We have already blown well past the 1.5℃ limit. The “official” limit is calculated by the actual temperature being above +1.5℃ for up to 20 consecutive years.
And no, that wasn’t a typo - that’s the political definition of “exceeding +1.5℃”.
And our CO2 production continues to accelerate. We haven’t even begun to reduce acceleration, much less enter into a steady-state production or reverse back to net zero.
We’re f**ked. As a species, we are setting up the conditions for an absolutely epic collapse of our civilization back to the Iron Age (or even the Stone Age if it’s bad enough) within the next 100 years, and the inertia of current changes may be enough to allow the entire planet to enter a true Venus Scenario, dooming all life on this rock millions of years ahead of time.
And no, we will not “innovate our way out of this problem”, for two main reasons:
- Business As Usual (BAU) is far more profitable, and so the Parasite Class - who have virtually all of the political and economic power - will fight tooth-and-nail against any fixes until it is far too late.
- Capitalism’s Return On Research (RoR) has utterly cratered over the last century. We now require more than 1,000× the investment $$$ for the same progress we did a century ago. Which ties directly into № 1, and why BAU will be the default until it’s waaaaaayyyy too late.
Our only option is to pull a page from 1795 France and eliminate the Parasite Class entirely, thereby removing our only true obstacle to change. Whether it be via punitive taxation or sharp steel is up to them.
I agree. But most will call you too radical.
But most will call you too radical.
Most ppl are blind-AF ignorant of what is actually happening.
Climate scientists have a front-row seat. And many of them are becoming so traumatized and panicked by the emerging evidence that they are starting to call themselves “climate pathologists” and not even bothering to save for retirement or plan for families/children, because they honestly don’t expect any kind of a coherent civilization to exist much past the 2050s, and no mankind at all at some point between 2100 and 2200.
When those people whose day job is to marinate extensively in the raw, emerging data, start disconnecting from civilization and acting like it’s gonna go bye-bye within their lifetime, maybe we ought to sit up and pay attention.
At this rate just spend the time with the people you love the most. Our governments aren’t taking this seriously, and the corporations causing most of this will get their judgment as Sol fries them for their insolence.
How about no? A saved life is just as valuable whether there are 70 million dead or 7 billion. And even if it’s just delaying the sterilization of the earth by a month that gives billions of people and quintillions of animals a bit more time.
Work-life balance is important and improves productivity, so you should be spending time with your loved ones regardless of how productive labor is. But giving up is just a waste.
If we go extinct, we had better make the last decades of humanity worth living.
If we thread the needle as a species, bottlenecking down to millions or thousands until we can weather the storm, we had better make sure that the culture that makes it through is not the capitalists that built the hardest bunkers or the fascists who massacred enough people until the survivors made it through with no skill of their own or even the liberals who adopted post-hoc constitutional principles that leave them unprepared for the next catastrophe.
And if billions survive, then every person counts. And that means every tonne of CO2 or microplastics, every species, every micrometer of ocean rise, every acre of robust circular agriculture.
There is no scenario in which we just get to lie down and take it.
Reality is the scenario where we lie down and take it. It is happening as we speak.
If that is the choice you make, I believe you that you feel like it is the best you can do right now. But if ‘we’ refers to people in general, then that is simply false. There are many people who gleefully make things worse and there are also many who fight with heart and soul for a better world. It is not a given that those who see clearly are depressed and too overwhelmed to act.
If you have any energy to spare, search out people irl who take climate change as seriously as you do. Communal mass action is both the most effective strategically and the most invigorating emotionally.
I agree to an extent. I think governments or more accurately the civil servants in government are taking it seriously. I work with a local Doughnut Economics group and 2 years ago we couldn’t even get the time of day, now the amount of calls and emails we have gotten from state, city & county officials is amazing. They want to take it seriously its just they don’t know how. However in my experience I think they are starting to adequately freak out now, they are just keeping a straight face because “don’t want the public to panic”.
The “don’t panic” is moot. People are dying. Its not time to panic, but the time for comprehensive, serious, and extremely enforceable plans was 5 years ago. Now there will be massive problems, its unavoidable.
Oh yeah in so many ways its a too little too late. The best time to have fixed this problem was 40 years ago, the second best time is now. Nothing will be perfect, and we are definitely going to get so many things wrong. All I am saying is that there is some hope for something better, just gotta keep focusing on that and try hard to not fall down the rabbit hole of existential dread.
Yolo
And Elon’s still out there pushing to maintain the current population level.
