The whole situation with climate change feels so hopeless.
I think the worst part of it is that its not actually hopeless, at least not in theory. It's just that we, or more accurately the people with actual power, refuse to act because it would mean slightly less profit.
Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it's still in our power to stop that from happening. We can't change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it "just" getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that on a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don't act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don't get me wrong, it's not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we're lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we're already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.
In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:
- Voting for parties that favour stronger climate action, and perhaps even more importantly, not supporting those who do less or even nothing. You can also protest or try to influence your government in some other ways.
- Reduce your personal impact by not consuming animal products (in particular meat and dairy), not flying if you can avoid it, not buying stuff you don't really need, and not having (more) kids. Edit: Also try to favour public transport over driving your own car, and if you need a car, try to use a small, electrical one to reduce emissions.
- Tell other people you know who might listen to do those things. Many people favour climate action in principle, but are too lazy, scared or just otherwise preoccupied to actually start doing stuff on their own. You kicking them in the butt or leading by example can motivate them and in turn other people they might now.
If you're reading this and whether or not you're already doing some of those things, I'm sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I'm trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I'm not saying that we're in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we're still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.
Thank you this was actually really nice to read. I feel like everywhere I look is more bad news about the climate it's nice to see we can at least still mitigate it
I don't have hope and I have a specific prediction why but since hope is our only chance I won't share that.
My 13yo refuses to discuss the topic. He says he's already been traumatized by it.
What a ❄️ ❄️
A morbid solution for it would be an all-out war between China and India, they are about a 1/3 of the world's population.
Ghengis Khan proved that with enough murder you can drastically lower global temperature.
Some reuters reporting here.
Including...
Prolonged bouts of high temperatures in China have challenged power grids and crops, and concerns are mounting of a possible repeat of last year's drought, the most severe in 60 years.
China is no stranger to dramatic swings in temperatures across the seasons but the swings are getting wider.
On Jan. 22, temperatures in Mohe, a city in northeastern Heilongjiang province, plunged to minus 53C, according to the local weather bureau, smashing China's previous all-time low of minus 52.3C set in 1969.
Since then, the heaviest rains in a decade have hit central China, ravaging wheat fields in an area known as the country's granary.
These few sentences really capture the horror of "climate change", that so many people overlook. Yes "average global temp" might increase by 1 degree celsius, but the really immediately terrifying part is changes to large weather patterns that provide a foundation to gargantuan food production industries.
I live in Western Australia. It's a large state perhaps 3 times the size of texas, but it's very arid and mostly desert aside from the south west corner in which there's a "belt" of land with appropriate conditions for cropping in which 18 million tonnes of grain is grown each year, of which 90% is exported. Suppose this year the state receives 30% less rain, then next year 30% more. Suppose that halves production this year, and washes away some of the dry top soil next year. Hell, we might even receive more rain but just a few hundred kilometers from where it usually is.
Point is, even a mild interruption to established weather patterns is going to have a huge and detrimental impact on human agriculture. It's terrifying really.
For those wondering, one degree celsius increase means every kilogram of air has at least increased by 1°C. The specific heat of air is about 1158 J/(kg*C). Now that might not seem like a lot of energy, in fact 4g (one teaspoon) of sugar has 68,000 J of chemical energy.
The thing is, you might have noticed, there's a lot of air around us. About 5.14 x 10^(18) kg of air. So when you take a pretty normal number and multiply it by an insanely huge number, you get an insanely huge number. That's about 5 exajoules of energy. That is the total energy consumption of the US in 2021 for four million years. Or in sugar terms, equal to the energy of sugar if you converted a little over half of the Earth's entire mass into sugar.
We hit that additional amount of energy in our atmosphere in 2017.
The air increasing by 1⁰C isn't too crazy.
The ocean increasing by 1⁰C is an insane nightmare. Do you know how massive a heat sink the ocean is? For it to change, even by 1⁰, is terrifying.
And we're gleefully adding thermic energy to this constantly at a rate of about four Hiroshima bombs every second.
But as an Australian myself i believe the government will ensure we're all fed and not leave us to starve. Especially not in the Northern Territory where we can't grow fuck all. /s (do we do that here)
When Westralia seceeds you territorians should come with.
We shall hoard our wealth of grain and hydrogen and watch the world burn.
China is massive though, Mohe is further north than Mongolia, it's 2,200 km north of Beijing.
It's nowhere near the central wheat fields so it's not really comparable
I'm not saying the agricultural circumstances are comparable.
I'm saying that it's the changes to weather patterns, hot or cold wet or dry, that are scary.
"It was hotter" is IMO a bit of a distraction, because no one really knows what that means in practical terms.
