6 ms·

Why climate ‘doomers’ are replacing climate ‘deniers’

28 points by tomrod 4y ago

torcete 4y ago
I always wonder how certain we are about climate change. I ask myself these questions. Are temperatures really increasing or it's just we are just looking a very small time frame with a myopic perspective? Assuming that there is an anormal increase of temperature. How certain is that is man-made? My hunch is that yes, a human-made global warming is happening but I still don't have a complete conviction. Also what about these reports that are talking about a change on the solar cycle that will produce an ice age. How much can one believe these reports?
sillywalk 4y ago
The headline seems misleading, climate deniers are still around and blocking action, doomers aren't replacing them, they just think we're fucked no matter what we do at this point, leading to inaction. AIUI all emissions scenarios required a massive removal of BILLIONS TONNES of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it somewhere. I imagine this will be a problem. Doomerism seems like blasphemy on a site for Techno Venture Capitalists :)
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  I don't really think it's fair to say doomerism leads to inaction, I'm pretty sure inaction is the default state for 99.9% of people. Me for instance, I'm absolutely certain we're fucked but hey, if I hear that my government's getting serious I'll get serious too, but not a moment before because actually mitigating climate crisis at this point will take nothing short of fundamental revolution in our way of life.
  - sillywalk 4y ago
    I take essentially the same position.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  What's the thermo back-of-the-envelope calculation for, "here's the Gibbs free energy of the current atmospheric mixture; here's the same of a preindustrial atmosphere plus enough graphite to account for the carbon; here's the amount of energy it'd take to do the unmixing and shuffle the bonds around"? I just want some number of Joules.
  - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
    The atmosphere masses roughly 5.5x10^18 kg. Removing 140ppm to return to pre-industrial levels is 7.7x10^14kg of CO2 to split: 110 tonnes per human. 44g/mol and a Gibbs free energy of -394kJ/mol, and we need 6.5x10^21 joules, or 1.8 billion GWh. More or less dead-on the energy in a trillion barrels of oil, or 10,000 1GW nuclear reactors working flat out for 20 years[1]. Something on the order of 2003 estimates of global petroleum reserves and also of gas reserves.[2] Sounds hopeless, but it's also a fraction of a percent of one year of total global insolation: about 12 hours' worth.[3] 1 trillion trees will also absorb roughly that much in about 30 years[4]. So not completely beyond the scope of physically possible human endeavour, but also probably substantially larger than any previous single endeavour. There's also nothing actually to stop the species doing something other than "it's expensive and hard and I get a better return from making an app for dog manicures". But money is a made up number and were actually not very short on human effort[5] or most materials or even usable energy[6]. [1]: in 2021, humanity operated 366 GW of installed nuclear capacity with 411 reactors. The line is currently going down (2020 had 369 GW and 415 reactors). The concrete and other materials presumably used in the reactors would mean there's a zero in the right half-plane: it'll get worse before it gets better, but nuclear is far from alone in this and by some estimates 50 times better than wind on a per-TWh basis. [2]: considering where the problematic carbon comes from, that's probably not a coincidental similarity in scale! [3]: and that shows in solar installed capacity: about 1TWh. Build about 10 times more than that, dedicate it all that new capacity to CO2 splitting, run it for 20 years, and party like it's 1499. It would need only 50 million acres: 10% of Saudi Arabia or Mexico would do, 1/3 of Texas or basically all of Great Britain (and a bit on the side to compensate for the latitude). Roughly 30m^2 per human: about $3000 worth of installed GW-scale solar power using an estimate of $2 billion/GW, plus the chemistry machinery and op-ex for 20 years. You might even negotiate a price break at the first trillion? [4]: but the wood has to stay in the tree or otherwise not be burned or rotted. Obviously avoiding burning down what trees we already have is probably a good start. [5]: other then then what will you do with all the "operationalised" humans needed to do it? Training that much of humanity would subvert a lot of existing political structures. If anything, this is why I think it won't happen under our current systems. [6]: and you'll get much if the material back afterwards, and what you definitely wouldn't be short of would be energy capacity!
