9 ms·

Climate Clock

44 points by amar-laksh 5y ago

Syonyk 5y ago
Except... what's going to happen is that "not enough" will get done by then, and the world won't end overnight. So what's the point, exactly? This is like the death cults claiming The World Will End At Exactly... - and it doesn't, and the whole thing fizzles out. 1.5C will suck. 2C will suck more. Etc. But it's not like there's some magical point where it won't suck.
- axutio 5y ago
  And when it fizzles out, it'll just become more fodder for climate change denialists down the line. Six years from now, they'll point to this as another piece of evidence that climate change isn't real/is a conspiracy/is heavily overblown. Alarmists have for decades and continue to harm actual progress in the fight against climate change.
  - AstralStorm 5y ago
    It won't fizzle out, that's the problem. There's no maximum GHG dose atmosphere can't take. And the planet has been hotter in the past too. The thing is, there were no humans at the time and life was a bit different. We're talking some 50 year timespan to terrible effects, that means most everyone here will be affected. They may be affected more or less. Current trajectory is on more, bordering on deadly. The time for low impact has passed, thanks to people like you dismissing actual scientists as alarmist. We've known this for 40+ years now. It's become public knowledge at least 25 years ago. The climate system has a lot of inertia, century scale at times, once pushed too hard humanity might not be able to stop it, no matter what we do.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  According to the IPCC, we are already 80% of the way to 1.5c, and the world is quite comfortable.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Not sure about 'quite comfortable' part. The PNW just had a crazy >115F heat wave. At some point the crops will start drying out in the fields, which is far from a reassuring prospect. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/agriculture/there-was-nothing-we-could-save-heat-wave-cooked-walla-walla-sweet-onions-to-mush https://www.seattletimes.com/business/agriculture/there-was-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave#Agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_hea...
    - gary_0 5y ago
      > At some point the crops will start drying out in the fields It's already happening, as your links show. Double-digit percentage crop loss in some areas, which has already resulted in empty supermarket shelves for some staples[0]. And food prices are already reaching record highs. It won't be long before heat bubbles hit the wrong places at the wrong times and kneecap the world's food supply. In the meantime, the human population is still rising sharply[1], with 2 billion more mouths to feed coming before the population curve will start to level out. Things aren't looking good. [0] https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/05/pasta-shortage-due-to-poor-wheat-harvest-caused-by-climate-change-15366232/ https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/05/pasta-shortage-due-to-poor-wh... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-%E2%80%93-World-Population-Growth-1700-2100-772x550.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-%E2...
      - angelzen 5y ago
        Things are not looking good. The wheat situation is the most worrisome, in WA the 2021 wheat crop is 50% of the 2020 crop. "Smallest harvest in 57 years." On a small note, I wasn't aware of the pasta situation. I was surprised earlier this week when there was no pasta at the local Costco, sadly that explains it. https://archive.is/JcDRd https://archive.is/JcDRd
RattleyCooper 5y ago
Yeah, somehow I don't believe it. If we truly are only 7 years away from being totally fucked then I don't think we can actually do anything about it at this point. I mean, if it's true I feel like my coworkers who talk about this kind of stuff all the time would trade in their SUVs and start carpooling... You know, actually try to do something about it. But even the people I know who believe the world is gonna end in 7 years bc of global warming don't do anything about it unless it's superficial and only requires them to post a comment online.
- ayngg 5y ago
  Generally the most outspoken climate change activists are the ones that will be affected the least by the costs of policy. The worst that will happen to them is there might be a little more crime in their area or things might be a little more expensive, things of that nature. Meanwhile the monumental social and economic upheaval it would likely cause would mimic the American Midwest after de-industrialization in many places. Maybe we should tell them all to learn how to code and it would miraculously solve everything.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't think we're 7 years away from totally fucked. I think it's probably more like we reached the totally fucked point 7 years ago but most won't realize it for another 7 years.
  - RattleyCooper 5y ago
    I feel like looking at a prominent climate scientist's lifestyle, and looking at the measures they take would be a good indication of how fucked we are. If we are truly fucked I imagine they're taking some pretty drastic measures to do their part to fix the problem (or if we're passed the point of no return, to prepare for societal collapse or w/e).
    - aisengard 5y ago
      Their part to fix the problem would be to make sure they're able to do the maximum to affect things at a macro level. That means not bothering to obsess about individual acts of emitting carbon, or putting finite resources into guilt-mollifying individual carbon offsets. If an environmentalist needs to attend a conference where they can better-influence the movers and shakers of the world, then they should take the most convenient form of transport to get there, not a sailboat.
missedthecue 5y ago
