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What's the point of tone policing the end of civilization? What do you gain? Who cares whether it happens in 2050 or 2075? That is still an eyeblink away. This is a big part of why climate scientists are their own worst enemy, at some point their public facing communication needs to align with the public's level of understanding. Being "accurate" about the timeline of the death of billions of people should have taken a backseat in the messaging a loooong time ago.
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Jul 16, 2017 16:37
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is your technocratic obliviousness a consistent feature? like do you 'correct' women when they mention the wage gap? v its filters on cigarettes and stickers disclaiming evolution as a 'theory' in textbooks StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 16:39
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the sort of attitudes held by people like Thug Lessons has got to be the biggest issue to fighting climate change. it infects peoples minds into thinking we can fight climate change through a middle-of-the-road approach. That we can maintain the status quo, but just have to build enough electric cars, windmills, and recyclable single use coffee pods.
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Jul 16, 2017 16:45
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It just seems so bizarre to think that there isn't any merit to discuss worst case scenario, since it is represents our current trajectory
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Jul 16, 2017 16:51
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:This page is quite useful: https://via.hypothes.is/http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html I hope people actually bother to read the annotated version, because Thug Lessons is drastically overstating the case being made by critics of the NYMag article. I think most people here essentially agree that worrying about unbreathable air or poisoned oceans is extremely alarmist at this point, and those are the main areas of contention with the article. That and the fact that the author didn't do a very good job discussing the probability of any given scenario, which I actually agree is a problem. Aside from that, most of the scientists criticizing the work are disagreeing with its tone at most.
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Jul 16, 2017 17:04
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Minge Binge posted:It just seems so bizarre to think that there isn't any merit to discuss worst case scenario, since it is represents our current trajectory Not only is it our current trajectory but the expectations for what is the worst case scenario are constantly being updated to even worse case scenarios.
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Jul 16, 2017 17:25
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Ol Standard Retard posted:Who cares whether it happens in 2050 or 2075? That is still an eyeblink away. I might exist in 2050. I won't exist in 2075. Edit: Someone needs to start persuading oligarchs that Climate Change is a threat because there will be nowhere safe to put your money and nowhere safe to own property. That's the only way to get poo poo done. Get the elites on board.
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Jul 16, 2017 17:34
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wait i got another one for thug "hey guys there's most likely only going to be tens of millions of climate refugees in the coming decades not hundreds so the alarmism isn't helping"
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Jul 16, 2017 17:44
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Paradoxish posted:I hope people actually bother to read the annotated version, because Thug Lessons is drastically overstating the case being made by critics of the NYMag article. I think most people here essentially agree that worrying about unbreathable air or poisoned oceans is extremely alarmist at this point, and those are the main areas of contention with the article. That and the fact that the author didn't do a very good job discussing the probability of any given scenario, which I actually agree is a problem. Aside from that, most of the scientists criticizing the work are disagreeing with its tone at most. I don't believe I'm overstating anything, but whatever. However it's not true the criticism is narrowly focused or merely rhetorical. I liked Christopher Colose's response and in my (admittedly amateur) opinion reflects mainstream thinking on the subjects discussed by the NY Mag article pretty well. Christopher Colose posted:There are many arguments in this article at the interface of climate instability, socio-political disruption, and general global security. They are, however, clumsily wrapped together and doesn’t reflect well the actual risk posed by climate change.
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Jul 16, 2017 17:50
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Yeah, we're already dealing with climate change refugees right now. If we completely stopped emissions today the middle east is still getting cooked and will undoubtedly create huge amounts of instability. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/hotter-drier-middle-east-desert-170625102833544.html 53.5°C for gently caress sakes. For many people in the world they are already in the worst case scenario. Climate change is already killing them.
