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While I agree with the title, I think the author misses the real reason not to refer to the "New Normal". David Wallace-Wells sums it up pretty well: > It is t
by PheonixPharts 3y ago
While I agree with the title, I think the author misses the real reason not to refer to the "New Normal". David Wallace-Wells sums it up pretty well:
> It is tempting to look at these strings of disasters and think, Climate change is here... this is how California governor Jerry Brown first described the state of things in the midst of the state's wildfire disaster: "a new normal"
> The truth is actually much scarier. That is, the end of normal; never normal again. We have already exited the state of environmental conditions that allowed the human animal to evolve in the first place, in an unsure and unplanned bet on just what that animal can endure.
This is where climate change, from a human perspective, is so different than any other disaster we've dealt with prior. From earth quakes to even something as extreme as nuclear war, these events represent a single, high magnitude disruption of the status quo, which then leads to the return of a new stability. Once the change has occurred adaption can begin.
Climate change will continue to get worse throughout our lives, the lives of our children after us, and most certainly their children as well. We won't reach a new point of stability which we can call the "new normal" for multiple generations. You'll never get "used to it" during your life time. As soon as people get used to smoky skies, hotter summers and drier winters, the next challenges will starting to occur and they'll be more extreme.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nologic01 3y agoClimate change from anthropogenic green house gas emissions is an example of "fiddling with systemic parameters" and hoping that all response is linear. Its not just CO2 and friends. Any shifting around of systemic chemical compositions (whether in air, water or soil) has similar potential for difficult to predict (and hard to reverse) damage. Given our role and abilities fiddling with these types of systemic abundances does not lead to immediate feedback loops. It takes generations to move the needle. But tipping points are real in any complex system. The biosphere is not a static something that can be tuned at the service of homo sapiens. It will rebalance. And the new equilibrium might not be to our liking. Surviving this "slow cooking of the frog" phenomenon will require us to develop behaviors that we have never before contemplated. Developing a web of trust, objectivity and sense of responsibility not only among all living individuals but also all future generations.
- delusional 3y agoThat's an amazing perspective I had never once considered. "The new normal" isn't the current state of things, instead "the new normal" is that we're on a slope. Instead of outliers that then regressions to some mean, it will continue to get worse. We'll have the hottest summer ever multiple years in a row. That's scary. Edit: If anybody want's to read the entire text that OP refers to: https://www.livemint.com/news/world/climate-change-crisis-closer-than-we-think-1551833050433.html https://www.livemint.com/news/world/climate-change-crisis-cl...
- lamontcg 3y agoI thought it was obvious that "The New Normal" was sarcastic/ironic and the steady drumbeats of "New Normals" implied everything was getting worse via a ratchet effect.
- blooalien 3y agoExactly how I've been reading it. "The New Normal" is that "normal" is no longer a thing (if "normal" ever even really existed outside of mathematics/statistics).