Somehow I don't think we'll reach 0 emissions in 7 years, and somehow, I think life will go on.
- lm28469 5y ago
  Life will always go on, life as we know it might not, we're probably close to the peak of the energy usage/consequences curve, we don't feel much yet but even if we stopped everything right now we'd still go through major changes in the next century due to momentum
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    We're following the 1970s "Limits to Growth" predicted curves pretty closely - and, you're right, we're almost exactly at the top of the energy and industrial production ones before the tip over and head down at an alarmingly fast rate.
sk2020 5y ago
I’ll invest in some black and white Nikes. Will punch be served?
ehayes 5y ago
Read Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts-ebook/dp/B07Y8FHFQ7 https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmi...
- endymi0n 5y ago
  Meh. While Shellenberger is spot on on a lot of topics (I also have an issue with short-sighted, technology averse degrowthers who prioritize the impact on local birds over supporting building permits for battery car factories, wind farms and nuclear), only the tiny minority of his intellectual readers will actually get the subtlety of his point. All the urban tank drivers will just take from books and titles like this that even respected climate scientists and environmental activists say it's all just not so bad...
- makeworld 5y ago
  > A controversial and polarizing figure, Shellenberger sharply disagrees with other environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them. Shellenberger's positions have been called "bad science" and "inaccurate" by environmental scientists and academics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger
  - amar-laksh 5y ago
    That sentence has one of the highest amount of citations I've seen on Wikipedia.
arsome 5y ago
Interesting to see all the pictures of existing clocks... with lower numbers than the current one. Clearly it's increased in the past and I'm willing to bet it'll increase again.
staticelf 5y ago
As an european this feel very US-centristic to me. "Green new deal" is something in the US right? When I visited the states, I was kind of shocked how bad the public transport system was. It's hard to be a tourist in a city like LA for example. It also feels like it gotta suck to be in that traffic every day which I am sure many are. So many cities seems completely built to for everyone to have a car. There is no walking distance anywhere. Ofc I rented a carto travel around since there was no other option available. While I really enjoyed the large straight roads of the US it just amazed me that there was so bad sidewalks, little to no bicycle paths and bad public transportation systems. What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. I have a hard time believing that
staticelf 5y ago
As an european this feel very US-centristic to me. "Green new deal" is something in the US right? When I visited the states, I was kind of shocked how bad the public transport system was. It's hard to be a tourist in a city like LA for example. It also feels like it gotta suck to be in that traffic every day which I am sure many are. So many cities seems completely built to for everyone to have a car. There is no walking distance anywhere. Ofc I rented a carto travel around since there was no other option available. While I really enjoyed the large straight roads of the US it just amazed me that there was so bad sidewalks, little to no bicycle paths and bad public transportation systems. What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. I have a hard time believing that when there is literally no other option than using a car.
- RattleyCooper 5y ago
  >What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. Since the very act of breathing or farting creates emissions, I don't think any country will ever have zero emissions.
  - staticelf 5y ago
    Sure thing, but at least most european countries have a lot easier when it comes to lower the emissions from cars. Seems incredible wasteful for everyone to have their own car. Perhaps it will be more of a taxi service in the future with electric cars but until then even electric cars does release a lot of carbon when they are created and their batteries etc is not that great when they expire.
    - RattleyCooper 5y ago
      >Sure thing, but at least most european countries have a lot easier when it comes to lower the emissions from cars. Most European countries are also like 1/500th the size of the USA though(exaggerating a little bit). Things are much more spread out over here, and from what I've seen we have bigger streets that can handle more traffic whereas a lot of European places have preexisting structures/buildings that prevent streets from really getting any bigger.. Like, I figure that probably went into the thought process when people decided whether or not to invest more in public transportation. If you can't make your streets bigger you probably need to incentivize people to not rely on the limited space of the roads. I live in the USA and went 3 years without a car and had no issues getting around via public transportation. It just depends on where you live. The USA isn't the same everywhere you go, ya know?
maxekman 5y ago
Reading the comments I think it’s important to not read too much into the exact number on the clock. It’s similar to how nothing really happens on your exact birthday. Instead see it as a discussion starter and way to highlight the issue for more people. The clock does provoke a bit, which is good in this case.
- amar-laksh 5y ago
  Exactly my point in posting it. Thank you for finally putting into words what I was thinking while reading extreme reactions in the comments.
weeha 5y ago
Kurzgesagt uploaded a video about this recently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc
jadams5 5y ago
