They will grow up but it will be a much different world. Back in the 70s, Rachel Carson posited that it was probably already too late to turn back the effects of air pollution and poisoning of our oceans, and she was right. Instead of fixing problems, oil and gas companies are doubling down on fossil fuel extraction. Kids will grow up to have all kinds of respiratory illnesses and also facing a world that is melting around them.
Most years we're in below 20 degree snowy weather. Today it's 50 degrees here, it's Dec 18th and we've only seen snow in our mountains, which is very rare for us in Utah. Not that I'm complaining about the heat -I love warmer weather, and I absolutely detest the sight of snow in any way, shape or form. But it is weird that we're not even going to have snow on the ground this Christmas (we might get some rain this week).
Back in the 70s, Rachel Carson posited that it was probably already too late to turn back the effects of air pollution and poisoning of our oceans, and she was right.
That's amazing. She died in 1964 and still kept working.
I'm up in Mammoth right now and it is raining, absolutely wild for this time of year. I didn't even bother snowboarding this trip because the slopes are more conducive to ice-skating. Caught of on a lot of sleep though, so that was nice.
Mammoth, that's gotta pretty nice right now (if you don't mind no snow). Not as cold as it usually is for this time of year. I want to go there soon, hopefully this coming summer, because it's usually nicer up there.
Back in the 70s, Rachel Carson posited that it was probably already too late to turn back the effects of air pollution and poisoning of our oceans,
I feel ya, but try not to give in to that feeling, as it's also the last step in the oil companie's PR playbook; when it's finally coming knowledge, to say "well, yes it was our fault but it's too late to do anything about it "
Well it's not a very positive outlook, but I've heard it from scientists more than from big oil and gas (that it's too late to turn back these effects). I"m not saying we can't try to mitigate these things going forward, maybe we can make huge changes by taking small steps toward cleaner energy sources.
I mean... This isn't that rare in Utah? Last year was wild, but besides that, this is pretty par for course the last 5 years, and not out of the normal for the last 5 before that. Especially not having snow sticking in the Valley..
Don't get me wrong, I'm probably going to bail on Utah soon because how fucked this are getting with the climate/droughts/air quality... But this year isn't some wild leap
My kids won't have this problem. Given the circumstances that have been obvious for 40-50 years I made the best and most responsible parenting decision possible. I didn't have any.
I’m not going to force children to live in a future I have no faith in just so I can say I’m part of the “gene pool”. It’s unfair to make them pay the costs for several lifetimes of greed and irresponsibility. To me, that’s exceptionally arrogant and cruel.
I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not willing to bet my child’s future on that.
Friends/acquaintances with young children always want to know why my wife and I chose not to have kids. I get very dirty looks when my first answer is "there are already too damn many people in the world as it is"
The economists are the worst. "Don't you know, we need children to fund your retirement! Economies need a growing population!"
Yeah, fuck off. That's not sustainable and you know it. We're going to need to figure out how to make shrinking populations work.
I really respect that sentiment. Like, I don't have kids of my own, but I am majorly conflicted about having them because i know that their lives will be massively impacted by this shit. I don't know if I can do that to them.
People living near the equator are still having kinds, and those families will need to move somewhere when things get too bad there. They will come and replace the family you didn’t have when it comes time for the great food wars.
I posted this further upthread, but it bears repeating. Don't manufacture fake precision. Nobody says "It's 69.8 degrees out", just like nobody says "It's 21.1°C". 70F is 21C, and if you need more precision than that, it's not in a Lemmy comment!
It's slightly below freezing and snowing here in West-Central Indiana. We haven't been above the 50s yet this Dember.
Now admittedly, the 50s in December is not the same as when I was a kid and we are definitely doing great damage to the Earth's climate and biosphere, but saying kids aren't going to grow up because of it is a bit hyperbolic.
Of course they are going to grow up. 20 years are nothing. Those are issues that will only start to get serious after that time. Which is exactly why so little is happening now.
