A Looming Catastrophe And Humanity’s Defining Challenge
Posted by Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 61 comments
the IPCC warns that without immediate and substantial reductions in emissions, global temperatures are likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that the past eight years were the warmest on record, with 2023 breaking new records for global temperature anomalies. Ocean temperatures, a key indicator of climate change, have risen to their highest levels in recorded history, threatening marine ecosystems, particularly coral reefs, which are crucial to biodiversity.
walkinman19@reddit
A "looming" catastrophe is hopium. Isn't the event happening now? The looming catastrophe is in the rear view mirror of an ICE car with no brakes and the drivers foot smashed down on the gas pedal.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought we were above 1.5C for a whole year already? Whats this 2030 hopium date?
World's first year-long breach of key 1.5C warming limit - 8 February 2024
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
They always love saying “looming” or “looms” it’s actually a bit annoying how often media uses those words but I’ve known we’re way past 1.5C already
jjoneway@reddit
To play devil's advocate I can see why they say the catastrophe is still looming and not already underway.
For the overwhelming majority of us we can look out of our windows and see business as usual. The sky isn't falling, the shelves are still stocked and tomorrow, next week and next month look the same as yesterday.
I can easily understand the logical disconnect for most people. We as a species are awful at long term thinking and brilliant at only taking action when we've got no other choice.
Basic human nature is what's going to fuck us over.
finishedarticle@reddit
Basic human nature is that everyone is a Brexiter - they want to have their cake and eat it.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Our nature indeed will doom us
walkinman19@reddit
It's so annoying how media softpedals harsh reality. This is why people think climate change is a hoax.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Media and how they portray it, is part of the problem
walkinman19@reddit
100%
PACTA@reddit
They want to see the averages over a decade exceed 1.5 before they make it official.
Nook_n_Cranny@reddit
Alas, our “defining moment” is in the rear-view mirror. We’ve been slightly above 1.5C these past 14 months.
GratefulHead420@reddit
What they are saying is that in 6 years the 11 year average will be over 1.5C. The 12 month average will be 1.7C by then
walkinman19@reddit
So constant 1.5C or better it doesn't count until six years from now? Okay sure whatever gets you through the night copium writers of climate articles.
GratefulHead420@reddit
It’s not me. I’m just saying that’s what they report. When it shifts up and down, a longer term average is a better metric, and for old data it’s the best they can do. When we are on a steep incline, shorter term data (12 month) is more important to me because it tells where we are going and how quickly.
If the long term average will hit 1.5 in 6 years it means 2019 to 2030 average will be 1.5. My guess is that we hit the 1.5C 11 year average before 2030
fedfuzz1970@reddit
In his study, Global Heating in the Pipeline, Dr. James Hansen posits that under Business As Usual, the heating could reach 8-10 C by 2100. He says that GHGs take time after reaching atmosphere to attain full effect. What we feel today was put in the atmosphere years ago. Methane is much worse but doesn't last as long in the atmosphere as CO2. He says that IPCC doesn't factor in feedback loops and tipping points in their projections and clean ocean vessel fuels are removing reflective particles from atmosphere. He calls that the "Faustian Bargain", cleaner air but more heat. No wonder why he's never invited on Lame Stream Media.
TheArcticFox444@reddit
Doesn't methane degrade into CO2?
finishedarticle@reddit
Yes, methane degrades into CO2 but the former is measured in parts per billion and the latter is measured in parts per million so it has a fairly negligible impact once its moved from one column to the other.
Globalboy70@reddit
and water vapor at high altitudes a very potent green house gas.
walkinman19@reddit
Not blaming you at all. Sorry for the confusion.
I was talking about the media that is still saying we have time to solve an out of control unsolvable problem. The damage has been done already and there is no way out of that now.
GratefulHead420@reddit
Understood. We jumped off a cliff, but our 10 minute average elevation is only 1” below the surface from which we jumped, so there is still time.
Terrible_Horror@reddit
Earth has never had this abrupt of a change ever before that we know of. So their 6 year of waiting may be too slow for our hokey stick 5 sigma world.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Yep, heads in the sand!
