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.
I used to think the more apparent and devastating outcomes of climate change were bound to hit long after I passed away, but now I'm not so sure. Local storms are becoming more and more serious with every passing year, each summer is less bearable than the last and the nearby forests are burning down for the 2nd summer in a row. We are definitely speedrunning this shit.
Most of the climate change predictions I've heard in my lifetime have talked about stuff that would happen by 2050 or 2100. It's always been bullshit, just a way of pushing out the consequences beyond a timeframe we can actually conceive of effectively. In reality this shit is already hitting us and accelerating hard.
2050 isn't really that far away. if you remember the year 2000, that's about how long.
My nephew will be 38 in 2050. Sure makes it seem a lot closer.
Well, I started hearing "2050" in the 1980s and it seemed impossibly far off. 2100 really ain't that far off either.
I’ve always thought those predictions were listed as “conservative” so the average is a lot closer but main media outlets pick the fastest out point in the bell curve so it’s not so doomed.
Yeah, it's not bullshit to be conservative with climate models because they are incredibly complex. It's good practice. However, because of the political climate around climate change, scientists probably er on the side of being extra-conservative, and the models are still dire! So, if the real world trends happen to go outside the bell curve, not in our favor, which keeps happening, we're fucked.
2050 is less than 3 decades away. I am sure I will be dead by then, but someone born this millennium should absolutely be alive still. What is infuriating is how little importance many younger people put on this issue.
Too many people thinking like that is exactly why we are where we are today. And why it will continue to get worse.
Those of us who actually care about the world our children and grandchildren will have to live in have been trying to get some large scale action for decades, and we're tired of beating our heads against a brick wall.
If it doesn't hit in my lifetime it will be soon after, which is one the reasons I choose to not have kids.
It's hitting now.
It's amazing how the human race realize the shit it put itself in only when it is a fraction of a second from hitting the wall at high speed. It's like that every single time.
Except the impact of climate change isn’t at all like a car crash. In a car crash everything stays fine until it suddenly goes to shit. Which I think is one of the issues why people have such a hard time dealing with it.
Maybe we should think about it more like a sinking ship. We already got wet feet, which isn’t great but only the start and we really need to start shutting some bulk heads to keep the water from pouring in. And get some Wellies to deal with the water already in. But those won’t help if it keeps on rising.
On geological time scales, this is very much like your car crash analogy.
Unfortunately, most people don't seem to be capable of understanding time at that scale.
Because we're humans, not rocks. What do you expect?
The rich are on the top decks where the valve controls are, they don't have wet feet, why should they close the valves?
Surely even the rich would prefer to be able to go outside without the air being full of smoke, and visit a forest that isn't dead. But I guess there's a minority for whom the amount of money next to their name is more important, and they happen to run everything.
You constantly hear people say "oh, well we are in a warming cycle, so yeah, of course the Earth is going to get warmer".
These are people on the Right who have moved past the point of denying the problem of Climate Change and shifted their argument to admitting it is happening, but not admitting that it is man-made.
In some ways, they are right - the Earth's climate IS indeed shifting away from an Ice Age and moving toward a warming period, but what we humans have done is essentially thrown gasoline onto the already burning fire. We are accelerating the problem.
And it's that acceleration that's the real problem. If this sort of warming happened over twenty or thirty thousand years, the ecosystem would have a chance to adapt and maybe humanity along with it. A couple hundred years? Nah mate, ecological collapse is going to happen and it'll probably take us with it.
It's the way we tend to think of things as black and white. Someone decided to set some disaster increase threshold for the climate crisis events and called it a day. When it has always been about an increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters and more, both of which we are already seeing.
We were warned. We were told it was a tipping point situation and things would seem ok until they aren't.
At least companies created incredible profits for a small number of shareholders for a short period of time. Totally worth it
That's a pretty weak take. Do you know how profitable it is to hire a short-gain CEO, pump his stock, sell before the inevitable crash and follow him to his next venture? Immensely so.
Think how great the world would be if everyone did that, jumping from sunken venture to sunken venture, burning through any and all good will, until the only thing that still has worth is the planet you're on, but even that is nothing because Mars is the next frontier you can sink our money into.
Think before you speak so poorly of those better than yourself
It's a joke from a viral editorial cartoon. Don't be such an antagonistic jerk.
edit: If you were attempting satire then I've fallen victim to Poe's law because there are lots of people who sincerely believe exactly what you wrote. Hopefully that isn't the case here, and if so I retract the jerk comment. If you do believe what you wrote, my comment stands.
It's definitely satire.
I think that's ok. We don't need to take everything here seriously. You can take it seriously, I can take it satirically. OP can say they can't remember original intent.
100% satire
Don't worry, I'm sure if we all keep doing the same thing this will sort itself out.
How about we go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.