Kurzgesagt: Can YOU Fix Climate Change? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc Link in response to people asking what everyone is doing, should be doing, and can be doing...
- Syonyk 5y ago
  How about "not a video that uses a ton of energy and bandwidth" form links?
jonathankoren 5y ago
Aren't we already kind of screwed? It feels like we're more picking what type of crash we want, rather than avoiding the crash. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-amazon-rainforest-antarctic-ice-gulf-stream/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-a...
- orwin 5y ago
  Indeed. CO2 have a manageable effect in low troposphere, and it takes roughly 20 years for it to reach altitudes where it will have a greenhouse effect. So the climate of 2021 is caused by the emissions from 2001. We will never, in our lifetime, have this climate ever again.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    When I was in high school, I remember one degree centigrade was the tipping point. Then it became two. Now I i saw 2.5. Sure, models change, but seeing the point of no return keep getting shoved back every time we blow past it sets off my cynicism radar
Tarsul 5y ago
I mostly see 2 talking points in these comments: (1) I, personally, cannot do much. (2) If it were really so bad, people would already do something. I expect more quality comments in the next hours so I won't go too much into detail but we have to understand that every single person and decision counts. And just like with climate change: There will be runaway effects (or call it "critical mass"), which means that first there are only a few people that change their behavior/lifestyle/voting, then there are more and then finally it's a big movement. It happened with Solar, it happened with vegan foods, it will happen with EV vehicles, and it will happen with many more things. People change. Governments change. We can mitigate climate change. And we do. But the most important steps are believing in our power and conceptualize our lifestyle changes positively. E.g. greener cities, more walkable areas, more home office, less working, less waste. These things! All positive for the climate. All good. Let's do this.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hagbard_c 5y ago
Here's a real 'climate clock', albeit one which only looks back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#/media/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#/media/File:Ice_A... Notice how the last interglacial was markedly warmer than the Holocene (the current interglacial which began ~11.700 years ago). The question to ask, and this is a serious question, is how the planet ever survived this climate crisis. If the records can be believed this interglacial is markedly cooler than the previous 3 at least, the peak temperature of the previous interglacial lies above the most pessimistic prognoses for the current era yet, still, earth abided and life did not end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/med... Even the current interglacial shows some marked ups and downs with a clear trend toward lower temperatures. The "climatic optimum" - the period with the highest average temperature - lies some 8000 years in the past, since then the trend has been towards lower temperatures with the eventual drop into the next cycle of glaciation somewhere in the future. If those dire predictions hold truth, how can it be that human civilisations actually came to thrive in the stone age? To put it bluntly, this type of scaremongering only serves to discredit the concept of anthropogenic climate change, it is the climatic equivalent of 'there are 5G transponders in vaccines'. The more this type of apocalyptic messaging is pushed, the more the messengers will start to resemble religious zealots instead of objective agents.
- angelzen 5y ago
  The planet will survive until the Sun will engulf it during the red giant phase. 10B people hanging on Earth's surface may have more urgent concerns.
  - hagbard_c 5y ago
    Humans survived glaciation and started to thrive at the climatic optimum so they'll survive this blip on the temperature graph as well. Some species could not adapt to the warming climate and the resulting changes in vegetation - from the cold open plains of the mammoth steppe [1,2] to a largely forested Eurasian continent, partly due to the disappearance of large herbivores which kept the trees at bay - and/or the increased predation by other species (humans being an important example of those) and died out, e.g. there is not much left of the Pleistocene megafauna [3,4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvs_Lake_Basin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvs_Lake_Basin [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
The common theme in the comments seems to be anti-alarmism. Which is certainly smart because alarmism from the past made many false predictions. Al Gore wrote a nice essay about how much damage his alarmism caused. History predicts we have a very bad crisis coming. WW2 ~79 years ago American civil war ~77 years before ww2 Age of revolution ~70 years before glorious revolution ~91 years before anglo-spanish war and japanese shoguns ~100 years before war of the roses ~100years before We have a pattern of great conflict. It looks like climate change is setting up the cause for a great war with china. Hence all this talk about Taiwan, Australia, Japan, UK, France. As far as I am aware ABC is reliable news. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-war-with-china/100511294 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-... From a Canadian point of view, it's hilarious how we are being treated like a protectorate. Even more interesting, there's an awful lot of talk about building new chip fabs in the usa and europe. Also seems like the plan is to let Taiwan fall.
MrStillwater 5y ago
Better live it up while we can, 1.5 degrees will be here before you know it!