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Jul 16, 2017 17:55
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StabbinHobo posted:wait i got another one for thug Well this is the thing. You have billions of people in Africa and Asia who are, pretty uncontroversially, going to suffer horrific consequences from climate change, but the overwhelming focus goes onto these apocalyptic, civilization-ending catastrophes. That's reason enough, in my book, to prevent climate change. And I don't see the benefit in almost completely obscuring those people because we're so myopically focused on a hypothetical collapse over the clear, predictable, empirically-backed consequences that are going to occur in countries outside the West.
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Jul 16, 2017 17:59
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't believe I'm overstating anything, but whatever. However it's not true the criticism is narrowly focused or merely rhetorical. I liked Christopher Colose's response and in my (admittedly amateur) opinion reflects mainstream thinking on the subjects discussed by the NY Mag article pretty well. I don't see how Colose's response here actually refutes anything I'm saying. His conclusion, in particular: quote:Nonetheless, the near future climatic fate of New York probably looks more like the climate of South Carolina or Georgia than something from a Mad Max movie. This is still an important basis for concern given that the socio-political infrastructure that exists around the world is biased toward the modern climate. Climate change isn't going to cause an apocalyptic shift in the habitability of the Earth, but New York's climate shifting to that of South Carolina or Georgia (while also suffering even a moderate increase in serious hurricanes) is incredibly bad. Likewise, I've never really seen more than one or two people in this thread try to seriously argue that agriculture simply won't be possible over the next century. It will be, but even minor food security issues are catastrophic for all but the richest nations. The point that a lot of us have been trying to make in this thread is that a scenario that isn't literally Mad Max can still be horrendously bad for even first world countries. Our entire political and economic structure is built around the climate being relatively stable and there are major consequences to a loss of coastal real estate and shifting agricultural yields. There are very few places in the world that are even remotely prepared to deal with inhabited areas being abandoned due to sea level rise, severe weather, or a combination of both.
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Jul 16, 2017 18:09
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Paradoxish posted:The point that a lot of us have been trying to make in this thread is that a scenario that isn't literally Mad Max can still be horrendously bad for even first world countries. Our entire political and economic structure is built around the climate being relatively stable and there are major consequences to a loss of coastal real estate and shifting agricultural yields. There are very few places in the world that are even remotely prepared to deal with inhabited areas being abandoned due to sea level rise, severe weather, or a combination of both. Yes, I have noticed this, and that is exactly my problem. When I listen to what places climate researchers talk about and what people like those in this thread talk about, I find almost no overlap at all. Climate scientists are concerned about places like the Sahel, which is going to see its already-massive population double over the never few decades while suffering severe loss of agricultural yields to the effects of climate change on some of most marginal inhabited land on earth. They talk about places like Bangladesh, which is already leading in climate-related deaths and is likely to see much of the country disappear even under modest sea level rises. These are not places I hear discussed here often, (except by implication from "climate refugees"), where people prefer to focus on threats Western countries and a generalized collapse of civilization, a focus that invariably takes them to the fringes of accepted science and often well beyond. I don't like it. I think it's speculative and alarmist. I think it's Eurocentric. And most of all I think it's a distraction from actual emerging climate crises, like how we're going to feed 200 million people in the Sahel.
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Jul 16, 2017 18:31
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Why would we not focus on the west? We live in the West. We all know implicitly that those countries are hosed, they'd be hosed even if someone invented a magic laser beam you can shoot into the sky to fix the atmosphere in a single day, because they exist to be exploited by the economic system we utilize and will never be allowed or able to become anything that our rich white asses would consider livable. We're not going to feed 200 million people in the Sahel, we're going to ignore them and shoot them when they try to get to the countries we live in, best case scenario.
