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Rime posted:Right now all I'm seeing is a bunch of the richest and most privileged people who have ever lived in the entirety of human history
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Nov 15, 2016 12:53
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Rime posted:Seriously, there's nothing you can do. You can write all the letters and freak out as much as you want, but a freight train takes a kilometer to stop and we're 200m from the fuckin' cliff. It'll halt eventually but it won't be from the brakes and it won't matter to anyone riding it. That was a lot of words for what amounts to the Republican party position. Seriously though, the Climate Change Lobby is not happy about the election: quote:Scaling the Cliff: Climate Advocacy Under a Trump Presidency I don't envy anyone trying to lobby a republican congressman on climate change, but these guys are going to try if anyone wants to help. Personally I think any real progress on climate change in the US is linked to the Democrat party's electoral success. Contributing to the party rebuilding itself is probably more productive than focusing on climate change as a single issue. Similarly in Canada progress on climate change seems to depend on how scared the federal liberals are of the NDP stealing votes from the left. Rebuilding the NDP and ending their insane promotion of new pipelines is probably the best way forward there. It's a tightrope though, if the NDP gets too popular and splits the vote the Conservatives win and it's another 9 years of climate scientists not allowed to speak to the public without a govt "minder" present.
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Nov 15, 2016 14:44
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Rime those were a lot of words to essentially say FYGM. I've never expected retirement. I've known poo poo was hosed. It just hit me yesterday that I'll watch my girlfriend die, so I was dumb and made a post crying about it on the internet. Sucks for me. I do agree with you though. Only rational thing left is being a cut throat.
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Nov 15, 2016 15:20
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Xeom posted:Rime those were a lot of words to essentially say FYGM. I've never expected retirement. I've known poo poo was hosed. It just hit me yesterday that I'll watch my girlfriend die, so I was dumb and made a post crying about it on the internet. Sucks for me. Dude. Chill. Get some help for sadbrains. Absolutely anything can happen between now and then, and neither you nor your girlfriend were - as previously mentioned itt to all having panic attacks - immortal before knowing about climate change or you posting. You live in the western world. You will be better off than almost everyone else, even if the worst predictions come true - which we don't know that they will. Nobody who has ever seen a doctor has survived. Doctors have a 0% survival rate for their patients. It's all temporary. Enjoy life while you can, because it's going to be better for you and your girlfriend than most of the rest of the world. Make some personal plans, some plan b type stuff. Whatever gets you active and gives you peace of mind. Find local and international groups working for the climate. Participate. Donate. There's a lot of stuff you can do and a lot of it can really help. So help us help you help yourself, and stop with the panicky bullshit. This isn't happening tomorrow.
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Nov 15, 2016 15:29
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blowfish posted:Unironically take your meds. Whew, I'm glad you weren't being ironic. Where do you see any self-pity in my posts? I'm not one of these depressed suicidal types. I'll grant that I'm a little angry that folks didn't take this seriously for twenty years. But don't give me this nonsense, your 3°C and 6°C is not what people are arguing about now, they're accepting 4° and literally stating "every tenth degree helps" which just isn't true. Look, I get that you want to be hopeful, it's how you were taught and probably how you cope, but don't be delusional. Delusion got us into this problem. And you probably shouldn't call people crazy when they carefully explain why you're being delusional. Christ, Geoffrey West gave a talk on this very subject a couple years back, and he's the head of the Santa Fe Institute and not Forums Poster TildeATH. Are you going to go tell him to take his meds?
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Nov 15, 2016 16:53
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Xeom posted:Rime those were a lot of words to essentially say FYGM. I've never expected retirement. I've known poo poo was hosed. It just hit me yesterday that I'll watch my girlfriend die, so I was dumb and made a post crying about it on the internet. Sucks for me. You might watch your girlfriend die in a car accident. You might watch her drown in the ocean. You might watch her walk away forever to sleep with another man. Life's a bitch, son, but climate change is the least pressing or likely concern when it comes to your loved ones shattering your emotions. Suck it up. I prefer "gently caress you, start using the time that is given to you productively, you stupid childish fucks." 