44 points by amar-laksh 5y ago

Except... what's going to happen is that "not enough" will get done by then, and the world won't end overnight. So what's the point, exactly? This is like the death cults claiming The World Will End At Exactly... - and it doesn't, and the whole thing fizzles out. 1.5C will suck. 2C will suck more. Etc. But it's not like there's some magical point where it won't suck.

axutio 5y ago
And when it fizzles out, it'll just become more fodder for climate change denialists down the line. Six years from now, they'll point to this as another piece of evidence that climate change isn't real/is a conspiracy/is heavily overblown. Alarmists have for decades and continue to harm actual progress in the fight against climate change.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  It won't fizzle out, that's the problem. There's no maximum GHG dose atmosphere can't take. And the planet has been hotter in the past too. The thing is, there were no humans at the time and life was a bit different. We're talking some 50 year timespan to terrible effects, that means most everyone here will be affected. They may be affected more or less. Current trajectory is on more, bordering on deadly. The time for low impact has passed, thanks to people like you dismissing actual scientists as alarmist. We've known this for 40+ years now. It's become public knowledge at least 25 years ago. The climate system has a lot of inertia, century scale at times, once pushed too hard humanity might not be able to stop it, no matter what we do.
missedthecue 5y ago
According to the IPCC, we are already 80% of the way to 1.5c, and the world is quite comfortable.
- angelzen 5y ago
  Not sure about 'quite comfortable' part. The PNW just had a crazy >115F heat wave. At some point the crops will start drying out in the fields, which is far from a reassuring prospect. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/agriculture/there-was-nothing-we-could-save-heat-wave-cooked-walla-walla-sweet-onions-to-mush https://www.seattletimes.com/business/agriculture/there-was-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave#Agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_hea...
  - gary_0 5y ago
    > At some point the crops will start drying out in the fields It's already happening, as your links show. Double-digit percentage crop loss in some areas, which has already resulted in empty supermarket shelves for some staples[0]. And food prices are already reaching record highs. It won't be long before heat bubbles hit the wrong places at the wrong times and kneecap the world's food supply. In the meantime, the human population is still rising sharply[1], with 2 billion more mouths to feed coming before the population curve will start to level out. Things aren't looking good. [0] https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/05/pasta-shortage-due-to-poor-wheat-harvest-caused-by-climate-change-15366232/ https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/05/pasta-shortage-due-to-poor-wh... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-%E2%80%93-World-Population-Growth-1700-2100-772x550.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/2019-Revision-%E2...
    - angelzen 5y ago
      Things are not looking good. The wheat situation is the most worrisome, in WA the 2021 wheat crop is 50% of the 2020 crop. "Smallest harvest in 57 years." On a small note, I wasn't aware of the pasta situation. I was surprised earlier this week when there was no pasta at the local Costco, sadly that explains it. https://archive.is/JcDRd https://archive.is/JcDRd

RattleyCooper 5y ago

Yeah, somehow I don't believe it. If we truly are only 7 years away from being totally fucked then I don't think we can actually do anything about it at this point. I mean, if it's true I feel like my coworkers who talk about this kind of stuff all the time would trade in their SUVs and start carpooling... You know, actually try to do something about it. But even the people I know who believe the world is gonna end in 7 years bc of global warming don't do anything about it unless it's superficial and only requires them to post a comment online.

ayngg 5y ago
Generally the most outspoken climate change activists are the ones that will be affected the least by the costs of policy. The worst that will happen to them is there might be a little more crime in their area or things might be a little more expensive, things of that nature. Meanwhile the monumental social and economic upheaval it would likely cause would mimic the American Midwest after de-industrialization in many places. Maybe we should tell them all to learn how to code and it would miraculously solve everything.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think we're 7 years away from totally fucked. I think it's probably more like we reached the totally fucked point 7 years ago but most won't realize it for another 7 years.
- RattleyCooper 5y ago
  I feel like looking at a prominent climate scientist's lifestyle, and looking at the measures they take would be a good indication of how fucked we are. If we are truly fucked I imagine they're taking some pretty drastic measures to do their part to fix the problem (or if we're passed the point of no return, to prepare for societal collapse or w/e).
  - aisengard 5y ago
    Their part to fix the problem would be to make sure they're able to do the maximum to affect things at a macro level. That means not bothering to obsess about individual acts of emitting carbon, or putting finite resources into guilt-mollifying individual carbon offsets. If an environmentalist needs to attend a conference where they can better-influence the movers and shakers of the world, then they should take the most convenient form of transport to get there, not a sailboat.