wilg 4y ago
Really enjoyed Noah Smith’s argument against doomerism: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/dont-be-a-doomer https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/dont-be-a-doomer
- Devasta 4y ago
  "For one thing, recent climate models have all but ruled out most of the worst-case scenarios for warming. Although it’ll be very difficult to hold warming below the 1.5 degrees generally considered “safe”, there’s now a good chance that we can hold warming below the 2 degree level, which is around the point where words like “catastrophic” start to make sense:" The linked Twitter thread in the article suggests warming between 2.4 and 3 degrees. Noah Smith being relentlessly stupid is par for the course, but trying to prevent doomerism by suggesting "There is a decent chance civilization won't end in the next 100 years" is a bit much even for him.
  - wilg 4y ago
    The link you mention is in the first sentence and refers to "all but ruled out most of the worst-case scenarios". [0] The second sentence, about "a good chance that we can hold warming below the 2 degree level" links to a different tweet, with different data [1]. I don't think there's any risk of "civilization ending" below 4 or 5 degrees. In the future, before calling someone "relentlessly stupid", you probably should check whether you've understood correctly what they're saying. But this is the sort of emotionally charged rhetoric that happens when people are primed for the apocalypse! That's why doomerism is a problem! It's cathartic, but not helpful. [0] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1425504599167827968 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1425504599167827968 [1] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1465330361077018634 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1465330361077018634
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hgsgm 4y ago
Sir Humprey's 4-Stage strategy to respond to a crisis. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak Stage 1: We say nothing is going to happen. Stage 2: We say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it. Stage 3: We say maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do. Stage 4: We say maybe there was something, but it's too late now.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
There is a chance we are already doomed. We may have already hit a tipping point that'll trip other tipping points and things will get bad faster than the human race is capable, even on a good day, of overcoming. But even still, it doesn't really change what the best course of action is. We should electrify everything, deploy renewables, EVs and heat pumps widely, tax carbon etc. We'll live happier, richer, healthier lives right up until when (if?) doom overtakes us. Feel free to be a doomer, but don't be a sucker and let yourself be manipulated by obvious lies.
- _hypx 4y ago
  Doomerism is catching on because nearly none of those ideas are worth a damn. It's something of an subconscious realization that most environmentalists are not serious people, and most policies are intended to placate the electorate rather than solve anything. When we see a large scale push for more nuclear power, mass transit, opposition to car-centric neighborhoods, shifting of focus to stopping industrial emissions, acceptance of ideas like geoengineering, as well as various other "unacceptable" ideas, then we will have become serious about climate change. If we want to stop doomerism, we'll have to make a massive shift on how we view the problem. Until then, doomerism is a logical conclusion of how we're actually attempting to solve the problem.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - htss2013 4y ago
    You're right that it's a logical conclusion given what's actually happening, but your examples aren't the reasons why people are starting to realize this. Eg, a mystery entity blew up the nord stream 2 pipeline and caused so much methane to be released, that years worth of past and future carbon progress have been erased. When people see that no one important cares about that because Russia is naughty, and people are still going on about your neighborhood design, what else is there to conclude?
    - _hypx 4y ago
nick_ 4y ago
I am a climate doomer. Not because I think it's a cool label to add to contrarian sensibilities, but because of this information: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
- GuB-42 4y ago
