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I totally agree with the article but god do I hate when people say "we only have N years left!" as it is something for all the climate change deniers to focus o

I totally agree with the article but god do I hate when people say "we only have N years left!" as it is something for all the climate change deniers to focus on and attack to discount the points made so the conversation just focuses on some stupid number that is nothing of real value and nothing moves forward. We get stuck in this dumb loop. The reality is we're already too fucking late. We should have been doing things 50 years ago but we didn't and so the future is already written. 5 years. 10 years. 20 years. 50 years. 100 years. It is all fucked. From all the things I have seen and read from experts over the past ten or so years there isn't really anything we can actually do so that things are less fucked in our lifetimes. And probably in the lifetime of people born just today. So actions we take are for the benefit of people who do not even exist yet and it seems pretty much impossible to get people to care about the future of the human race if it means making life 'more difficult' now and probably for the rest of their lives. The same has been true, probably, for all of human history but certainly so in the past 50 years. Seems the vast majority didn't really give a shit 50 years ago or 40 years ago or ... as basically fuck all has been done outside of token gestures and bullshit targets that there is no real penalty if you fail to meet because, after all, who gives a fuck about the future when you can have a few more quarters of exponential growth for share holders and pay a bit to "offset" your carbon footprint.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago
You're describing people as if they are selfish and don't care about the future of humanity. That's not what this is. This is a tragedy of the commons. Virtually no single person has the power to combat climate change. If I could make a meaningful difference, I would happily trade my comfortable existence to save the planet. But I can't. Nothing I do will make a difference. So why should I reduce my carbon foot print or make any other sacrifice, when the world will be just the same with or without my sacrifice? And there you go, a few billion people thinking like me and suddenly this group has real (negative) impact.
- satysin 5y ago
  Yes. A person isn’t really selfish and will almost always make sacrifices to be better. But people as a whole are selfish for exactly the reasons you said. When I say people I don’t mean an individual person.
- MattPalmer1086 5y ago
  When I was a kid I saw a poster about littering, which made a big impact on me. The poster just had a background of rubbish covered with speech bubbles all saying "my one bit of litter won't make any difference". So while I agree that many people will not change unless they see everyone else doing it, I still think it is worth trying to make a difference on a personal level, even if only to satisfy my own conscience.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    If you make a change out of a sense of moral obligation ("conscience", as you put it), that's applaudable. Moral obligation can also be a good hook to appeal to people to change their habits. However, one person's behavior has no impact. It does not "make a difference". When you say that you're "trying to make a difference", that doesn't make sense to me, because there's no plausible mechanism by which you could achieve that difference.
    - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
      It does make a small difference though, and may influence others to do the same. It may not make enough difference to fix the problem, but that is beyond my control.
CarelessExpert 5y ago
> From all the things I have seen and read from experts over the past ten or so years there isn't really anything we can actually do so that things are less fucked in our lifetimes. While that's what we once thought, the latest science says it's not true. If we stopped emitting carbon immediately, warming would halt (not reverse but halt) within a few decades: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/07/global-heating-stabilize-net-zero-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/07/global-h... So there's absolutely something we could do, today, to lessen how much the future is fucked in our lifetimes. We just refuse to do it.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Wouldn't most agree that the chaos of stopping -all- carbon emissions tomorrow would likely be far more damaging to humanity than what global warming will do in the next few decades if we don't?
  - CarelessExpert 5y ago
    Wow, talk about a straw man. The very same evidence means If we slow carbon emissions over, say, the next decade, warming will slow accordingly with a lag of a few decades. If we reduce emissions a lot, warming will slow a lot. If we stop emissions warning will stop. All within our lifetimes. And every fraction of a degree the globe doesn't warm will have significant impacts to outcomes due to the non-linear effects highlighted in this article. The OPs claim is we can't do anything now to change our trajectory within ours or even our children's lifetimes; that the trajectory of climate change is locked in at this point thanks to the carbon we've already emitted; that "5 years. 10 years. 20 years. 50 years. 100 years. It is all fucked." and that "the future is already written." That's simply false, though in the OPs defense we've only come to understand that recently due to improved modelling. We can meaningfully change our future today. We simply refuse to do so.
    - BackBlast 5y ago
      It's not a straw man. Effects of warming are guesses. Stopping the activities that release carbon is understood much better and stopping cold turkey rights now will very likely result in economic depression, blackouts, inability to heat homes, and death. The main question is, do we invest in a future mitigation or to get off carbon emissions now? Future mitigation had a lot to recommend it from a risk perspective, we wouldn't be throwing good money after bad policy like we might be doing now.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago