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Jul 16, 2017 18:44
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ChairMaster posted:We're not going to feed 200 million people in the Sahel, we're going to ignore them and shoot them when they try to get to the countries we live in, best case scenario. I'm thinking the best case scenario is Europe paying us to dump our surplus grain into their sources of climate-migrants. You know, in addition to the killing
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Jul 16, 2017 18:48
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ChairMaster posted:Why would we not focus on the west? We live in the West. We all know implicitly that those countries are hosed, they'd be hosed even if someone invented a magic laser beam you can shoot into the sky to fix the atmosphere in a single day, because they exist to be exploited by the economic system we utilize and will never be allowed or able to become anything that our rich white asses would consider livable. This post is a perfect example of why I loath this outlook. You're explicitly writing off hundreds of millions of people as dead, and basically saying we shouldn't even bother trying to prevent it because it's inevitable.
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Jul 16, 2017 18:52
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Who's "we" exactly? When I say "we" I mean the people in this thread. This may come as a shock but nobody here is a billionaire or a world leader. Not a single thing any of us does matters at all, and none of us can save any of those millions of people. We can't topple capitalism any more than we can suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere fast enough to save the world. It'd be wonderful if all those people weren't already dead, it'd be lovely if the internal peace of the countries we live in had much of a chance at lasting past 2050 or so, but that's childish to think. Sorry.
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Jul 16, 2017 18:59
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Thug Lessons posted:Yes, I have noticed this, and that is exactly my problem. When I listen to what places climate researchers talk about and what people like those in this thread talk about, I find almost no overlap at all. Climate scientists are concerned about places like the Sahel, which is going to see its already-massive population double over the never few decades while suffering severe loss of agricultural yields to the effects of climate change on some of most marginal inhabited land on earth. They talk about places like Bangladesh, which is already leading in climate-related deaths and is likely to see much of the country disappear even under modest sea level rises. These are not places I hear discussed here often, (except by implication from "climate refugees"), where people prefer to focus on threats Western countries and a generalized collapse of civilization, a focus that invariably takes them to the fringes of accepted science and often well beyond. I don't like it. I think it's speculative and alarmist. I think it's Eurocentric. And most of all I think it's a distraction from actual emerging climate crises, like how we're going to feed 200 million people in the Sahel. Are you really shocked that people tend to focus on what affects them the most? There's nothing speculative or alarmist in talking about the effects of climate change on first world countries. Every study done on the topic has suggested even modest climate change projections are likely to have moderate to severe slowing effects on GDP towards the middle of the century. This actually does matter, no matter how much you want to pretend that it doesn't, because it's likely to be the defining political issue in countries that actually have the means to help the parts of the world that are suffering from the worst effects of climate change. There isn't going to be a massive program to save Bangladesh when developed nations are suddenly realizing "oh gently caress, our coastal real estate markets are collapsing and we're hovering in what seems to be a near permanent recession." edit- it's also a little bit weird that you're accusing me of being speculative and alarmist when I was basically just parroting back exactly what the guy you claim represents mainstream opinion was saying. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 19:03
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Thug Lessons posted:This post is a perfect example of why I loath this outlook. You're explicitly writing off hundreds of millions of people as dead, and basically saying we shouldn't even bother trying to prevent it because it's inevitable. My best case scenario is getting paid by the US to mow down Central Americas at the Guatemala and Belize borders rather than being part of the crowds mowed down or hitting land mines at the US border. We're way past the point where apocalyptic conditions in the most vulnerable areas are preventable - any kind of honest discourse needs to take this into account. Even your disingenuous 'middle-of-the-road' arguments are already speaking of climate conditions unsustainable for them, that no kind of foreign aid can change.
