- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
(not my OC nor my OP, just helping spread the message around:-)
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I think this message has good and bad uses. As a way to stop people from being doomers and not taking any action? Great. But I’ve also seen this kind of argument be used to justify an incrementalist approach to an issue that we absolutely cannot afford to go slow on or half ass. “Something is better than nothing” isn’t good enough. If we take 1 step forward and 2 steps back we’re going to lose. And that’s if the problem was linear. The fact that feedback loops accelerate the problem means we lose more and more ground the longer we wait to rip the bandaid off.
If the best allowable solution is to keep electing liberals who take money from capitalists to promote symbolic progress or “market based solutions” while continuing to approve new fossil fuel projects, then we really are doomed.
True, but also don’t allow perfection to be the enemy of good.
I recall in Star Wars when the Jedi accused the Trade Federation of having invaded Naboo. Did it really? This needs to be verified, doesn’t it? Oh but wait, it’s the word of “Jedi”, right, not just “some guys”? Yeah but can we really play at favoritism? Wait, how is that favoritism when they have an established mandate to help protect the Republic… and on and on.
Ironically, they could have sent an entire fleet, and if it turned out to be a simple misunderstanding, then oops, so well, now we know not to trust even “Jedi” in the future.
People are really bad at measuring the cost of NOT acting. Like yeah, vaccines can cause all kinds of things up to and including death… but then again, so too can a deadly disease?!
Anyway, the job of science is to figure stuff out and communicate what was found - not even - necessarily, at least usually - including translation to the general public, which is more of a reporting task. Politics doesn’t even begin to enter into that. So I think it’s awesome that this science post is pointing out some facts that may be relevant as people discuss the political ramifications and next steps. Ofc communication is a 2-way endeavor and if politicians don’t understand what the scientist is saying, they can ask questions, but so far the OOP scientist here seems to have done her part, and quite well it looks to me (who admittedly knows next to nothing whatsoever about climate science, but at least this seems to have succeeded at the communicate clearly portion:-).
True, but also don’t allow perfection to be the enemy of good.
I think this logic fundamentally misses the point. This isn’t me not starting a project because I don’t think I could do it perfectly so why bother. It’s someone else showing me their outline for the project and telling me that I don’t need to do anything, they’ll get it done on time. Then it doesn’t get done because they never intended to do anything, they just didn’t want anyone else completing anything.
If we were just doing small things because that’s all we could feasibly do for now and we’re working our way up to big things, that’d be fine. It might not be enough, but it’d be what we’re working with. But the small actions being taken by capitalist governments aren’t designed to chip away at the problem slowly. Their purpose is to give the appearance that the current system is capable of solving the problem and someone is working on it, so we don’t need to think about more radical solutions. The goal is to block progress, not merely to work on it in some slow and responsible way. “Look, the government joined a non-binding agreement saying that we’re working on climate change! We should totally keep voting for them because it’s better than nothing!”
It’s even worse than that though. They’re not just doing things for show to dampen political will for greater change. These are the same people that keep giving the military, surveillance, and police state more and more money and power. We are allowing them to build the tools they need to keep us in our place. By continuing along this path we’re making it harder and harder for us to eventually do what needs to be done.
The reality is that we’re not going to be able to save ourselves while capitalists are in charge. Capitalism fundamentally demands endless growth and a concentration of wealth and power. Efforts to curtail that growth will be stopped and the costs of that growth is distributed to those with less power.
As for the science/science communication part of this: I think it should be pretty clear that that isn’t the problem. The science is well known at this point. The problem is that the people who have the power to fix things don’t care and are so invested in the status quo that they’d sooner ratchet up violent repression before they’d actually try to solve the problem.
So it sounds like the first step is to care.
As the OOP said too.
the two greatest things you can do for climate change: Live vegan, and not have children.
Actual greatest thing you could do for climate change: destroy the US military industrial complex. Not only is it a massive polluter, it also enables the capitalists to maintain their ability to extract fossil fuels and other resources around the world.
Quit it with the anti-human shit. If we’re not saving the environment for us what’s the point?
i saw a video on youtube, by someone named sabine said everyone gave up on climate action, yea they gave up like years ago, the only miracle was when lockdown happened, and global co2 fell very fast and nature quickly reclaimed certain areas. like they pretended to care, but never did anything to stop it. even in research i heard that you cant frame climate change was leaning towards caused by “people” or your research wont get funded, thats how bad funding grant sis for research for some universities.
We’re on course for our oceans to acidify and air to be unbreathable in many places before the end of the century.
It doesn’t get a lot worse than that
That’s why we do what we can to reduce it just like the post said! Wow!!!
Earth has been here for 4.5 million years. It’ll be here for another 4.5.
We won’t be thou. Humans will become extinct before the planet dies.
Only way for humans to survive is to discover safe and efficient space travel and start colonizing other planets.
If nuclear war or an asteroid doesn’t end us first.
Billion, with a “B”.
And no. We could also discover how to travel into alternate realities instead, or perhaps wake up from The Matrix? :-P
There are also a variety to ways to live differently, like a biodome even if partial. Many solutions working together rather than one singular one “saving” the day.
And this is Uplifting News - which is what it’s all about!:-)
I meant “Billion”. Pardon me.
All it takes is one rank fart to ruin the Biodome idea.
But I’m glad to be living during this time frame, however.
