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Living through a heat dome was terrifying… seeing birds pant and plants die a couple days after the extreme heat. I hope this spurs everyone to take climate ch

Living through a heat dome was terrifying… seeing birds pant and plants die a couple days after the extreme heat. I hope this spurs everyone to take climate change more seriously but I won’t hold my breath.

VonGuard 5y ago
I have come to the conclusion that climate change will have to cause enough scarcity and enough chaos to require despotic governmental changes towards environmental preservation. It's going to have to get absolutely terrible, and when it does, we'll snap very far back in the other direction and put people to death for polluting... The mealy mouth bullshit we do now, where every individual is accountable, but the corporations behind most of the emissions and waste are not, is absurd. We'll never have resealable, recycleable plastic chip bags, for example, because that would cost someone money.... We're basically cornering humanity into some kind of horrible hellscape future where we're all going to be killing each other for electricity or waffles or god knows what...
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  You could argue that the chaos is already starting. My faith in humanity is so low at this point that I expect the solution could just as easily end up being global conflict that significantly decreases the population, rather than actually fixing anything. Poor countries will suffer terribly long before rich countries give a flying fart about it.
  - tolbish 5y ago
    End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1. Kinda sorta. If things become so chaotic that they have to flee to those bunkers, there's a decent chance the political situation afterwards won't allow them to return to their previous positions. So, unless their bunker has enough weapons for a small army and they have the skills and mentality to become a petty warlord in rural post-apocalyptic New Zealand, all they can really count on getting from it is a somewhat higher chance to survive.
- ngokevin 5y ago
  Half of the US is still in denial that the pandemic was a big deal after 600K+ deaths, and they are even outspoken here. And I imagine climate denialists are in even stronger numbers. What path do you think it will be taken seriously even after the heat waves, freezes, wildfires, storms we've already been having?
  - loopz 5y ago
    In 6-12 months trend may show up in averages, pointing to escape of temperature and with still more extreme events picking up. The sad part is if this really happens, it may already be too late. If events cool down a bit, the excuses come back on. Once icecaps melts and sea levels rise there's no known turning back. CO2 can't and won't drop significantly in our lifetime without unconvential means. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html Would like nothing better than to be proven wrong.
hourislate 5y ago
Part of the problem is what might seem terrifying to you is everyday for a lot of folks in the South/South West. In Texas there are plenty of nights where it doesn't drop below 100F. In Arizona there are a lot of days where you can be cooked alive.
- marricks 5y ago
  The pacific northwest doesn't look like Texas though. Our birds, mammals, forests, I don't think any of it could withstand that heat regularly. What we're talking about is one biome being changed out for another if this becomes regular. Allegedly this heat wave is 1 in 1000 years but who knows what is normal now.
  - FigmentEngine 5y ago
    https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/western-north-american-extreme-heat-virtually-impossible-without-human-caused-climate-change/ https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/western-north-americ... it wad made 150 times more likely due to cc so far, hence the 1/1000. so we can expect those odds to get more likely - even if we stopped emitting today, those odds look bad.
    - marricks 5y ago
      That was a bitter read. Most terrifyingly to me is those odds of 1/1000 (which only get worse) aren't even the most terrifying prospect for the region: "There are two possible sources of this extreme jump in peak temperatures. The first is that this is a very low probability event[...] The second option is that nonlinear interactions in the climate have substantially increased the probability of such extreme heat, much beyond the gradual increase in heat extremes that has been observed up to now" So something could have changed in the dynamics for the region which greatly increased the chances of this occurrence. Really hope that isn't the case here...
  - UncleOxidant 5y ago
    > The pacific northwest doesn't look like Texas though. Our birds, mammals, forests, I don't think any of it could withstand that heat regularly. Exactly. I'm already seeing deciduous trees dropping leaves here in Western Oregon a good 3 months early due to that heatwave. A lot of conifers not looking great either. Those temps put tremendous stress on our ecosystem. They don't have large amounts of fuel in the form of trees in places like TX, if a large portion of our trees start dying it's going to make fire season even more horrific than it has been in recent years.