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Jul 16, 2017 19:07
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Thug Lessons posted:This post is a perfect example of why I loath this outlook. You're explicitly writing off hundreds of millions of people as dead, and basically saying we shouldn't even bother trying to prevent it because it's inevitable. nice backflip bro. *you're* the one who came in here all "don't be alarmist look rich countries emissions aren't growing"
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Jul 16, 2017 19:36
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Paradoxish posted:Are you really shocked that people tend to focus on what affects them the most? There's nothing speculative or alarmist in talking about the effects of climate change on first world countries. Every study done on the topic has suggested even modest climate change projections are likely to have moderate to severe slowing effects on GDP towards the middle of the century. This actually does matter, no matter how much you want to pretend that it doesn't, because it's likely to be the defining political issue in countries that actually have the means to help the parts of the world that are suffering from the worst effects of climate change. There isn't going to be a massive program to save Bangladesh when developed nations are suddenly realizing "oh gently caress, our coastal real estate markets are collapsing and we're hovering in what seems to be a near permanent recession." I'm not saying it's speculative to talk about the effects of climate change on first world countries. I'm saying it's speculative to talk about them in apocalyptic tones based on poorly-evidenced hypotheticals, like those in the NY Mag article. Maybe you're right and I'm unfairly lumping you in with those people, but you seemed to be defending exactly that article and minimizing the criticisms raised by experts. I don't really understand the point of that. But whatever, if what I'm saying doesn't apply to you, fair enough. Anyway, as far as the changes for the first world go: no one is saying they're not important. It's just that they're obvious not as important nor as urgent as other climate crises. You posted an article a while back suggesting a 1-3% decline in annual US GDP by 2100 under R8.5. That is very significant, possibly thrusting the US into a permanent recession assuming current growth rates. But at the same time, it's not exactly mass death, and it's set to occur well after we're all dead, (yes, there will be run-up effects, but even a 0.5% decline in 2050 is far more manageable). Meanwhile we have climate crises that immediately threaten the lives of millions, if not billions, of people, in a timeframe much shorter than the end of the century, and they should actually be the priority in climate policy.
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Jul 16, 2017 19:42
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Thug Lessons posted:Yes, I have noticed this, and that is exactly my problem. When I listen to what places climate researchers talk about and what people like those in this thread talk about, I find almost no overlap at all. Here is a climate researcher explaining why the Paris 2C target is bullshit all because we already haven't acted fast enough on its results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3z4Ksy0Qa4 Maybe you should read the actual literature instead of reading one volley of ideas back and forth and thinking that you're now a climate expert. Many of us have been watching and reading papers as bystanders for years now.
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Jul 16, 2017 20:38
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:Here is a climate researcher explaining why the Paris 2C target is bullshit all because we already haven't acted fast enough on its results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3z4Ksy0Qa4 You're confusing "2C max in 2100 is no longer achievable" for "worst case climate scenario" just because we are locked into +2C doesn't mean we are locked into +4C. Meanwhile this thread likes to cite gray lit pieces as proof the scientists are lying to us about the real impacts.
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Jul 16, 2017 20:50
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The morphing coastline is such a buzzkill because I feel like solar, desalinization, and the vertical gardening/aeroponics trifecta could make for a good sustainable coastal community.
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Jul 16, 2017 20:56
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Be right back gotta go save Africa from massive global climate change, leaving now cause it will take a long time to bike there.
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Jul 16, 2017 21:23
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Trabisnikof posted:You're confusing "2C max in 2100 is no longer achievable" for "worst case climate scenario" just because we are locked into +2C doesn't mean we are locked into +4C. But +2C is "everything's hosed" for most people right? And for my child as a first-worlder it means being very much worse off than me? Because that's bad enough.
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Jul 16, 2017 21:44
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TheBlackVegetable posted:But +2C is "everything's hosed" for most people right? And for my child as a first-worlder it means being very much worse off than me? Because that's bad enough. Yes it means your first world child's life might be worse than yours, but it doesn't mean "everything is hosed." It might be "bad enough" for you, but it can still get worse and the obligation is to limit it rather than just give up and enjoy hedonism.