Sorry, the Winchester had to close due to Covid and anyway, we have a water shortage so no beer.
Just add a little nuclear winter and we're good. So there might be a little radioactive fallout, that's just a problem for the poors to deal with. Billionaires will be okay in their acre sized underground bunker clubs and that's what's important.
"Global Warming did happen. But thankfully nuclear winter canceled it out."
—Leela
I know it's a joke but I actually looked into it and it turns out that nuclear winter only reduces temperature in the short term - the effects wear off and you'd just get hit with global warming abruptly when it wears off. I guess it could potentially buy some time to implement carbon capture or something.
Just bury our heads in the sand, then our torsos, then while you are at it, might as well just start living underground.
If by sort itself out you mean the planet wiping us out in a few generations, yeah
Seriously the green rhetoric needs to change. The planet is going to be fine. Humans aren't.
We thank people who disregarded nuclear energy. We could've sliced global emissions by a lot if were not for you, but burning coal is far safer.
I thank the oligarchs and their willing consumption enthusiasts. This apocalypse is brought to you by unchecked, insatiably greedy capitalists and capitalism.
That's a false dichotomy. There are more power sources than coal and nuclear.
Also electricity generation is not the only source of emissions. Car traffic, cruise ships, aiplanes, all need to be reduced and can't just be replaced by nuclear power.
In theory, yes. In practice, nuclear plants that are shut off are almost always replaced with fossils, with the specific fossil fuel of choice often being coal.
Energy is not something where you can just pick one solution and run with it (at least, non-fossils, anyway). Nuclear is slow to ramp, so it usually takes care of baseline load. Renewables like wind and solar are situational, they mostly work throughout the day (yes, wind too, differential heating of earth's surface by the sun is what causes surface-level winds) and depend greatly on weather. Hydro is quite reliable but it's rarely available in the quantities needed. The cleanest grids on the planet use all of these, and throw in some fossils for load balancing, phasing them out with energy storage solutions as they become available.
You can't just shoot one of the pillars of this system of clean energy and then say you never tried to topple the system, just wanted to prop up the other pillars. Discussing shutting off nuclear plants without considering the alternative is pure lunacy, driven by fearmongering, and propped up by no small amounts of oil money for a reason.
Replacing nuclear with renewables is simply not the reality of the situation. Nuclear and renewables work together to replace fossils, and fill different roles. It's not one or the other, it's both and even together they're not yet enough.
So when you do consider the alternatives, moving from nuclear to the inevitable replacement, fossils, is still lunacy, just for other reasons: even if you care about nothing more than atmospheric radiation, coal puts more of it out per kWh generated, solely because of C-14 isotopes. Nuclear is shockingly clean, mostly due to its energy density, but also because it's not producing barrels of green goo, just small pills of spicy ceramics. And if your point is accidents, just how many oil spills have we had to endure? How many times was the frickin ocean set on fire? How many bloody and brutal wars were motivated by oil? Is that really what a safer energy source sounds like to you, just because there are two nuclear accidents the world knows about, and a thousand fossil accidents, of which the world lost count already?
And deflecting to other industries is also quite disingenuous. Especially if your scapegoat is transportation, since that's an industry that's increasingly getting electrified in an effort to make it cleaner at the same logistical capacity, and therefore will depend more and more on the very same electrical grid which you're trying to detract from.
Being from Germany, I have often read such arguments and at least here that is simply not true.
The decrease in nuclear power was accompanied by a decrease in fossil fuel.
Could that decrease have been larger if nuclear had been kept around longer? Possibly.
But if we are talking about building new power plants, the money is typically better invested in renewables. They're faster to build and produce cheaper energy.
@geissi @b3nsn0w
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/11/german-electricity-was-nearly-10-times-dirtier-than-frances-in-2016
I'm not sure what the point is.
German Electricity is dirtier than France's therefor no other sources of electricity exist beyond coal and nuclear?
That would be a weird conclusion seeing as both countries also use other power sources.
Germany, specifically, was one of the worst offenders in this category. They do renewables at maximum capacity (like everyone else) but there's still a massive gap to fill, and with issues of strategic dependence around hydrocarbons, the obvious answer to fill in the missing capacity was coal. Most of the time you get a mix of coal and natural gas, whichever is easier, but in Germany's case that mix was almost entirely on the side of coal.
And without abundant hydro power, or an energy storage solution that could store a full night's worth of energy even if the current deployment of renewables was able to generate that (which it's pretty far from), there aren't a lot more options. Germany's strategy to shut off its nuclear plants out of fearmongering has been a heinous crime against the environment.
When oil companies love your green party you know you fucked up.
I'm assuming the 'gap' refers to the reduced nuclear capacity.
So you're saying that Germany replaced the power previously generated by nuclear power almost entirely with coal power?