Like in the linked Reuters article, the higher than usual rainfall could well be more problematic than the higher maximum temp.
Reposting my comment from another similar thread ‘cause I think it’s kind of important to add.
Ok, so it doesn’t mention wet bulb temperature anywhere, so I went to figure it out. The first thing I was surprised with is apparently most of online calculators don’t take in values higher than 50C.
I couldn’t find the exact data about humidity for that day, but it has been 35-40%+ at a minimum for most days in that region, sometimes even reaching 90%.
So, 52C at around 40% humidity is 37.5C in wet bulb temp. The point of survivability is around 35, and most humans should be able to withstand 37.5 for several hours, but it’s much worse for sick or elderly. 39 is often a death sentence even for healthy humans after just two hours — your body can no longer lose heat and you bake from the inside. That’s like having an unstoppable runaway fever. And with that humidity it’s reached at 54C.
We’re dangerously close to that.
An absolute death sentence for folks without air conditioning or another means to stay cool.
From what I know the critical wet bulb temperature is ~31.5°C. it was from a study done last year.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature
Yeah, that makes me think that data was just wrong. Every homeless in the area would be dead with those temps and humidities.
Homeless have been dying during summer and winter for years. It's just, as with too many things, the new normal and not newsworthy. If they started dying from critical weather I'm not sure we would even know.
Every homeless in the area would be dead with those temps and humidities.
Shhhh ... don't give the elites running our planet another reason to ignore global warming.
I don't want to be rude, and I completely am all for combating climate change, but 39C is not baking your insides...
I have been deployed to multiple places that were 52C (~125F) in the day/night with high humidity levels, in full long sleeve/pants for 8 hours at a time. 39C (~102F) is hot, but not bake you from the inside type of hot.
Elderly and sick are people not included in what I said above for obvious reasons.
I find it pretty funny that people are arguing both “35 WBT is pretty fine” and “31.5 WBT is a death sentence”.
Yet somewhere in that range seems to be the consensus for an actual “your body is on the clock and you’re not surviving it for a prolonged time” situation.
I don’t know your personal experience and how dangerous it was in regards to temperature, but high temperature environments start feeling pretty humid at like ~50%, so you still pretty much need an actual temperature/humidity reading to gauge it correctly.
So guys, take it to the scientists :) I’m not talking out of my ass here, rather quoting research data. There are a couple dozen papers listed in the link above, and most seem to agree on the dangerous temp region. Read their methodology and reasoning if you’re interested to learn more.
People saying:
"Voting doesn't matter. They're all the same." "Things can't be solved because the global elite won't allow it" "I don't have to do anything because it won't matter" "This is all big industry's problem, why should I do anything"
have been manipulated/influenced/radicalized by a combination of paid media shills, RW billionaires and Saudi/Kremlin/Iranian propaganda.
Snap out of it and let's all pitch in to save our children and world.
Voting matters, but unfortunately it appears to be an incredibly sub-optimal solution for dealing with climate change for the following reasons:
- Just because you can vote, doesn't mean that the option you need is even on the menu. It often isn't.
- Through hard work you can get the option on the menu, but that doesn't mean your politician won't do "deals" after they are in power.
- Lobbyists get access to politicians 24/7 and have a lot of influence, you have one vote every 4 years;
- Even if politicians do what you want, it is unlikely that your country by itself will make a difference, this is a global problem.
Meanwhile we are all fucked. It is likely too late already for preventing severe climate change. Our only hope now is geoengineering. The USA and EU are already considering blocking the sun.
The people who (rightly) have a sense of urgency about this are taking more radical action. They are blocking roads and throwing soup at famous paintings. These are desperate acts that seem rational in the face of the horror that we should strive to avoid, but the majority opinion of our species seems to be that these people are "too radical" and that common folks just trying to get by should not be inconvenienced, and that these radical eco-terrorists should be thrown in a cage.
To be honest, I'm not sure that our species deserves to survive.
Fun fact, there are climate lobbyists as well.
You can (very) easily join up here: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
They are serious, bipartisan, and get face-to-face time regularly with elected leaders.
I do. Others don't. Unfortunately it will end only one way. We all know how.
Real shame. Civilizations rose and fall. Ours was very fast
No, they're not rational in the face of anything. They're stupid virtue-signalling that does nothing to reduce climate change. The only way they could possibly be rational is that they get people talking about them, but climate change is not some little-known issue. The entire world has been screaming about it for the past 20 years. If you haven't been listening, some cunt with soup isn't going to change that.
Agreed, at least in principle - but your statement is so reductive it really could be said about anything.