missedthecue 5y ago

Somehow I don't think we'll reach 0 emissions in 7 years, and somehow, I think life will go on.

lm28469 5y ago
Life will always go on, life as we know it might not, we're probably close to the peak of the energy usage/consequences curve, we don't feel much yet but even if we stopped everything right now we'd still go through major changes in the next century due to momentum
- Syonyk 5y ago
  We're following the 1970s "Limits to Growth" predicted curves pretty closely - and, you're right, we're almost exactly at the top of the energy and industrial production ones before the tip over and head down at an alarmingly fast rate.

sk2020 5y ago

I’ll invest in some black and white Nikes. Will punch be served?

ehayes 5y ago

Read Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts-ebook/dp/B07Y8FHFQ7 https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmi...

endymi0n 5y ago
Meh. While Shellenberger is spot on on a lot of topics (I also have an issue with short-sighted, technology averse degrowthers who prioritize the impact on local birds over supporting building permits for battery car factories, wind farms and nuclear), only the tiny minority of his intellectual readers will actually get the subtlety of his point. All the urban tank drivers will just take from books and titles like this that even respected climate scientists and environmental activists say it's all just not so bad...
makeworld 5y ago
> A controversial and polarizing figure, Shellenberger sharply disagrees with other environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them. Shellenberger's positions have been called "bad science" and "inaccurate" by environmental scientists and academics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger
- amar-laksh 5y ago
  That sentence has one of the highest amount of citations I've seen on Wikipedia.

arsome 5y ago

Interesting to see all the pictures of existing clocks... with lower numbers than the current one. Clearly it's increased in the past and I'm willing to bet it'll increase again.

staticelf 5y ago

As an european this feel very US-centristic to me. "Green new deal" is something in the US right? When I visited the states, I was kind of shocked how bad the public transport system was. It's hard to be a tourist in a city like LA for example. It also feels like it gotta suck to be in that traffic every day which I am sure many are. So many cities seems completely built to for everyone to have a car. There is no walking distance anywhere. Ofc I rented a carto travel around since there was no other option available. While I really enjoyed the large straight roads of the US it just amazed me that there was so bad sidewalks, little to no bicycle paths and bad public transportation systems. What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. I have a hard time believing that

staticelf 5y ago

RattleyCooper 5y ago
>What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. Since the very act of breathing or farting creates emissions, I don't think any country will ever have zero emissions.
- staticelf 5y ago
  Sure thing, but at least most european countries have a lot easier when it comes to lower the emissions from cars. Seems incredible wasteful for everyone to have their own car. Perhaps it will be more of a taxi service in the future with electric cars but until then even electric cars does release a lot of carbon when they are created and their batteries etc is not that great when they expire.
  - RattleyCooper 5y ago
    >Sure thing, but at least most european countries have a lot easier when it comes to lower the emissions from cars. Most European countries are also like 1/500th the size of the USA though(exaggerating a little bit). Things are much more spread out over here, and from what I've seen we have bigger streets that can handle more traffic whereas a lot of European places have preexisting structures/buildings that prevent streets from really getting any bigger.. Like, I figure that probably went into the thought process when people decided whether or not to invest more in public transportation. If you can't make your streets bigger you probably need to incentivize people to not rely on the limited space of the roads. I live in the USA and went 3 years without a car and had no issues getting around via public transportation. It just depends on where you live. The USA isn't the same everywhere you go, ya know?

maxekman 5y ago

Reading the comments I think it’s important to not read too much into the exact number on the clock. It’s similar to how nothing really happens on your exact birthday. Instead see it as a discussion starter and way to highlight the issue for more people. The clock does provoke a bit, which is good in this case.

amar-laksh 5y ago
Exactly my point in posting it. Thank you for finally putting into words what I was thinking while reading extreme reactions in the comments.

weeha 5y ago

Kurzgesagt uploaded a video about this recently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc

jadams5 5y ago

Kurzgesagt: Can YOU Fix Climate Change? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc Link in response to people asking what everyone is doing, should be doing, and can be doing...

