71–80 of 523 posts
Does anyone have any views on buying carbon offsets through services like TerraPass and Carbonfund? I drive a pickup truck so I'd like to reduce my impact, but don't know if the efficacy of carbon offsets have really been evaluated.
You could...drive it a lot less :-)
Is this 12 year timeline correct. What degree of catastrophe are we looking at?
It's generally accepted that if we don't zero our carbon emissions in 12 years we'll see 2 degrees warming minimum. Best case scenario is drought, heatwaves, forest fires, lose half the wildlife in the world, all the coral reefs, most of the fish, reduced crop yield, flooding, storms, sea level rise, and parts of the world are inhospitable, and the populations of those regions migrate north. BEST case. WORST case is…
Does anyone have any views on buying carbon offsets through services like TerraPass and Carbonfund? I drive a pickup truck so I'd like to reduce my impact, but don't know if the efficacy of carbon offsets have really been evaluated.
> I drive a pickup truck so I'd like to reduce my impact You could...drive it a lot less :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would win over republicans? I mean, if the survival of human civilisation isn't enough, what can you propose?
Well there is a lot of false information out there about climate change and it's probable influence on the planet. Things have gotten out of hand with how polarised this issue is. Many people on the right don't believe in climate change. A little of this is because the time scales were off in some early predictions such as An Inconvenient Truth. This was a good wake up call to many but it also exaggerates the rate of…
And conspiracy theorists will have fodder for the next 50 years.
So I'm honestly not as concerned about this as I once was. Don't get me wrong: the climate is going to change, arguably we're in a mass extinction event already and people aren't going to suddenly start acting in the collective long term welfare of humanity. One of the things I like about futurism is the levelheaded optimism and pragmatism you tend to get. And I'll call out Isaac Arthur as a well-known example of thi…
> Fundamentally this also seems like a "betting with the Mayans" type scenario too. Either the doomsayers are right and we're screwed. If so, you'll be right but who cares? We're still screwed. You're probably better off just hoping things will work out because, honestly, I think there's a pretty decent chance they will. Exactly. You can spread doom as much as you want and it won't help. You won't get a critical mass…
Sometimes. If it's economically viable. Sometimes many decades later.
Take PCBs as an example. Their absurd longevity means nearly all of it is still around, causing a long list of harms, and will probably continue for decades more. Long after production ceased.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would win over republicans? I mean, if the survival of human civilisation isn't enough, what can you propose?
Well there is a lot of false information out there about climate change and it's probable influence on the planet. Things have gotten out of hand with how polarised this issue is. Many people on the right don't believe in climate change. A little of this is because the time scales were off in some early predictions such as An Inconvenient Truth. This was a good wake up call to many but it also exaggerates the rate of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Fundamentally this also seems like a "betting with the Mayans" type scenario too. Either the doomsayers are right and we're screwed. If so, you'll be right but who cares? We're still screwed. You're probably better off just hoping things will work out because, honestly, I think there's a pretty decent chance they will. Exactly. You can spread doom as much as you want and it won't help. You won't get a critical mass…
> If technology caused a problem, technology can also solve it. Sometimes. If it's economically viable. Sometimes many decades later. Take PCBs as an example. Their absurd longevity means nearly all of it is still around, causing a long list of harms, and will probably continue for decades more. Long after production ceased.
In that context:
* Economic viability is a matter of time. Have commercially viable fusion reactors? You better recalculate your econ viability all over.
* PCBs: Nanotechnology, robotics, AI
Ultimately, unless there is a relatively quick mass extinction event, no government is going to be bothered into action. Climate change and the devastation it's going to cause, is going to play out slowly over the years. The most affected would be the poorest of the world. They are going to die first. The rich will have enough resources to be able to not only survive, but also thrive on these events as new business opportunities are going to be created.
Ultimately, Earth maybe a very different place 100 years from now, but the rich of today are surely going to have their descendants living quite comfortably.
The only thing an individual can do is to strive to get as rich as possible, because that is the only security that's going to save you and your family in the bleak future that lies ahead of us.
So I'm honestly not as concerned about this as I once was. Don't get me wrong: the climate is going to change, arguably we're in a mass extinction event already and people aren't going to suddenly start acting in the collective long term welfare of humanity. One of the things I like about futurism is the levelheaded optimism and pragmatism you tend to get. And I'll call out Isaac Arthur as a well-known example of thi…
This seems like a psychological defence against anxiety/depression rather than an actual foundation for real action. You're looking at big, broad patterns and assuming they will work out on the huge scales necessary for civilisation to continue. Other people are looking at the big broad patterns and assuming that cascading failures will make problems accelerate.
It's a mindset and a positive attitude that is constructive instead of spreading fear and doom, which does not yield any positive outcome at all.
So I'm honestly not as concerned about this as I once was. Don't get me wrong: the climate is going to change, arguably we're in a mass extinction event already and people aren't going to suddenly start acting in the collective long term welfare of humanity. One of the things I like about futurism is the levelheaded optimism and pragmatism you tend to get. And I'll call out Isaac Arthur as a well-known example of thi…
> The Earth has also been a lot warmer than it is now Key here is rate of change, and what humans can survive. We are changing the climate many many times faster than ever before. Nature does not have the time to adapt. And the wars, famines and mass displacements coming from ecosystem collapse is like nothing we've seen in human history. Think we have a problem with a few million migrants? Try a billion or two! P-T…
For a recent example look up the younger dryas on Wikipedia. It seems like the average global temp moved about 5 degrees over a few decades.