don't artificially ham it up to deliberately cause additional stress. What you want is people taking effective action. Panic, sleep deprivation, and stress isn't the way to get there.
    - take_a_breath 6y ago
      I haven't seen nearly enough action taken, so maybe sounding the alarm louder will push more action? ==I don't think giving dangerous heatwaves whimsical names is any kind of honest 'science communication.'== We do it all the time for other weather events, specifically for communication purposes. I'm not sure people think of hurricane names as "whimsical" rather a way to understand specific details about a specific weather event. ==What you want is people taking effective action.== And what might that "effective action" entail?
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        > And what might that "effective action" entail? Well exactly. We need to figure this out before we deliberately induce mass panic, which would only be destructive without any idea of what action you want to achieve.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    > communicating the science That's not what's happening. What is happening is cherrypicking of speculative results, presenting them as a certainty, because CLICK HERE TO SEE WHY YOU WILL DIE is a lot more attractive than "All the changes will be gradual, and if we keep improving at the current rate of improvements (as opposed to sticking with what we currently have), we will get this under control."
LifeIsThermal 6y ago
That sounds like standard doomsday cult rethoric. Very dangerous and it will end with dictatorship if we listen to that.
fnord123 6y ago
It's too late to use the brakes. The only possible solution is to reclaim the carbon from the atmosphere. Or war to thin out the population. We will obviously settle on war.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
You know what happens after a decade of people using rhetoric like there's a war on? You get an actual war.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  I agree. It's what really concerns me about slogan's like "language is violence". How many steps removed are we from someone then rationalizing that it's acceptable to respond to "violent language" with actual, physical violence? "Silence is violence" takes it even further and could justify rounding up, "reeducating", and ultimately killing people who didn't say anything in support of a moral cause. Discourses do matter and the way we talk about things matters. If you want to make serious change, like with the climate, then using discourses that divide people will never work. We must find the universal humanism in causes and allow people to look inside to find the truth. We can't just coerce people into compliance, especially with how connected people are today and the ability for opposition ideas to take hold much more easily today than historically using hysterics and tribalism to delegitimize each other.
  - andrew_ 6y ago
    It'll be interesting to see if postmodernism dooms us or if another (or previous) philosophy becomes popular to rid us of it.
    - nemo44x 6y ago
      No idea but it mainly appears to be nonnegotiable. It's not really pure post modernism that is the problem. In fact, many of the derivatives of it we see being reified today use it as a base (deconstruct everything) but are not pure in that they create their own meta-narrative, which post modernism was explicitly against. Regardless, the backlash to it is potentially so much more damaging and I hope these people understand the type of fire they're playing with. Identity politics plays both ways and mixed in with classic conflict theory, well it doesn't tend to end well. I'm optimistic that as these frameworks for how the world works are (easily) exposed as the frauds they are and how they are hurtful to a society versus other methods (like universalism and liberal-science approaches) which have worked and will continue to, we'll taper down a bit the discourses. There's some good bits in these philosophies too, to be sure and hopefully they survive. In the end they'll fail because they have no way of constructing a coherent, functional world, much less a peaceful multicultural one. It's just a matter of how many people die to get to that realization.
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
Anyone who can’t laugh needs to go. You’re literally calling for doom-mongering. I laugh in your face.
derefr 6y ago
I’d be down for preventing the accompanying world war, but I’m neutral about displacing billions. Maybe I’m just a naturally-nomadic person, but I don’t see anything too wrong with governments making ultra-long-term plans to negotiate a rewrite of all global geographical borders by “sliding” the definitions of all existing countries further away from the equator and toward the poles, abandoning existing cities “inland” while rebuilding “outland”, and helping all those affected to either resettle, or ensuring they acquire citizenship of the country they now geographically reside in. (Though, with the requirement that those that would end up in the unlivable “no man’s land” zone at the equator, must be resettled.) And also, to make coordinated multilateral investments in increasing the arability of the