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Nov 15, 2016 17:03
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TildeATH posted:Whew, I'm glad you weren't being ironic. People really want to ignore that emissions and warming aren't related by some simple equation where X tons of gas equals 0.X C warming in ten years. The way warming works in reality is starting to diverge from their political platform. The end result is attacking people instead of adapting to the reality and concentrating on items that would actually help.
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Nov 15, 2016 17:06
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If you had a billion dollars right now, would you spend it on upgrading technology or trying to get people to understand poo poo? Notice I didn't say education, because that's got a specific meaning, I mean old-school rhetoric trying to get people on your side with pictures of drowning polar bears and sad 3rd world children and micro-targeted ads telling them that their neighborhood is going to be eaten by a climate change sea monster even if they live in Topeka. Because I don't think this is a technical problem, and I wouldn't spend a dime of that billion dollars on new technology, this is a person problem and climate activists and climate scientists have been consistently avoiding investing time, money and effort on changing the minds of people. So all these technocrat responses or technological optimism sulfur geoengineering responses or all these political activism close the coal plants responses seem, to me at least, to continue fighting a battle that has no bearing on the course of the war. We could have changed things, could still change things right now, without some magic bullet technology, if people gave a poo poo. But we saw the presidential election of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen and in four and a half hours of debate, there wasn't a single question about climate change. People don't care, that's why it's not going to be fixed. And they deserve it. It's like Malcolm said, the chickens coming home to roost.
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Nov 15, 2016 17:13
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I'm preparing for the worst by buying homesteading eBooks - I fail to see any possible flaw in this plan. Seriously, though, the sun keeps coming up in the morning so you might as well make due. I'm going to try to make a hobby out of gardening and to learn some basic practical knowledge to reduce the amount of things I depend on that come from far away, the hope being it will be interesting in the meantime and very useful in the future. You have to occupy yourself somehow. Which is not to say my outlook is not grim or that I'm not reconciling the complete loss of the future I imagined as a child, where humanity does not end on this planet. But you still have a choice on a daily basis as to feel shattered by that or to distract yourself and continue to experience life - on your deathbed, the latter would still be nicer to have done. If there was a meteor that would hit us in a week I wouldn't want to spend the whole time sobbing. Kind of crazy to stretch that out for the indefinite future even if you know the end is coming. Instead, really experience what you still can, while you can.
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Nov 15, 2016 17:16
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Rime posted:I prefer "gently caress you, start using the time that is given to you productively, you stupid childish fucks." It is not "productive" to actively and vigorously destroy the environment for both current and future generations, as you have repeatedly recommended.
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Nov 15, 2016 17:48
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Placid Marmot posted:It is not "productive" to actively and vigorously destroy the environment for both current and future generations, as you have repeatedly recommended. Right, what the gently caress is wrong with you people? Things are going to poo poo and your solution is FYGM? If you've got so much free time and capital and ennui then move to Calcutta and take care of people who are suffering in their last moments. Or, you know, your local loving retirement home. But, I'm not surprised, human beings are the worst.
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Nov 15, 2016 17:52
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Naw, rime has the right idea. A lot of you are engaged in frantic, meaningless activities that are supposed to hide your own impotence.
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Nov 15, 2016 18:02
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TildeATH posted:If you had a billion dollars right now, would you spend it on upgrading technology or trying to get people to understand poo poo? Notice I didn't say education, because that's got a specific meaning, I mean old-school rhetoric trying to get people on your side with pictures of drowning polar bears and sad 3rd world children and micro-targeted ads telling them that their neighborhood is going to be eaten by a climate change sea monster even if they live in Topeka. Regarding sad 3rd world children... A lot of them are dying today, of things a lot easier to fix than global climate change (probably) killing people in a few years. People that doesn't care about kids dying today will not care about people that might die in the future. If you spent that billion planning a habitat on Mars, highlighting sustainable technology needed to make that happen, creating a human stretch goal, then I think more people like me would start paying attention.
