this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Collapse

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This is the place for discussing the potential collapse of modern civilization and the environment.


Collapse, in this context, refers to the significant loss of an established level or complexity towards a much simpler state. It can occur differently within many areas, orderly or chaotically, and be willing or unwilling. It does not necessarily imply human extinction or a singular, global event. Although, the longer the duration, the more it resembles a ‘decline’ instead of collapse.


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From Prof. Eliot Jacobson:

Wow! Wow! Wow!

North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies are going vertical again. And yes, I needed to extend the y-axis.

Yesterday's temperature of 24.49°C (76.08°F) was 4.2σ above the 1991-2020 mean. The previous high for July 17 was 23.71°C (74.68°F) in 2020.

https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1681321023306874880

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[–] majcurve 130 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] AllonzeeLV 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yep, but for a shining moment in time, humanity created a lot of value for shareholders!

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

Those are the only important people in the world.

[–] AllonzeeLV 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Far worse than that. Significant shareholders, not someone's paltry 401k, but people who hoard millions upon millions+ are the only people the owner class considers to be people at all.

We aren't people to our owners, we are livestock meant to be exploited for all the value we can produce, and then tossed away like the useless garbage we are to them despite being the ones that generate their wealth. Remembering or honoring that fact would interfere with their self-delusions of being "self-made." We aren't human to them, which makes it easier to do what they do to us.

Thats why they go to such extraordinary lengths to segregate themselves from us. They send their children to private schools for rich kids who teach them they will be the future leaders of the world and the most altruistic thing they can do is increase their own net worth, while never exposing them to social interaction with peasant children, to ensure they don't develop empathy with us or humanize us peasants, which would have to happen at a young age while worldviews are forming. A handful overcome this, but almost all of them embrace it. Most of the wealth class actively creates walls to avoid interacting with the cattle.

It doesn't feel nearly as cruel if you perceive those being paid almost nothing in sweatshops to manufacture the crap you make for private profit to be mindless beasts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/the-wealthiest-10percent-of-americans-own-a-record-89percent-of-all-us-stocks.html

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

Foreplay's over.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] chuckleslord 63 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Capitalism is working! Line go up!

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[–] idunnololz 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Honestly how long do we have until we experience massive fishing and crop failures everywhere?

[–] melisdrawing 46 points 1 year ago

Enjoy your days before. The working turn of phrase has consistently been, "Faster than expected."

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We already are experiencing that. Crab fishing season was cancelled in 2022 due to a sudden “where are our missing billions of crab?” Other fishing areas are likewise being affected.

Massive crop failures in China, Russia, Middle East, Africa, south and Central America have been going on for several years. Potable water is disappearing in many regions, forcing massive water migration.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

On a planetary scale, I don't think we're going to have trouble feeding ourselves, it's just that a) meat is going to become thoroughly unaffordable and b) an awful lot of crop production is going to shift towards the poles, creating many a geopolitical clusterfuck along the way.

Disaster movies are too obvious, and too tidy; it's going to be a century of the average human's life getting just a bit more hellish every year. Acutely hellish for some, barely hellish at all for others, but basically, we're going to slowly roll back most of the improvements in human welfare over the past few centuries until we've got starving serfs all over the place and plagues and famines and natural disasters absolutely flattening entire countries for years at a time.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Very fucking soon.

You ever watch disaster movies? They're only 2-2.5hrs average.

Well, imagine this is a movie. The 100+ years of data we ignored was that "secret file" that was just discovered. The new high temps are the geeky science guy yelling "oh shit!"

Remember what happens right after that? Very, very quick collapse. Food disaster, heat disaster, weather events and oxygen decrease in our atmosphere.

We'll either starve, boil, suffocate or kill each other trying to survive.

I think it's within a couple years. Not decades that is typically reported.

[–] TokenBoomer 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Couple years. We won’t get off that easy. This is sloooowww slide 🛝 with road rash and rug burns. It’ll be bad, then get better, then get worse, then get better, and then…

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

We're all going to kill each other due to economic collapse and scarcity of resources long before anyone is being boiled alive.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In no way, shape, or form is this good!

[–] Gimly 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, it kind of is nice if you like to swim in the ocean and don't like the cold? /s (in case)

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

Does that warm water get to come up to the northeast? /s

[–] Chainweasel 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

It takes about ~30 years to see the effects of emissions on the climate. That means the climate crisis we're experiencing right now is only the emissions up to ~1993. Looking at CO~2~ emissions alone, in 1993 the global total was 22.8 billion tonnes. The latest Data available is from 2021, which shows the global CO~2~ emissions at 37.1 billion tonnes. That's in increase of 14.3 billion tonnes of annual CO~2~ emissions in the amount of time it takes us to feel the effects, that's a 61% increase in Annual emissions, Not Total emissions. If we stopped all CO~2~ emissions today, it would continue to get considerably worse for at least the next quarter-century. We are truly ~~Fucked~~ on the bleeding edge of that climate "tipping point" and major changes are about to start happening very rapidly.

source for CO~2~ emissions numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

[–] Cybermass 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where did you learn that CO2 emissions take 30 years to have an effect on our atmosphere?? I've never heard that.

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

30 years isn't a hard number, but it can still take 2-3 decades. It has to do with how CO~2~ changes ocean chemistry, which has broad effects on the rest of the climate. https://info.ecogardens.com/blog/what-is-climate-change-lag-and-why-do-we-care

Edit: I think this is the first place i saw it years ago https://skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html

[–] FrankLaskey 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I imagine you noticed this but that second citation (from your edit) has this at the top of the article:

Update August 9, 2020: Please be aware that this article was published in 2010 and that its content is no longer considered accurate. As it still gets regularly linked to from other websites, we will not delete or "unpublish" it. Instead, here is the link to a better take on this topic published by our late team member Andy Skuce in 2013: Global Warming: Not Reversible but Stoppable.

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

It takes about ~30 years to see the effects of emissions on the climate

This is a long debunked myth.

Here is an article that goes into some detail.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached/

So there is some hope, if we can stop emoting CO2 ASAP. If one finds that a realistic path to belive in on the other hand is a matter of opinion.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it's a misunderstanding, not a myth.

CO2 influences the greenhouse effect - keeping more solar energy on Earth.

Solar energy gets converted into heat, heat gets absorbed. Some of it gets absorbed by oceans. Some of CO2 also gets absorbed by oceans - their pH decreases. The greenhouse effect doesn't require great time, but oceanic warming and acidification does require time. Interaction happens on the surface, but the volume is great.

Thus, delays in response are inevitable. Response may also depend on circulation - an ocean current slowing or speeding up.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This looks like that “tipping point” that climatologists have been warning about

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Oh good, I was due for my daily dose of terror.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

this is a nightmare

[–] rf_ 4 points 1 year ago

Does this mean we’re gonna have very strong storms?

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

Is this going to effect hurricane season in the way I think it will?

[–] guriinii 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hurricanes are quite fickle, they need specific conditions, and due to El Niño they are less likely to occur.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It will make storms stronger; it will only marginally help cyclogenesis.

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