No, this timeline started with “Shit, our calculations show that we might ruin the world in just a few decades at this rate. Oh, well. Probably best not to mention this to anyone.”
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Do you think they're thinking "we'll be dead before things get really bad and fuck our kids" or "if we make our families super wealthy they'll be feudal lords after civilization collapses"?
This xkcd is what finally resolved the "is it us or natural variation" question for me: https://xkcd.com/1732/
It's always the rate of change.
I remember a few years ago people arguing the temperatures have changed before and that theres billions spent on climate change and it's all propaganda.
They wouldn't listen to the rate of change argument then or acknowledge the trillions spent in industries causing climate change. I'm not sure they've changed their minds still ( I refused to engage them any further) but this is the challenge - so many people believe what they want to believe and don't want the hard truth.
The Inconvenient Truth. That was so aptly named. Humans will do anything for the sake of convenience and climate change is quite inconvenient. Maybe if we make burning up the planet MORE inconvenient then it will change. Ridiculous taxes for carbon output sounds nice. Those tax dollars then spent on cloud seeding for the short term and carbon capture for the long term.
A lot of people love rationalising their own beliefs but hate reasoning out what's right and wrong. It makes me lose faith in humanity.
A lot? We all need to be aware that we are able to hold on to faulty beliefs. We are only human.
Especially now with the amount of fake news
There's no oops or fuck about it. They are gleefully driving us off the cliff like Thelma and Louise with conservatives cheering the whole way down.
The best we can hope for is to exact some form of harsh justice before nature has its way with them. We are already dead either way. Will they die in luxury or will they die in the streets with the rest of us?
Oops was in the 90s and fuck hit about 2005. Climate scientists knew it.
Though in the 90's, which is when I got my biology degree, they assumed they'd be dead before it got really bad. Consider that oops 2.0
The "oops" and "fuck" are the public who are successfully reached by oil giant marketing and propaganda, the majority of people who think the first two statements are true and won't enjoy the final results.
This meme forgot to include when BP started pushing the 'Carbon Footprint' propaganda, to offset blame from corporations onto regular folk.
We've entered the 'this is the new normal now, get used to it' phase.
"climate change is real, but it's too late so why change anything now?"
Maybe we should do something about it but there's nothing we can do.
I notice more and more people trying to push us into stage 4 - "Maybe there was something we could have done but it's too late now" - just so we can put all of the uncomfortable guilt behind us.
Don't disagree with this at all, just noting that the start of that line could be stretched much further back, we have known that human consumption of coal was having/would have a detrimental impact on climate for well over 100 years 1856, 1902, 1912
source
Sadly in that timeline, profit has always mattered more than humanity (or the planet).
The fucking crazy part is that we had climate change models from the 1890s that are still proving to be relatively accurate. Shell had data in the 70s that proved the use of fossil fuels were directly causing climate change. They knew, hid the evidence, and lied to us. They didn't just deny the evidence.
You're missing an important step.
There's denial, then acceptance but brushing off blame, and then accepting blame but with apathy.
"OK fine, climate change is real, and it is caused by humans, but there's nothing we can do about it, so by bother?"
Except instead of oops it's 'the world is going to end anyway, so why not burn more oil?'
Stage 1: "Climate change is my responsibility to fix as an average citizen!"
Stage 2: "Actually, fixing climate change is the responsibility of the megacorporations causing it."
Stage 3: "Climate change is my responsibility to fix as an average citizen!" (said while researching sabotage and mutual aid)
The mastermind behind all this must be building fallout vault-like structures to allow people to survive the planet when all is said and done. They will rule the world in the end, perform experiments, whatever they want.
I actually got a long ad on YouTube recently for luxury bunkers equipped with everything to go on for decades no matter what's going on outside. So yeah, that's a business now.
What the hell is a luxury bunker?
Gold plated vault doors? Red carpet? Fancy mini bar soaps?
The timeline for the earth to cool back off is a hundred thousand years. A bit too long to wait out in a bunker.
Now we're in the "take your Xanax while daddy Bill Gates fixes everything for you" phase.
What really sucks is that we are penalizing newer, greener technologies in order to prop up older non-profitable technologies.
There is a huge subsidy in the US for coal power plants. That needs to wind down, preferably in the next 4 years.
A few states charge higher registration fees for hybrid and electric vehicles, while at the same time suppressing or almost eliminating the gas tax during post-pandemic inflation.
Certain groups are dead set on boiling the the frog here, without even realizing that they are a lobster in the same pot of water.
The worst part is that renewables and EVs are generally just better in every way.
Just because they don't go vroom vroom, a majority of the population don't like them.
Inb4 some idiot goes "but it takes metal mined from places and shipped across the ocean to make Teslas!!!"
Like your Ford Raptor is sustainably grown and harvested in small-plot ecologically friendly mom and pop truck farms....
Lol. You think don't deny climate change today? Hawaii was bound to burn, and it had nothing to with climate change. (Just read the headline...)
They are going to kill us while trying to rob us of the vocabulary that explains how and why.
First thought, best thought. Hang oil billionaires at the Hague for crimes against humanity?
I think we're currently in the "oops" phase heading towards "fuck"
Where are we now?
Right at the beginning of Oops...
Missing section: "OK its real and man made, but the fix is too inconvenient"
“This is because you didn’t recycle enough!”
I'll admit it, it was me. I mixed my paper with plastic. Sorry everyone.
You doomed us! DOOMED!
Won't someone please just once consider the profits
Stuck in traffic huffing Exxon's fumes.
My personal human timeline:
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End of dark ages up to industrial revolution: Wow, people are getting pretty dang smart, things are looking good for humanity.
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Industrial revolution up to present: Well, on second thought...
I don't care if it is caused by humans or natural causes ( and it's likely both). The issue is that it's a problem, because we've evolved to live in a cool environment (relative to wherever this is going). Part of responsibly using this planet we find ourselves on is terraforming it to sustainably and efficiently suit our needs. I support decarbonization because it helps. But due to other natural factors effecting our environment for the worse (as far as we as a species are concerned), we will need to take more artificial measures to cool the planet in the future.
But the first step is decarbonization. We have two choices - accept natural inefficiencies and extreme conditions, and slowly lose our intelligence in exchange for resilience (evolutionary "crabification"), or terraform the planet to a constant, efficient environment to continue developing as an intelligence.
We are caught, environmentally, in a neutral zone between extreme fluctuations that will continue until the earth cools entirely from its formation. We did not exist during the last extreme. And if we do not prevent the next, our species will not survive.