  Being a doomer means thinking there is nothing we can do. In practice, it doesn't change much from denial: neither deniers no doomers will take action, the former because there is no need, the latter because it won't change anything. Thinking the future will be hard times no matter what, but that something can be done to make it survivable may be pessimistic, but it is not being a doomer.
  - nick_ 4y ago
    Why do you think that in practice, climate doomers don't do anything to minimize their carbon footprint?
laratied 4y ago
[dead]
sph 4y ago
I am a climate doomer. Not being one means believing our institutions, politicians and corporations are a force for good. I would not trust anyone born after the 1970s that believes that's the case, because they're either frighteningly naive, borne from privilege or just lying to themselves. Oil companies with continue lobbying, politicians will continue to promise absolute nonsensical green dreams to get voted in, people will continue to vote the next guy in because he's gonna do something about it, and rinse and fucking repeat. In fact, the same applies to any major issue affecting the Western world. I am sure I am the minority and the lunatic here, but I do not trust anyone that does not see modern politics (which includes corporate capitalism and all that circus) as a net negative for humanity as a whole. We need action, yesterday, yet all we can do is tell Joe Average their steak is causing climate change, and Unilever will save us with their plant-based burger, with ingredients shipped from overseas because it's cheaper. But sure, the next party is definitely gonna do something about climate change. "It's just a matter of setting the right economic incentives," I can hear, over muffled laughter. (I am aware I sound like a loon in this comment, but I am from the austerity and economic crisis generation, I have no belief whatsoever in our institutions.)
- rolenthedeep 4y ago
  I think it's a pretty pragmatic view. The political system has no interest or even real incentive to fix climate change. Money has corrupted our governments too deeply to alter course in time. There's nothing that you, I, or any individual can do to affect our current trajectory. Not at any scale that actually matters. The only answer is to stop producing fossil fuels right now full stop, no conditions, no "phasing out". And that is simply not feasible because of money. Because we've spent the last half a century ignoring the problem. What do we do? No amount of voting or recycling or buying new cars is going to make any change. It hasn't for 20 years. By the time our society gets its collective head out of its ass enough to vote for political change, we'll already be deep into global famine. I predict two general scenarios: 1. Status quo. Nothing changes, world governments will attempt a massive last ditch effort far, far too late to make a difference. A huge portion of all species die. From there pick your favorite post-apocalyptic movie. 2. The people wisen up and overthrow their governments, string up oil execs, and force decarbonization at any cost. We are currently, right now, TODAY at the stage where we must decarbonize at any cost. Literally no cost is too high. If we shut down oil today, it will be hugely disruptive and destructive to global society. A lot of people will die and many, many more will suffer. This will go on for decades most likely. But the alternative is most likely an extinction level event. Global famine and plague, entire species going extinct, loss of coastlines, entire ecosystems collapsing en masse. Fundamentally, I don't think human psychology at scale can handle that. I expect that nothing barring miracle technology is going to save us, and in our current socioeconomic system, that might be even worse than nothing. So yeah, I think we're doomed. We let capitalism go on for too long and it's too late to change direction. Those with power have systematically taken it from the rest of us so that the people with the incentive to survive longer than their career don't have the power to. The rest have the power to build nuclear bunkers under a mountain, or a rocket to Mars. All because some men wanted to see a number go up. Maybe we'll crack fusion and suck all the carbon out of the atmosphere, but that again simply buys us another few generations until our industrial waste heat boils the oceans. Until then, rich men will attempt to use carbon capture as leverage to extract even more money and power. "Pay me or I turn the climate up another degree" is not far off from what they're doing today. The only thing that can save us is widespread revolt, strikes, overthrowing governments and forcing action. We've given the political system nearly a century to sort this out, and they are very clearly not interested. It's going to kill us if we don't do something.
rhaway84773 4y ago
