4 ms·

Things are getting real, real fast. I have no hope that we collectively turn things around and feel we are instead basically heading for an Elysium like situati

by bmitc 4y ago

Things are getting real, real fast. I have no hope that we collectively turn things around and feel we are instead basically heading for an Elysium like situation. That's because we're acting too late and too slow to help everyone (not like we help everyone now anyway). It's pretty scary to be honest. People just do not care about climate change and won't until their water or gas shuts off. Even now, my neighbors are tearing down trees, and residents, businesses, and the government have huge lawns that are wastelands. They're never used by humans and are mowed and pruned such that no wildlife uses them either.

raydiatian 4y ago
It’s not scary to be honest. It’s been staring us in the face for 60 years. Maybe 100. Accept your fate like the rest of us, and make sure you stock up on dissociatives and pain meds for when the time is nigh. Nobody cares!
- King-Aaron 4y ago
  If covid has taught us anything, it's that even if a global problem becomes direct and starts killing millions of people, a large percentage of the population won't care and will actively continue to deny it.
  - top_post 4y ago
    This, unfortunately, is right on the money.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    And in the end things were still fine for them.
    - King-Aaron 4y ago
      Not for the people who ended up with long term chronic illness, or you know, dead
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Their risk compared to someone who cared wasn’t much different in the end assuming they got vaccinated. Which was my main point. Stressing out over things doesn’t really change your outcomes.
- progman32 4y ago
  Please don't speak for me. I care. A lot. If some folks prefer to just lie down, fine. But I question the utility of glorifying failure.
  - raydiatian 4y ago
    I don’t know about utility, but sooner or later you learn to recognize the futility in raging against the machine. Unless I’m speaking to the executive control behind a multi billion dollar organization, your caring is pretty much meaningless beyond the cubic foot of brain matter that sweats it.
    - squidsoup 4y ago
      You can still participate in activism and vote (provided you live in a democracy naturally), you aren't completely impotent and your efforts aren't futile.
    - progman32 4y ago
      > your caring is pretty much meaningless What data is this prediction based on? > sooner or later you learn to recognize the futility in raging against the machine. I don't quite follow the reasoning here. Is your concern about the mental health of those doing the raging? It is good to stop raging, not a very useful emotion for sustained, demanding tasks... As a personal anecdote, I'm now finding it much easier to act from a position of purposefulness. I feel much better overall after deciding I'd wallowed in fatalism for too long. What's up danger. Hey, don't be a stranger.
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Would a person in a doomsday cult know that they're in a doomsday cult? not to question your beliefs, but just to add a little perspective. Every culture had an end of the world prophecy. Yet the world persevered, but all of the believers are long gone, along with most of their cultures. My point being you will be long gone before the planet is.
- daenz 4y ago
  I've had IRL conversations with almost fanatical climate change activists, and I believe they look at it this way: even if they're completely 100% wrong, nothing is lost by improving how we treat the environment.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    That might be their feel good belief, but its not based on reality. If you raise the price of Energy, the people at the bottom will suffer the most. There is real risk of relatively affluent Europeans going cold and hungry this winter, due to misguided beliefs that solar will provide their energy needs, in cold and overcast places like Germany. The cost of energy even affects how much fertilizer cost to produce. And that is even more impactful of the risk of people going hungry all over the world.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      Nobody is arguing for just increasing the price of energy. The whole point is to transition to other, greener energy sources, and while that's more expensive, soften the blow through subsidies and the like. > There is real risk of relatively affluent Europeans going cold and hungry this winter, due to misguided beliefs that solar will provide their energy needs, in cold and overcast places like Germany. Nope. Due to the misguided belief that Russia and its gas can be trusted as a transitional energy source until there's no more need for fossil fuels. Nobody expected that German solar would power the whole of Europe, the goal was always diverse energy generation methods (hydro, solar, wind onshore and offshore, tidal, nuclear). It was stupid to rely on gas for the transition, IMHO, and it was even stupider to rely on Russian gas. If it was Russian, Algerian, Azeri, Qatari gas in equal quantities, it wouldn't have been a problem that Putin is an insane warmonger (bar the emissions associated). > The cost of energy even affects how much fertilizer cost to produce Yes, which is where subsidies would apply until there are alternatives like green hydrogen.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Bring fatalistic is part of the problem and rarely part of any solutions. I know for sure that the people who do nothing will achieve nothing. Wait and see is not a viable strategy to get anything done. The simple reality is that we have already demonstrated that we can drastically modify climate in a very short time span. Not for the better unfortunately and arguably unintentionally. But how did that happen? Simple: economics. Dangling a carrot in front of people gets them acting really quickly and enthusiastically. We started burning fossil fuels at a truly massive scale during the industrial revolution. Basically, getting to zero carbon is now about economic survival. Doing so has some nice side effects like reducing emissions. But it's basically gone from wouldn't it be cute to have some solar panels on my roof to, I'd better put some solar panels on my roof because I'll be paying through my nose for gas and save buckets of money. Nothing like some economic incentives to get even the most staunch climate change deniers investing in roof top solar and other solutions. Now world + dog is installing batteries, solar, wind mills, etc. Not because they are cute but because they provide something desirable: cheap energy. Ever since the cost curves crossed, people have an insatiable demand for this stuff. To the point where once ambitious and seemingly infeasible goals for carbon reduction are being moved forward. Because reality is out pacing ambition. Even the most optimistic predictions a decade ago are now being surpassed. That's a trick that can be repeated. Identify some solutions, make it profitable for people to implement those. Sit back and relax while they get really creative doing those things and working out better ways to do those things. It worked for energy. It's working for transport (EVs are booming nicely). It could work for agriculture, and other sectors. There's a lot that is enabled by cheap plentiful energy too and we're starting to get that. Renewable energy is pretty awesome from a cost point of view. Actively reducing carbon in our atmosphere is the next big challenge. If you look at it from an economical point of view the simple reality is that capturing carbon is a lot of work without a lot of economic reward. There are plenty of ways to do this technically but the main challenge is incentivizing people to start doing those things at scale. Letting nature take its course is going to take too long. So, the key challenge is figuring out the economics. Once we nail that, the rest might happen rapidly.
- bmitc 4y ago
  Jus to be clear, I have little hope for the general collective, but I do take what actions I can.
helloworld11 4y ago
I'll leave aside the wider issues of climate change for a moment and address sea level rises alone, since it's one of the big scary points due to fears of mass coastal migrations inland. Anyhow, for a bit of perspective, NASA's own research on potential sea level rises argues that in the worst case scenario for climate warming, we should see a rise of just over a meter by 2100 and a possible rise of 5 meters by 2300. Now, if you like, go to, for example (though it only focuses on the United States) NOAA's map tool for visualizing different levels of rising water. (1) See for yourself what a one meter rise looks like and then also a completely drastic 300-year 5 meter increase. To be sure, both would be major problems for millions of people and huge tracts of coastal land, but bear in mind that these people and the governments/private interests/individuals responsible for those areas would have from ONE TO THREE centuries to prepare. This is a lot of time even for slow measures at current technology and resources to prepare remarkably well. It's reasonable to suppose that over the next 100 years (barring some other different catastrophe), we'll have even better technology and resources at our disposal, especially if the water visibly starts to go up and coastal fresh water table salinity starts to grow large enough to cause crop failures. At least as far as sea level rises are concerned, solutions are completely manageable. The doom scenarios for rising oceans are grotesquely overblown by a large base of people who just can't seem to emotionally help themselves in not specifically and forcefully insisting on catastrophic situations, despite millennia of humanity showing just how adaptive it is and despite the literal best science on the matter arguing for something that is much less catastrophic when actually examined. 1. https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/10/-11581024.663779823/5095888.569004184/4/satellite/none/0.8/2050/interHigh/midAccretion https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/10/-11581024.66377982... NASA sea level rise predictions https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148494/anticipating-future-sea-levels https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148494/anticipating...

