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I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

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Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#391

Post by willis936 »

wkjagt wrote: post #380
adrianN wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity is quite resilient. I’m confident that we’ll survive. However I’m much more pessimistic about technological civilization surviving.

There’s more than just humans and their tech here to worry about though. I get so depressed when I hear people describe the gravity of climate change only in terms of the chance of survival of us humans.

Mass extinction events have happened many times before. The tragedy here is that it is the first preventable mass extinction event. If speaking about it in self-centered terms gets people to act then we should do it. Pragmatism is essential.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#392

Post by PeterisP »

jdietrich wrote: post #100
plutoh28 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely do not see the point you’re trying to make. Is it that pollution == lower birth rate? I’d imagine there are many factors besides pollution that may influence why certain regions have more birth rates than others.

The places with high birth rates are economically undeveloped, so the people there consume very few resources, produce very little pollution and have negligible impact on the environment. One person in the US produces the same amount of CO2 as 150 people in DR Congo. That disparity is broadly similar for metrics like land use, water use, soil depletion, waste production etc. The number of people being born in very po…

We don't expect or desire (or IMHO even consider it acceptable) for these places to stay poor - the less developed countries on average have had steady improvements, a major reduction in poverty and the associated increase in consumption. The growth in emissions of China are not caused by some population growth but by the increase in prosperity of Chinese people, and we'd also expect places like DR Congo to steadily grow their consumption-per-capita.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#393

Post by graphe »

wkjagt wrote: post #380
adrianN wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity is quite resilient. I’m confident that we’ll survive. However I’m much more pessimistic about technological civilization surviving.

There’s more than just humans and their tech here to worry about though. I get so depressed when I hear people describe the gravity of climate change only in terms of the chance of survival of us humans.

If climate change didn't affect humans we wouldn't care. Did we care when the skies started to glow at night due to air pollution and destroyed the ecology, or the importation of European honeybees, or effects of toxins on fauna. No it was "marvelous" a "triumph against nature".

The ONLY question to most people is: what will happen to me from it, if it will, why me changing anything will help?

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#394

Post by jesterson »

treflop wrote: post #213
kleiba wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole Western world has shifted rightwards in recent years as can be witnessed in election results.

This is an unsupported shower thought but I suspect societies become more right when times are not as good. You support immigration if you have a stable job and own a house but you don’t if you are getting laid off and aren’t sure what you next job will be. And it seems most of Earth has lately been in a rougher place.

Societies become more right when they see how left destructive policies and actions. People are not stupid, they can be fooled temporarily by high moral stances, but once they see all bs, they move away.

“Times are not good” not because of some unknown force but because of policies/actions creating those “not good times”

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#395

Post by Qem »

sgt wrote: post #356
Qem wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Summer are very long, nights are hot, makes it hard to sleep well. I don't have enough money to install AC. Mobile AC is too noisy. Did you try sleeping in hammocks already? It's a solution that works reasonably well for me.

Hammocks - the poor man's AC?

Yes. Works very well in hot climate. Doesn't heat up like a mattress, and is thin enough that the airflow from a fan in the room can help cool both topside and underside at the same time. But beware it may take some time to get used sleeping in it. When installing the hooks to set it up in the walls, the separation between them must be large enough such as the person is not too bended while sleeping, otherwise you may get back pain in the morning. The best position to sleep is semi-crossed in relation to the axis between hooks (~45 degrees), that allows you to lie almost straight.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#396

Post by timschmidt »

defrost wrote: post #386
timschmidt wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have children for lots of reasons. I'm probably not qualified to list them all, but I expect that people will not stop any time soon. Seems that they enjoy the process. Perhaps consider that those 80 billion souls will contain Einsteins and Mozarts.

We had OG Einstein and Mozart and Erdős and many others before we hit 5 billion. People are having fewer children, as living conditions, education, and acces to TV increases the reproduction rate falls. Ideally we'll level out at 6 billion or so. You haven't given any good reason why the earth should squeeze as many upright aquatic apes on it as possible yet.

> We had OG Einstein and Mozart and Erdős

Oh good, we don't ever need any more then. /s

> Ideally we'll level out at 6 billion or so.

I doubt there's any single ideal population size, because the impact of each individual varies so widely. In the future, when we're all living 100% solar powered regenerative net-carbon-negative lives, the problem will be that there aren't enough people to offset warming caused by volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, and overpopulated wildlife.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#397

Post by BodyCulture »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #328

I never worried particularly much about climate change, but just to hedge my bets for my kids I moved to northern Europe. For the most part it's just equated to milder (= bearable) Winters and nicer summers up here. I guess we also spend a fair bit on moving to renewables up here - Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear + solar + hydro. If I were an ideologue in eit…

This is an illusion. There is no safe place, you can’t escape the reality of global warming by moving to another place.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#398

Post by slibhb »

pk-protect-ai wrote: post #145

I no longer worry. I'm extremely pessimistic about the impending climate change. I believe Sabine isn't pessimistic enough about what to anticipate. Consider the tundra methane emissions and the explosive release of methane-hydrates from the oceans, along with water vapor, a potent greenhouse gas. The disaster looming over all ecosystems (a mass extinction event) that will happen in decades and the doom-phase could l…

The IPCC 6 says "It is very unlikely that gas clathrates (mostly methane) in deeper terrestrial permafrost and subsea clathrates will lead to a detectable departure from the emissions trajectory during this century".

Your pessimism may be trendy but it isn't supported by the bear available evidence.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#399

Post by graphe »

sgt wrote: post #356
Qem wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Summer are very long, nights are hot, makes it hard to sleep well. I don't have enough money to install AC. Mobile AC is too noisy. Did you try sleeping in hammocks already? It's a solution that works reasonably well for me.

Hammocks - the poor man's AC?

It's the fan after the shower for me.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#400

Post by pk-protect-ai »

refurb wrote: post #359
pk-protect-ai wrote: post #145

I no longer worry. I'm extremely pessimistic about the impending climate change. I believe Sabine isn't pessimistic enough about what to anticipate. Consider the tundra methane emissions and the explosive release of methane-hydrates from the oceans, along with water vapor, a potent greenhouse gas. The disaster looming over all ecosystems (a mass extinction event) that will happen in decades and the doom-phase could l…

Humanity not surviving? That seems completely unlinked to any sort of scientific consensus.

Oh... How many mass extinction events have humanity survived as a species so far? I would also like to see this data... pretty please?
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