When we realise that glaciers are pretty much the one thing keeping our rivers flowing in the summer, it'll probably be a tad late to do anything about it.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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our only hope at this point is probably
-
people globally deciding to have fewer and fewer children due to rapidly deteriorating standards of living paired with rising inequality (no one will be able to afford kids let alone a home or healthcare)
-
perpetual multi-crises and climate catastrophes disrupting supply chains and halting economic growth/consumption
-
global economic collapse due to war, mass refugee migration, reshaping of national borders in a race to extract dwindling reserves of precious minerals and ore, also resulting in plummeting per capita consumption and/or birthrate
-
all of the above in a self-reinforcing feedback loop
.... fuck, this was supposed to be the hopeful scenario. smh, we live in interesting times.
I think it's 2 & 3 plus ...
- Multiple tipping points reached accelerating climate change.
- Acidification of oceans, gulf stream current creation, and microplastic pollution cause collapse of most natural food chains on the planet.
- Drought and floods washes fertile soil away.
- Famine causes billions of deaths.
- Drug resistant bacteria causes billions of deaths.
- Wars fought mostly by drones over remaining pockets of arable land destabilise remaining economies and supply chains.
Our only real hope is the US gets it's head out of its own asshole and pitches in. Same with China too. But every other country on the planet has some sort of plan except those two. (And some others but don't effect imtje globe as much)
People also need to stop believing in a god and shit. You show some Looney live and in person real time information on climate change and they would say "yeah idk. Seems pretty fake and just a cash grab"
We as a species, as a whole, deserve everything we are getting.
LOL, you've discovered the modern version of Malthusianism!
10 more years! So excited for water world! Kevin Costner is 70, so realistically he could be alive to see fiction become reality.
To point 1. of your list, people usually have more children in worse conditions because worse conditions mean higher mortality.
that's an important (yet debatable) prediction. historically, in subsistence based economies where more farmhands=more food I think that's been true. and holds true up to the point where costs of living don't exceed net household wages (picture Dickens era chimney sweep kids laboring for a pittance).
what's interesting is that it's not true AT ALL for any other species in nature, only humans in the post ~1800s era have developed a seeming unlimited capability to secure more food for their young. wild deer populations naturally reduce themselves when food is scarce, but humans found a cheat code to growing forever.
hard to say. but it's worth mentioning that although the doubling time for population has been contracting since 1800, it now appears to have flattened and is reversing direction.
maybe more accurate to compare say, fewer people choosing to have children vs fewer kids surviving to adulthood and what conditions contribute more to each
TIL!
Thanks for taking the time to explain :)
Is this really shocking anyone?
We better ask ai how to fix it!
Need just one more order of magnitude of energy, this is the last one, I promise!
I should visit a glacier so I can see what they look like, before they're all gone forever.
Iceland's just over the pond and I've always wanted to visit, hmm!
Highly recommended.
Zemp, who leads the WGMS, said the team's observations and recent modelling studies suggest that glacier melt this century will be faster than projected in the most recent assessment by United Nations IPCC climate experts.
Because the IPCC is a disinformation campaign owned by the fossil fuel planet killers.
Climate estimations have been systematically optimistic, because we still don't fully understand all feedback loops and factors. The IPCC needs to play ball on some more political topics, but overall they have been ringing the alarm bell for so long.
Source?
Cool cool