Liveitup1999@reddit
More like heads up their asses. The powers that be will do nothing until their mansions are on fire.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Even if their mansions are on fire, nothing will save them or us from this collapse
Atheios569@reddit
Or under water. Take your pick I suppose.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Or both
Right-Cause9951@reddit
And ironically access to water will be more limited by then. Climate change is more like "Winter is coming" as opposed to dominoes falling over.
heyheyitsbrent@reddit
Pfft that's what luxury bunkers are for.
hysys_whisperer@reddit
While true, when they built the goals, the 10 year average goalpost move was already there.
It was a way that they could say the number 1.5 without ever having any intention of actually meeting it.
As usual, faster than expected came along and made people realize the goalposts were never where they were implied to be in the first place...
Nook_n_Cranny@reddit
We’re going to keep on moving the goalposts!
walkinman19@reddit
Crazy that they still cling to fairytales like humanity still has time to come together as one and stop the world system that is the cause of climate change in the first place.
Yup the billionaires are going to pass out their money to all, wall street will shutdown and we will all become vegans and sing kumbaya in brotherhood to save the planet.
Yeah can't wait for that to happen. Any day now...wait for it...here it comes..lol...yeah.
NyriasNeo@reddit
"the IPCC warns that without immediate and substantial reductions in emissions, global temperatures are likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030"
That is just stupid. We have already passed 1.5C and blew through 2C briefly. You can spin with different calculations but it is just going to get warmer.
jawsofthearmy@reddit
We so fucked
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Indeed
rekabis@reddit
🤣🤣🤣 It’s been beyond 1.5℃ for a good year-plus now. What they’re talking about is the political threshold for calling +1.5℃, which requires some ridiculous amount of time - many cumulative years - of global temps being above that value.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
They always try to add bits of passive hopium in their wording
postconsumerwat@reddit
A small plastic "kiddy pool" ended up in the yard after a storm... it's pretty useful... it's fun too!
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Lol wow
flippenstance@reddit
Sorry, no one is listening.
It "feels" to me as though there was much more urgency around climate change 5 years ago than there is now. More and more it seems we are all resigned to the fact that we're fucked.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Ahh I see, good thought
regular_joe_can@reddit
It's gotten to the point where I don't even read articles about how bad things are anymore. I just check some primary news sources to see if a nuke has gone of somewhere, and if not, it's just another day. I'm not even curious about when we'll see a BOE anymore, because I don't think it's going to make much of an impact on behaviour. If we even make it to BOE.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
I think when crops yields become worse and worse some but not all, people will begin to wake up
mooky1977@reddit
Meh, still no one cares.
https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/harvest-2024-second-lowest-on-record-says-defra
They've only been keeping records since the early 1980's, but still a lot more people and mouths to feed than in 1983.
I'm putting money on no one caring until AMOC stops, BOE causing the oceans to begin to absorb heat even worse than they are now, or a large chunk of Antarctica's doomsday glacier falls off into the ocean and sea levels rise by feet in a giant slow-scale tsunami event.
Will any of those happen soon or? No one knows, but everything else is "faster than expected" so one can (fantasically) hope some catastrophic event wakes humanity the fuck up.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Not sure they ever will until it effects them directly
regular_joe_can@reddit
Perhaps.
Maybe when a certain ratio of people are starving to death there will be a significant social shift. Let's say for example thirty percent of the global north population. When it starts to terminally affect some of the lower middle class.
Maybe then we'll see some real social movement. For now, anybody who seriously protests against the status quo just gets crushed by the overwhelming majority who just want to keep the status quo.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Well, the environment will force them to change their behavior, because the status quo won’t be around for much longer
BTRCguy@reddit
From the link:
The cynic in me thinks we will be lucky if how we respond actually gives us a survival of billions (plural).
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
I don’t that we will probably respond to it, we’re already not really doing much anyways lol
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
It will be a defining moment for humanity, but the defining moment isn’t some issue we have to deal with far off int in to the future. It is happening now, from record heatwaves to rapidly intensifying hurricanes, this threat is here as we speak. Will humanity make the changes needed in order to stop this? I’m not sure, we seem to value money and material things far more than focusing on ensuring we have a livable planet. Money is more important than preventing our extinction and the collapse of our civilization. That will be our defining moment, that we could have stopped our collapse, but we chose not to.
ndilegid@reddit
My fear is that the moment is too subtle. Things all get confusingly difficult as things run to a halt.
If it’s too slow, we won’t have a moment. We just get lulled further into supporting fossil fuels to fix the fossil fuel issue.