currently-below-permafrost soil in northern Canada/Russia, Greenland, Antarctica, etc. for the whole world to take advantage of in the future. (This would best be done not suddenly over years, but gradually over a century; with each country “losing” land on a schedule, as if a peninsula being eroded away into the sea; while gaining land at the same pace on the other end. Maybe each country could run a big painted cable across the country representing the border in places where it’s otherwise illegible, and then keep moving it along north/southward with each passing year. That would give people time to become wary of the encroaching border and move away, probably taking advantage of some government tax credit for doing so.) As long as all this is done through negotiated treaties, rather than through war, this sort of mass resettlement seems somewhat like a good idea—even if we don’t experience world-shattering climate change. It’d be a recognition of the fact that some places in the world are (naturally) livable for human beings, while others aren’t. And that people have natural rights, no matter their country of citizenship, to reside in a livable climate. Which means that the people who were already living in not-naturally-livable areas even before recent anthropogenic climate change, would be acknowledged as having the right to resettle somewhere more livable, with governments working to change borders or citizenships to allow them that.
- quesera 6y ago
  This idea is absurd to the point of lunacy. Since you have not provided any discussion on the enormous obvious objections, this is effectively a troll (can I use that word?). It's a comment bomb that would require dissenters to argue with specificities which you have declined to include, in some grossly asymmetric waste of time and energy. So I leave this response, in lieu of a downvote.
thehappypm 6y ago
How exactly does climate change lead to a world war? I can understand that there will be many climate refugees, but refugees don’t form armies that can stand up to a standing Western army. I’ve always understood the biggest threat to be mass displacement and starvation, leading to closed off borders, and poverty and death in severely impacted countries like Bangladesh. But world war? Not so sure. The world powers will easily adapt to climate change. The US is immense and for every county with more forest fires, a faraway county will have better crop yields. For every city abandoned by floods, inland cities will swell in population and prestige.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > For every city abandoned by floods, inland cities will swell in population and prestige That will be poor consolation for the inhabitants of the flooded cities. Also, a lot of infrastructure (think docks and roads) is located on the coasts, often associated with the cities. This will be very expensive to replace in a carbon neutral way, especially as the sea levels continue to rise.
  - thehappypm 6y ago
    I understand it is not ideal, but that’s a huge jump to “world war”.
  - rhino369 6y ago
    It's not going to all happen overnight. You won't see an internal refugee crisis inside rich nations. The cost will be slowly added to insurance premiums and devaluation in price of real-estate that will be underwater in 30 years.
- ip26 6y ago
  The thinking is probably more like, look at how the EU is infighting over who takes the refugees.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  > How exactly does climate change lead to a world war? Climate change leads to changes in changes in rivers and availability of fresh water, irrigation water etc. This can leads to conflicts between large states in resource constrained regions (e.g Middle East or South Asia) that could then spread globally.
macinjosh 6y ago
Quit being a fear mongering alarmist. While it is measurable and real, there is zero evidence to show that climate change will necessarily kill millions. Humans have adapted and overcome, we will again. The farce of climate alarmism is starting to show its cracks. For example, well known, long-time environmentalist Michael Shellenberger wrote an entire book on how unhelpful alarmism and panic is to really find solutions to climate change.
- serial_dev 6y ago
  I recommend Michael's book,it's great. I'm not sure if *everything he says is 100% correct, but many points he raises make total sense, and just by bringing up some of his concerns in a normal conversation, I would be put into the same box with the flat earthers. Science is not as clear cut as most people would like to think, especially in regards to very complex systems. Simulations and models are just that, simulations and models.
hutzlibu 6y ago
And then with all the panicked, stressed out, sleepless annoyed people, you believe we are in a better position to focus our energies towards change? I doubt it. Fear does only very seldom lead to more rationale behavior. I would rather suspect the confusion and riots and breaking up of society would just start sooner this way.
serial_dev 6y ago
I'm honestly not sure if you are being serious. Children around the world are suffering eco-anxiety over climate change, and it is not clear that their (or anyone else's) anxiety will result in better outcomes.

