Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
theatlantic.com
Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
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Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#2Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#3https://archive.ph/4krA6
Thanks (turning JS off also works).
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#4For decades I've heard, "what if the scientists are all wrong and it's not as bad as we thought?" and I always thought (not being much of an optimist), "what if they're wrong and it's worse?".
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#5For decades I've heard, "what if the scientists are all wrong and it's not as bad as we thought?" and I always thought (not being much of an optimist), "what if they're wrong and it's worse?".
Same here. I read a couple of literature reviews on climate change on a particular hot summer vacation in 2016. It completely voided me of all hope that humans would somehow manage to ‘solve’ the wave of misery that is rushing towards us.
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#6Not to diminish the outcomes seen in Paradise CA, Rhineland-Palatinate, Tuvalu, etc I've always figured that crop yields are a couple orders of magnitude more important than all other climate impacts put together, especially since vertical farms keep going bankrupt.
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#7For decades I've heard, "what if the scientists are all wrong and it's not as bad as we thought?" and I always thought (not being much of an optimist), "what if they're wrong and it's worse?".
The scientists have been avoiding using the extremes of their data because they don't want to come off as scare-mongering, so yeah, it's happening faster than they've been saying.
In a few years people will probably blame them, "Why didn't you warn us!?!".
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#8For decades I've heard, "what if the scientists are all wrong and it's not as bad as we thought?" and I always thought (not being much of an optimist), "what if they're wrong and it's worse?".
I've spent the last few weeks in both southern and northern parts of France and Italy. Places that I have visited once or twice a year, every year in the last 15-20 years.
It's so patently obvious that the weather in such places has changed in ways that are irremediably compromised by now. Especially in the last 10 years, there was a tangible speed-up in the desertification process. We're so further down the road that I wonder how we're still even doubting the situation is way worse than previously predicted. These regions will look like sub-mediterranean African coastal deserts within the next 30-40 years.
Even the local deniers have fully shifted from the original "There's no climate change occurring" to "This is THE NEW NORMAL, why are you surprised, you better get used to it."
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#9For decades I've heard, "what if the scientists are all wrong and it's not as bad as we thought?" and I always thought (not being much of an optimist), "what if they're wrong and it's worse?".
Same here. I read a couple of literature reviews on climate change on a particular hot summer vacation in 2016. It completely voided me of all hope that humans would somehow manage to ‘solve’ the wave of misery that is rushing towards us.
We'll go back to selfishness and isolationism. The EU was supposed to be this cooperative utopia, but when Covid started to be real bad in Italy, its neighbors just shut the borders down. There was also hoarding of medical supplies (even legitimately bought stuff were blocked from being delivered).
I guess sooner rather than later we'll see militaries being deployed to secure (i.e steal from other nations) food and water, who cares about diplomacy and civilization if there's starvation. I wonder who's got the better military, Putin might've screwed Russia by getting his troops all shot up in Ukraine, if Siberia becomes fertile land and China needs food, who's going to stop them from saying "we're borrowing this bit of your country, that's cool with you, right?".
A friend posted a meme about why most people seem mostly calm instead of panicking, I commented, I guess individuals just need it to be normal for them and they'll feel fine, if they start paying attention they won't be able to sleep at night, so we trivialize the problem to solve the cognitive dissonance.
Re: Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast
#10For decades I've heard, "what if the scientists are all wrong and it's not as bad as we thought?" and I always thought (not being much of an optimist), "what if they're wrong and it's worse?".
The thing is, we now have decades of empirical evidence to confirm or deny the predictions. What scientists have been (mostly) right about is the rise in temperature; the models have nailed that from decades out.
What scientists have been somewhat wrong about is the impact of that temperature rise - even the small 1.2C rise so far has produced much stronger effects on biologically-relevant variables at the tail.
So in a sense, they've been spot on about global warming itself, but have consistently underestimated/understated the risks associated with it.