ChairMaster posted:

I'm not criticizing the IPCC, I'm making fun of the people who take every opportunity they can to pretend like everything is okay, including completely ignoring the fact that every scientific report on every subject relating to climate change looks worse and worse every few years, but these people refuse to see the pattern and insist that everything is going to be okay.

ChairMaster posted:

I'm not criticizing the IPCC, I'm making fun of the people who take every opportunity they can to pretend like everything is okay, including completely ignoring the fact that every scientific report on every subject relating to climate change looks worse and worse every few years, but these people refuse to see the pattern and insist that everything is going to be okay.

NYT posted:

Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040
Oct. 7, 2018

INCHEON, South Korea — A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”

The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population.
...
Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion. But while they conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely.
...
President Trump, who has mocked the science of human-caused climate change, has vowed to increase the burning of coal and said he intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement. And on Sunday in Brazil, the world’s seventh-largest emitter of greenhouse gas, voters appeared on track to elect a new president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has said he also plans to withdraw from the accord.

quote:

Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion. But while they conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely.

Blue Star posted:

Enjoy autumn and winter while they last. If you like crisp autumn weather, chilly wintry weather, snow, etc. cherish them as much as you can. Very soon there won't be any more fall or winter. Soon it'll be hot well into November, and it'll never get below freezing even in january. Reverse all of this if you live in southern hemisphere. Point is, if you happen to like chilly autumn weather or snowy, cold winter weather...too bad.

This is the least of humanity's worries, of course. It's very first world problems. But it's still a sad thought. Even simple pleasures are going away.

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

It's garbage that if someone came in claiming global warming was fake everyone would (rightfully) jump on them, but posts like this go perfectly unchallenged. The IPCC is putting reports out right this second, but everyone just throws actual science in the trash and decides global warming is whatever their heart would wish and dream it is.

Blue Star posted:

Enjoy autumn and winter while they last. If you like crisp autumn weather, chilly wintry weather, snow, etc. cherish them as much as you can.

Blue Star posted:

Enjoy autumn and winter while they last. If you like crisp autumn weather, chilly wintry weather, snow, etc. cherish them as much as you can. Very soon there won't be any more fall or winter. Soon it'll be hot well into November, and it'll never get below freezing even in january. Reverse all of this if you live in southern hemisphere. Point is, if you happen to like chilly autumn weather or snowy, cold winter weather...too bad.

This is the least of humanity's worries, of course. It's very first world problems. But it's still a sad thought. Even simple pleasures are going away.

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

It's garbage that if someone came in claiming global warming was fake everyone would (rightfully) jump on them, but posts like this go perfectly unchallenged. The IPCC is putting reports out right this second, but everyone just throws actual science in the trash and decides global warming is whatever their heart would wish and dream it is.

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

It's you, you are the denialist.

Doing some lame "the IPCC is a bunch of hacks that don't know what they are saying" isn't helping climate change, it's a lame and lovely tactic to muddy the waters and pretend this is some matter of opinion thing that no one is researching or looking into and it just can be whatever you feel like you'd like it to be.

IPCC models have been very accurate so far, they refine them over time but the idea on either side that they are just a bunch of dummies that constantly have egg on their face as they wildly have to change their know nothing fake news models is not a real thing. This is observed vs projected temperatures, they have been continuously been very good science done by real climate researchers:

quote:

In depression, exaggerated all-or-nothing thinking can form a self-reinforcing cycle: these thoughts might be called emotional amplifiers because, as they go around and around, they become more intense. Typical all-or-nothing thoughts:

-My efforts are either a success or they are an abject failure
-Other people are either all good or all bad.
-I am either all good or all bad.
-If you're not with us, you're against us.[14]

im depressed lol posted:

the concept of a low-information consumer is something i had not been exposed to, and fits very well into what i am trying to express. thank you for your response and info.