chrisseaton 6y ago

We want effective solutions. Panic, sleep deprivation, making people feel sick and stressed is not the way to get those.

take_a_breath 6y ago
Couldn’t any form of bad news make people panic, sleep deprived, and stressed? I don’t think communicating the science or real world impacts is too hard for people to handle. If it is, we are going to have a lot more problems as the climate continues to warm. Edit: We told citizens about Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks and it caused panic, sleep depravation, and stress. Why is this risk different?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Couldn’t any form of bad news make people panic, sleep deprived, and stressed? Yes... and that's unavoidable but the person I'm replying to is talking about deliberately inducing more panic, sleep deprivation and stress by increasing the dramatics of bad news. That seems bonkers to me. > I don’t think communicating the science or real world impacts is too hard for people to handle. I don't think giving dangerous heatwaves whimsical names is any kind of honest 'science communication.' > We told citizens about Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks and it caused panic, sleep depravation, and stress. Why is this risk different? I think you've imagined that I wrote 'don't tell people about the risks'. I wrote don't artificially ham it up to deliberately cause additional stress. What you want is people taking effective action. Panic, sleep deprivation, and stress isn't the way to get there.
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    I haven't seen nearly enough action taken, so maybe sounding the alarm louder will push more action? ==I don't think giving dangerous heatwaves whimsical names is any kind of honest 'science communication.'== We do it all the time for other weather events, specifically for communication purposes. I'm not sure people think of hurricane names as "whimsical" rather a way to understand specific details about a specific weather event. ==What you want is people taking effective action.== And what might that "effective action" entail?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > And what might that "effective action" entail? Well exactly. We need to figure this out before we deliberately induce mass panic, which would only be destructive without any idea of what action you want to achieve.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  > communicating the science That's not what's happening. What is happening is cherrypicking of speculative results, presenting them as a certainty, because CLICK HERE TO SEE WHY YOU WILL DIE is a lot more attractive than "All the changes will be gradual, and if we keep improving at the current rate of improvements (as opposed to sticking with what we currently have), we will get this under control."

LifeIsThermal 6y ago

That sounds like standard doomsday cult rethoric. Very dangerous and it will end with dictatorship if we listen to that.

fnord123 6y ago

It's too late to use the brakes. The only possible solution is to reclaim the carbon from the atmosphere. Or war to thin out the population. We will obviously settle on war.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

You know what happens after a decade of people using rhetoric like there's a war on? You get an actual war.

nemo44x 6y ago
I agree. It's what really concerns me about slogan's like "language is violence". How many steps removed are we from someone then rationalizing that it's acceptable to respond to "violent language" with actual, physical violence? "Silence is violence" takes it even further and could justify rounding up, "reeducating", and ultimately killing people who didn't say anything in support of a moral cause. Discourses do matter and the way we talk about things matters. If you want to make serious change, like with the climate, then using discourses that divide people will never work. We must find the universal humanism in causes and allow people to look inside to find the truth. We can't just coerce people into compliance, especially with how connected people are today and the ability for opposition ideas to take hold much more easily today than historically using hysterics and tribalism to delegitimize each other.
- andrew_ 6y ago
  It'll be interesting to see if postmodernism dooms us or if another (or previous) philosophy becomes popular to rid us of it.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    No idea but it mainly appears to be nonnegotiable. It's not really pure post modernism that is the problem. In fact, many of the derivatives of it we see being reified today use it as a base (deconstruct everything) but are not pure in that they create their own meta-narrative, which post modernism was explicitly against. Regardless, the backlash to it is potentially so much more damaging and I hope these people understand the type of fire they're playing with. Identity politics plays both ways and mixed in with classic conflict theory, well it doesn't tend to end well. I'm optimistic that as these frameworks for how the world works are (easily) exposed as the frauds they are and how they are hurtful to a society versus other methods (like universalism and liberal-science approaches) which have worked and will continue to, we'll taper down a bit the discourses. There's some good bits in these philosophies too, to be sure and hopefully they survive. In the end they'll fail because they have no way of constructing a coherent, functional world, much less a peaceful multicultural one. It's just a matter of how many people die to get to that realization.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

Anyone who can’t laugh needs to go. You’re literally calling for doom-mongering. I laugh in your face.