You're describing people as if they are selfish and don't care about the future of humanity. That's not what this is. This is a tragedy of the commons. Virtually no single person has the power to combat climate change. If I could make a meaningful difference, I would happily trade my comfortable existence to save the planet. But I can't. Nothing I do will make a difference. So why should I reduce my carbon foot print or make any other sacrifice, when the world will be just the same with or without my sacrifice? And there you go, a few billion people thinking like me and suddenly this group has real (negative) impact.

satysin 5y ago
Yes. A person isn’t really selfish and will almost always make sacrifices to be better. But people as a whole are selfish for exactly the reasons you said. When I say people I don’t mean an individual person.
MattPalmer1086 5y ago
When I was a kid I saw a poster about littering, which made a big impact on me. The poster just had a background of rubbish covered with speech bubbles all saying "my one bit of litter won't make any difference". So while I agree that many people will not change unless they see everyone else doing it, I still think it is worth trying to make a difference on a personal level, even if only to satisfy my own conscience.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  If you make a change out of a sense of moral obligation ("conscience", as you put it), that's applaudable. Moral obligation can also be a good hook to appeal to people to change their habits. However, one person's behavior has no impact. It does not "make a difference". When you say that you're "trying to make a difference", that doesn't make sense to me, because there's no plausible mechanism by which you could achieve that difference.
  - MattPalmer1086 5y ago
    It does make a small difference though, and may influence others to do the same. It may not make enough difference to fix the problem, but that is beyond my control.

CarelessExpert 5y ago

> From all the things I have seen and read from experts over the past ten or so years there isn't really anything we can actually do so that things are less fucked in our lifetimes. While that's what we once thought, the latest science says it's not true. If we stopped emitting carbon immediately, warming would halt (not reverse but halt) within a few decades: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/07/global-heating-stabilize-net-zero-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/07/global-h... So there's absolutely something we could do, today, to lessen how much the future is fucked in our lifetimes. We just refuse to do it.

jjeaff 5y ago
Wouldn't most agree that the chaos of stopping -all- carbon emissions tomorrow would likely be far more damaging to humanity than what global warming will do in the next few decades if we don't?
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  Wow, talk about a straw man. The very same evidence means If we slow carbon emissions over, say, the next decade, warming will slow accordingly with a lag of a few decades. If we reduce emissions a lot, warming will slow a lot. If we stop emissions warning will stop. All within our lifetimes. And every fraction of a degree the globe doesn't warm will have significant impacts to outcomes due to the non-linear effects highlighted in this article. The OPs claim is we can't do anything now to change our trajectory within ours or even our children's lifetimes; that the trajectory of climate change is locked in at this point thanks to the carbon we've already emitted; that "5 years. 10 years. 20 years. 50 years. 100 years. It is all fucked." and that "the future is already written." That's simply false, though in the OPs defense we've only come to understand that recently due to improved modelling. We can meaningfully change our future today. We simply refuse to do so.
  - BackBlast 5y ago
    It's not a straw man. Effects of warming are guesses. Stopping the activities that release carbon is understood much better and stopping cold turkey rights now will very likely result in economic depression, blackouts, inability to heat homes, and death. The main question is, do we invest in a future mitigation or to get off carbon emissions now? Future mitigation had a lot to recommend it from a risk perspective, we wouldn't be throwing good money after bad policy like we might be doing now.