A new statistical model has predicted that the collapse of Atlantic Ocean currents is likely to occur this century. The results would cause catastrophic temperature drops in the Northern Hemisphere, but other scientists are not so sure.
Researchers have predicted the collapse of the AMOC could happen any time between 2025 and 2095 — far sooner than previous predictions, although not all scientists are convinced.
I think it's more 99.9% of the scientists think it will get proper fucked up in the 2100s, but this one report says it'll happen in the next few years.
But we should be doing something about it anyway.
If we actually cared we'd ban everything that's fucking the world up, and ban any imports from countries that don't agree. But if the last 5 years or so have told us anything, it's that a lot of people don't care. Even about things that directly affect them.
And people who do care often feel impotent to do anything about it.
Agree that drastic measures are necessary. It doesn't even have to mean a drop in living standards; but it will take radical changes to protect (and even raise) those standards.
Agree about imports. The problem I see is that even if products with a high carbon footprint are imported, it doesn't mean the person responsible for that carbon footprint isn't domestic to e.g. (going by your 'feddit.uk' handle) the UK. This could still be captured by an import ban (i.e. shareholders can't just export their emissions and pretend everything is okay), but the people with the power to export their emissions tend to have a lot of power to lobby the government, sit on government decision-making panels, or even choose MPs. They're unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot like that.
An example is laptops. They break every few years. For the past decade-or-so, they're made to be irreparable. They become landfill, and all that embodied carbon is wasted. Today's laptops don't even do anything that laptops of 15 years ago couldn't do, except deal with websites bloated with adverts. It doesn't matter so much where that consumer item is produced. The problem is the decision to make it so that it breaks and has to be replaced. Those decisions tend to be made in the west by people who will never willingly change their ways. It's all about profit.
I think part of the reason that people feel apathetic is that they know it's all about profit and are convinced that a system based on profit is the only way, so there's nothing to be done. Another way is possible, though, people just need to be organised and educated§ to achieve it.
§ I mean working-class education, not e.g. going to college/university.
I didn't realise how bad laptops had got until I had to repair one for my uncle a few years ago.
I'd always known laptops to be pretty good. Panels underneath for access to RAM and HDD (the most common things to need replacing), and a removable battery.
This thing was glued shut. I did manage to get it open and replace the drive with an SSD, but it was clearly designed to be thrown away once anything went wrong with it. Getting it back together again meant the trackpad didn't work reliably any more, but what can you do?
Anyway, I digress. I fear that real change means a drop in living standards for many. It's unpalatable to the career politicians whose only real motivation to do anything is to get re-elected every 4-5 years, and maybe line their own pockets courtesy of corporate donors.
Actions that work in the possible world in which it collapses soon are actively harmful in possible worlds in which it doesn't. Acting as if a threat will happen only makes sense if the action isn't significantly harmful in cases where it doesn't, where significantly is based on the harm of not being prepared and the chance of it happening.
If the Gulf Stream will collapse by 2025, the response isn't to be more eco-friendly. In fact, it's the opposite. Everyone in the north should prepare to burn a lot more fuel, and concern for global warming would definitely be reduced. Global warming is something you can only afford to give a shit about when temperatures haven't just dropped by 3.5C and you haven't just lost 78% of your arable land (UK figures, because that's where I live).
Do you mean that people need to see how their life will get worse before they will be willing to act? That sounds a little accelerationist to me. But I'm not entirely sure of your argument. You seem to be saying that people would not be worried if they lost 4/5ths of their arable land, but I think I must be misunderstanding something.
(I think it's s tributary to the Gulf Stream that is at risk of collapsing, not the Gulf Stream itself, which, I'm told, is based on the earth's rotation rather than climate.)
You are. People would be very worried. It's just that their worry would not be expressed in attempts to improve things in the long-term when there's a short-term disaster.