Do you have ANY statistics to support that?
The only actual increase in coal energy I know of was an unplanned short time rise due to the war in Ukraine and the loss of gas imports.
Edit: Also the original argument was that coal and nuclear is a false dichotomy. Your own comment mentions a mix of coal and gas, mentions renewables, so clearly there are more than those two options, right?
There is massive work being done to improve large scale energy storage (big batteries) so the renewables become less and less situational. Large scale energy storage is significantly less constrained than car batteries, because weight is a one time cost. Even gravity based batteries could become viable.
Also, in response to the previous commenter, electricity generation is by far and large the main source of emissions accounting for more than half, with more than a quarter being agriculture. Transportation is 14%, and given the future transition to electric vehicles, one might argue that half of that can be tack'd on to electricity generation's share. (Half because electric cars are more than twice as efficient at energy conversion than petrol cars. Toss in some power line losses and that's a reasonable estimate)
All of that is great, and I'm all for it. Can't wait for the first grids with no fossils whatsoever, once energy storage improves enough that it can take all the balancing load. When we reach that, it will mark the start of the era where nuclear is actually being replaced by renewables rather than fossils.
My point here is that switching off nuclear is premature for now. It's a very clean source of energy once you look at the per kWh numbers and nuclear waste management solutions are actually extremely safe. (The videos where they test the containers by smashing actual trains into them are kinda fun -- and those tests are done with liquid water, which is far more susceptible to leaking than solid ceramics.) Of course, if we reach a point where wind, solar, and hydro can fully replace fossils and start eating into nuclear's share then that's gonna be a very different conversation, and I'm fully with renewables in that situation, but we should always keep the alternatives in mind when we shut something off.
That's why we're not just shutting down coal plants altogether, because there's just nothing to replace them. Although an energy policy where you just flat out ban
renewablesfossils and tell the market that that's the supply, now go figure it out would certainly be interesting. Very expensive and terrible for the economy, but interesting nonetheless. (Definitely the based kind of chaos if you ask me.)edit: okay, that was a weird word to accidentally replace, lol
There are more problems with nuclear energy, though. The biggest being that we burden future generations for literally thousands of years with a growing amount of waste. I am not sure why this is always missing from the discussions of people who are pro nuclear power.
It is making the same mistake again as we did before: creating a problem for future generations to solve. And in this case the problem is dire and, because of the immensely long timespan, we have no way to reliably plan ahead for so long.
You can technically power TVs with nuclear energy. But yeah airplanes and cruise ships are harder.
I'm all for getting rid of the cruise ships. Floating land-whale-buffet reef-destroying pollution devices is what they are. I've seen firsthand the effect they have on Caribbean islands they make their destination, and it's never good.
Thank the good old Green Party of Germany! Restarting all those coal plants and shutting down nuclear reactors!
Yeah, I'll take a source for this one. Coal power generation has not increased in Germany whereas the Green party's policies in 1998 led to the first large scale deployment of solar energy in the world.
@Regelfall @Widowmaker_Best_Girl
would removing wind turbine to expand the coal mine count as a source ?
https://www.realclearenergy.org/2023/04/04/wind\_farm\_in\_germany\_dismantled\_to\_expand\_coal\_mine\_891111.html
God, that's so depressing. I genuinely don't understand how we - any of us, in any country - are supposed to be okay with these political mechanisms filled with incompetent, out-of-touch, self-interested codgers. I'm not willing to take action, but when our entire world is being picked apart by the public sector and sold for parts by the private sector, what are we to do?
Do you really think governments actually gave a shit about some deluded hippies? Nah, they were just the scapegoats the politicians used to pretend they weren't in bed with the fossil fuel lobbyists.
Why would you disparage beautiful, clean, coal like that?
Im just glad it's shaping up to be so apocalyptic that there'll be no safe haven for the owner class that caused it. Let them burn with the peasants they decimated for profit.
And that's why the billionaires are investing in spaceships... Seriously though, they are really buying "doomsday" properties to ride it out.
It seems pathetic to me that people are so obsessed with self-centered “survival” at any cost. I don’t want to live in a bunker or a ruined world, and I couldn’t possibly care less about “my lineage” or genetic material or whatever.
So you care about human survival but not about your own survival?!
well, that's not precisely what I meant, but sure. I would much rather not see humanity reduced to apocalyptic conditions at all. But if that was to happen, I'd not want to live in a bunker or in space and I'd feel bad for people who did. I also mean that I'm not concerned with "I and my offspring must survive into the future" the way some people are. I don't have any kids... that might change things.