Denial to doomer has long been projected as the progression the climate change “skeptics” would take, because their fundamental objective is to prevent any action from being taken so incumbent industries continue making money. 1. There is no climate change. 2. There is climate change but it’s not caused by humans. 3. There is climate change and it’s caused by humans but it’s not bad for us. 4. There is climate change, and it’s caused by humans, and it’s bad for us, but it’s too late to do anything.
sjducb 4y ago
The oil companies are putting out propaganda to make you believe that climate change can't be stopped. The message has changed as follows: 1) Climate change isn't happening 2) Climate change is happening, but we didn't cause it 3) Climate change is happening, we caused it, but it can't be stopped. If you believe any of the above statements then you will not get in the way of oil companies profits. That is the intended goal. The reality is that there's loads you can do at both the personal and public policy level. Don't believe the lies, climate change can be mitigated.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  Climate change can be stopped but won’t be. Whether or not it can be is irrelevant to what actually happens, which is to say, it’s going to be a disaster.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    That is isomorphic to #3 but with the defeatism pointed at people instead of the environment itself.
    - stubish 4y ago
      And when there is just one actor (us), "won't" is just a subset of "can't". As in "we can't do it, because we won't do it".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  30% of emissions are from China. Oil companies real motivation was to manufacture scarcity, not produce as much oil as they can. Oil companies only have good margins when there's artificial scarcity, from geopolitical turmoil, from climate change dumb policies. It is taken for granted that oil companies lose from the climate change agenda - but when you look at the actions, they don't lose, they win. If the climate change agenda didn't stop their competition, if geological turmoil in the middle east and Venezuela didn't reduce the oil supply, oil would be pretty cheap. The U.S. got oil independence under Trump, but then the climate change agenda under Biden rolled it back and the oil prices soared. If oil prices are higher when climate agenda and policies are implemented, it seems like we've got it backwards. We also have it backwards regarding our control of climate change. China has 30% of global emissions. The same China that stopped it's economy for COVID. If they believed climate change is a risk to them, they would do something. But China hardly cares. Maybe, China doesn't see it as a risk. If China isn't going to be serious about it, the only rational decisions are either that it's inevitable and out of our control or that it's not that bad. There's no future where the west miraculously turns the ship around by itself out of a disaster that's 30% out of its control. That's the real lie.
beerpls 4y ago
I don’t think deniers are being replaced, this is a very odd perspective There are still plenty of people who are and who are becoming “deniers”. It’s not really hard to imagine given how much hyperbole comes from the climate “enthusiasts” (if we must slap labels on people) The “doomers” are actually people who a generation ago would have been the enthusiasts, but because the hyperbole and often outright deception was so strong they have been disenfranchised to the idea that anything can be done. And how can you blame either the deniers or the doomers? The movement is full of charleston’s who will say anything to get more power and wealth for themselves. The people with the most money and power live in lavish palaces flying private jets around the world to lecture us plebs that heating our homes is killing the planet. There’s more farce than truth and the result is everyone’s in a camp of nihilism because of it https://www.foxnews.com/politics/al-gore-history-climate-predictions-statements-proven-false https://www.foxnews.com/politics/al-gore-history-climate-pre...
throw1352023 4y ago
[flagged]
than3 4y ago
Its hard to argue with true. While there is a small amount of uncertainty, since the future is uncertain, that uncertainty continually decreases as you approach a point of no return. Companies have propagandized this to protect profits following the MIT Study "Limits to Growth", under the business as usual. While that doesn't mean we'll all die in this doom scenario, fatalistic as it is, there likely will be a lot of death ahead of us because of failures to act at a time when such action could have been much more moderate. Exponential curves are a bitch.