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Jul 16, 2017 21:52
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TheBlackVegetable posted:But +2C is "everything's hosed" for most people right? And for my child as a first-worlder it means being very much worse off than me? Because that's bad enough. Your child will probably be worse off than you in a +2C world, but your child may be worse off than you for socioeconomic reasons that have nothing to do with climate change too. We aren't talking about a scenario for first world nations that's so apocalyptically bad that it's time to just throw our hands up in the air and admit defeat. I don't know if this applies to you or not so I apologize if it doesn't, but this idea that the future absolutely has to be better than right now by every conceivable metric or else we're all just better off dead is absurd. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 22:03
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LOL at the guys still coming here with mid 2000's talking points about 2C° warming and the milquetoast market solutions that will help achieve these scenarios. If we don't discover cold fusion or any other super duper source of energy within the next 10 years, Völkerwanderung (Migration Period) 2.0 will come and pay you a visit - no matter where you live. The Mass Migration periods of 1200s B.C. and 350-550 AD give us hints how such a process develops. It is not unlikely that during the next 50 years, several nations of the West will have their own Battle of Adrianople - and things will change, as they always do. Not meant in a "clash of cultures"-way of a battle between good and evil, but in a "things people tend to do when resources run out"-way. And even as someone who believes we will get that plus the big cocktail of other climate change related catastrophes in the future, I don't see why I should kill myself now, ignore theese scenarios or drown myself in hedonism. People survived during these past catastrophes and will do so in the future - I believe that we as individuals can do our own little thing in improving the way this will happen, even if it's just a very minor and local thing. Edit: Also the fall of a civilisation usually takes a few generations: your kids will never know the material standards you enjoyed in the 1980s - but that also means they will not miss it and live their own lives unencumbered by the pretty ridiculous nostalgia for 2 cars in every household, massive shopping malls, etc. (they might also die of diseases that were easiliy treated back in the 80s  , welp)
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Jul 16, 2017 22:13
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SavageGentleman posted:LOL at the guys still coming here with mid 2000's talking points about 2C° warming and the milquetoast market solutions that will help achieve these scenarios. I'd rather we bring more clean energy online now using the markets than wait for global socialism to start changing our carbon economy.
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Jul 16, 2017 22:15
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That's cute assuming global socialism rather than pressures forcing hypercapitalist fascism as society doubles down on supporting the system.
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Jul 16, 2017 22:20
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Our descendants will probably look back on developing the developing world as naive and suicidal. Worrying about how the developing world will fare going forward seems blithely idealistic.
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Jul 16, 2017 22:26
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Conspiratiorist posted:That's cute assuming global socialism rather than pressures forcing hypercapitalist fascism as society doubles down on supporting the system. Either way, the more good we can do now reduces the horribleness of the future if just slightly. Accretionist posted:Our descendants will probably look back on developing the developing world as naive and suicidal. I think there will be a new and well developed language to describe the human and systems failures leading to this disaster. quote:Worrying about how the developing world will fare going forward seems blithely idealistic. As well phrased fygm as I've ever heard. It also ignores the realities of climate impacts (and buys into a capitalist framework on success, but that's for another thread). The developing world won't be universally quashed by climate change anymore than wealth can protect the developed world. Money can't bring the rains back.
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Jul 16, 2017 22:47
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:Here is a climate researcher explaining why the Paris 2C target is bullshit all because we already haven't acted fast enough on its results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3z4Ksy0Qa4 I'm actually pretty familiar with Kevin Anderson. I've listened to several of his lectures. I don't have time to listen to this one right now, but at least as of last year he was adamant that 2 C is achievable, but that it required dramatic (yet bearable) emissions cuts that aren't being enacted. And I actually happen to be in full agreement with that. As far as actual policy goes I honestly can't think of anything I disagree with him on. The only real criticism of him that I have is that he's Eurocentric and doesn't acknowledge the third world's energy needs. I have no problem with people who push for Western countries to be more aggressive in their emissions cuts.
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Jul 16, 2017 23:07
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I'm glad a bunch of doomers are just openly admitting their ideology is genocidal and they intend to surf into the Mad Max future on a tidal wave of black corpses.