Love that they are spending billions on bunkers to "ride it out", when the moment they need to use the bunker, there is nothing to ride out, we are not coming back to the surface in the next few lifetimes if ever.
those who go to those bunkers might have a chance to survive and essentially be what will be left of humans if it gets so bad surface becomes completely hostile for life. If its those fucking shits that are partly responsible for all this, they will make humanity into mockery of what its now. But its also likely they just made "luxury bunkers" that are nice to live in but that cant actually support people as long as its needed.
Those bunkers are luxury tombs and little else.
Yup, I'm sure their grandchildren will get all the warm fuzzies growing up in a confined bunker with picture book after picture book of the blue skies, green landscapes, and animals that their grandparents helped destroy.
That explains a lot with billionaire space race.
The COVID pandemic makes me their plan is to turn New Zealand into a bunker nation and leave us all to die.
Like, just the billionaires on an island? Who will do all the labor required to maintain their lifestyle? Because they sure as he'll aren't. To paraphrase Pratchett, it takes a hundred people standing in the mud to keep one person with their head in the clouds.
Who is this Pratchett character? Sounds like a righteous bloke lol
Terry Pratchett, author best known for the Discworld series of novels.
There's an island full of laborers already in New Zealand. The COVID response showed that they were willing to protect people already living there, so their response to climate change will be the same.
I think that if they manage to fuck over the whole world, there is no amount of money and bunkers that can save them from the angry mob
Watch the show Silo. They’ll find a way. The books are good too.
There is no such thing as a semtex-proof bunker.
Eh, ring of fire will get them
This exactly. One of the reasons I left NZ was a fear of earthquakes. My dozen Christchurch rellies all living in the least damaged house, with a bucket in the garage as their toilet, just confirmed for me that I'd made the right choice.
Probably.
Billionaires seem to think nature is irrelevant. See: Elon Musk and his Mars fetish lol
Too bad the security they will hire to keep their bunkers safe will quickly figure out that the money they are being paid isn't worth anything any more... they will probably point us over to the air vents when we show up with the cement trucks.
The ones responsible will be gone by the time the worst effects will be felt. Sins of the father?
Not the descendants that accepted and kept their family's blood money without a second thought. The moment you, as an autonomous adult, choose to accept the power and wealth reaped through human misery, you accept the legacy of blood that came with it.
Anyone can walk away from blood money, or use ALL that blood money solely to provide restitution to the populations exploitated to obtain it. It doesn't happen though, because human beings as a rule are the fucking worst. Most people, the fuckees, fantasize about becoming the oligarch fuckers, instead of dreaming of ending their oppression and restructuring society to prohibit amoral levels of wealth/power accumulation. Most humans, given power/wealth, would use their own suffering as an excuse to propagate more suffering.
Very true. I have an example in my family: my father-in-law owns a lot of land. That land, not so long ago, belonged to some native tribes that were all killed to have said land stolen. My wife said that, when her father dies and she inherits the land/money, she's gonna donate most of it (maybe all, depending on our financial situation), because she doesn't want the blood money.
Every time I (proudly) tell this to someone, they look at me like I'm crazy.
Playing devil's advocate here: do you live in the US or UK?
The US, not proud of it at all though, and would leave if I had an in pretty much anywhere in Europe or Canada.
And this is true
Honestly one of the reasons that longevity treatments could actually turn out to be a good thing.
All of a sudden a bunch of rich fucks who were sooo sure that climate change wouldn't effect them but rather their great great grandkids have a good reason to pour a lot of money into the problem so they don't die of heat or starvation at the young age of 150 when they could have lived 200? 300? Who knows, at a certain point you get a longevity tech run away effect.
in other news my ultra conservative parents installed solar panels on their house, and for over a month now, they've been generating more electricity than they can use, feeding back into the system their surplus. when real world results are such, we can start using these incidents as examples of why it's not only the morally correct thing to do (combat climate change and save our species), but also the economically savvy thing to do.
who knows what will be the final straw that breaks their stubbornness.
You mean they had a financial incentive to partake?
Your example just shows how economics incentives are designed to work, but that money does come from somewhere.
I'd love to get solar but it's not economically viable to encur 20k expenses that will need over twenty years to pay off when that money can be used elsewhere
If someone gave me a Tesla I'd love it but I really don't have the cash to get a car right now and even if I did the price of teslas and most electrics are so high it's just not an option.
People think he solution here is to remove cheaper options but that won't work it will just keep people holding on to beaters far longer.
If the economics make sense to change people will change but trying to shake people or force people to make economically disadvantage choices will never work long term
My wife got a used Prius for 13K or 17k a couple years ago, it'll be more expensive now I believe, but the thing is most people don't have 13k or 17k to spend on a car. If people can't scrape together 500 dollars from their savings in an emergency, they aren't going to be able to get a hybrid or electric car for a very long time, and all legislation that tries to push people in that direction benefits the rich, and penalizes the poor when they remove options the poor can afford.