If the Gulf Stream will definitely collapse in 2025 (which is not what the study says), then that's too soon to do anything about, so the priority is surviving it rather than preventing it. Fundamentally, things that help prevent disaster are not the same as things that help survive it.
I see, yes, that makes more sense: if conditions get that bad that quickly, it won't be a question of preventing worse change, it'll be figuring out how to survive day-to-day.
No thanks. Considering they don't support the consensus on climate change and are a far right, anti-government, anti-immigration group. I doubt their articles on climate change are factually sound. So miss us with your bullshit.
I wouldn't dismiss an article just because a fact check website down rates it.
In this instance, though, it's not far off. "The famous scientists at the Newsweek lab got things wrong a few decades ago, so all scientists today must be wrong."
"And very credible." Lol. These are opinion pieces you are linking to. Let us know when you have a scientific article (ie Science, PNAS, Nature) to support your climate denial.
Hey, ivermectin worked for Rogan. And as a right wing unvaccinated gigachad I certainly don't need it. Got through 4 COVID infections with just basic flu medicine.
Not exactly a news source known for it's unbiased and trustworthy reporting.
Even if it were credible, the article is almost 10 years old.
You need to do better than use a far-right organization's outlet. Go to the true scientists, not reporters with a political agenda.
Reputable sources such as NASA, the United Nations, and the National Geographic Society, which base their conclusions on scientific evidence and rigorous research are much more reliable.
It is understandable to feel unhappy with the current reality. However, ignoring the situation and trying to find evidence that it is not real will not benefit anyone. In fact, it may even cause harm. As the saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.
It is important to face the reality and take appropriate actions to improve the situation. How else will a difference ever be made?
Edit: I named American websites (apart from the UN), because I assume by your source that you are American. This is a global issue, though. European reputable institutions:
That article was the epitome of the old saying "figures don't lie, but liars can figure". They cherry picked studies and statistics to support the conclusion they wanted to reach, absolute garbage "science".
That's not far off liberal scientific methodology, to be fair, but it seems to put the cart before the horse. You might want to look up 'falsifiability', 'confidence factors', and, if you have the time and inclination, Karl Popper's Objective Knowledge.
This won't give you everything but it should go some way to explaining the scientific method in more detail.
The process is roughly as follows:
Make a hypothesis that is capable of being disapproved;
Test the hypothesis;
Refine the hypothesis based on the findings;
Test the hypothesis;
And so on.
The more times the hypothesises is not disproved, the more likely it is too be correct, the more confident the prediction. According to this theory, it's impossible to prove anything; we can only be confident that knowledge is objectively true if we have tried and failed to disprove it. This is a bit of a blunt summary.
If you don't trust this method, I wouldn't ever get on a plane or take any medication.
The key point being that a prediction won't become the consensus until it has a fairly high confidence factor (i.e. lots of people have tried and failed to disprove the prediction). Climate change is one of those things. Every time someone conducts another experiment, the new data strengthens the view that global warming cannot be disapproved.
Just to put all my cards on the table, I think Popper is wrong. But he sets the scene for a lot of liberal conceptions of science. It's his ideas that underpin many of the kinds of predictions that you're talking about, I think. (When I say liberal, I'm referring to the main ideology of capitalism, not to the 'left' brand of US politics.)
That is, climate change about as 'true' as things can get, and so it is predicted. But even 'prediction' in this sense, makes it seem as if we're taking about something in the future (I couldn't help but challenge the Popperian model just a little bit, I'm afraid). But climate change is already here. It's the present. The prediction only concerns how bad it's going to get.
Feel free to come back if you want to talk about Popper more. His work can be quite difficult to read. Some paragraphs/chapters read smoothly, then others are very technical. It might be worth having a quick look into 'hypothetical deductive methodology' for an overview of Popper's main idea before tackling him directly.
It might also help to know that his theory comes from his anti-communism. So when he's talking about the problems of prediction and historicism, he's challenging the Marxist method (poorly, IMO, but I won't get into why, here, unless you want to talk about it).