4 ms·

Nobody really knows, and it's too late to do anything real about it. Fun times.

einpoklum 5y ago
It is too late to do something about what happens _today_, it is not too late to do something about what is now likely to happen in a decade, and two, and three. Your comment sounds like on of the stages of the "four stage strategy" from Yes Minister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak originally about why the UK doesn't help foreign nations in an inconvenient crisis.
- kadoban 5y ago
  > [...] a decade, and two, and three. My understanding is that very little of what we do now would have any effect on what happens in a decade. Maybe in three.
- yissp 5y ago
  Amazing, I would totally have assumed that clip was referring to climate change without any other context.
  - Jaruzel 5y ago
    Most of the great scenes from Yes Minister, and latterly Yes Prime Minister, still not only stand up today, but are also surprisingly still relevant 40 years after they were first broadcast. It truly was a genius show.
pil0u 5y ago
That is wrong on many levels. Such nihilist position does not help the millions of people leading concrete actions on different scales. You are wrong, it's not too late to change how we behave regarding climate and such way of thinking is unlikely to induce the required actions.
- kadoban 5y ago
  It's too late for what's happening now, that's for sure. Stopping the "surprises" that are going to happen in a few decades are still likely physically possible. We'll see if humanity is up to it.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    Things will continue to get worse until we do. I guess until some hypothetical dystopian society finishes burning all he coal. Or someone whose entire family has died due to heat/drought engineers a nuclear/biological disaster to end the pieces of civilization that use a lot of energy. Or you know we de-carbonize and build an electrical (for energy) and biological (for medicines and food) society.
- kadoban 5y ago
  It's not a nihilist position. It's: "we already fucked up, can we _please_ stop making these awful gambles before we're inevitably all dead?"
formvoltron 5y ago
I was told that I could use my SUV up until the problems start, and then I could just start taking the bus to solve it.
Findecanor 5y ago
Climate change is not boolean. It is not a question of damage or not damage. It is a question of how much damage.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  Okay, but the frightening part is that this is only true to a point. And that point is where positive feedback loops dominate at which point it is very much boolean, habitable by humans or not. But we do not know where that threshold is. And we may have already passed it. We just pretend there isn't a real threshold because scientists can't tell us exactly where it is yet so we might as well just keep doing what we've been doing for another 20 years... like we've been using as an excuse for the last 40.
  - rhino369 5y ago
    I don't think there is any sort of scientific consensus that i) there is a point where its too warm for earth to be habitable for humans or ii) there is a massive feedback loop threshold.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      There is certainly a point past which the Earth cannot support the same order of magnitude of humans, at similar technology levels. It's hard to argue that there are no bad feedback loops once temperature gets higher. We know of several huge methane stores that are temperature dependent, we know how ice and clouds work as temperature rises, etc. We're gambling 90-100% of humanity on the critical points not being reachable.
      - bloopernova 5y ago
        I have this mental image of the scene from Erik The Viking where the island is sinking into the sea, but everyone on the island is denying anything is happening. It's heartbreaking. We had everything and we pissed it away.

It is too late to do something about what happens _today_, it is not too late to do something about what is now likely to happen in a decade, and two, and three. Your comment sounds like on of the stages of the "four stage strategy" from Yes Minister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak originally about why the UK doesn't help foreign nations in an inconvenient crisis.

kadoban 5y ago
> [...] a decade, and two, and three. My understanding is that very little of what we do now would have any effect on what happens in a decade. Maybe in three.
yissp 5y ago
Amazing, I would totally have assumed that clip was referring to climate change without any other context.
- Jaruzel 5y ago
  Most of the great scenes from Yes Minister, and latterly Yes Prime Minister, still not only stand up today, but are also surprisingly still relevant 40 years after they were first broadcast. It truly was a genius show.

pil0u 5y ago

That is wrong on many levels. Such nihilist position does not help the millions of people leading concrete actions on different scales. You are wrong, it's not too late to change how we behave regarding climate and such way of thinking is unlikely to induce the required actions.

kadoban 5y ago
It's too late for what's happening now, that's for sure. Stopping the "surprises" that are going to happen in a few decades are still likely physically possible. We'll see if humanity is up to it.
- lanstin 5y ago
  Things will continue to get worse until we do. I guess until some hypothetical dystopian society finishes burning all he coal. Or someone whose entire family has died due to heat/drought engineers a nuclear/biological disaster to end the pieces of civilization that use a lot of energy. Or you know we de-carbonize and build an electrical (for energy) and biological (for medicines and food) society.
kadoban 5y ago
It's not a nihilist position. It's: "we already fucked up, can we _please_ stop making these awful gambles before we're inevitably all dead?"

formvoltron 5y ago

I was told that I could use my SUV up until the problems start, and then I could just start taking the bus to solve it.

Findecanor 5y ago

Climate change is not boolean. It is not a question of damage or not damage. It is a question of how much damage.

neltnerb 5y ago
Okay, but the frightening part is that this is only true to a point. And that point is where positive feedback loops dominate at which point it is very much boolean, habitable by humans or not. But we do not know where that threshold is. And we may have already passed it. We just pretend there isn't a real threshold because scientists can't tell us exactly where it is yet so we might as well just keep doing what we've been doing for another 20 years... like we've been using as an excuse for the last 40.
- rhino369 5y ago
  I don't think there is any sort of scientific consensus that i) there is a point where its too warm for earth to be habitable for humans or ii) there is a massive feedback loop threshold.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    There is certainly a point past which the Earth cannot support the same order of magnitude of humans, at similar technology levels. It's hard to argue that there are no bad feedback loops once temperature gets higher. We know of several huge methane stores that are temperature dependent, we know how ice and clouds work as temperature rises, etc. We're gambling 90-100% of humanity on the critical points not being reachable.
    - bloopernova 5y ago
      I have this mental image of the scene from Erik The Viking where the island is sinking into the sea, but everyone on the island is denying anything is happening. It's heartbreaking. We had everything and we pissed it away.