Just a heads up, most home solar installations are designed to pay for themselves in 7 to 9 years. But it does depend on net metering in your area, and whether you install a battery pack.
Figured I'd ask here since this thread seems to be getting informative. The number of door to door sales people for solar that come by my area really make solar feel like a scam. How should one go about finding a proper deal on getting solar without having to work with sleazy sales practices?
Why I say it feels scammy: the area I'm in has a lot of older middle class (not upper middle class or anything) residents. From talking to some solar reps, this is their target. There are much wealthier neighborhoods a town or so over but the salespeople I've spoken to say the business would rather sell financed installations to collect incentives and that it's easy to convince people they'll save money in the long run. But in this community, we're generally fine financially as long as nothing big hits. When they gave me the numbers, it fell into the category of a big upfront payment due to down payments and high annual costs that would only slightly be offset by electricity savings. I don't recall the term, but it was not something we could budget for. The paperwork is all showing the future savings and the savings on electricity, until you look into the details. There are two houses that I've seem go for it nearby.
A lot of those door-to-door guys are indeed scams. Or if not outright scams, just incompetent.
It's hard to find good installers that aren't completely booked for a year or more.
Depending on your needs and skill level, a decent-sized solar setup isn't hard to DIY. You don't necessarily need to start with a huge system, you can set up a smaller system to run an AC system or some load like that. Then if you want scale up as you learn more.
Also, solar doesn't have to be photovoltaic, solar thermal is great for hot water.
Interesting, this sounds like enough to start a Google quest to learn more and maybe experiment. Thanks!
Check out DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse on YouTube for lots of great info! He also has a web shop with many of the products he thinks are good quality.
Shit my ultra conservative parents literally left Arizona because it just kept getting hotter every season. Yet they continue to deny climate change is manmade and a real threat to the global ecology.
Gotta love the pentecostals "it's all just the end times!" Oh yeah, like it was when Paul wrote his letters, and like it was in the 1840's when the millerites did their "math," and like in the other dozen predictions since then that have all not come to pass.
I don't know how many thousands of years can be the "last days" but something tells me it's just whenever an individual who believes in it is currently living.
If they live in the Midwest you could even point to the drop in solar production from the smoke as an immediate negative economic effect
For me it was a 20 year ROI and I would have had to ask my neighbors to take trees down. I don't think I'll be here for that long. And when the average joe is getting poorer and poorer it's harder to afford. This is the problem.
Definitely dont chop down the trees. Also I heard there's payment plans for solar panels
You don't have to argue with your parents. It seems like the advancement of technology is naturally taking care of the issue.
Words of wisdom. The most efficient solution will speak for itself. People don't like wasting time, effort, or money.
Every person living in a democracy can make a difference with their VOTE. Only vote for people who have plans and intentions of bringing change. Vote at all levels, and vote whenever you get an opportunity. Ask what candidates in municipal elections think about the climate emergency. Organize. Talk to doubters. We can do this.
If voting worked, we would have solved this issue decades ago. You can vote for whomever you want, but at the end, no matter what they promise, they always end up doing nothing at all, because they are elected by using big oil donations.
Only a self-organized revolution can stop this madness, people in some nations are already blocking oil tankers and oil rigs. We can't win by only voting, you can vote for a day every few years, but we need to fight this everyday. Take turns blocking streets so no oil driven trucks and cars pass, only this will make an effect.
The idea that nonviolent protest works has been the most harmful idea in history
I mean nonviolent protests DO work.
Non-disruptive DOES NOT work though.
MLK Jr didn't peacefully sit in a park. They ran boycotts, sit ins, shut down streets, trespassed into white only areas, and drove businesses insane.
If MLK Jr was your enemy you were going to have a miserable time when he rolled into town.
Ghandi had people illegally burn documents and basically smuggled salt against all regulations.
MLK had the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam as looming threats. Gandhi is also the one who said "pacifism without violence is not pacifism, it is helplessness." A violent counterpart to a non-violent movement helps by being the stick to the non-violent carrot.
That's fair, but either way we gotta give up on this nondisruptive nonsense.
Gathering on the park outside of the white house at a time they agreed to doesn't do anything and why it's encouraged.
See US Constitution, Amendment 2 for another example of backing peace with capability of violence to earn respect.
I can assure you the US Government is not quaking in their boots at the thought of Billy Bob's basement arsenal.
Especially since those guys are pretty much all lard-asses. There's a reason why every competent military on the planet emphasizes physical fitness before anything else; it's because real combat --as opposed to playing paintball with your fatbody friends-- is one of the most physically and psychologically punishing activities known to man.