I think the guy above you was calling out the fact that the picture in the post is using a temperature scale that is only used by very few countries as if it was the default for the Internet.
And here in Utah we're having sunshine all over the place, which is odd for us this time of year. In fact it will be mid-50s this week and we may get rain, but no snow this year for Christmas (which I'm fine with). The sun is coming out again today and it feels like it's mid-August, not December! I love the warm weather and am not a ski person, so I happen to love it - but it is so WEIRD!
The only time water will be a problem is when someone's using weapons to force others away from sources of it. In terms of desalinating water and delivering it to thirsty people, that's something the market is perfectly capable of attaining. It's always profitable to meet unmet basic needs so any water holes will be filled automatically. And that's in the worst case scenario, where people are just buying trucked in water. In most places there will be actual plumbing serving people.
Where's the water going to go? It's in the water cycle, if anything is going to rain a lot more and a lot more violently, and in areas it shouldn't be raining.
If it's contaminated we should be fine collecting and stiling rain water.
"Water is a rare and precious resource" when not talking about habitats, is a silly hyper capitalist argument meant to stoke fear and panic purchases.
It is in the water cycle true, but where it is in that cycle and where it ends up are both critical to our long term industrial agricultural water use.
A lot of water used in agriculture is actually from underground water sources that refill very slowly. Once we run out of those, many of the things we do can't work anymore.
About 10 years ago it didn't rain in Central California for 2 straight years. Imagine that, but with the ground water gone, and places water is traditionally piped from saying "no more". Millions of people would die.
Lmfao you really think the people with money won't take control of natural resources?
That's a pretty bad assumption considering they already have. Companies across the planet have already taken over most natural resources and will defend them with militaristic ways.
If we are being really pedantic, the freezing and boiling part of first paragraph is only true under sea level atmospheric pressure, so technically, you can't really relate these quantities with the given information in the first paragraph either.
But I don't think that's the point this exerpt is trying to make.
But this is clearly written from the perspective of someone who lives in a climate that used to be solidly below freezing all through the winter months in the northern hemisphere. Now snow seems like a distant memory from childhood.
21°C/70°F is a normal winter temperature where I'm from in the southern hemisphere 🥲
And right now it's summer... let's put it this way, lately it's been over 40°C/104°F for so many weeks in a row that, when temperatures dipped to 33°C/91°F, it felt cold... and to think it's only going to get worse going forward @_@
I'm in Utah and we get up to around 106 to 107 on some days in mid-Summer. But we also go down as slow as 0 degrees sometimes in winter. I would rather live in a state where temps are in the warmer register most days of the year.
The German equivalent of JustStopOil is called the Last Generation (or letzte Generation). The official name is like the last generation that can hold up climate crises, but the implication is clear
I'm not as far north as you, but we're also having a super mild stint. Normally have a couple feet of snow right now but it's rained for 3 days. Last December we had the same thing. Year before that we had about 2-3 feet of snow and highs of -10°C.
It's gotten to the point where I can't even rely on weather reporting to give me current weather. One day a couple weeks ago it's -20 but the Weather Network said it was 0... That was rude. I'm thinking of setting up my own weather station.
I live close to the Arctic Circle as well and it's +2 currently. Two weeks ago it snowed like a meter in 2 days. I've seen enough snow for this winter.
We have had almost no snow in BC this year. Northern BC is in severe drought. There isn't even enough water to fill the recently completed highly controversial site C dam.
Basically that means we are going to have the worst fire season we've ever seen, sorry america but the smoke alone will ruin your summer too
Even fucking Haida Gwaii is seeing some mild level of drought right now. This shit ain't right
You should look at the winter that recently ended in the southern hemisphere - record ice shelf losses during winter, record high temps in Rio and other cities. In winter.
sorry america but the smoke alone will ruin your summer too
Gosh dang it! In 2020 the fires turned our skies dark red, and there was ash falling from the sky. I don't want to relive that. I couldn't go outside for longer than about 2 minutes without getting a headache.