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Nov 15, 2016 18:14
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PsychoLordling posted:Regarding sad 3rd world children... A lot of them are dying today, of things a lot easier to fix than global climate change (probably) killing people in a few years. People that doesn't care about kids dying today will not care about people that might die in the future. Not directed at you necessarily, but I have no idea how people get excited about the interest in colonizing Mars when that's an order of magnitude more difficult than just not messing up Earth's climate. We have actual water, the right gravitational strength, a magnetic field and a (still breathable) atmosphere down here. What problem is going to Mars going to solve, especially right now? On the other hand if it's a secret plot to shoot tech-libertarians into space then I'm on board.
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Nov 15, 2016 18:29
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Mars as offered by Elon is a goal that lets people believe they may yet have a future they control? My first take.
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Nov 15, 2016 18:36
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Placid Marmot posted:It is not "productive" to actively and vigorously destroy the environment for both current and future generations, as you have repeatedly recommended. Better to just kill yourself then, dawg, because your comfy first world lifestyle on a daily basis requires both of those to perpetually increase. How many kids died mining cobalt in the Congo so that you could type from that high horse? You eat some tasty imported fruit this week? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 15, 2016 18:52
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Rime, shut the gently caress up you insufferable, aggressive, insensitive gently caress. How many times did you flog your back out of penance for the selenium needed in the guidance systems of the ship that transfered bauxite to Iceland for refining to make the aluminum needed to make some of the traces in your keyboard or touchscreen's ribbon connector?
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Nov 15, 2016 18:57
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Potato Salad posted:Mars as offered by Elon is a goal that lets people believe they may yet have a future they control? My first take. A dream of a better world crashing on the rocks of reality.
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Nov 15, 2016 19:03
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If it was under one stroke for every tear wept by every child that has died since the beginning of naval automation, I'm disappointed in you. Your quality of life lies on the backs of spiders that wander unknowingly into your mouth at night, sacrificing their bodies unwillingly for a more perfect balance in your daily dietary income. You are aware that there are better ways and more appropriate forums to discuss mortality than what you are posting and where you are posting it? Does this escape you entirely? Somewhere, you get off on kicking someone when they're down, and it is sick. If you actually believed what you post, truly, in heart, then you'd see the pointlessness in continuing to post here. What, absolutely literally at all, can be gained other than getting your kicks and feeding your abuse boner if you truly believe what you purport to be your stance on ACC, the future, and mortality?
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Nov 15, 2016 19:05
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I don't mean to speak for anyone else but I post depressing things in here because it's easier than saying them out loud in real life and I'm trying to work through my feelings.
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Nov 15, 2016 19:09
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It does get pretty disheartening if you actually look into what's being done. People call Norway amazing for being almost entirely renewable, but they have the golden kingdom for Hydro power and if they weren't on nearly 100% renewables it'd be because they were actively trying to destroy the environment. Germany gets tossed around a lot of as an example for having nearly all their energy from renewables. Except that's for maybe two hours a day at peak sunlight times. The majority of the day they're only at 35-40% in perfect conditions. India is being praised for setting a high bar in the Paris Treaty, but I can't find a source that thinks they're going to actually make it (although something is better than nothing). I know nothing about China. And then look at the US. Ignoring the Trump question, there isn't a lot to be hopeful of in recent years. Obama attempted to do a lot but failed more often than not. Not that he's to blame, except for maybe not promoting nuclear power, but it is the reality we're stuck with. Even one of his biggest success, the new CAFE standards, he openly admits that auto manufacturers were already working towards better mileage ratings due to consumer demand. Which, also, however we get there doesn't matter so much as getting there, but it's of questionable value when evaluating how much the Government has actually done. If you look at the White House list of accomplishments (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-record/climate) in the environment there is a lot there, but most of the actual successes are built around restoration and preservation