this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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In short, we aren't on track to an apocalyptic extinction, and the new head is concerned that rhetoric that we are is making people apathetic and paralyzes them from making beneficial actions.

He makes it clear too that this doesn't mean things are perfectly fine. The world is becoming and will be more dangerous with respect to climate. We're going to still have serious problems to deal with. The problems just aren't insurmountable and extinction level.

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[–] HWK_290 282 points 1 year ago (22 children)

Well by all means, let's make it seem less serious than it is! That'll get people moving

Signed, an actual fucking climate scientist

[–] foggy 52 points 1 year ago

Literally "This is fine."

Ignore the triple digit temps in the ocean, that's not apocalyptic! Relax!

So what if a few people died of heat exhaustion just by... Walking outside for a few minutes. Normal. Not apocalyptic.

So what if regular rains are delivering hurricane levels of flooding. That's just nature doing it's thing, dude. Quit overreacting.

Malaria is in NJ, but like, mosquitos fly so that was probably bound to happen.

And really, like, 110 isnt that hot, especially if it's not humid.

Relax.

[–] MostlyBirds 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

He's technically right, though; climate change isn't going to drive us to extinction. Yes, it's going to cause the total collapse of modern society in our lifetimes and more death and sufferring than any other event in recorded history, but there will almost certainly be tens or hundreds of millions of survivors. Maybe even billions.

[–] fluxion 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Give it to me straight Doc, how much money do I need to survive the apocalypse?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] IndiBrony 10 points 1 year ago

God damn Loch Ness monster creating global warming so he can get my tree fiddy!!

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think he means that doomsaying is going to make even more people not take it seriously.....

[–] trias10 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I think there are loads of people who take it seriously but can't do anything about it. The biggest CO2 polluters are mega corporations and things like airplanes and cargo ships. Ordinary people can't fight that. One family living off the grid and producing zero CO2 won't help anything.

Ergo, most people are apathetic, as they should be. You're not going to change the minds of governments and mega corps.

[–] MostlyBirds 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Exactly. At least 70% of emission are caused directly by corporate and military activity, and that's just the sanitized, conservative, government/corporate approved statistic. Realistically, the number probably much higher.

Using paper straws, sorting your recycling, and turning the hallway light off does fuck all for climate change, and it will never make a meaningful difference without a harsh crackdown on, if not a total overthrow of global corporate hegemony in this decade. We all know how likely that is...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The 70% that comes from corporations comes from people. The people who use the products that the corporations provide. So, if Exxon is one of those major polluters, that is based largely on the people who purchase Exxon products and use them.

This 70% number comes from a 2017 study that measured emissions from 1985-2015. So while those corporations are selling the product that pollutes, when we order some stupid shit from Amazon and it has to come from China on a ship to get here, we are responsible for using that product. When we get UberEats delivered, we are responsible. Ordinary people can fight that by not buying stupid shit we don't need from China and in so many other ways. Yes, the corporations produce those products, but it is US that consumes it and we are ultimately responsible for the emissions. It's a fun way to try to say "it's not me, it's them," but the fact is, it's all of us.

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[–] abessman 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

The biggest CO2 polluters are [...] cargo ships.

No, this is a misunderstanding. Cargo ships are a major source of sulphur pollution, not carbon. Cargo ships use the cheapest fuel they can. Cheap fuel is rich in sulphur. They can do this because there are no emission regulations on the open sea. A commonly cited figure is that a single cargo ship releases more sulphur than all the cars in North America.

This figure is then misinterpreted by people who failed basic chemistry to mean that cargo ships are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In reality, the opposite is true; cargo ships are one of the most efficient ways to move stuff over large distances. Only electric trains are better, and only if the source of the electricity is not fossil.

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[–] teft 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It would only take between 50 and 500 people to save the human race. We had a population bottleneck event back during the Toba eruption that reduced humans to about 10,000 people and we were fine afterwards. 500 is the limit for genetic drift and 50 is the limit for severe inbreeding.

[–] JJROKCZ 4 points 1 year ago

We’re we fine afterwards, are you sure about that?

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[–] freo3579 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Yes, technically it's not really about the planet or the environment, or society. It is about finding a solution of an optimum between money spent and living conditions for the majority of people. I actually think we should start talking about it more from that angle.

We could go to almost zero emissions tomorrow but it would wreak absolute havoc and billions of people would die. We could go full zero carbon emissions in our energy grid, but it would cost an absolute shitton, which means the living conditions go down. More realistic is a mix of investments between avoidance and adaptation. And I don't think there is any realistic chance without nuclear energy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Nuclear power takes a long time to build which is a problem because action should have started 40 years ago.

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[–] SasquatchBanana 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think he is just saying people shouldn't doom post. I think there is a fine line because a lot of zoomers i interact with are hopeless and have given up. This is a generation who never experienced a functional (American) government who worked for the people. So they just don't care and you can see it reflected in their memes.

I don't know the rhetorical path we should take. We need to get people motivated and fired up but not apathetic and despairing. I mostly want to see politicians crumble and the rich eaten and i think that's messaging many will get behind.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

It's not even that Gen Z doesn't care. Many of us just hit a point where everything feels numb. You can only get so upset/depressed/etc until your brain just kind of shuts down a bit.