If a biodome might be needed for like 6-12 hours in the hottest part of the day for the sake of survivability and efficiency in heating, compared to being needed 20-24 hours a day, then I could begin to see the value of OOP’s words. Better yet, if some other technology could bring that timeframe down to a mere 3-6 hours (I’m imagining maybe like a yearly average, so longer some days and shorter on others), and then some other technology still further down to 1-3 hours, then collectively rather than one single approach could help to reduce rather than eliminate the need for such.
Perhaps we’ll live like in the Dune movie, with everyone wearing a personal stillsuit (aka the “biodome” is personal)… such that a fart primarily affects the one doing it, which at that long starts to actually convince someone to change their diet? 😉
“Ruin” itself is a word with nuances.
The fart joke was a reference to the “Biodome” movie with Pauly Shore lol but I like your still suit idea
I know why we’d want to delay the inevitable with these efforts, and who knows what we’d be capable of in a few hundred years. It’s just interesting to think about future proofing mankind, as in taking to the stars for refuge or living in domes.
Also profound to ponder if mankind is really worth saving.
Also, it’s quite surreal that mankind has only been around for a few hundred thousand years, but only the last few hundred in the industrial age is apparently enough to kill a planet that’s been around for billions of years and went through 5 extinction events. It just seems like the planet is more resilient than its life forms and it’s all just panic.
Seriously, if there’s one thing I don’t miss from reddit (I tell a lie, there’s dozens of things I don’t miss from Reddit) it’s the “Actually we’re too far gone, and everyone’s going to die in seven days because none of you jokers will buy a Tesla!~” nonsense
Funfact: Conspiracy Bullshit in the other direction is still Conspiracy Bullshit
Really? I knew it had gotten bad over there since the Rexodus but wow, it sounds rough. I’m so glad we are over here in The Good Place instead. Wait a minute…!? 🤡
Indeed, read the Exxon-Mobil report from the late 1970’s and early 80’s. They hit the nail on the head in regard to global warming. Somebody posted it on Lemmy.
Wait a minute… TIL that Lemmy existed in the late 1970’s!? 🤪🤡🤥🫠
As individuals we can try, but the average population is too selfish and isn’t going to stop until it’s too late
Between the likes of pollution, deforestation, wars, extinction of species to name a few…the only thing that could save this planet is humanity somehow becoming infertile.
I don’t know if it’s really selfish more people are a part of a system that is bigger than them that forces them into situations that have a negative impact on CO2 levels
Working a job that has low pay which probably force people to housing that is further from their work place, in America most cities don’t have a great public transportation infrastructure nor do they have alternative commuting options like protected bike lanes. This forces people to have to drive more.
The Return to Office bullshit has forced more cars on the road that were not there 4 years ago which is impacting CO2 levels
These are just 2 of many different things that the system has created that have put people in situations that make slowing CO2 levels more difficult.
Yeah I mean…we are all born into an already existing system. I guess we could all kill ourselves to help the planet, but that’s not really a great option for the self. I don’t have the power to change my country’s infrastructure as a singular being.
Reminder that there’s no “it’s too late, its over” for climate change
That can be totally misread.
I feel like in a way, it is too late. The human race decided it doesn’t care to fight climate change. There is going to be significant disruptions, especially near the equator. But on the other hand, even if we overshoot our climate targets, there is always a chance for us to reverse the damage dealt using technology and by reclamation of ecosystems that have been destroyed. I think as long as our species survives we can fix things. But we need a massive, massive change in attitude to muster the political will to do something.
Where news
Kind of feels like in 20-30 years time we’ll be claiming its worth fighting for a climate that doesn’t immediately kill us if we go outside for 20 minutes instead of 15.
Or to put it another way, do these scientists not see there’s a difference between living and surviving?
God forbid someone tries to think past the next quarter.
If the future can’t be livable and people just wants a quiet suicide for the human race I’ve got good news. There’s a very easy solution for avoiding that discomfort that also happens to be the #1 way to reduce your carbon footprint.
But if you want to keep living and not just surviving, suck it up…
You’re right, better just give up now.
Umm, as I understand it, that’s not the way the tipping point works
It’s the difference between “really bad” and “even worse”.
You’re confusing completely averting things, with mitigating how bad they are.
Well, at this point, we’re fucked. The only difference now is how fucked we are.
The post is right, but only on the paper, and not really in a world that is progressively taken over by ecocidal autocrats whose program is to kill every bit of efforts in climate fight, so even the smallest progress we made will soon be distant memories and fighting will be increasingly dangerous and difficult and, ultimately, virtually impossible. And the locked-in catastrophes are now sufficient to collapse our already fragilized geopolitical context.
People saying it’s “not too late” are systematically downplaying the current political context, wich make their message pretty unconsistent.
If anything the current political context makes what needs to be done pretty clear. There’s a difference between downplaying the problem and realizing that if laying down and dieing isn’t an option.
I didn’t get that at all from the OP, what I saw was “every bit matters so keep fighting.”
Yes, until the political situation make it unfeasible without being treated like a dangerous terrorist. The OP didn’t said it either, but she should have.
OP says “I am a climate scientist and thus is correct⬇️”, thus leading me to believe that it was the climate science under discussion, not politics.
Hmm
Remember that it can always be worse. Even if it’s irreversible in our lifetimes, it can always be hotter and more extreme.