of land whereas the Climate Change parts are largely agreements to meet goals 10 or more years out. Even on the state level you've got the WA Carbon Tax failing to pass because of opposition by Climate Activists and Democrats despite being built off a plan both praised highly from British Columbia. I don't believe California has done a whole lot for Climate Change recently and the reaction to the water crisis or follow up from the natural gas spill (leak?) has not been encouraging. Oregon had big plans to reduce emissions alongside Obama's election, but they're nowhere near on track for their target and I can't even find current numbers, they seemed to have stopped reporting after their slow drop in emissions leveled out and were planned to rise slightly in 2012/2013. I know nothing about the middle and east coast efforts. nessin fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 19:09
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Uncle Jam posted:People really want to ignore that emissions and warming aren't related by some simple equation where X tons of gas equals 0.X C warming in ten years. The way warming works in reality is starting to diverge from their political platform. The end result is attacking people instead of adapting to the reality and concentrating on items that would actually help. The expected value (in degrees) of a probabilistic model of triggering some set of feedback loops with some degree of uncertainty and intensity within some finite set of time is not very different all from the expected value of a linear relationship between carbon and warming under most parameterizations. Like, the overwhelming consensus of climate experts is that we should reduce emissions as fast as possible. The scientific consensus here is just as strong as for anthropogenic climate change itself - the big survey earlier this year put it at 95%. You folks are siding with the fringe and call US delusional? You might as well be a denialist. 
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Nov 15, 2016 19:24
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Forever_Peace posted:Like, the overwhelming consensus of climate experts is that we should reduce emissions as fast as possible. The scientific consensus here is just as strong as for anthropogenic climate change itself - the big survey earlier this year put it at 95%. You folks are siding with the fringe and call US delusional? You might as well be a denialist. Where do you see anyone disagreeing? Of course we should reduce emissions as fast as possible. That doesn't mean we can avoid a 4C+ degree world and civilization collapsing. "You might as well be a denialist" just lol, call me when I vote against a carbon tax
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Nov 15, 2016 19:32
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blowfish posted:What do you think changing global trends looks like, swinging things around within the day? It's blindingly obvious that even if things are a rousing success, you'll first slow down, then stop, then start going in the other direction slowly, then go faster. Given that we're starting to live in a world where we should've done more about climate change earlier, that we're levelling out is an encouraging sign that it's still possible to limit the level of suck we're heading for. I guess I'm just not the kind of person that sees the car I'm in, one destined for a brick wall, going from 50, to 80, to 100mph, and then having it only increase speed to 105mph as a victory. Nice piece of fish posted:You live in the western world. You will be better off than almost everyone else, even if the worst predictions come true - which we don't know that they will. This stuff is so out of touch, it pains me. Tens of millions of Americans are in dire straits TODAY, simply being a Westerner isn't going to nearly as helpful as some people wish it would be. Radbot fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 19:35
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Rime posted:Better to just kill yourself then, dawg, because your comfy first world lifestyle on a daily basis requires both of those to perpetually increase. How many kids died mining cobalt in the Congo so that you could type from that high horse? You eat some tasty imported fruit this week? I don't recall if I specifically have stated this before, but every time someone comes into this thread and says they want to kill themselves, someone will tell them that killing yourself is never the correct answer to depression, anxiety or angst, so here is me making clear my support of this position. It is not any of our faults that we were born into the First World, but it is our responsibility to minimize the damage that we inflict upon other people through our choices. Approximately 0.00X children (probably another few zeros before the X) will die over my lifetime mining the tech metals that I consume, which amounts to a small number of grams per year, and the consumption of which I acknowledge is among the worst choices that I personally make, since I am vegan, don't drive, have not been on a plane for nearly 15 years, don't turn the heating on in winter, and, oh, I don't buy foreign produce, despite having the means to comfortably do all of these things. Being a goody-two-shoes will not "save the planet" in itself, but at least I am causing close to the least environmental degradation that I can as a First-Worlder, rather than promoting the most destructive behavior in a desperation-fuelled hissy fit* *that's what you're doing.