It's so hard to motivate people to vote, people are exhausted and finding ten minutes in the day to feel good about oneself, much less performing a (seemingly futile, thanks to those poisonous ideas you've mentioned) civic duty is bordering on impossible. When 1 in 15 people in the UK need drugs just to keep their desire to live one more day in check - and a good chunk of the remaining population from that statistic are barely holding on - fighting the futility for someone else is an insurmountable goal.
I don't know if we can afford to wait for climate to get worse for people to take action. People are dying preventable deaths, if it weren't for the very evident effects of man made climate change being politicised or obfuscated, maybe it'd be just a warm Summer in Europe right now.
How long can we wait for a peaceful solution to form?
If we don't wait - how many heads would we need on pikes next to Mortimer Buckley or Larry Fink before we start seeing positive change? When would be the tipping point for the guillotine to become the most ethical solution?
Sorry, I'm rambling. I just feel so hopeless sometimes, and putting a X in a box 2 or 3 times a decade doesn't do anything to make me feel like we're making progress...!
"Reductive" is the exact word that popped into my head, while reading PP's comment.
I have come to suspect that we can look forward to continued basic survival being monetized, as VC-funded startups enter the space to disrupt breathing and skin-based evaporative cooling, and just generally making it to the next minute.
This doesn't address your entire post/point but make sure to vote in every election, not just 2 or 3 times a decade - local and state (assuming USA, sorry?) elections definitely matter!
Voting is still good, but it's the bare minimum. Not everyone has the time, but if you do, you should try to advocate publicly, and preferably in a group. Just like with unions, collective action is more effective. If I give feedback to my city individually, I'm a data point. But as part of an advocacy group, they reach out to us.
Absolutely! That's what I mean. We have to do it ALL. Even the tiniest things have value. 👍
stuck fin
But you're not talking about the people who are already doing everything they can you're talking about the people who aren't, and they haven't, and they won't, so it is industry and government who needs to do the things for them, because they won't. If our votes aren't enough then there is nothing more that can be done under the current system.
Well it's been fun y'all, cya in the wasteland, better watch your water.
You mean the same water that's so contaminated with forever chemicals that multiple governments set recommended limits for safe fish consumption?
Hahaha....we're fucked.
For those interested:
"A new study has found that consuming a single fish from the Great Lakes is equal to drinking a month's worth of water contaminated with high levels of "forever chemicals."
(The recommended amount of some species of fish is now 0 in lake Michigan.)
http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/fishadv/lakemichigan.htm
Have you ever had a friend or relative who was just in such poor health, who you basically expected to keel over and die any day now? If so, you probably know what I mean when you eventually just accept that the person you once knew is already dead, and all that's left is a husk that's just riding out the last bit of momentum they've got until they fade away. And then when they finally do die, it doesn't even hurt, because you've already had time to grieve and process your emotions in advance.
That's kinda how I feel about the earth these days. I feel like the earth is on hospice care, and at that point that we're just making it as comfortable as we can for it to die.
Maybe that's a little melodramatic. But it really does just feel hopeless these days.
It's not Earth that's in trouble...
Yeah I feel like this is just like when the body gets a fever to get rid of a sickness. The earth is just getting a little fever to get rid of our dumbasses real quick. Then it will go right back to normal and be completely fine.
If it's any consolation. Earth, as in the spinning ball of dirt, will be just fine for many more millions of years. Humans, and other animal species, on the other hand are not going to be fine if the trend continuous.
Dunno, I find it kind of consoling in a meloncolic kind of way.
I feel you. I don't think it's hopeless, but I do think we're in for a rough ride. That being said, I actually have a lot of faith in the upcoming generation. I think that if they get angry enough, they have the potential to arrest what's happening and even turn it around given how well they work together. Greta gets a lot of hate, but hell, I haven't seen someone make as successful a series of environmental stands since Julia Butterfly. If her generation keeps showing that fire, I think there's still hope for humans to live in harmony with the earth.
As much as I also have hope in the next generation, there isn't a damn thing we can do anymore. If every single human being disappeared right now, the earth would continue warming and experiencing climate change for 100s more years, because of the feedback loops we have set in motion and the fact that the ocean is still dampening some effects, but won't be able to for long. Our only hope to avert complete disaster, collapse of society and maybe even the extinction of humanity is if we find a way to start pulling massive amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere ASAP. Carbon neutrality isn't enough, we need to be carbon negative. If zoomers can get that done, in time, then they're a whole other fucking class of human. I hope they do, but I think the odds are against them and all of us.
Me too.
Shit is fucked. There are unavoidable problems on the way, but I do have faith in today's generation.