28 points by tomrod 4y ago

I always wonder how certain we are about climate change. I ask myself these questions. Are temperatures really increasing or it's just we are just looking a very small time frame with a myopic perspective? Assuming that there is an anormal increase of temperature. How certain is that is man-made? My hunch is that yes, a human-made global warming is happening but I still don't have a complete conviction. Also what about these reports that are talking about a change on the solar cycle that will produce an ice age. How much can one believe these reports?

sillywalk 4y ago

The headline seems misleading, climate deniers are still around and blocking action, doomers aren't replacing them, they just think we're fucked no matter what we do at this point, leading to inaction. AIUI all emissions scenarios required a massive removal of BILLIONS TONNES of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it somewhere. I imagine this will be a problem. Doomerism seems like blasphemy on a site for Techno Venture Capitalists :)

DangitBobby 4y ago
I don't really think it's fair to say doomerism leads to inaction, I'm pretty sure inaction is the default state for 99.9% of people. Me for instance, I'm absolutely certain we're fucked but hey, if I hear that my government's getting serious I'll get serious too, but not a moment before because actually mitigating climate crisis at this point will take nothing short of fundamental revolution in our way of life.
- sillywalk 4y ago
  I take essentially the same position.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
What's the thermo back-of-the-envelope calculation for, "here's the Gibbs free energy of the current atmospheric mixture; here's the same of a preindustrial atmosphere plus enough graphite to account for the carbon; here's the amount of energy it'd take to do the unmixing and shuffle the bonds around"? I just want some number of Joules.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  The atmosphere masses roughly 5.5x10^18 kg. Removing 140ppm to return to pre-industrial levels is 7.7x10^14kg of CO2 to split: 110 tonnes per human. 44g/mol and a Gibbs free energy of -394kJ/mol, and we need 6.5x10^21 joules, or 1.8 billion GWh. More or less dead-on the energy in a trillion barrels of oil, or 10,000 1GW nuclear reactors working flat out for 20 years[1]. Something on the order of 2003 estimates of global petroleum reserves and also of gas reserves.[2] Sounds hopeless, but it's also a fraction of a percent of one year of total global insolation: about 12 hours' worth.[3] 1 trillion trees will also absorb roughly that much in about 30 years[4]. So not completely beyond the scope of physically possible human endeavour, but also probably substantially larger than any previous single endeavour. There's also nothing actually to stop the species doing something other than "it's expensive and hard and I get a better return from making an app for dog manicures". But money is a made up number and were actually not very short on human effort[5] or most materials or even usable energy[6]. [1]: in 2021, humanity operated 366 GW of installed nuclear capacity with 411 reactors. The line is currently going down (2020 had 369 GW and 415 reactors). The concrete and other materials presumably used in the reactors would mean there's a zero in the right half-plane: it'll get worse before it gets better, but nuclear is far from alone in this and by some estimates 50 times better than wind on a per-TWh basis. [2]: considering where the problematic carbon comes from, that's probably not a coincidental similarity in scale! [3]: and that shows in solar installed capacity: about 1TWh. Build about 10 times more than that, dedicate it all that new capacity to CO2 splitting, run it for 20 years, and party like it's 1499. It would need only 50 million acres: 10% of Saudi Arabia or Mexico would do, 1/3 of Texas or basically all of Great Britain (and a bit on the side to compensate for the latitude). Roughly 30m^2 per human: about $3000 worth of installed GW-scale solar power using an estimate of $2 billion/GW, plus the chemistry machinery and op-ex for 20 years. You might even negotiate a price break at the first trillion? [4]: but the wood has to stay in the tree or otherwise not be burned or rotted. Obviously avoiding burning down what trees we already have is probably a good start. [5]: other then then what will you do with all the "operationalised" humans needed to do it? Training that much of humanity would subvert a lot of existing political structures. If anything, this is why I think it won't happen under our current systems. [6]: and you'll get much if the material back afterwards, and what you definitely wouldn't be short of would be energy capacity!

wilg 4y ago

Really enjoyed Noah Smith’s argument against doomerism: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/dont-be-a-doomer https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/dont-be-a-doomer

Devasta 4y ago
"For one thing, recent climate models have all but ruled out most of the worst-case scenarios for warming. Although it’ll be very difficult to hold warming below the 1.5 degrees generally considered “safe”, there’s now a good chance that we can hold warming below the 2 degree level, which is around the point where words like “catastrophic” start to make sense:" The linked Twitter thread in the article suggests warming between 2.4 and 3 degrees. Noah Smith being relentlessly stupid is par for the course, but trying to prevent doomerism by suggesting "There is a decent chance civilization won't end in the next 100 years" is a bit much even for him.
- wilg 4y ago
  The link you mention is in the first sentence and refers to "all but ruled out most of the worst-case scenarios". [0] The second sentence, about "a good chance that we can hold warming below the 2 degree level" links to a different tweet, with different data [1]. I don't think there's any risk of "civilization ending" below 4 or 5 degrees. In the future, before calling someone "relentlessly stupid", you probably should check whether you've understood correctly what they're saying. But this is the sort of emotionally charged rhetoric that happens when people are primed for the apocalypse! That's why doomerism is a problem! It's cathartic, but not helpful. [0] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1425504599167827968 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1425504599167827968 [1] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1465330361077018634 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1465330361077018634

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hgsgm 4y ago

Sir Humprey's 4-Stage strategy to respond to a crisis. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP5iak Stage 1: We say nothing is going to happen. Stage 2: We say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it. Stage 3: We say maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do. Stage 4: We say maybe there was something, but it's too late now.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

There is a chance we are already doomed. We may have already hit a tipping point that'll trip other tipping points and things will get bad faster than the human race is capable, even on a good day, of overcoming. But even still, it doesn't really change what the best course of action is. We should electrify everything, deploy renewables, EVs and heat pumps widely, tax carbon etc. We'll live happier, richer, healthier lives right up until when (if?) doom overtakes us. Feel free to be a doomer, but don't be a sucker and let yourself be manipulated by obvious lies.

