Photos reveal melted lampposts, power line poles split in half and charred homes in the Texas Panhandle as the state battles its second-largest wildfire in state history.
I don't want to be a doomer, but I do kind of feel like climate change is going to get worse and worse and we will pay a terrible price.
I'm not one of those "civilization will end" types, but I think there will be a lot more refugees and a lot more war. If the Himalayan ice caps melt, a lot of Asia is very fucked.
There's a pretty big difference between "it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better", and "it's already over, we're all fucked".
The original comment presents things poorly: we are past several "points of no return", but saying the point of no return implies there's nothing to be done.
Additionally the last point is... pretty much entirely wrong. We have absolutely made significant and noticeable progress against climate change. It's not enough yet, but it's absolutely not nothing.
I understand that. I'm just suggesting that doomers might not be 100% wrong because I think a lot of bad stuff is going to happen, so we shouldn't just dismiss dire predictions entirely.
I just don't think this will be the end of our species or even human civilization everywhere. But in some places? Quite possibly.
Yeah I agree, I just don't call "stuff's gonna be bad" doomerism (it's pretty clear at this point). I call "this is the end and there's nothing we can do" doomerism.
I’m not specifically saying that suddenly the planet is going to swallow up humanity as a whole. But, as you said — climate refugees — plus an uncertain food and water supply, and disastrous weather are going to cause humanity to fight amongst themselves. We will end up destroying ourselves to “survive.”
That is not something you can predict with any certainty. That may happen and it may not. We can't know at this point. But there will definitely be a price paid for our continued fossil fuel use.
What I know about humanity is that we spent the vast amount of our history as small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers, so any prediction you make is based on a very tiny fraction of our history.
Right, and with little proof to say otherwise. Climate scientists outside of fund-raising organizations and profit publications aren’t too optimistic.
I’m not going to sugar coat reality just because a person wants to believe everything is going to get better.
We are fucked. Don’t be delusional. Focus on how we can best handle the inevitable disaster, instead of ignoring it and not making a plan for humanity to adapt as much as it can—in time.
Better is a very relative term. A ramp up to a hothouse Earth will be better for exotherms to spread out more. Doesn't work well for most other species still here now.
If it was just humans that were impacted, then I'd be sad about the lost potentials we may have had, but be fine with life going on for the rest. The crime is that we're dragging down just about everything else with us.
Better is a very relative term. A ramp up to a hothouse Earth will be better for exotherms to spread out more. Doesn't work well for most other species still here now.
If it was just humans that were impacted, then I'd be sad about the lost potentials we may have had, but be fine with life going on for the rest. The crime is that we're dragging down just about everything else with us.
Exactly. So people have a chance to get real information on this topic. Too many people get information from journalistic sources. Modern journalism is concerned with advertising dollars not dissemination of accurate information.
Fine. Here is a link to a YouTube video which summarizes the points of the IPCC report. Note this video is about the 2022 report but I linked to the 2023 report above.
You keep linking me to things but you can’t ever talk about them. I’m not interested in wasting my time reading something or listening to something you can’t talk about. Just tell me what they said that argues against my point and we will discuss that.
Official? I mean, it’s not official. It’s just a document for policymakers. Just because you don’t agree with me doesn’t mean you need to support a document you haven’t read just because the person who posted it is possibly arguing against my opinion.
On your second point, I don't think any expert on the subject has ever claimed that recycling and electric cars will fix 100% of the issue. People unfortunately like simple solutions though so when they hear that you should recycle, they think that will fix the problem. Fixing climate change and the environmental damage we have done is not something that can be fixed with one action. Is recycling good? Absolutely, especially recycling metals. Are electric cars better? Sure. Even better? Use a bike or a train. Should billionaires fly less? 100%. None of those come close to solving the climate problem on their own.
You are correct that we are passed the point where we can avoid major environmental and economic damage. We hit the 1.5°C mark last year and this year is not looking better. Our job now is to minimize the damage.
I don’t think we should give up and make it worse. I do think we should try to make it last as long as we can. I’m not gonna run out and buy a big truck just to hurry things along.
Realistically, humanity will die eventually no matter what we do. Everything dies. Unfortunately, to remove our dependency on all of the various things that are bad for the environment would require trillions of dollars in investments that will never return a “profit,” and near 100% worldwide support. Humanity cannot agree on anything as a whole.