i'll be sure to keep this in mind the next time i try to windup/articulate this 'modify the perception of money' concept that i'm spit-balling. obviously it's not a fully formed idea, but i know my intent and it absolutely is not some insane, horrible 'capitalism is the best possible model of society', and it is also not 'socialism is impossible because USSR'.

my intent with this idea is to do things like challenge the idea of 'solving climate change is too expensive' as the logical leap one would make viewing the issue through the lens of profit & monetary cost. like, ensuring the viability of life on earth is 'too expensive'? that is the insanity of money.

i hypothesize that insanity is the result of money as technology (in its current state) warping our perception of the natural world, softening the news that the world will end because it implies your parents/relatives/the government will bail you out via creation of fiat environment. again, this is more-or-less spit-balling for the sake of discussion, and i haven't truly parsed what OwlFancier has been saying in response yet to modify or just drop the concept entirely. still, thank you all.

im depressed lol posted:

just to address this, i don't believe average jane is walking around thinking 'oh we'll just print more environment'. what i think is happening is a sort of learned helplessness/delegation to authority that allows the average person to just assume their leaders are taking care of it.

during the 2008-9 financial crisis, co-workers made jokes like 'eh, where's MY bail-out!' as a joke/criticism of the government's intervention. but they recognize they don't have an answer beyond some right-wing "let'em fail".

my thinking is led by low-information consumers being informed by simulacra that their leaders/idols/corporations-that-lobby-the-government give them. and those sources also only conceive of reality as simulcrae. something everyone interested in this has read Simulacra & Simulation expresses this much more eloquently than i ever could relate it. i may even be a dumby and am applying this book's concepts improperly, but i can't seem to shake this idea yet.

so, i believe, this over-simplification of extremely-complex systems creates falsehoods and then these over-simplifications are further reduced into even simpler terms so people on the bottom of the information pyramid can understand them. no one can be an expert in all fields, so this is necessary. but it's also really easy to forget to include vital information in this game of concept-simplification-telephone.

so, could this reduction/simplification process result in a subconscious (or some other mechanism, maybe the subconscious isn't even real) false equivalency that makes something as horrible as future-global-holocaust feel about as bad as bankruptcy? like:

went over monthly expenses budget
ah gently caress, i blew all my cash on drugs and hookers.... oh hey there's friends i can stay with, or a government program i can sign up AH THIS FUCKS SO MUCH .... ah things will work out. i'll get back on my feet in no time

/=
went over carbon budget
ah gently caress, we burned too much carbon causing a rapid greenhouse effect... oh well yeah elon musk said we're gonna be a multi-planet species so i can just go to mars, gently caress, hey venus can you give me some o2? drat it. or yeah a scientist will create a box that fixes the environment.... ah things will be fine. guess i'll buy an SUV

i only really started thinking that this is a huge problem because elon musk, a person listened to by millions of cultists, suggests consistently (as recently as that 3 hour podcast with joe rogan about a month ago) that it's more than likely that we live in a simulation of some kind. now people in power may not articulate it quite this way, but maybe whatever variant (i.e. god, chaos, religions) gives them a similar world view. so if the wealthy are disconnected from reality in this way, and the wealthy fund media companies, and people learn from media companies.... it's a problem isn't it?

Banana Man posted:

Look if there's no inbetween working 9-5 and mad max, driving to work without horrible blizzards is a net postive

im depressed lol posted:

IPCC posted:

The reduced complexity climate models employed in this assessment do not take into account permafrost or non-CO2 Earth-system feedbacks, although the MAGICC model has a permafrost module that can be enabled. Taking the current climate and Earth-system feedbacks understanding together, there is a possibility that these models would underestimate the longer-term future temperature response to stringent emission pathways (Section 2.2.2).