Indeed. As 101st infantry alumni, I'm well aware. Having been on both sides, military combat arms and a civilian gun owner, I find the 'defense against the government' idea around the 2nd amendment to be laughable. If they thought you were an actual threat they'd drone strike you out of existence, and you'd be a bullet point on an after action report. They own us now and they know it, that's why everything is going to shit, and it's why we were warned about the rise of the IMC. If only my younger self had been educated about that, I may not have joined up. Hmmm maybe there's a link there?!?! I wonder.
But it’s not about defending against the government. It’s about deterring the government. A pufferfish can’t defend against a shark, but by being spiky it deters the shark from attacking it.
Surely they teach this distinction in military training?
No they pretty much just taught us how to kill shit. In all seriousness, do you honestly believe that's the case? That the US federal government is deterred by an armed public? Because I don't think they give a shit, at all.
Oh yeah? Tell that to Gandhi
Both. We need both. Voting matters. Grassroots organization matters. Now is absolutely not the time to give up on democracy. It is also absolutely not the time to give up on mass organizing at the grassroots. Both, we need both.
We need direct democracy. What we live in is no democracy at all, they choose for us and then we just pick the worst of two evils.
Honestly voting now is to little too late. The Overton window isn't anywhere near the point of allowing actually meaningful change and the 4-5 year cycle of voting is too slow. If we really want to solve anything, the change should be systemic. Still, voting is important.
Of course voting alone won't do it. We need a lot more. Holding billionaires to account will go a long way as well.
I think its a statistical loss if we rely on denocracy. The stupid far outnumber the rational.
And the greedy outnumber us both. As long as these companies are lining politicians pockets, they will only act like they're trying.
The "momentarily-embarrassed millionaires" don't help, either.
Relying on democracy without participating in democracy is the only way to fail democracy.
You may be underestimating how many stupid people there are.
Sadly no, show me a political party that the us, china or India could realistically vote for that would substantially reduce emissions in the next 10 years
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-2030-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-and-securing-u-s-leadership-on-clean-energy-technologies/
Now let's see them actually do it, and hold the fascist scumbags trying to do a coup and commit genocide against trans people accountable in a court of law for that matter. ~Strawberry
Individual action also works. Its pretty easy to get information about what you can do and show those less inclined that it's not hell to live on the other side. The IPCC has that part as well if anyone is looking for the impact their changes can have: https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-what-does-the-ipcc-mean-by-choice-architecture-and-can-it-change-our-behaviour-12582739
Great link. Thank you!
Unfortunately, voting doesn't help. Besides there being basically no parties with any real strong climate policies, when you vote a decent sounding one in, they just go back on their promises anyway.
And even IF we vote in a party that truly brings about radical and positive climate change policies, that's just our one country, a drop in the ocean. The rest of the planet would still drag us down with them, even in that wildly positive scenario.
I don't mean to be a doomsayer, I just don't see a way out, I wish I did. Voting certainly doesn't solve our problems, climate change or otherwise. The rich ruling class will do whatever they want, regardless.
You're incorrect. Giving up isn't an option.
What the heck? I thought this was supposed to be fixed by all of us using paper straws and driving hybrids?
Well in reality there isn't much we can do as normal folk to reverse or slow down the impending doom of global warming.
It's all in the hands of the big corporations that we all know are the biggest contributors, to the whole debacle. They are not going to change a damn thing because is all about the extreme profiteering.
Yes and no, I think. Obviously one single person can't make a tangible difference all by themselves, but to stop the thought process there does a massive disservice to the importance of collective action. It doesn't take all that many people to affect change, both politically and culturally. Join CCL (US focus here), vote and advocate for carbon fee and dividend and other beneficial policies, buy less shit you don't need, ride a bike if you can, and if you have the means electrify your home/vehicle and support more ethical companies. Basically, don't blame BP if you're putting 20 gallons of their shit in your 4runner every week so you can commute to an office job with a permanent rooftop tent and a "save our winters" sticker on the back (yes I live in the front range). You're not responsible for all of humanity, but you are responsible for your own actions when you have the means to choose a less carbon intensive option.
This is just propaganda from the 90s/00s. The amount of carbon that any one middle class home generates is nothing compared to the private jet class and the corporate desolation of the environment. I hate capitalism. I hate consumerism. I hate cars. But don't act like the onus is on what basically amounts to a peasant class that already pays for almost everything and does nearly all of the work (the middle class). It's systemic greed, deregulation, and industrial rape of the world's resources by shit governments and corporations that have put us here. Stop making the middle class responsible for something they have no power to change even though most of us are anxious as fuck about it. If enough individuals can simultaneously change their carbon footprint to the point that it actually affects the coming consequences, then we should have just formed a general strike already to reverse capitalism caused climate change. But we didn't.
The carbon emission from anyone in a developed country is a gargantuan amount compared to the poorest people on earth, especially if you consider the share of CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution.
The "private jet class" you are talking about is the "peasant class" of the developed countrles.