VonGuard 5y ago

I have come to the conclusion that climate change will have to cause enough scarcity and enough chaos to require despotic governmental changes towards environmental preservation. It's going to have to get absolutely terrible, and when it does, we'll snap very far back in the other direction and put people to death for polluting... The mealy mouth bullshit we do now, where every individual is accountable, but the corporations behind most of the emissions and waste are not, is absurd. We'll never have resealable, recycleable plastic chip bags, for example, because that would cost someone money.... We're basically cornering humanity into some kind of horrible hellscape future where we're all going to be killing each other for electricity or waffles or god knows what...

metalliqaz 5y ago
You could argue that the chaos is already starting. My faith in humanity is so low at this point that I expect the solution could just as easily end up being global conflict that significantly decreases the population, rather than actually fixing anything. Poor countries will suffer terribly long before rich countries give a flying fart about it.
- tolbish 5y ago
  End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > End up? It's a circle. The rich will just hang out in their New Zealand bunkers until the chaos subsides, then back to square 1. Kinda sorta. If things become so chaotic that they have to flee to those bunkers, there's a decent chance the political situation afterwards won't allow them to return to their previous positions. So, unless their bunker has enough weapons for a small army and they have the skills and mentality to become a petty warlord in rural post-apocalyptic New Zealand, all they can really count on getting from it is a somewhat higher chance to survive.
ngokevin 5y ago
Half of the US is still in denial that the pandemic was a big deal after 600K+ deaths, and they are even outspoken here. And I imagine climate denialists are in even stronger numbers. What path do you think it will be taken seriously even after the heat waves, freezes, wildfires, storms we've already been having?
- loopz 5y ago
  In 6-12 months trend may show up in averages, pointing to escape of temperature and with still more extreme events picking up. The sad part is if this really happens, it may already be too late. If events cool down a bit, the excuses come back on. Once icecaps melts and sea levels rise there's no known turning back. CO2 can't and won't drop significantly in our lifetime without unconvential means. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html Would like nothing better than to be proven wrong.

hourislate 5y ago

Part of the problem is what might seem terrifying to you is everyday for a lot of folks in the South/South West. In Texas there are plenty of nights where it doesn't drop below 100F. In Arizona there are a lot of days where you can be cooked alive.

marricks 5y ago
The pacific northwest doesn't look like Texas though. Our birds, mammals, forests, I don't think any of it could withstand that heat regularly. What we're talking about is one biome being changed out for another if this becomes regular. Allegedly this heat wave is 1 in 1000 years but who knows what is normal now.
- FigmentEngine 5y ago
  https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/western-north-american-extreme-heat-virtually-impossible-without-human-caused-climate-change/ https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/western-north-americ... it wad made 150 times more likely due to cc so far, hence the 1/1000. so we can expect those odds to get more likely - even if we stopped emitting today, those odds look bad.
  - marricks 5y ago
    That was a bitter read. Most terrifyingly to me is those odds of 1/1000 (which only get worse) aren't even the most terrifying prospect for the region: "There are two possible sources of this extreme jump in peak temperatures. The first is that this is a very low probability event[...] The second option is that nonlinear interactions in the climate have substantially increased the probability of such extreme heat, much beyond the gradual increase in heat extremes that has been observed up to now" So something could have changed in the dynamics for the region which greatly increased the chances of this occurrence. Really hope that isn't the case here...
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  > The pacific northwest doesn't look like Texas though. Our birds, mammals, forests, I don't think any of it could withstand that heat regularly. Exactly. I'm already seeing deciduous trees dropping leaves here in Western Oregon a good 3 months early due to that heatwave. A lot of conifers not looking great either. Those temps put tremendous stress on our ecosystem. They don't have large amounts of fuel in the form of trees in places like TX, if a large portion of our trees start dying it's going to make fire season even more horrific than it has been in recent years.