Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Positive feedback loops, how do they work?
We've known about this for decades. An example: heating causes permafrost to melt releasing CO2 and methane, which cause more heat to be trapped, which melts more permafrost, which releases more green house gasses, etc.
Positive feedback loops tend to be very unstable, and can lead to runaway situations.
Can't wait for all those ice caps to go away and stop reflecting all the heat that they do reflect being white. It'll just add to it.
And when the last ice is gone we will finally have revenge for the Titanic
Hey I found time to laugh in between my doomsday crying.
Thanks. :)
Looks like it might be a good idea to paint sections of buildings black and white, colour coded for heating lol
People are really bad at conceptualizing exponential change from feedback. Our brains expect incremental change. I think that's one of the reasons people can't know accept what is happening.
"I know things are changing, but it's only a bit each day, and it can go like that for years and it won't be that bad."
The article goes out of its way to claim this isn't the case. Theres a line that says something like there is no extra heat in the pipeline.
I followed the links in that quote:
Climate models have consistently found that once we get emissions down to net zero, the world will largely stop warming; there is no warming that is inevitable or in the pipeline after that point.
Neither addresses tipping points. They seem to talk about something else entirely, like wether a model assumes constant atmospheric concentration, or constant emissions, that kind of difference.
As much as this news disturbs me .... the thing that disturbs me most is that most of the world will ignore it.
Humanity won't do anything about any of this until millions die and mass migrations start happening due to extreme weather events.
COVID was the perfect microcosm for climate change action. COVID killed a shit-pile of people really quickly. Humans are wired to acknowledge pressing matters (like a pandemic), while more abstract concepts, and things with delayed consequences get pushed to the wayside.
It make sense, why we are the way we are. Who cares about where your meal next week is going to come from, when you're a caveman running from a lion?
Does it make us any less dead? nope. Just the timing is in question.
Even covid was already too hypothetical and abstract and too far away in time and space for millions of people to act cautiously. Climate change is further away still... When it becomes very noticeable, it's far too late: hawaii fire level stuff before people actually realise it's fucked.
Hawaii fire level stuff is due to climate change.
the number of chuds I've met that really, really think it was some kind of space laser and not a wildfire driven by hurricane winds and crippling heat is fucking depressing. people I volunteer with who I thought were rational humans... what in the fuck
Yes. I meant many people only realise it when they are the one stuck there and can't get out.
I'm less optimistic than you, I think we will continue to increase fossil fuel usage, even though millions are dying and being displaced.
As long as the income stream isnt threatened either by unrest, mass deaths, or hardware malfunctioning, expect business as usual.
That's the kind of logic I expect to see in the coming decades.
People will argue the details, debate the topics, defend finances and the economy .... all while the world falls apart and people die, are actively dying or will live shorter lives.
Humanity will fade into obscurity as we all fight with one another.
Hell yeah.
Thats for sure. Many finance analysts predict 3 digit oil prices.
Investments will ramp up once demand puts pressure on the price.
And fossil fuel industry will be the most profitable one again.
WE CANT EXPECT OUR SYSTEM TO CHANGE WITHOUT CHANGING THE SYSTEM.
Humanity won’t do anything about any of this until millions die and mass migrations start happening due to extreme weather events.
We won't do anything even then.
Well, not anything that'd help, at any rate. The worse things get, the more people will vote for conservatives and populists who will sell them easy solutions, which will likely consist of mass violence and rolling back environmental regulations because they inconvenience their voters. The only thing that will actually help will be the inevitable collapse of industrial society at this scale, but to get there hundreds of millions if not billions will die pointless deaths, especially if nuclear weapons are involved in the collapse.
After reading headline: Thank goodness!
After reading article: Fuck!
relevant bit (I think, I didn't read the entire thing):
And while many experts have been cautious about acknowledging it, there is increasing evidence that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years rather than continued at a gradual, steady pace. That acceleration means that the effects of climate change we are already seeing — extreme heat waves, wildfires, rainfall and sea level rise — will only grow more severe in the coming years.
This is nothing new though. Climate Scientist have ALWAYS been fearing a runaway effect. It has a wiki page and all. The author isn't wrong, but it's click bait. It's not telling us anything new.
I think the difference is that, at least when I took a class on this (coincidentally about 15 years ago), we talked a lot about how there was likely to be a runaway effect. This article is saying that the climate measurements from the last 15 years provide evidence that the predicted runaway effect is, in fact, happening.
It may be click bait, but given the topic and urgency, I want as many unique clicks as it can get.
Ah, my first thought was "Well, either we're less doomed, or more doomed. Probably gonna be the second".
These threads are such a shit show. No one reads the article and then just has the conversation they want to have, other people who didn’t read the article think they’re summarizing it, and everyone walks away dumber.
Online discourse tends to be like that
I read the article but it doesn't say much that hasn't been said a thousand times before.
Thread is a mess though I'll agree on that.
We've discovered the breaking point of paradise. Hope the next sentient species is a little less selfish.
Unfortunately, I don't know if it would be possible for another species to reach our level of technology or civilization. We built up our society off of easily accessible energy resources (surface-level coal being our first source of industrial energy). This energy excess allowed us to develop other sources of energy, solar, wind, nuclear, etc. But if you tried starting from zero again, you could never get to this point, at least along the same path, as you need a high level of technology to access any available energy resources. Thus, if any new species took our place, they could only ever rise to the level of the pre-industrial revolution.
At the very least, even basic electricity production requires copper windings. Which requires copper wire. Which requires refined copper. Which requires copper ore. Which requires copper mining.
Generations of people with manual tools will need to die in the mines for enough electricity to be generated to run a small medical clinic, let alone get post-climate humans to a point of modern civilization.
While it's definitely bleak, it's not quite as bleak as that. Remember that we're leaving behind vast amounts of 'waste', much of which contains things like copper, aluminium, steel and other useful components in relatively easily refinable states.
Future civilisations will be digging through our waste, wondering why we were so profligate, but glad to have it all to hand.
Perhaps if it’s a few million years later and all us dead humans have turned into coal and oil, like the dinosaurs of the past.
Beginning to think we're going to hit 1.6c next year, not 2050.
Heating is accelerating. IF we stop adding greenhouse gases to the air, the heating should stop. It won't go back down without removing massive amounts of CO2, though.
It won't stop unless we also remove the greenhouse gases that we put there
IF we stop adding greenhouse gases to the air, the heating should stop.
Unless we crossed a tipping point. If so, the heating could continue although we stopped.