No one want to be accountable, corporate blame it on consumers, consumer blame it on corporate, and the state doesn't want to act because they fear the backslash from both citizens and corporations.
We urgently need drastic change that will undoubtedly and severely lower our quality of life. No magic tech is coming to save us.
???
Don't you know that people living on minimum wage in the US are all flying private jets?
It is all the corporations but not how anyone thinks. Corporations want you to buy things. That is all. Corporations shifted it to the consumer with the whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing. The average person in the US buys way too many things. The FIRE movement recognized this in the 2010s. Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin figured it out before they wrote the book Your Money or Your Life in the 1990s. Every dollar you spend = emissions.
Last, I present the great George Carlin:
https://youtu.be/KLODGhEyLvk
I agree, we need to reverse the conspicuous consumerism that was promoted by corporate marketing departments. This is not going to be a simple task.
I've been trying to make changes to my consuming habits for a good number of years in pro of contributing (however small it might be) to the climate change fight. But, just as on wintermule says in the comments. It might be a lost fight for us mere individuals.
Just look at the data and then you'll realise that corporatins have been screwing the planet for a long long time now.
I think the straw thing is much more about trash than it is about combating climate change. Plastic getting into the eco system and building up in landfills is a big problem too, but it's a different and also important problem.
I will never understand how anyone bought into the paper straw bullshit keeping plastic out of the ocean. It's just so fucking ludicrous. Sure, plastic straws sit in our land fills for 500 years, but they have leach fields and containment ponds and multiple layers of contamination control.
Meanwhile there are entire fleets of fishing vessels, streaming thousands of miles of plastic fishing net through the ocean, every single day.
But yeah, it's the fucking McDonalds drinking straws that are the problem...
Action should be taken on all fronts, and I would argue that big companies should be made to take action before squeezing households into it. The opposite is happening unfortunately. I feel guilt every time I do the dishes, while the clothing industry is overusing and polluting everyone's water. That won't stop me from making the effort, but we need to burn down some parliaments if we are ever to see big corps react.
I see it as a first and necessary step. Remember the CFCs in deodorants and the effect of banning them?
Been looking for this big picture... has anyone seen it?
Paper straws? lol Recycling Aluminum? whoa babyyyyy
No that just helps us from setting even more new records 40 years from now.
Lets build a giant air conditioner to keep the global warming out
Or, this will sound crazy but hear me out, we put a giant ice cube in the ocean.
Oh, like the one Daddy puts in his drink when he gets home from work!
... and then he gets mad.
That's a great idea. We could get them from a local comet, I'm sure it would never run out.
Relevant Futurama what if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/162/
I particularly enjoyed this:
I don't know, I've been to the top and it seems pretty high up
The top of Niagra Falls, or the top of outer space? 🤔
Exactly
(Also what is the "top" of outer space?)
Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors
Nah I think it is fine haha it is just summer really hot out don't worry about it /s
Whenever someone mentions the future a few decades from now as a time frame for doing things I usually just say ‘well in 2050 we’ll be killing each other for water and air conditioning so I don’t think it’s ( whatever they’re talking about ) going to matter so much’.
and I'm just here trying to level up my fishing, ffs
In grinding gardening.
I just try to enjoy each year as the coldest year I'll get for the rest of my life.
Shit's depressing.
Yeah, I feel you. Usually I play the misanthrope card to mask my feelings. But it's not working anymore. I can't even joke about this shit.
Heat index of 112F where I am at. FML.
At 5am it was already 70F. I live in Pennsylvania. That shit is wild.
Love that 2 days later the headline is still true 😂, but also it’s sad
Unironically me this morning: "HOLY BLEEP IM ABOUT TO FREEZE TO DEATH HERE!"
Lemmy: "hi today is the hottest day on earth lmao"
Me: "what"
Unfortunately climate change makes things more turbulent and extreme on both ends of the spectrum.
That's one thing that always pisses me off "Haha, no climate change, see snowball".
The only reason Chicagoians have heard the term "Polar vortex" is because the instability is driving arctic air down our way.
Add to that what I swear looks like a hurricane trying to form over Lake Michigan ever couple months, and I'm starting to think the midwest isn't the stable haven I had hoped it would be.
It's hard to be optimistic, or at least determined, about the future when the prospect is bleak. Climate change is getting worse and here we are just pretending it is business as always.
We're gonna blow right past it.
Billions will die.
It's not even all about the climate though; it is human greed and cruelty that will kill the most: the haves butchering and purging the have-nots.
You are not a "have".
For all intents and purposes, NONE of us who would actually be here, on Lemmy, in this comment thread, able to be reading this, are a "have".
Unless your personal assistant's butler's niece's boyfriend is sharing this with you, you're probably just as fucked as he, she, and they are.
This is a bit unhinged but it is really quite correct.