derefr 6y ago

I’d be down for preventing the accompanying world war, but I’m neutral about displacing billions. Maybe I’m just a naturally-nomadic person, but I don’t see anything too wrong with governments making ultra-long-term plans to negotiate a rewrite of all global geographical borders by “sliding” the definitions of all existing countries further away from the equator and toward the poles, abandoning existing cities “inland” while rebuilding “outland”, and helping all those affected to either resettle, or ensuring they acquire citizenship of the country they now geographically reside in. (Though, with the requirement that those that would end up in the unlivable “no man’s land” zone at the equator, must be resettled.) And also, to make coordinated multilateral investments in increasing the arability of the currently-below-permafrost soil in northern Canada/Russia, Greenland, Antarctica, etc. for the whole world to take advantage of in the future. (This would best be done not suddenly over years, but gradually over a century; with each country “losing” land on a schedule, as if a peninsula being eroded away into the sea; while gaining land at the same pace on the other end. Maybe each country could run a big painted cable across the country representing the border in places where it’s otherwise illegible, and then keep moving it along north/southward with each passing year. That would give people time to become wary of the encroaching border and move away, probably taking advantage of some government tax credit for doing so.) As long as all this is done through negotiated treaties, rather than through war, this sort of mass resettlement seems somewhat like a good idea—even if we don’t experience world-shattering climate change. It’d be a recognition of the fact that some places in the world are (naturally) livable for human beings, while others aren’t. And that people have natural rights, no matter their country of citizenship, to reside in a livable climate. Which means that the people who were already living in not-naturally-livable areas even before recent anthropogenic climate change, would be acknowledged as having the right to resettle somewhere more livable, with governments working to change borders or citizenships to allow them that.

quesera 6y ago
This idea is absurd to the point of lunacy. Since you have not provided any discussion on the enormous obvious objections, this is effectively a troll (can I use that word?). It's a comment bomb that would require dissenters to argue with specificities which you have declined to include, in some grossly asymmetric waste of time and energy. So I leave this response, in lieu of a downvote.

thehappypm 6y ago

How exactly does climate change lead to a world war? I can understand that there will be many climate refugees, but refugees don’t form armies that can stand up to a standing Western army. I’ve always understood the biggest threat to be mass displacement and starvation, leading to closed off borders, and poverty and death in severely impacted countries like Bangladesh. But world war? Not so sure. The world powers will easily adapt to climate change. The US is immense and for every county with more forest fires, a faraway county will have better crop yields. For every city abandoned by floods, inland cities will swell in population and prestige.

KineticLensman 6y ago
> For every city abandoned by floods, inland cities will swell in population and prestige That will be poor consolation for the inhabitants of the flooded cities. Also, a lot of infrastructure (think docks and roads) is located on the coasts, often associated with the cities. This will be very expensive to replace in a carbon neutral way, especially as the sea levels continue to rise.
- thehappypm 6y ago
  I understand it is not ideal, but that’s a huge jump to “world war”.
- rhino369 6y ago
  It's not going to all happen overnight. You won't see an internal refugee crisis inside rich nations. The cost will be slowly added to insurance premiums and devaluation in price of real-estate that will be underwater in 30 years.
ip26 6y ago
The thinking is probably more like, look at how the EU is infighting over who takes the refugees.
umeshunni 6y ago
> How exactly does climate change lead to a world war? Climate change leads to changes in changes in rivers and availability of fresh water, irrigation water etc. This can leads to conflicts between large states in resource constrained regions (e.g Middle East or South Asia) that could then spread globally.

macinjosh 6y ago

Quit being a fear mongering alarmist. While it is measurable and real, there is zero evidence to show that climate change will necessarily kill millions. Humans have adapted and overcome, we will again. The farce of climate alarmism is starting to show its cracks. For example, well known, long-time environmentalist Michael Shellenberger wrote an entire book on how unhelpful alarmism and panic is to really find solutions to climate change.

serial_dev 6y ago
I recommend Michael's book,it's great. I'm not sure if *everything he says is 100% correct, but many points he raises make total sense, and just by bringing up some of his concerns in a normal conversation, I would be put into the same box with the flat earthers. Science is not as clear cut as most people would like to think, especially in regards to very complex systems. Simulations and models are just that, simulations and models.

hutzlibu 6y ago

And then with all the panicked, stressed out, sleepless annoyed people, you believe we are in a better position to focus our energies towards change? I doubt it. Fear does only very seldom lead to more rationale behavior. I would rather suspect the confusion and riots and breaking up of society would just start sooner this way.

serial_dev 6y ago

I'm honestly not sure if you are being serious. Children around the world are suffering eco-anxiety over climate change, and it is not clear that their (or anyone else's) anxiety will result in better outcomes.