Fever is a tried and tested method in nature to eliminate infections which become too detrimental to the host.
It will be very much that way if we can't evolve to a symbiotic relationship with our planet.
There's too much red in this picture. They really should use another baseline. If red would start only at 40 Degree Celsius, the globe would look much more welcoming.
Look, I'm just trying to give productive feedback.
Except China is proud of their red.
Our red
I have a friend with two daughters in their late teens, early 20s. I asked him the other day how they felt about climate change. He said they believed it was happening, but they don't think it's nearly as bad as "the media makes out". He added, "You know, we went through the Cold War and fear of nuclear annihilation and that didn't happen, so..." We were interrupted then so I didn't get to yell at him. But I think a lot of people think that way. Pffft, probably won't happen, news orgs exaggerating for clicks, someone will fix it etc etc. While shrugging at all the floods and fires and storms happening around the globe, and booking a cheap flight to Malaga. It's exasperating!
If it helps to know, a lot of people around that age are also very aware of what's going on. Many of us are also mortified at the thought of what's to come in 20-50 years.
I think that every generation needs to get out and actually vote to if we want to have a chance at even reducing the damage. It should be more shocking to people that the effects of climate change continue to be worse than scientists predicted. What are we going to do if the 50-100 year climate prediction is also too optimistic?
I think that a lot of people might forget that they might still be around to feel the effects of all of this. I don't know about you, but I'm really not looking forwards to dealing with the intense weather when I'm old and frail. It's going to really suck for other at-risk groups, too.
Another side of the environmental concerns is being forgotten too often, imo. What are we going to do with all of these forever chemicals? The great lakes have recommended safe intake limits for fish caught there. There is mercury, PCBS, PFAS, and lots of other nasty stuff in our soil and water. There was a large amount of time where the industrial sector was practically unregulated, so a lot of things were dumped in bad places. If these things are known to cause severe health issues and reproductive problems in humans, they're probably going to mess up animals too. We should also think about all of the disposal sites that may not have been discovered yet. I hope they are testing for that more now. My grandfather's house was unknowingly built on land that was severely contaminated with TCE. They know now, but people lived there for years without a clue!
Scary times.
-asks friend about opinion on topic
-friend gives somewhat reasonable if wrong opinion
-gets mad he didn't have the chance to "yell at him"
Sounds like a shit friend move.
Just a note, I think you're taking their comment too literally. Like educate him in a friendly way. When you give shit to friends, it can be friendly. Different than giving shit to strangers.
I know china wants to out do us on everything but fuck China maybe don't reach for the stars on that specific metric.
"Global warming is a lie"
Don't look up
The world is a ripe tomato.
The world is three miles of bad road
Walking down the street
Will I never meet her?
She's a real woman-child
Oh, my kiss breath turpentine..... I am smitten....
Lovely haiku.
Man, that must be hell, it's literally death valley temperature since they were the same temperature this week. Kinda ironic how death valley name was because the dudes who were stuck finally left saying "goodbye death valley", and in the future it'll literally become death.
I think we’re gonna need a bigger scale.
Nah just shorten the when it's supposed to happen axle. We've known for years. Yet another great thing America gave us, petroleum based capitalism,
Yeah America is the only one with cars. Capitalism bad.
Posted from iphone
"Its always hot in summer"
Or how about "it's cooler where I am this year, so far! We even had snow!"
"It hasn't been as hot in my area this year"
I love that they just have to make up colors now since the previous spectrum is no so inadequate
Glad they're doing that instead of rescaling it, otherwise it'd be easier to ignore.
chuckles I'm in danger!
It's strange - in the UK we're usually getting toasty this time of year too, but we've had unusually mild weather despite many other parts of the world experiencing record temperatures. Feels like the mildest summer we've had in about 10 years.
The image makes it look like Earth has turned into Venus.
We're trying our damnedest!
Just a bit toasty
Good Lord, that's gotta be miserable
Either we abruptly stop extracting even more oil and burning it in the athmosphere or we are soon forced to, because nobody can work in that heath.
That's hot 🥵
Can confirm, am sweaty.
Yeah that's normal. /s just in case.
Something I'm noticing is that while America continues their pattern of climate denial and destructive hyper-individualism, China - for all its flaws - seems to be leading the charge on the single greatest existential challenge of our time.
China is rapidly expanding renewables and green tech. They're on track to become the world's renewable superpower. While Americans absentmindedly whine and complain about society improving, China gets right to work on constructing a green national infrastructure to actually address the root causes of the crisis.
