Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
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Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#2It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources.
I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences are felt by a significant chunk of the population.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#3It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources. I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences are felt by a significant chunk of the population.
Yup. There's just no way us humans are going to 'act now'. Any response at a global (and, in the US, national and state) level will be 100% reactive, and 0% proactive. Since there are still people arguing over the cause, I'm starting to think it might be more productive to move the conversation from trying to be proactive (which requires everyone to agree on the cause) to reactive (which does not).
In other words, start preparing for the outcome of this. We, as a species, cannot seem to be able to stop what we are doing.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#4It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources. I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences are felt by a significant chunk of the population.
What to me is troubling is that we're just getting started as a species. This whole industrialization thing is maybe 400 years old, the species around 30,000 years old. Things have existed on the planet for hundreds of millions of years. The future does not look bright for our species.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#5It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources. I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences are felt by a significant chunk of the population.
It's disappointing that such a political system is necessary for individuals to act responsibly, ethically and morally.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#6I was reading a blog post about problems in academia which said the following in the first paragraph:
> There’s a narrative I find kind of troubling, but that unfortunately seems to be growing more common in science. The core idea is that the mere existence of perverse incentives is a valid and sufficient reason to knowingly behave in an antisocial way, just as long as one first acknowledges the existence of those perverse incentives.
http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-inc...
As a cyclist who's slowly switching to a mostly vegetarian diet, partly to reduce my carbon emissions, I find this quote to apply equally well to people who believe that climate change is a problem but seem to want to wait for the government to act before they do much.
Yes, maybe my efforts are "wasted" in some respect, but I don't think I'm missing much anything valuable anyway by cycling for example, so that eliminates the downside in my view.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#7Britain has just approved restarting fracking. Germany wants to demolish ancient forest to mine more lignite for power stations. The US wants to save the coal mining industry. The North West passage is almost ice free in summer. Australia's coal exports are booming.
IPCC thinks it will need 2.5% of global GDP for 20 years to fix.
Act now? It still doesn't seem like any of the world's electable politicians even believe the problem yet. Just in greenwash and talking about GDP growth.
The next generation is fucked.
Edit: That's very disappointing to see. Submission goes from top 5 on front page to nowhere, yet isn't flagged.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#8It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage long term stewardship of our resources. I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences are felt by a significant chunk of the population.
It's disappointing that such a political system is necessary for individuals to act responsibly, ethically and morally.
Welcome to [REDACTED], land of the free and home to the brave.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#9I was reading a blog post about problems in academia which said the following in the first paragraph: > There’s a narrative I find kind of troubling, but that unfortunately seems to be growing more common in science. The core idea is that the mere existence of perverse incentives is a valid and sufficient reason to knowingly behave in an antisocial way, just as long as one first acknowledges the existence of those pe…
I guess baby steps might justify your approach. But I think a rethink on the level of global civilization is needed before we can make any sort of realistic progress into an actually sustainable species that might live 1 million or more years. Barring that with our current societal approach and trajectory we may go extinct at any time and the system is generally set up to support such an outcome. Eating different food or bicycling does not fix how society is set up to function and behave.
Re: Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots'
#10Britain has just approved restarting fracking. Germany wants to demolish ancient forest to mine more lignite for power stations. The US wants to save the coal mining industry. The North West passage is almost ice free in summer. Australia's coal exports are booming. IPCC thinks it will need 2.5% of global GDP for 20 years to fix. Act now? It still doesn't seem like any of the world's electable politicians even believ…
To mars, luna, and orbital platforms we go!