IPCC posted:

Cumulative CO2 emissions are kept within a budget by reducing global annual CO2 emissions to netzero. This assessment suggests a remaining budget for limiting warming to 1.5°C with a two-thirds chance of about 550 GtCO2, and of about 750 GtCO2 for an even chance (medium confidence). The remaining carbon budget is defined here as cumulative CO2 emissions from the start of 2018 until the time of net-zero global emissions. Remaining budgets applicable to 2100, would approximately be 100 GtCO2 lower than this to account for permafrost thawing and potential methane release from wetlands in the future. These estimates come with an additional geophysical uncertainty of at least ±50%, related to non-CO2 response and TCRE distribution. In addition, they can vary by ±250 GtCO2 depending on non-CO2 mitigation strategies as found in available pathways. {2.2.2, 2.6.1}

IPCC posted:

The uncertainties presented in Table 2.2 cannot be formally combined, but current understanding of the assessed geophysical uncertainties suggests at least a ±50% possible variation for remaining carbon budgets for 1.5°C-consistent pathways. When put in the context of year-2017 CO2 emissions (about 41 GtCO2 yr-1) (Le Quéré et al., 2018), a remaining carbon budget of 750 GtCO2 (550 GtCO2) suggests meeting net zero global CO2 emissions in about 35 years (25 years) following a linear decline starting from 2018 (rounded to the nearest five years), with a variation of ±15–20 years due to the above mentioned geophysical uncertainties (high confidence).

Hello Sailor posted:

You might be interested in the last chapter of the Michael Lewis book that just came out, The Fifth Risk. While the book largely focuses on the Trump administration's lack of effort to run (or even understand) the government it unexpectedly found itself in charge of and the consequences of that, the chapter itself talks about the effort by NOAA to get more people to take immediate action about the possibility of being caught in a tornado. Doing something as simple as changing the terminology from "tornado warning" to "tornado emergency" may have increased the percentage of people who took preventative action, leading to fewer per-capita fatalities.

ChairMaster posted:

"help everyone get mentally healthier and then eventually they'll be able to face the future with a positive outlook and that'll somehow give them a viable candidate to support in every part of the world that will actually give a poo poo about climate change".

Hello Sailor posted:

the effort by NOAA to get more people to take immediate action about the possibility of being caught in a tornado. Doing something as simple as changing the terminology from "tornado warning" to "tornado emergency" may have increased the percentage of people who took preventative action, leading to fewer per-capita fatalities.

Doorknob Slobber posted:

there are also things suicidally depressed people can do to help ya know

Doorknob Slobber posted:

we are living inside the apocalypse dudes

Burt Buckle posted:

Would it be plausible to have a program where you trade in your gas car for an electric car? Is that something that could be subsidized or incentivized by the government?

Nocturtle posted:

One striking feature the table makes clear is the relatively large size of the uncertainties wrt the actual carbon budget values. The report states this clearly:

quote:

The uncertainties presented in Table 2.2 cannot be formally combined, but current understanding of the assessed geophysical uncertainties suggests at least a ±50% possible variation for remaining carbon budgets for 1.5°C-consistent pathways. When put in the context of year-2017 CO2 emissions (about 41 GtCO2 yr-1) (Le Quéré et al., 2018), a remaining carbon budget of 750 GtCO2 (550 GtCO2) suggests meeting net zero global CO2 emissions in about 35 years (25 years) following a linear decline starting from 2018 (rounded to the nearest five years), with a variation of ±15–20 years due to the above mentioned geophysical uncertainties (high confidence).

That's a big error bar!

Polio Vax Scene posted:

Assuming you live in the US of A, there is a federal tax credit incentive for purchasing an electric car.
You should call H&R block/another local tax dealer if you want more info. There may be additional incentives in your state, and the actual credit varies by model.

Iron Twinkie posted:

That's great if you have the means, are in the market to buy a new car, and live in an area that supports plug in electric cars but it also reinforces the point that under capitalism a lower carbon footprint is a luxury good.

StabbinHobo posted:

look I'm not gonna tell you I actually read that whole wall of text, but I think your main point is: civilizations have declined before so that'll just happen again

you would be right in a 1C world, in a 3C world it will happen much too fast. where we fall in-between is gonna be fun to find out!