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This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

cnn.com

101–110 of 266 posts

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#101
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desertification of previously farmed arable land is going to result in significant migrations and food supply instability. I think it goes without saying that will result in lost lives from myriad direct causes. This is the sort of thing wars are made of.

A lot more land will become arable, too. It might as well be a net plus, who knows. Africa already imports > 80% of its calories anyway.

Redistributing the world's wealth by killing all the rich, and taking all their stuff, might[1], just like your opinion of climate change, also turn out to be a 'net plus', yet these kinds of ideas don't currently seem to be in vogue.

[1] I say might, because there's uncertainty around this. I do know, with absolute certainty that redistributing - say - your organs to multiple people who need transplants would definitely be a 'net plus', but you don't see me making such bloodless utilitarian arguments.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it’s all a hoax, and we create a better world for nothing? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Pett#/media/File%3AWhat...

Or what if we destroy the world economy and personal freedom/autonomy in the process?

If you think protecting the climate will destroy the economy and personal freedom, you’re mistaken.

The biggest threat to a thriving world economy with high degrees of personal freedom is climate change.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#103
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desertification of previously farmed arable land is going to result in significant migrations and food supply instability. I think it goes without saying that will result in lost lives from myriad direct causes. This is the sort of thing wars are made of.

A lot more land will become arable, too. It might as well be a net plus, who knows. Africa already imports > 80% of its calories anyway.

> It might as well be a net plus, who knows.

Given that most of the world's land is in the northern two thirds of the globe[0], it seems more likely than not that eventually it will be a net plus in arable land and overall agricultural output. Other commenters, of course, have a good point in how pleasant that transitional period will be.

[0]: https://www.ecoclimax.com/2016/08/land-mass-at-each-longitud...

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#104
post #62
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The time for nature and us humans to adapt to these new circumstances is vastly shorter than in any earlier age of the planet. edit: bryanlarsen pointed out that there was an even more extreme event in earth's history.

You climate guys crack me up. 15 thousand years ago Canada was under 3 kilometers of ice. Now it is home to 40 million people and covered in wildlife. The human population went from 2 million to 8 billion during this warming period. All the evidence points to a warmer planet supporting more life, not less.

> covered in wildlife

You mean wildfire? Bad autocorrect. /s

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the agnostic, post-Christian rapture, complete with agnostic, post-Christian original sin, agnostic, post-Christian dogmatic orthodoxy, and agnostic, post-Christian heresies. it's even got an agnostic, post-Christian priest class that wear agnostic, post-Christian vestments while doing agnostic, post-Christian holy work. the only thing missing is agnostic, post-Christian salvation …

The metaphor would be more profound if you could also apply it to a McDonalds. :-)

I'm afraid to ask but… what would the McDonald's Rapture be? and McDonald's Original Sin for that matter. plus, McDonald's Salvation seems pretty straightforward to me…

regardless, the Church of McDonald's, for all of their other shortcomings as a Church, doesn't seem to fit the profile of "doom cult", so I'm not too concerned about them.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#106
post #86
post #73

I've been thinking about how relief from the impacts of climate change will not be available for all. I was wondering if access to climate relief should be limited for people who denied climate change or supported climate change deniers. With past voting records, social media posts, etc, we should be able to figure that out for a large number of people. I think this would be very unpopular but if relief is limited ho…

You have a somewhat justifiable position, but you lost me when you started talking about social media posts. In your proposed rationing of "climate relief" it shouldn't be focused on people's thoughts. It should, instead, focus on specific actions people have taken or not taken that directly impact the client. I could see something like a carbon credit for individuals based on their actions that impact the climate su…

Aren't social media posts a large driver of actions? Weren't they used very intentionally to misinform people on this issue? I believe social media (along with traditional media) is a large part of why we ended up where we did, with a large number of people still claiming this issue is a hoax when it very clearly is not.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#107
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot more land will become arable, too. It might as well be a net plus, who knows. Africa already imports > 80% of its calories anyway.

Redistributing the world's wealth by killing all the rich, and taking all their stuff, might[1], just like your opinion of climate change, also turn out to be a 'net plus', yet these kinds of ideas don't currently seem to be in vogue. [1] I say might, because there's uncertainty around this. I do know, with absolute certainty that redistributing - say - your organs to multiple people who need transplants would defini…

The difference is that there's a lot of historical precedent against what you described, so we can reasonably expect the outcome of such an idea. Could explain why it's not in vogue, though it does appear more and more popular among the young.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#108
post #2

At least in Europe, an order of magnitude (or two, depending on country) more people die from the cold than from the heat[0]. Going by the numbers, if green energy policy keeps summer temperatures down but makes energy more expensive[1], it will kill more people. [0]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... [1]: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/10/26/lets-come-clean...

The amount of ignorance in this comment is baffling.

It's strategic. Smart people are used to being praised for being smart and hate to look stupid, to the point that it becomes a reflex. It's easy for a cynical actor to frustrate and steal the time of smart people by knowingly asserting counterfactuals or adopting a posture of ignorance. Consider all those influencers and e-celebs whose profits depend on keeping their audience annoyed and in a constant state of outrage. People get addicted to that feeling and pay to be regularly provided with it.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#109

As the world burns, here is some nice data to look at: https://berkeleyearth.org/june-2023-temperature-update/

The spatial variation map is very interesting, it shows my area as a dark blue spot, which confirms something I've felt anecdotally. Last few years have been colder and wetter than ever before.

There are two maps like that and both cover short time periods, so they don't confirm any long term patterns.

Re: This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in 120k years

#110
post #73

I've been thinking about how relief from the impacts of climate change will not be available for all. I was wondering if access to climate relief should be limited for people who denied climate change or supported climate change deniers. With past voting records, social media posts, etc, we should be able to figure that out for a large number of people. I think this would be very unpopular but if relief is limited ho…

No one person will decide. The “market” will decide. The strong will be relieved and the weak will suffer. To get relief the weak should become strong. Unfortunately, suffering will make them weaker.

Are the currently strong going to keep the weak down, will the weak destroy the strong, will power be distributed to minimize the number of weak at the expense of the strong, or will something else entirely happen? My bet is that the strong have quite a lot longer to go getting stronger before the weak can enact meaningful change.

Also worth noting are that there is a large gap between, for example, the American weak and the global weak. The global weak will suffer more and have less avenues to enact change. Americans have the luxury of climate “debate” while Indonesia (not even a super poor country) moves its capital and while others suffer.

EDIT: To be clear, I think this situation is absolutely horrible. Based on how countries have been acting for the last couple decades though, I'm not expecting things to get better before they get much worse.

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