China understands collective action and planning are the only way humanity can overcome existential threats. China's top-down governance, however authoritarian some claim, efficiently marshalled resources to minimize devastation during the COVID pandemic, but what's possibly more important is their collective culture, the populace's eager willingness to listen to the authorities, and make personal sacrifices for the benefit of society as a whole. None of that "freedumb" nonsense or pearl-clutching. Imagine if the US mandated decisive actions, not "choose your own experiment!"
This is serious; we cannot rest on our laurels and we cannot go back to brunch. We haven't the luxury of half measures. Rather, we need the appropriate sort of complete and holistic mobilization asap to transition to greener, more sustainable models. To survive impending eco-collapse will require global equity, not privileged nations hoarding pie while the rest burn. We'd be wise to learn from China's example. Obviously they're not perfect - no one is - but I think their climate policies reveal what truly ambitious climate action looks like: bold, large-scale interventions that prioritize the collective good over individual freedoms.
As the CCP seems to want to own the world and everyone in it, it only makes sense that they want to save their toys from the flames. Well, as long as they aren't Muslim, dissenters, a sovereign Taiwan, or anyone else that they don't like.
I realize that this is a kneejerk reaction, but your post's core is still 'America bad, China good, so bend over like a good sheep, stupid'.
Valid concerns, but still opportunistic propaganda disguised as concern for the world, so perhaps the message shouldn't be delivered via tankie.
That being said, try to stay cool, bud.
The Chinese Propaganda Machine is already affecting Lemmy like it did on Reddit lol.
Seriously though I'm kind of sick of it and China's lying as they make more and more coal plants and have mini environmental disasters like the rent-able electric car trend that so many companies did just to make bang over buck from the CCP over it that failed during covid.
China is not your friend nor is the friend of the world infact it is actively harmful to both human rights and the environment at large.
Anyway unlike other people I do have sources for what I claim here.
See https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-new-coal-power-plants-per-week-in-2022/ https://www.scmp.com/abacus/tech/article/3029238/thousands-shared-electric-cars-seen-discarded-hangzhou
This was a great paper, I don't have a direct link though sorry.
Here it is https://unisa.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/delivery/61USOUTHAUS_INST/12177058790001831 I haven't read it, just doing my part for open science. By the way, unpaywall is a great browser extension to quickly go around publishers paywalls: https://unpaywall.org/welcome
china has a rapidly aging populace, an unsustainable birthrate, and far too many peasants to support - they've got a very small window of time to prepare for the collapse of the country. when it happens, they'll retreat, eastwards, to where the larger cities are (which isnt in the western 4/5ths of the current borders). that region you've highlighted will be abandoned - it doesnt really matter if it's 22c or 52c. presumably the russians or the indians will pick it up, but probably wont settle in that area.
superpower though? lol no. regional power in southeast asia, at best. manufacturing is leaving china as we speak. in 10 years most of our "made in china" stickers will be "made in nigeria", or "made in argentina"
Don't underestimate China's power to fuck things up for everyone to ensure it's survival. The CCP has shown it's willing and able to do anything they deem useful, regardless of the human cost. Uncontrolled powers in this day and age are absolutely terrifying.
🤣🤣
Yeah, people are not going to stop taking vacations and stop consuming as they have been. Those who calling to do something, I bet they can't even downsize their lifestyle. Let's talk about co2 per capita. Let's talk about Americans with 2+ cars n bigger cars. Let's talk about food waste in America. America is probably one of the most wasteful country on this planet.
I am a hard-core green dude. Been at for about 15 years ago. Kind of gave up couple years ago. Not worth making my life inconvenient when the whole country doesn't do jqcksht about it.
Do you really think this issue lies with the consumer lol
I get this comment a lot. A way to make yourself feel better? I know who you going to blame next, the big corps? Remember who they selling to. You! So yes, consumers are to blame. When Joe wants a bigger truck when he can get a prius or take the public transit, guess who's to blame? Fighting climate change is all about inconvenience. Yall can't handle the inconvenience and cost of a greener lifestyle. It's much more convince to blame the government, the big corps, and the rich.
The consumers are who these companies sell to. The normal people drive cars, buy plastic, eat meat and dairy, produce unnecessary waste. Of course consumers have a huge responsibility in this.
It is pretty depressing, I agree. You can take heart however in knowing that collectively, we as people cannot do very much. The best thing we can do is elect politicians who will put pressure on the real villains here: the 100 or so corporations that make up 70% of the total Co2 emissions.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-10-biggest-carbon-dioxide-emitting-firms-in-the-world.html
Let’s talk about Americans with 2+ cars n bigger cars. Let’s talk about food waste in America
Who do you think hosts the server you are posting on right now?