Syonyk 5y ago
How about "not a video that uses a ton of energy and bandwidth" form links?

jonathankoren 5y ago

Aren't we already kind of screwed? It feels like we're more picking what type of crash we want, rather than avoiding the crash. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-amazon-rainforest-antarctic-ice-gulf-stream/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-a...

orwin 5y ago
Indeed. CO2 have a manageable effect in low troposphere, and it takes roughly 20 years for it to reach altitudes where it will have a greenhouse effect. So the climate of 2021 is caused by the emissions from 2001. We will never, in our lifetime, have this climate ever again.
- jonathankoren 5y ago
  When I was in high school, I remember one degree centigrade was the tipping point. Then it became two. Now I i saw 2.5. Sure, models change, but seeing the point of no return keep getting shoved back every time we blow past it sets off my cynicism radar

Tarsul 5y ago

I mostly see 2 talking points in these comments: (1) I, personally, cannot do much. (2) If it were really so bad, people would already do something. I expect more quality comments in the next hours so I won't go too much into detail but we have to understand that every single person and decision counts. And just like with climate change: There will be runaway effects (or call it "critical mass"), which means that first there are only a few people that change their behavior/lifestyle/voting, then there are more and then finally it's a big movement. It happened with Solar, it happened with vegan foods, it will happen with EV vehicles, and it will happen with many more things. People change. Governments change. We can mitigate climate change. And we do. But the most important steps are believing in our power and conceptualize our lifestyle changes positively. E.g. greener cities, more walkable areas, more home office, less working, less waste. These things! All positive for the climate. All good. Let's do this.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hagbard_c 5y ago

Here's a real 'climate clock', albeit one which only looks back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#/media/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#/media/File:Ice_A... Notice how the last interglacial was markedly warmer than the Holocene (the current interglacial which began ~11.700 years ago). The question to ask, and this is a serious question, is how the planet ever survived this climate crisis. If the records can be believed this interglacial is markedly cooler than the previous 3 at least, the peak temperature of the previous interglacial lies above the most pessimistic prognoses for the current era yet, still, earth abided and life did not end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/med... Even the current interglacial shows some marked ups and downs with a clear trend toward lower temperatures. The "climatic optimum" - the period with the highest average temperature - lies some 8000 years in the past, since then the trend has been towards lower temperatures with the eventual drop into the next cycle of glaciation somewhere in the future. If those dire predictions hold truth, how can it be that human civilisations actually came to thrive in the stone age? To put it bluntly, this type of scaremongering only serves to discredit the concept of anthropogenic climate change, it is the climatic equivalent of 'there are 5G transponders in vaccines'. The more this type of apocalyptic messaging is pushed, the more the messengers will start to resemble religious zealots instead of objective agents.

angelzen 5y ago
The planet will survive until the Sun will engulf it during the red giant phase. 10B people hanging on Earth's surface may have more urgent concerns.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  Humans survived glaciation and started to thrive at the climatic optimum so they'll survive this blip on the temperature graph as well. Some species could not adapt to the warming climate and the resulting changes in vegetation - from the cold open plains of the mammoth steppe [1,2] to a largely forested Eurasian continent, partly due to the disappearance of large herbivores which kept the trees at bay - and/or the increased predation by other species (humans being an important example of those) and died out, e.g. there is not much left of the Pleistocene megafauna [3,4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvs_Lake_Basin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvs_Lake_Basin [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction

sleepysysadmin 5y ago

The common theme in the comments seems to be anti-alarmism. Which is certainly smart because alarmism from the past made many false predictions. Al Gore wrote a nice essay about how much damage his alarmism caused. History predicts we have a very bad crisis coming. WW2 ~79 years ago American civil war ~77 years before ww2 Age of revolution ~70 years before glorious revolution ~91 years before anglo-spanish war and japanese shoguns ~100 years before war of the roses ~100years before We have a pattern of great conflict. It looks like climate change is setting up the cause for a great war with china. Hence all this talk about Taiwan, Australia, Japan, UK, France. As far as I am aware ABC is reliable news. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-war-with-china/100511294 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-... From a Canadian point of view, it's hilarious how we are being treated like a protectorate. Even more interesting, there's an awful lot of talk about building new chip fabs in the usa and europe. Also seems like the plan is to let Taiwan fall.

MrStillwater 5y ago

Better live it up while we can, 1.5 degrees will be here before you know it!