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Jul 16, 2017 23:30
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Thug Lessons posted:I'm actually pretty familiar with Kevin Anderson. I've listened to several of his lectures. I don't have time to listen to this one right now, but at least as of last year he was adamant that 2 C is achievable, but that it required dramatic (yet bearable) emissions cuts that aren't being enacted. And I actually happen to be in full agreement with that. As far as actual policy goes I honestly can't think of anything I disagree with him on. The only real criticism of him that I have is that he's Eurocentric and doesn't acknowledge the third world's energy needs. I have no problem with people who push for Western countries to be more aggressive in their emissions cuts. It depends on what you consider bearable to be. Kevin Anderson wrote this in 2014: http://kevinanderson.info/blog/letter-to-the-pm-outlining-how-2c-demands-an-80-cut-in-eu-emissions-by-2030/ quote:The IPCC’s budgets for a “likely”[3] chance of not exceeding 2°C, accompanied by weak allowances for equity, demand the EU deliver, at least, an 80% reduction in emissions from its energy system by 2030, with full decarbonisation shortly after. That statement is based on acknowledging the needs of the third world, using the assumption that developed nations need to peak and rapidly reduce their carbon emissions right now in order to allow for developing nations to reach their peak later. Full decarbonization within two decades is doable, but probably not without government action on a scale that hasn't been seen since WW2. This is pretty similar to Alex Steffen's argument, which is that 2C is an achievable goal, but that we have maybe a decade to enact almost unthinkably wide social and economic changes. edit- Also note that that 80% energy emissions reduction target is a conservative goal based on optimistic reductions in the third world and only "weak" allowances for equity. If we want to stave off 2C warming and fully acknowledge the needs of the developing world then we pretty much need to be in a crash decarbonization program yesterday. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jul 16, 2017 |
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Jul 16, 2017 23:31
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Thug Lessons posted:I'm actually pretty familiar with Kevin Anderson. I've listened to several of his lectures. I don't have time to listen to this one right now, but at least as of last year he was adamant that 2 C is achievable, but that it required dramatic (yet bearable) emissions cuts that aren't being enacted. And I actually happen to be in full agreement with that. As far as actual policy goes I honestly can't think of anything I disagree with him on. The only real criticism of him that I have is that he's Eurocentric and doesn't acknowledge the third world's energy needs. I have no problem with people who push for Western countries to be more aggressive in their emissions cuts. Sorry, he's changed his mind: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/cat-in-hells-chance-why-losing-battle-keep-global-warming-2c-climate-change quote:“I think we actively chose to forgo the carbon budgets for a likely chance of 2C many years ago,” says Kevin Anderson, currently professor of climate change at Uppsala University in Sweden. “Judging that rate at which our emissions would need to be reduced was too politically challenging to contemplate.”
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Jul 16, 2017 23:32
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Thug Lessons posted:I'm glad a bunch of doomers are just openly admitting their ideology is genocidal and they intend to surf into the Mad Max future on a tidal wave of black corpses. I tried to tell them that carbon taxes are a death sentence for the third world but they dont give a flying gently caress. but they are oh so concerned about the possibility that the white homogeneity of their homeland might be threatened by MIGRANTS!!!! yall sound like the alt right sometimes i swear
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Jul 16, 2017 23:35
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smoke sumthin bitch posted:I tried to tell them that carbon taxes are a death sentence for the third world but they dont give a flying gently caress. poo poo! Why didn't we listen??!
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Jul 16, 2017 23:50
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Trabisnikof posted:As well phrased fygm as I've ever heard. I want Star Trek but expect Elysium. If we had a version of  where the quote:Money can't bring the rains back. Money's not the clincher, in my mind. It's that we're entering this period with a power advantage and that we'll go through this period with a geographic advantage. smoke sumthin bitch posted:I tried to tell them that carbon taxes are a death sentence for the third world but they dont give a flying gently caress. but they are oh so concerned about the possibility that the white homogeneity of their homeland might be threatened by MIGRANTS!!!! yall sound like the alt right sometimes i swear I'm hoping we'll latinize quickly enough to prevent extreme reactions to climate-driven migrations.
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Jul 16, 2017 23:51
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