I hope we get a full shocking moment where people really start looking around and catch up.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
They need the shock that will be the only way they wake up 🔝
BTRCguy@reddit
The shock will be waking up one morning and finding that some normal component of their daily life is simply no longer available and is not coming back.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Yep that’ll do the trick
PineapplePiazzas@reddit
We should have started preparing when NASA informed congress.
"On June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen testified to the U.S. Senate stating the greenhouse effect had been detected, indicating that the climate was in fact changing."
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/james-hansen-testified-senate-climate-change/
Seems that by lowering the measured timeframe, reaching 1.5°C is here, its just that the timespan used to account for the average in a certain period still pulls the number downwards.
"The Paris Agreement itself does not specify how many years should make up the long-term trend for measuring temperature changes. This means different experts may come to different conclusions about when this threshold is crossed in the future. Adding to this complexity, the Paris Agreement aims to limit temperatures as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. This means that temperatures might exceed 1.5°C for a time (referred to as “overshoot”) and then come back to 1.5°C by the end of the century (for example, by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere). "
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/have-we-already-gone-past-1-5-degrees-warming/
https://theconversation.com/we-just-blew-past-1-5-degrees-game-over-on-climate-not-yet-213364
https://www.forbes.com/sites/phildeluna/2024/01/16/weve-likely-already-passed-15-degrees--heres-what-to-do-about-it/
Lowering the average by decreasing the timeframe makes it a number more prone to fluctuations and with less accuracy.
Yes and no, it depends on how much heat is added to the system.
If you measure the temperature in a oven that is increasing with heat, the average over any amount of time will be lower than the average until the heat is turned off.
Well, a quote from above link, the Forbes one:
"A critical yet often overlooked aspect of climate change is the time delay between CO2 emissions and the rise in global temperatures. Scientific research shows that maximum warming occurs approximately 10 years after the initial emissions at minimum, meaning we are feeling the heat of CO2 that we put into the air a decade ago."
It seems reasonable to believe the delay in our environmental system is definitely not giving us instant feedback.
What has the co2 contribution been in the last 10 years?
We turned the oven to max...
Our politicians are fruit loops, they could not save their own children if someone waved a 1 dollar in front of their face.
No ones at the helm, a bunch of crazy mongrels sipping champagne at the bar of Titanic while the steady course has been towards a trip ending iceberg - For approximately 36 years and counting.
Its gone get bumpy, too bad we dont make seatbelts.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
They’ve basically shadow banned James Hansen because he’s ‘alarmist’
Terrible_Horror@reddit
When he should be given a Nobel, but that would mean we are admitting how badly we fucked up. Most humans are unfortunately not evolved enough to do that. For some reason in most cases power and money is inversely proportional to strength of character.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Correct money is power in our society above morals
PineapplePiazzas@reddit
"They" is perhaps those who dictates who gets called what in certain circles, opinions accepted in any sized group can at times be wrong.
We can come up with examples of large groups that have a belief in something not based on facts, human values or science.
Alarmist is someone who exaggerates a danger.
If someone says the house is on fire, especially a firemen, you both check and prepare to extinguish the flames.
After the situation is handled, you certainly give the fireman a reprimade and decides on suitable consequences if she/he has wasted resources on a non-existing fire and should have known better.
Problem with someone branding J. Hansen an alarmist is that its scientific consesus the house is actually on fire, and millions are already severly affected.
So in this particular case of climate change, they jumped the shark when naming someone that.
In general its common to be careful of both limiting spreading unnecessary stress or worries, and examining informatiom carefully before speaking up. "They" probably just followed company policy, but missed the mark on this one. "They" could also represent interests with other objectives.
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Yep
Purua-@reddit
Business as usual!
Ok_Mechanic_6561@reddit (OP)
Yep, nothing to see here
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Ok_Mechanic_6561:
It will be a defining moment for humanity, but the defining moment isn’t some issue we have to deal with far off int in to the future. It is happening now, from record heatwaves to rapidly intensifying hurricanes, this threat is here as we speak. Will humanity make the changes needed in order to stop this? I’m not sure, we seem to value money and material things far more than focusing on ensuring we have a livable planet. Money is more important than preventing our extinction and the collapse of our civilization. That will be our defining moment, that we could have stopped our collapse, but we chose not to.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1g45d27/a_looming_catastrophe_and_humanitys_defining/ls0twls/