by bmitc 4y ago

raydiatian 4y ago

It’s not scary to be honest. It’s been staring us in the face for 60 years. Maybe 100. Accept your fate like the rest of us, and make sure you stock up on dissociatives and pain meds for when the time is nigh. Nobody cares!

King-Aaron 4y ago
If covid has taught us anything, it's that even if a global problem becomes direct and starts killing millions of people, a large percentage of the population won't care and will actively continue to deny it.
- top_post 4y ago
  This, unfortunately, is right on the money.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  And in the end things were still fine for them.
  - King-Aaron 4y ago
    Not for the people who ended up with long term chronic illness, or you know, dead
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Their risk compared to someone who cared wasn’t much different in the end assuming they got vaccinated. Which was my main point. Stressing out over things doesn’t really change your outcomes.
progman32 4y ago
Please don't speak for me. I care. A lot. If some folks prefer to just lie down, fine. But I question the utility of glorifying failure.
- raydiatian 4y ago
  I don’t know about utility, but sooner or later you learn to recognize the futility in raging against the machine. Unless I’m speaking to the executive control behind a multi billion dollar organization, your caring is pretty much meaningless beyond the cubic foot of brain matter that sweats it.
  - squidsoup 4y ago
    You can still participate in activism and vote (provided you live in a democracy naturally), you aren't completely impotent and your efforts aren't futile.
  - progman32 4y ago
    > your caring is pretty much meaningless What data is this prediction based on? > sooner or later you learn to recognize the futility in raging against the machine. I don't quite follow the reasoning here. Is your concern about the mental health of those doing the raging? It is good to stop raging, not a very useful emotion for sustained, demanding tasks... As a personal anecdote, I'm now finding it much easier to act from a position of purposefulness. I feel much better overall after deciding I'd wallowed in fatalism for too long. What's up danger. Hey, don't be a stranger.