It's unhinged to be concerned about what's going to happen when civil society breaks down due to climate change. It will happen eventually, we just don't really know when.
There's a new record for coldest or hottest day like every year, damn.
Where I live, if you factor in windchill and humidex, we have an ~80°C swing in tenperature. Its crazy.
Not only do I live where the air hurts my face, but now I got to deal with being constantly sweaty for ~3 months of the year.
You know, I'd never thought of it that way, but same. I had to buy an AC for the first time a couple years ago.
What gets me is that like, where I live, we used to wonder if we'd be seeing a white Halloween. Now we're lucky for a white Christmas.
Shiet, i'm sorry for that. Even I, that lives in a pretty mild place (normal summer not above 35c and normal winter not below like 10c), had summer in april nd that shit went up to 38c this year. The changes are definetely being felt lol.
Honestly I am a little thankful to hear that the previous record was set in 2016 and not 2022.
isn't that just the most recent el nino year?
Okay, I know this isn't the point of the article, but this guy's name is cool as hell and would fit perfectly as the leader of a band of survivors once the climate change apocalypse actually hits.
Now, that said, I would prefer that it didn't. Every other form of existential dread I can rationalize away, but this feels inexorable.
I googled him and his headshot is perfect.
I'd 100% follow Zeke Hausdather in an apocalypse.
So if this milestone is a death sentence, does that mean it’s time to give up?
These temperatures will kill people. They will cause crop failures. The death, hunger, and hardship will cause people to leave their homes to come to more habitable regions.
But there will still be habitable regions for generations still to come. A lot has been lost, and more will be before we fix what we broke, but plenty can still be saved as long as we don't just give up
So would you say morale is a really important factor in our global warming response?
Maybe these scientists should stop talking about hopelessness and death sentences and start talking about challenges and hardship.
Depending on who you ask it's the most important. Once people are educated they can make informed decisions themselves. Just do what you can and are willing to do and don't wait for the governing bodies to change their pace. The IPCC report actually contains solid Data on what individual behavior change is most effective, this article lists a few things https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-what-does-the-ipcc-mean-by-choice-architecture-and-can-it-change-our-behaviour-12582739
I disagree.
People need to be angry. We're being murdered and we must defend ourselves.
You haven't?
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.
if you haven't, yet, please share your thoughts--we could use your optimism!
You'll start to get a taste of how hell really is.
was fucking hot in western WA yesterday, my first year gardening and have had some plants bolt :(
edit: I shouldn't have used the term bolt cause even I didn't know what that meant before this season, it just means that a lot of my plants flowered due to stress from the heat, which often makes things like kale bitter, or spinach tough. In my case it was bok choy, and just now cilantro, but that was probably more from me planting late.
Just curious, by 'bolt', did you mean the slang to run away quickly, or does that have a different meaning in planting and vegetation?
Edit: thank you all for the replies.
It’s where something intended to grow slow and low as a leafy vegetable such as lettuce or cilantro stops growing leaves and sends up a tall central stalk for flowers and seeds. It kinda ruins the intended growth effect if it happens too early.
Today I learned…
It means they go to flower/seed really fast
In addition to what the other said, the leaves also get tough and bitter. Our first crop of lettuce went this way, now I'm doing a batch indoors since it's still too hot.
I like to plant my leafy greens inside an arch trellis, that way the squash and cucumbers shade the greens. My arugula is still trying to bolt but I can keep it pretty decent by topping it when I see it look like it's heading that way.
The smoke from 4th of July fireworks and from the usual summer wildfires has not been helping whatsoever over in WA
ya no kidding, I like to think I'm generally pretty tolerant of the fireworks, but I just moved and the neighborhoods around me apparently really felt the need to "protest" the firework ban. At least three fires reported, awesome protest!
New record so far. Damn, it’s just going to get worse isn’t it.
World record lets goooo!
This is fine dumpster
The 4th of July is so hot right now.
That's 2 degrees warmer than the "International Standard Atmosphere," which is used in the aerospace industry.
can't wait
Anyone have any idea how long before we actually all burn up?
Something we do around here is just keep the bad news light.
Any significant good news? I feel like that would be more helpful. ~Strawberry
It's been downright cold in Denver. We've had rain almost every day for the past few weeks and total rainfall has exceeded that of Seattle this year. Our heater has been coming on and we've barely had to use AC. Today it's overcast and about 70 again.
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK..
Honestly, I'm not sure if I'd want to bring a child into this kind of future. I'm not even sure how long I'll last in this future.
You know how they talk about the Fermi Paradox, and the Great Filter? This might be it. We made it past nukes (for now), we may or may not make it past misaligned AI... but I'm not sure we can survive this.
It makes it difficult to get in the mindset of planning for one's financial future. Retirement savings? Will I even live long enough to see those?