Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate experts

girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 226 points – Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate experts
theguardian.com

Many of Earth’s “vital signs” have hit record extremes, indicating that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance”, a group of the world’s most senior climate experts have said.

More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says.

The temperature of Earth’s surface and oceans hit an all-time high, driven by record burning of fossil fuels, the report found. Human population is increasing at a rate of approximately 200,000 people a day and the number of cattle and sheep by 170,000 a day, all adding to record greenhouse gas emissions.

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Yeah, I know. What the fuck am I supposed to do?

I don't care at this point. Don't have kids or if you have them already have go bags and plans. We're fucked

Where are you going with go bags? Everyone else is going there too.

We're not THAT fucked as to where we need go bags.

Everyone should have something like that. In any emergency you can grab it and leave the house and be prepared.

There's a difference between an emergency and apocalyptic societal collapse.

What do you put in your bag?

You'd be mistaken in thinking that everywhere will collapse at the same time. More than likely there are still "good" places to flee to. As the future collapse drags on they get fewer and fewer and less and less safe. But even just being "over there" is better than "here" in many cases.

I'm in the good place. No joke. I'm in Michigan. People will flee here

I agree but if a freak winter storm comes in, you may have to flee south temporarily. That's my point.

I'm not here to argue, but Michigan is prepared for winter storms. Wild fire? Ok, I see your point.

Even if it all turns to shit, there will likely be some people alive in the apocalyptic hellscape, and eventually we’re going to need to build communities that are able to grow their own food, take care of each other - completely doing away with capitalistic society. We’ll also need people to hunt down whatever billionaire psychopaths survive in their bunkers.

So might as well start now.

I hate these defeatist articles. This is the shit the rich want you to believe. They want you to shut the fuck up and keep buying trash from them.

I'm giving them less of my money. Fuck the rich.

It's cute how you think things will be alive.

Scientists to World Leaders:

"How many times we got to teach you this lesson old man?"

"Balance" HA! You're late to picture. It's easily too late 2030 Has been my call for over a decade now. Everyone says I'm crazy. I know you're ignorant. You think this is an accident. This is conducted intentionally by folks and you can't see what is obvious because they won't STFU about everything else. You're a sucker for believing fucking anything. Don't believe me. Figure it out for yourself. Stop believing anything. It's fucking obvious when you discard the flash of the neon sign.

CO2 increase causes an increase in crop yield.

You know what doesn't increase crop yield? Heat stress.

You know what else doesn't increase crop yield? Droughts along with that heat stress.

The garden I put out didn't do anything this year because it was just so hot and dry for so long.

Nor does cold stress. Why again do we only grow crops in the summer?

Not without water

Good thing higher temperatures mean more water in the atmosphere then.

There is a finite amount of H2O on earth, and climate change is altering weather patterns that used to be reliable. Increased evaporation in no way guarantees healthy ecosystems where humans can survive.

CO2 also lowers nutrient density despite increasing total size and weight of crops, meaning you have fewer nutrients per calorie and per pound. Even if you could spin this into a positive, all crops have the same vulnerabilities to heat stress, drought, and unpredictable seasons, all of which are increased by excess CO2.

Even with crispr changing the timeline to create new crops that might handle the new climate every year to be incredibly short, theres not enough time to produce and distribute those new versions before the climate has changed enough to require yet newer versions of said crops.

But good news, bugs and algae will be plentiful. hope you like algae bars with insect protein bars as a snack.

Well, so many people complain about starvation that I just figured there’d be some celebration of our increase in caloric yields per acre.

Yes, we do need other fertilizers to get more nutrients into the food, but it doesn’t hurt to have more basic carbohydrates available.

If you eat just rabbits, nothing else, just lean rabbit meat you will starve to death

It doesn't matter if you eat 2000 or 10000 kcal of rabbit, if you don't get more nutritious food, you will die of starvation and your body will waste away.

More calories by itself isn't a good thing.

You know when we first started seeing growing populations and development of agriculture? When the climate started an exceptionally long stable period. Guess what's going put of the window now? Planting for draught because that's the "new normal" won't get you far if the next year happens to be the wettest on record. Let alone that stronger storms than ever seen before aren't exactly great for harvests either. And that's just agriculture. Climate related disasters can wipe out key infrastructure, with unexpected consequences down the line (e.g. no car production because of a certain specific part of almost all cars comes from that one specific place). And then there's the refugee problem on top of all that.