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Nov 15, 2016 19:57
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Radbot posted:I guess I'm just not the kind of person that sees the car I'm in, one destined for a brick wall, going from 50, to 80, to 100mph, and then having it only increase speed to 105mph as a victory. Then you need to read AR5. The issue we face, to extend  is that we have our foot stuck on the pedal. Reducing how hard we are accelerating is absolutely an incremental victory, especially when one final goal is to stop accelerating entirely.
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Nov 15, 2016 19:57
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Rime posted:Better to just kill yourself then, dawg, because your comfy first world lifestyle on a daily basis requires both of those to perpetually increase. How many kids died mining cobalt in the Congo so that you could type from that high horse? You eat some tasty imported fruit this week? Dawg can't believe you spent 10 bucks on a forum instead of for a Congo kids hunger.
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Nov 15, 2016 20:01
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The "hitting a wall" part of ye olde has been bugging me as well. It's not like we hit 2.35673C and all instamediately die. More like we're driving into banjo country and the slower we do so over time, the shorter our absolute distance back to civilization and not being butt abused in Appalachia. It is a rate analogy, whether miles / hour covering distance out in backcountry Kentucky or carbon emissions / year filling our atmosphere.
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Nov 15, 2016 20:47
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Is there any way that mounting legal challenges to fossil fuel industries will help anything? Just read that there's precedent for young people to sue the government over a reduced standard of living in the future due to climate change. Also read something likening it to the tobacco' industries starting to lose legal challenges, and now it's accepted fact that tobacco will kill your rear end (except for pence.) How likely is it that Trump's administration will do enough to gently caress us way more than before, or will market forces towards green renewables help a lot? Is it realistic to think that in 20 years the political situation towards very greatly reducing emissions and acting towards environmental remediation will be a lot better? I'm honestly asking, I don't know. I do think there's going to be a huge biological bottleneck. I understand that nothing is certain with this stuff, but realistically, will the changes that global warming causes truly wipe out humanity or will it lead to a massive die-off of large swaths of humanity in the 3rd world and in animal life resulting in a still technically functioning but vastly less vibrant world? For someone who doesn't check into this thread a lot, I've noticed that there's a huge undercurrent of "we're hosed" which is pretty much the point of the original thread, and not this one. I know it's important to be speak truthfully but to be completely doom and gloom, and conversely shiny and optimistic, is completely counterproductive because it retards will to act. I do think the political will is there, it's just been completely and utterly demoralized. I think if people can cultivate some hope at the grassroots level similar to the rise of Bernie, except at a much stronger and universal level, maybe we can at least take a few less blows to humanity and the earth than would otherwise be the case. The whole "it's horrible and there's no use and it will get even MORE HORRIBLE" is probably mostly true but dismisses out of hand actions at a political, community, and personal level that could be truly positive and help people, however few. Is this possible or am I just completely not informed enough about this stuff? I know that some of these topics have been gone over and over again but it kind of seems like it resets things to a baseline to springboard off of, and that might be needed when some people in the thread are straight up advocating suicide in the "what is to be done" thread. Attack! fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Nov 15, 2016 |
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Nov 15, 2016 20:57
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That precedent is pretty recent, from a lower court this past week. It's an interesting case to follow but doubt it passes a Trump SCOTUS. But yes lawsuits are a vital way to slow or stop specific instances of destruction. I donated to EarthJustice today and you should too.
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Nov 15, 2016 21:16
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Potato Salad posted:The "hitting a wall" part of ye olde Not really - as far as I understand once you reach a certain point in banjo country they hijack the car and no matter how much you push the brakes you aren't in control any more. Once the ice caps go, the reflective ableto effect from white ice and snow has goes away so the dark blue ocean underneath starts absorbing a lot more energy. Increased cloud cover from increased evaporation / humidity also has a warming feedback effect and after a certain point even if you remove some co2 from the atmosphere the other environmental changes will continue to snowball away from us.