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Would a person in a doomsday cult know that they're in a doomsday cult? not to question your beliefs, but just to add a little perspective. Every culture had an end of the world prophecy. Yet the world persevered, but all of the believers are long gone, along with most of their cultures. My point being you will be long gone before the planet is.

daenz 4y ago
I've had IRL conversations with almost fanatical climate change activists, and I believe they look at it this way: even if they're completely 100% wrong, nothing is lost by improving how we treat the environment.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  That might be their feel good belief, but its not based on reality. If you raise the price of Energy, the people at the bottom will suffer the most. There is real risk of relatively affluent Europeans going cold and hungry this winter, due to misguided beliefs that solar will provide their energy needs, in cold and overcast places like Germany. The cost of energy even affects how much fertilizer cost to produce. And that is even more impactful of the risk of people going hungry all over the world.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Nobody is arguing for just increasing the price of energy. The whole point is to transition to other, greener energy sources, and while that's more expensive, soften the blow through subsidies and the like. > There is real risk of relatively affluent Europeans going cold and hungry this winter, due to misguided beliefs that solar will provide their energy needs, in cold and overcast places like Germany. Nope. Due to the misguided belief that Russia and its gas can be trusted as a transitional energy source until there's no more need for fossil fuels. Nobody expected that German solar would power the whole of Europe, the goal was always diverse energy generation methods (hydro, solar, wind onshore and offshore, tidal, nuclear). It was stupid to rely on gas for the transition, IMHO, and it was even stupider to rely on Russian gas. If it was Russian, Algerian, Azeri, Qatari gas in equal quantities, it wouldn't have been a problem that Putin is an insane warmonger (bar the emissions associated). > The cost of energy even affects how much fertilizer cost to produce Yes, which is where subsidies would apply until there are alternatives like green hydrogen.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Bring fatalistic is part of the problem and rarely part of any solutions. I know for sure that the people who do nothing will achieve nothing. Wait and see is not a viable strategy to get anything done. The simple reality is that we have already demonstrated that we can drastically modify climate in a very short time span. Not for the better unfortunately and arguably unintentionally. But how did that happen? Simple: economics. Dangling a carrot in front of people gets them acting really quickly and enthusiastically. We started burning fossil fuels at a truly massive scale during the industrial revolution. Basically, getting to zero carbon is now about economic survival. Doing so has some nice side effects like reducing emissions. But it's basically gone from wouldn't it be cute to have some solar panels on my roof to, I'd better put some solar panels on my roof because I'll be paying through my nose for gas and save buckets of money. Nothing like some economic incentives to get even the most staunch climate change deniers investing in roof top solar and other solutions. Now world + dog is installing batteries, solar, wind mills, etc. Not because they are cute but because they provide something desirable: cheap energy. Ever since the cost curves crossed, people have an insatiable demand for this stuff. To the point where once ambitious and seemingly infeasible goals for carbon reduction are being moved forward. Because reality is out pacing ambition. Even the most optimistic predictions a decade ago are now being surpassed. That's a trick that can be repeated. Identify some solutions, make it profitable for people to implement those. Sit back and relax while they get really creative doing those things and working out better ways to do those things. It worked for energy. It's working for transport (EVs are booming nicely). It could work for agriculture, and other sectors. There's a lot that is enabled by cheap plentiful energy too and we're starting to get that. Renewable energy is pretty awesome from a cost point of view. Actively reducing carbon in our atmosphere is the next big challenge. If you look at it from an economical point of view the simple reality is that capturing carbon is a lot of work without a lot of economic reward. There are plenty of ways to do this technically but the main challenge is incentivizing people to start doing those things at scale. Letting nature take its course is going to take too long. So, the key challenge is figuring out the economics. Once we nail that, the rest might happen rapidly.

bmitc 4y ago
Jus to be clear, I have little hope for the general collective, but I do take what actions I can.

helloworld11 4y ago

I'll leave aside the wider issues of climate change for a moment and address sea level rises alone, since it's one of the big scary points due to fears of mass coastal migrations inland. Anyhow, for a bit of perspective, NASA's own research on potential sea level rises argues that in the worst case scenario for climate warming, we should see a rise of just over a meter by 2100 and a possible rise of 5 meters by 2300. Now, if you like, go to, for example (though it only focuses on the United States) NOAA's map tool for visualizing different levels of rising water. (1) See for yourself what a one meter rise looks like and then also a completely drastic 300-year 5 meter increase. To be sure, both would be major problems for millions of people and huge tracts of coastal land, but bear in mind that these people and the governments/private interests/individuals responsible for those areas would have from ONE TO THREE centuries to prepare. This is a lot of time even for slow measures at current technology and resources to prepare remarkably well. It's reasonable to suppose that over the next 100 years (barring some other different catastrophe), we'll have even better technology and resources at our disposal, especially if the water visibly starts to go up and coastal fresh water table salinity starts to grow large enough to cause crop failures. At least as far as sea level rises are concerned, solutions are completely manageable. The doom scenarios for rising oceans are grotesquely overblown by a large base of people who just can't seem to emotionally help themselves in not specifically and forcefully insisting on catastrophic situations, despite millennia of humanity showing just how adaptive it is and despite the literal best science on the matter arguing for something that is much less catastrophic when actually examined. 1. https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/10/-11581024.663779823/5095888.569004184/4/satellite/none/0.8/2050/interHigh/midAccretion https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/10/-11581024.66377982... NASA sea level rise predictions https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148494/anticipating-future-sea-levels https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148494/anticipating...