New record set for world's hottest day - as scientist warns milestone is a 'death sentence'
au.news.yahoo.com
The world has experienced its hottest day on record, according to meteorologists.
The average global temperature reached 17.01C (62.62F) on Monday, according to the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction.
The figure surpasses the previous record of 16.92C (62.46F) - set back in August 2016.
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We should give up hope that things are going to be fine and it's all going to work out paintlessly.
That isn't necessarily the same as giving up hope that we'll survive and adapt.
How do we do that? How do we prevent further damage to the environment by fossil fuel companies and such? It doesn't feel like that's feasible... ~Strawberry
Fossil fuel companies are run by ordinary humans with names and addresses.
Just sayin
Keep yourself occupied and do the best you can. Informed descisions of individuals can bring more change than governments. You might not stop the oil from being sold, but if there is less demand for it, profits go down and that has great effect on the rate at which oil is pumped out of the ground.
I don't know what decisions I can make that would make any significant impact on this. I mean private jets, for example, produce more emissions than any other part of the aviation industry. If some billionaire who took private jets regularly chose to stop doing that, it'd have a much more significant impact than me eating vegan hot dogs instead of meat hot dogs. And that's not accounting for how many run massive polluters like Exxon-Mobil and actively lobby against measures to combat climate change. And this isn't some abstract, random, unchangable force of nature. They are making the choice to do these things and could easily choose to stop at literally any time they want and still have their dragon hoards afterward. But they don't. What kind of choices could I make that could have anywhere near that kind of impact? ~Strawberry
The choices of yourself influence the choices of those around you. And collectively we have much more impact on climate change than for example the private aviation industry. The following article contains a few ideas and their impact to start with. https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-what-does-the-ipcc-mean-by-choice-architecture-and-can-it-change-our-behaviour-12582739
Don't corporations emit the most carbon and such in the world? This is a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions. ~Strawberry
I mean, the term “death sentence” does imply a lack of survival.
Not everyone sentenced to death has been executed, so it implies survival is difficult rather than impossible.
That's not really how the phrase is used colloquially. It means a person is gonna die.
It probably comes from earlier periods of history when if you heard someone pronounce a death sentence, your head was getting chopped off within a few minutes.
Okay, but this isn't the 1400s
These days people recognize a death sentence as an injustice that can be stopped.
Really?
It's an idiomatic saying.
Sure, but that's the point - a death sentence isn't certain death anymore, so saying this milestone is a death sentence is completely accurate.
Or do you think these scientists actually meant "we are all 100% going to die"?
Yes I think the scientist meant that, because that is what those words mean.
When a person says "Doing X is a death sentence" they mean it makes you die. Nobody says that skydiving is a death sentence. They say that being in a car whose locks freeze as it sinks into water is a death sentence. It's a phrase used to indicate that a situation has no outcome other than death.
Despite the fact that meaning conflicts with how the other thing referred to as a death sentence in our present society, it is nonetheless what the phrase means when used figuratively.
This is ridiculous.
Do you actually think this scientist was trying to say "there is no hope we're all going to die"?
If that's the case, the only thing left is revenge.
That's going to be a lot uglier than self defense.