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Nov 15, 2016 21:44
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Goffer posted:Not really - as far as I understand once you reach a certain point in banjo country they hijack the car and no matter how much you push the brakes you aren't in control any more. Once the ice caps go, the reflective ableto effect from white ice and snow has goes away so the dark blue ocean underneath starts absorbing a lot more energy. Increased cloud cover from increased evaporation / humidity also has a warming feedback effect and after a certain point even if you remove some co2 from the atmosphere the other environmental changes will continue to snowball away from us. Most people here are probably aware of the idea of these "tipping points" where feedback effects start to dominate whatever impact humans have on the climate. I think the point is we don't know exactly at what level that might happen, just that models and historical data suggested it was unlikely for overall warming < ~2C. This underscores just how irresponsible we as a society are being by rocketing past this threshold, we're in unknown territory. At the same time it suggests that pursuing carbon emission reductions is still worthwhile, we don't know that we're definitely headed for a feedback dominated future and could be doing future people a big favor by keeping overall warming <3C (or whatever terrible threshold we currently think might be realistic).
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Nov 15, 2016 21:58
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True, but the car analogy lends itself to 'ok, we'll turn this sucker around and drive out' when we don't necessarily have the power to do that.
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Nov 15, 2016 22:08
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Goffer posted:True, but the car analogy lends itself to 'ok, we'll turn this sucker around and drive out' when we don't necessarily have the power to do that. All of our analogies are often inadequate when discussing global warming. It is relatively unique among problems we face. It is also uncontroversial among actual experts that we ought to be reducing emissions as fast as possible. Internet nihilists aren't persuading the folks who know the issue best.
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Nov 15, 2016 22:15
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Maybe it's like the car analogy except the downward slope of the road is increasing as well - it gets more and more difficult to slow down and at a certain point even if the wheels aren't moving you'll still go forward.
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Nov 15, 2016 22:18
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Forever_Peace posted:It is also uncontroversial among actual experts that we ought to be reducing emissions as fast as possible. Internet nihilists aren't persuading the folks who know the issue best. Like those are the people who need to be convinced. Don't be dishonest, no one here is denying climate change, or even saying we shouldn't do anything, we're just pointing out that no one will do anything. Don't get mad at people for speaking the truth.
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Nov 15, 2016 23:26
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It's sort of like driving down a hill except then the car starts flying. Temperature of 80+ degrees north. Green = average, red = this year
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Nov 15, 2016 23:44
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TildeATH posted:Like those are the people who need to be convinced. Bolded is literally the thing you have advocated in this thread, no? You aren't just predicting that we likely aren't going to make meaningful strides, you are openly advocating that a) we shouldn't do anything and b) it would be useless even if we did. These beliefs belong to a radical fringe that is completely out of step with the professional consensus. The strength of agreement you are dissenting from is identical to the strength of agreement climate denialists are dissenting from. It's mitigation denialism. Do you like that phrase or do you prefer radical climate nihilism?
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Nov 15, 2016 23:46
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Forever_Peace posted:Bolded is literally the thing you have advocated in this thread, no? You aren't just predicting that we likely aren't going to make meaningful strides, you are openly advocating that a) we shouldn't do anything and b) it would be useless even if we did. "Radical climate nihilist". For seeing things how they actually, literally are. Alright.
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Nov 16, 2016 00:03
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cosmicprank posted:"Radical climate nihilist". Here is the most recent IPCC report. The specify a whole bunch of mitigation approaches that they expect to reduce global mean temperatures over the long term with at least the same overt designation of confidence as the fact that glaciers are melting or that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass. These are the same people stating consensus arguments that are equally strong. Agreeing with one but not the other is not "rational", or "factual", or "truthful", or "seeing things how they actually are". It is literally what we accuse climate denialists of doing.
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Nov 16, 2016 00:20
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