_hypx 4y ago
Doomerism is catching on because nearly none of those ideas are worth a damn. It's something of an subconscious realization that most environmentalists are not serious people, and most policies are intended to placate the electorate rather than solve anything. When we see a large scale push for more nuclear power, mass transit, opposition to car-centric neighborhoods, shifting of focus to stopping industrial emissions, acceptance of ideas like geoengineering, as well as various other "unacceptable" ideas, then we will have become serious about climate change. If we want to stop doomerism, we'll have to make a massive shift on how we view the problem. Until then, doomerism is a logical conclusion of how we're actually attempting to solve the problem.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- htss2013 4y ago
  You're right that it's a logical conclusion given what's actually happening, but your examples aren't the reasons why people are starting to realize this. Eg, a mystery entity blew up the nord stream 2 pipeline and caused so much methane to be released, that years worth of past and future carbon progress have been erased. When people see that no one important cares about that because Russia is naughty, and people are still going on about your neighborhood design, what else is there to conclude?
  - _hypx 4y ago

nick_ 4y ago

I am a climate doomer. Not because I think it's a cool label to add to contrarian sensibilities, but because of this information: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

GuB-42 4y ago
Being a doomer means thinking there is nothing we can do. In practice, it doesn't change much from denial: neither deniers no doomers will take action, the former because there is no need, the latter because it won't change anything. Thinking the future will be hard times no matter what, but that something can be done to make it survivable may be pessimistic, but it is not being a doomer.
- nick_ 4y ago
  Why do you think that in practice, climate doomers don't do anything to minimize their carbon footprint?

laratied 4y ago

[dead]

sph 4y ago

I am a climate doomer. Not being one means believing our institutions, politicians and corporations are a force for good. I would not trust anyone born after the 1970s that believes that's the case, because they're either frighteningly naive, borne from privilege or just lying to themselves. Oil companies with continue lobbying, politicians will continue to promise absolute nonsensical green dreams to get voted in, people will continue to vote the next guy in because he's gonna do something about it, and rinse and fucking repeat. In fact, the same applies to any major issue affecting the Western world. I am sure I am the minority and the lunatic here, but I do not trust anyone that does not see modern politics (which includes corporate capitalism and all that circus) as a net negative for humanity as a whole. We need action, yesterday, yet all we can do is tell Joe Average their steak is causing climate change, and Unilever will save us with their plant-based burger, with ingredients shipped from overseas because it's cheaper. But sure, the next party is definitely gonna do something about climate change. "It's just a matter of setting the right economic incentives," I can hear, over muffled laughter. (I am aware I sound like a loon in this comment, but I am from the austerity and economic crisis generation, I have no belief whatsoever in our institutions.)

rolenthedeep 4y ago
I think it's a pretty pragmatic view. The political system has no interest or even real incentive to fix climate change. Money has corrupted our governments too deeply to alter course in time. There's nothing that you, I, or any individual can do to affect our current trajectory. Not at any scale that actually matters. The only answer is to stop producing fossil fuels right now full stop, no conditions, no "phasing out". And that is simply not feasible because of money. Because we've spent the last half a century ignoring the problem. What do we do? No amount of voting or recycling or buying new cars is going to make any change. It hasn't for 20 years. By the time our society gets its collective head out of its ass enough to vote for political change, we'll already be deep into global famine. I predict two general scenarios: 1. Status quo. Nothing changes, world governments will attempt a massive last ditch effort far, far too late to make a difference. A huge portion of all species die. From there pick your favorite post-apocalyptic movie. 2. The people wisen up and overthrow their governments, string up oil execs, and force decarbonization at any cost. We are currently, right now, TODAY at the stage where we must decarbonize at any cost. Literally no cost is too high. If we shut down oil today, it will be hugely disruptive and destructive to global society. A lot of people will die and many, many more will suffer. This will go on for decades most likely. But the alternative is most likely an extinction level event. Global famine and plague, entire species going extinct, loss of coastlines, entire ecosystems collapsing en masse. Fundamentally, I don't think human psychology at scale can handle that. I expect that nothing barring miracle technology is going to save us, and in our current socioeconomic system, that might be even worse than nothing. So yeah, I think we're doomed. We let capitalism go on for too long and it's too late to change direction. Those with power have systematically taken it from the rest of us so that the people with the incentive to survive longer than their career don't have the power to. The rest have the power to build nuclear bunkers under a mountain, or a rocket to Mars. All because some men wanted to see a number go up. Maybe we'll crack fusion and suck all the carbon out of the atmosphere, but that again simply buys us another few generations until our industrial waste heat boils the oceans. Until then, rich men will attempt to use carbon capture as leverage to extract even more money and power. "Pay me or I turn the climate up another degree" is not far off from what they're doing today. The only thing that can save us is widespread revolt, strikes, overthrowing governments and forcing action. We've given the political system nearly a century to sort this out, and they are very clearly not interested. It's going to kill us if we don't do something.