There's grief over everything that we'll probably never get to see/have. There's grief over the backsliding of progress that actually seemed real to us at one point. There's grief over the many people who just die, everywhere, for terrible and avoidable reasons. There are many animals we will already never get to see.

Everywhere you look, people almost seem to feel pride in not knowing things. One member of Gen Z managed to have her voice heard about the planet, and she was ridiculed by grown adults. Multiple governments are now trying to decrease education, and some people somehow see that as a good thing. Wildfires are blazing like never before, the smoke is totally hazing new areas, yet people still refuse to see. Why is Gen Z expected to be the magical cure to global warming? People won't even listen to Greta! We're just as human as any other generation. Of course we'll try, but the focus on solving the climate problem should have already been happening generations ago. Just THINK of all the progress we could have already made!

Lucky us, huh? We're also regularly encouraged to shove all of these emotions down because we could not possibly have similar problems to older adults. Fuck that, respectfully.

Yeah, I've got to say, sometimes it's damn hard to have any hope.

I do think more of us need to vote, even if it only feels like there's a 3% chance that something actually changes for the better...

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (34 children)

Did you even read the article, Mr/Ms climate scientist?

He’s asking people not to talk like the world is going to catastrophically end once we hit that 1.5 degrees milestone, because it’s making people feel hopeless and apathetic, which is actually slowing our efforts to change.

And he’s totally right. If the government told people a meteor the size of Texas was going to impact earth in 12 hours, there would be effectively zero effort to stop it. If you tune in to a lot of the conversation around climate change from people who are not climate scientists, but who want to leave a better world for their kids and believe climate scientists, they feel hopeless. It feels like a foregone conclusion that we are going to go over the 1.5 degree goal (probably because it is), and if we think the biosphere is going to collapse when it does, it is really, really hard to take action.

It’s not saying to undersell the risks, he’s saying to be truthful about the risks. We can definitely still salvage complex life on earth with optimistic, consistent effort, but recent media coverage has been giving the impression that it’s too late. This is bad and counterproductive.

Keep on fighting the good fight brother/sister.

[–] mojofrododojo 3 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I hope, greatly, for the future. But know that any real change will have to include everyone, everywhere. Even the chuds that drive jacked up pickups covered in skulls and toting firearms. And they will never change willingly. The oil industry will continue to sow doubt and enable these idiots with cheaply available petrol, so it's not likely we'll even be able to get serious mpg regulations, much less a renewable transportation network. When florida's coast is under water, maybe that'll change a few minds... but I'm sure they'll turn it into some kind of conspiracy to persecute them even then.

Really hope I'm wrong tho.

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[–] SirStumps 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

I understand his sentiment. I have an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness because most CO2 emissions aren't even made by normal every day people but the entities that do create a majority of it don't care. This means anything we attempt to do is as a whole is only a drop in the bucket compared to what these entities are producing. I purchased a hybrid vehicle to curve my driving emissions and I recycle. I planted grass and a tree in my yard to prevent run off and produce oxygen. I am looking into getting solar power for my home but I am not a rich man so the price is a little beyond me right now. Things I can do I try to do but in the end regardless of what I do entities are polluting our water and air, producing plastics, and are trying to place the blame on normal people. It can be a little heavy on the soul.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Add a few wildflowers to your grass, it's better for insects (and should not be that expensive).

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[–] Chocrates 11 points 1 year ago

I already feel helpless. I try to use my vehicle less and use public transport. I just moved somewhere walkable so there are days that I don't use my vehicle (will be weeks eventually when I get used to it). I try to buy local and reduce my waste.

I live in a southern state though so my vote doesn't do shit. Even if I did, this feels like a political issue at this point and neither the right or the left of the country has the will to "do what needs to be done".

Capitalism is exploitative by its nature and the market will never solve the problem until we have extracted all the fossil fuels in the earth.

I know it is not your problem, but how can we NOT feel helpless?

[–] assassin_aragorn 10 points 1 year ago

I think the issue here is who you're looking at for the audience. At this point, we can agree that anyone who doesn't think there's a problem is delusional, and it's a waste to time to convince them otherwise.

If we assume the audience is all people who believe this is an issue, then this message makes sense. It's trying to convince people that they should still care and not be nihilistic about it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

God that must be depressing work.

[–] toasteecup 6 points 1 year ago

I think climate change is a big fucking problem, full stop.

That being said, do you know how much of a relief it is to read "we're not going to turn into Mars, just keep trying to fix the problem we got this humanity"? I legitimately have had existential dread due to the messaging around climate change. At least now I can continue trying to do my best to fix it without asking "what's the fucking point?"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Exactly. It's not like this is an existential threat to human civilisation and the current ecosystem of the planet... oh wait, that's exactly what it bloody is!

The reason for all the apathetic people is because they see the writing on the wall. It's not too late now, but by the time the assholes up top actually pull their heads out, it will be.

[–] HowRu68 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What really got me worried was a warning ( warning collapse per 2025) about a projected collapse of the Atlantic Gulfstream.:

"The Gulf Stream system could collapse as soon as 2025, a new study suggests. The shutting down of the vital ocean currents, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) by scientists, would bring catastrophic climate impacts."

That would be very bad news for Europe and The Atlantic and other sea currents in general.

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