Where I live, fall and winter weather is like this and always has been my entire life. Daytime highs in the 70F (21C) range in fall and winter is definitely above average, but far from abnormal and that's not even particularly extreme for this time of year. It's a part of the northern hemisphere where it's not even rare to have over night lows of 18F (-8C), and within a day or two it'll be 72F (22C). We even joke about it "Ha ha ha. Don't like the weather? Just wait a day. Ha ha ha."
So, full disclosure: Climate change is real. If we don't get our shit together, the (human) world is probably going to end (in disaster). But, being honest, if it's 70F for a few days in November, December, January, February, or March it's not exactly a sign that the end is near.
Anyway, on a site that shall not be named, there was a post that showed up on the front page that was from a city I used to live in, and which was geographically close to where I spent most of my childhood. It was an image gallery of a bunch of random plants in flower, during a week of slightly warmer than average weather in December or January, and it was lamenting something along the lines of "People keep saying these flowers are pretty but all I see is a harbinger of the apocalypse." Highly upvoted and lots of affirmative comments.
Don't get me wrong. Climate change is coming, climate change is here. It's a catastrophe and it's not a thing I deny exists.
But, the flowers in their photos were things that are cool season bloomers which start blooming in October/November in my area and basically are in bloom as long as conditions aren't extremely cold or extremely hot. Most of them were invasive species (like Dandelions and various nettles that bloom year round as long as it's not too hot or too cold). There was only one thing in their post that would have been a bit "holy shit", but it was something that was completely unbelievable, likely misidentified, and they refused to provide further evidence on.
I called it out. Politely, but with conviction. And, let's just say, it was not well received.
Above my post? I don't get it. My post is a top-level comment to the main submission. The post above mine is dependent on your client and your sorting selection / preferences, so it'll be different depending on who views this and when.
Yeah, if winters are warmer now than people remember, it's not global warming making a noticeable change.
For perspective, the average global temperature has risen 0.08°C (0.14°F) per decade since 1880. It has increased to (0.18°C / 0.32°F) since 1981, but you still aren't going to feel that.
Depends on the area one is from. Where I grew up, temperatures were definitely consistently colder in the winter when I was a kid, and we received much more snow. Climate change is not just about the average changing, but the standard deviation as well (over both time and location). Regardless, for many people in the U.S., their USDA plant hardiness zone has changed due to consistently warmer winter weather.
This is a great example of weather and not climate. There are always one-off weather anomalies like snow one day in May or a 72 degree F day in December, but it's not good when these happen frequently.
Globally, the trends get warmer and warmer every year. Just because there was a warm December day 40 years ago doesn't really mean anything. What means something is these days keep happening more and more everywhere, and this has long term implications for everything. It won't be our extinction event but as other have said, we won't be living in the same world we are now.
So that means anything is ok here? What about pro-nazi memes? We all agree that there's a line somewhere, you and I just put that line in a different place. For me the line is anything that ACTUALLY might make the world a worse place.
There is nothing an individual person can change that will have an impact. There are maybe 10 large corporations that could, but won't, fix this. They won't fix it because it's not a profitable thing to do. They'd rather be profitable right up until the day we all die, than fix the problem.
and what can a regular person do to fight this? not use plastic straws? turn off the light when they leave the room? wowie, that's going to change so much when the mega corporations are dumping millions of litres of waste into the oceans, oils, plastics, industrial wastes, when politicans all over the world only care about winning instead of helping, and wining involves a lot of money, money they can only get from the mega corporations, so they won't do shit to stunt their never ending chase of profits
even if all of us average joes decided to go full eco with minimal carbon footprint we will barely slow down the ecological downfall of our planet
that's the only way a lot of us can cope with the fact our planet is dying and nobody is doing anything about it. Not going to live my days in despair, might as well laugh at my own misery