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Europe's new climate in seven charts

bbc.com

11–20 of 247 posts

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#11
post #3
post #2

to me, these heatwaves feel like the start of the end of human existence

People one or two generations before you felt that about the cold war.

There's a lot of worry about the future, and has been since world-ending threats became apparent

However while apocalypse scenarios (Nuclear war, asteroid impact, AI powered biological warfare) are low likelihood, extreme impact, climate change is extreme likelihood and high impact, not just the immediate effect on places like Europe, Canada etc, but also from the conflicts that climate change will drive, which in turn may escalate to those extreme impact nuclear wars.

On a 5x5 matrix, grand extinction events would be a 5 for effect but a 1 for likelihood, putting them in a "medium-high" category

Climate change is a 3-4 on effect but a 4-5 o likelihood, putting them in a "very-high" risk category

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#12
post #3
post #2

to me, these heatwaves feel like the start of the end of human existence

People one or two generations before you felt that about the cold war.

The cold war never heated up.

Even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, it will take millennia for the climate to return to normal.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#13
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People one or two generations before you felt that about the cold war.

I think thats the wrong level of abstraction. The cold war ended, but clima change will not end.

Nuclear winter may cancel it out.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#16
post #4
post #2

to me, these heatwaves feel like the start of the end of human existence

Research past heat waves in Europe. Did your grand parents felt the same as you?

Every year people complain about the cold, heat and allergies. Even if they live 200 years, it would always be the same.

People get use to it, it goes away, cycle repeats. Nobody remembers exactly unless they had a near death experience.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#17
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People one or two generations before you felt that about the cold war.

I think thats the wrong level of abstraction. The cold war ended, but clima change will not end.

It can change, if we get to net negative emissions. Not probable but possible.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#20
If you’re wondering who to blame, as little as ten years ago:

“Republican Senate environment chief uses snowball as prop in climate rant”[0]

It’s an interesting plot twist in Termination Shock, where the popularist right shifts overnight from “it’s fake” to “real, but the liberals/globalists/experts betrayed us by doing nothing useful”. A reframe from environmentalism into grievance politics, which is already becoming real in France[1].

0: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/senate-james...

1: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gyqldl3p5o

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