rhaway84773 4y ago

Denial to doomer has long been projected as the progression the climate change “skeptics” would take, because their fundamental objective is to prevent any action from being taken so incumbent industries continue making money. 1. There is no climate change. 2. There is climate change but it’s not caused by humans. 3. There is climate change and it’s caused by humans but it’s not bad for us. 4. There is climate change, and it’s caused by humans, and it’s bad for us, but it’s too late to do anything.

sjducb 4y ago

The oil companies are putting out propaganda to make you believe that climate change can't be stopped. The message has changed as follows: 1) Climate change isn't happening 2) Climate change is happening, but we didn't cause it 3) Climate change is happening, we caused it, but it can't be stopped. If you believe any of the above statements then you will not get in the way of oil companies profits. That is the intended goal. The reality is that there's loads you can do at both the personal and public policy level. Don't believe the lies, climate change can be mitigated.

throwaway5959 4y ago
Climate change can be stopped but won’t be. Whether or not it can be is irrelevant to what actually happens, which is to say, it’s going to be a disaster.
- Spivak 4y ago
  That is isomorphic to #3 but with the defeatism pointed at people instead of the environment itself.
  - stubish 4y ago
    And when there is just one actor (us), "won't" is just a subset of "can't". As in "we can't do it, because we won't do it".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
30% of emissions are from China. Oil companies real motivation was to manufacture scarcity, not produce as much oil as they can. Oil companies only have good margins when there's artificial scarcity, from geopolitical turmoil, from climate change dumb policies. It is taken for granted that oil companies lose from the climate change agenda - but when you look at the actions, they don't lose, they win. If the climate change agenda didn't stop their competition, if geological turmoil in the middle east and Venezuela didn't reduce the oil supply, oil would be pretty cheap. The U.S. got oil independence under Trump, but then the climate change agenda under Biden rolled it back and the oil prices soared. If oil prices are higher when climate agenda and policies are implemented, it seems like we've got it backwards. We also have it backwards regarding our control of climate change. China has 30% of global emissions. The same China that stopped it's economy for COVID. If they believed climate change is a risk to them, they would do something. But China hardly cares. Maybe, China doesn't see it as a risk. If China isn't going to be serious about it, the only rational decisions are either that it's inevitable and out of our control or that it's not that bad. There's no future where the west miraculously turns the ship around by itself out of a disaster that's 30% out of its control. That's the real lie.

beerpls 4y ago

I don’t think deniers are being replaced, this is a very odd perspective There are still plenty of people who are and who are becoming “deniers”. It’s not really hard to imagine given how much hyperbole comes from the climate “enthusiasts” (if we must slap labels on people) The “doomers” are actually people who a generation ago would have been the enthusiasts, but because the hyperbole and often outright deception was so strong they have been disenfranchised to the idea that anything can be done. And how can you blame either the deniers or the doomers? The movement is full of charleston’s who will say anything to get more power and wealth for themselves. The people with the most money and power live in lavish palaces flying private jets around the world to lecture us plebs that heating our homes is killing the planet. There’s more farce than truth and the result is everyone’s in a camp of nihilism because of it https://www.foxnews.com/politics/al-gore-history-climate-predictions-statements-proven-false https://www.foxnews.com/politics/al-gore-history-climate-pre...

throw1352023 4y ago

[flagged]

than3 4y ago

Its hard to argue with true. While there is a small amount of uncertainty, since the future is uncertain, that uncertainty continually decreases as you approach a point of no return. Companies have propagandized this to protect profits following the MIT Study "Limits to Growth", under the business as usual. While that doesn't mean we'll all die in this doom scenario, fatalistic as it is, there likely will be a lot of death ahead of us because of failures to act at a time when such action could have been much more moderate. Exponential curves are a bitch.