The world is getting too hot to feed itself
Posted by wanton_wonton_@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 36 comments
Posted by wanton_wonton_@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 36 comments
BellaRyder2505@reddit
Humans are a virus and plague on the earth. I wish there was a way to undo the damage but their isn't. And things are only getting worse. I hate that we exist and I hate being a human so much. All I know is that I won't try and survive or live for anything if/when this all affects me.
_stumblebum_@reddit
humans themselves aren’t to blame, its entirely the capitalist class that caused this.
IsekaiMi@reddit
It's partly our fault as well. For decades, people have defended capitalism. People STILL defend capitalism.
It's only as of late, that a lot more people have clocked on to the root cause of all our problems; profit above everything else.
Kukuluops@reddit
People have defended it, because they were conditioned to do so. On a large enough scale there is no such thing as personal choice, there is only sociology.
One-Intention7064@reddit
Actually, it’s capitalism.” “Actually, it’s civilization.” “Actually, hunter-gatherers were different.” “Actually, humans are love, dancing, music, friendship, curiosity, SEX, SEEEX, uhprotected baybee-making seeeex…” “Actually, animals do this too.” “Actually, if another species had intelligence…” “Actually, there was a precancerous era…”
Few_Fish8771@reddit
Actually its short term optimizers vs long term optimizers, any society unwilling to have legalized proceduralized coercive force against short term behavior will be destroyed by it. In dealing with external societies things can be different because other societies will prioritize self serving short term behavior then dump the cost onto others, so the rules of the game are being willing as a civilization to deal with other societies as they are not as they should be.
But unless constraints on short term non-productive or predatory behavior is imposed by society then eventually short term forces steal everything and destroy the society. You cannot appease predators, you cannot appease bullies and thieves theyll take what you give them and make more weapons to extract more from you later.
One-Intention7064@reddit
a tradwife is locally a long-term optimizer against a childfree bachelor who wants to party.
but a tradwife is a short-term optimizer globally, because aggregate tradwives create new consumers, polluters, rivals for resources. While a childfree bachelor will spend his share of resources and pollution, without replacing himself with new and more numerous units.
PatrolMan2129@reddit
I used to hate people too. But that's placing people on an undeserved pedestal away from animals.
Because, to be fair, except for their brains, humans are not unique from animals. Just look at the Reindeer on St. Matthew's Island. Imported from the mainland, dropped on an island without predators or other limits, they expanded their population until they ate the island barren until they went extinct themselves.
All the brain does is overcome the initial limits other animals typical have as well. But it doesn't make us smart enough for our own good. There we revert back to brainless animal instinct when we can. More food. More sex. More feel good of all sorts.
Now I learned that, I'm just disappointed. It would be nice if we were logical Vulcans or something. But we're not. Just apes that are still driven by instinctual wants, can think a little further ahead to achieve them, but most of us not by much, and talk.
Maybe we could have been something, someday. But it's not to be. Now we'll just be part of the fossil record someone may or may not dig up before the sun consumes the earth. Maybe an, "Oh look, the bipedal ape that ushered in the plasticene."
adamsoutofideas@reddit
I struggle with being a person but have no trouble with my humanity or the hundreds of thousands of years our species shared this planet like any other.
There was a precancerous era to our species and I suspect it was a beautiful existence for most of us. It took civilization to give us the tools to realize our perverted dreams of control and confinement.
People talk about this moment like everything was always heading in this direction and this outcome was inevitable but I dont believe it. I think colonization and the structural expectations of economies have selected for our worst selves... or most complacent. In our modern world, being brave and single minded has you eating bullets, one way or another, like every generation needs a war to weed out and destroy people who would stand up against the machine that pretends to have sides. War simultaneously selects for cowards and rapists. I hate quoting people but someone said "war is a terrible sorter of men" but I think it's the perfect filter to preserve and perpetuate the colonial mindset and soften our spirit.
It's not our humanity that built the death machine, it's our culture and obsession with luxury and the delusion that humans are more than animals. There are still a few isolated tribes living as actual humans and they're not doing any harm. Those murderous folks in the sentinel Islands live a remarkably sustainable existence to support their culture even as us people do everything we can to starve them out.
This whole project of widget making and life building is very new, even to modern humans. It's a set of ideas that make people a disease. Being human is love, fear, pain, laughter, joy, dancing, music, sex, friendship, curiosity, and ingenuity... and much more, but all the things that make us human are neutral to the future of life on earth, like all other forms life takes.
Tl;dr - dont hate the playa, hate the game
HomoExtinctisus@reddit
It wouldn't have turned out much different if some alternative species had achieved psuedo sentience either. All organisms are subject to the Maximum Power Principle.
zedroj@reddit
the amount of people on dating apps with : 'want kids'
is crazzzzzzy 🤯
03263@reddit
I don't know of a single other animal that stops breeding just because survival conditions are poor.
clanghonktweet@reddit
Kangaroos.
OH_LAME_SAINT@reddit
Forget dating apps. Every single couple I know above age 32 are either trying, pregnant or parents.
ansibleloop@reddit
Reminds me to book in the snip
bluehands@reddit
I get why you would say that but think of it like taking a breath underwater.
Breathing is deeply embedded in our organism. Most of the time we do it without thinking even thou we can take it under conscious control.
If you were drowning, would you take a breathe underwater? Even knowing that it would make things worse? Would you judge someone else for doing so?
Having children is nearly universal across all cultures since the dawn of time. It is foundational for our species. Many things about our species that is unique is directly connected to our children.
Vilifying, or even just expressing increduly, for some of our most basic instincts isn't the answer. The answer is to demand our culture support us in the most basic ways: food, shelter, friendship, family, children.
Life demands both bread and roses.
You should too.
Democrat_maui@reddit
https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/the-world-is-getting-too-hot-to-feed-itself/
03263@reddit
I have to question what is "progress" and why it's a good thing because for the past hundreds of years most things called progress have involved destruction of nature and more complexity in life.
PowerandSignal@reddit
Slight correction:
The world is getting too hot to feed ~~itself~~ us
Chief_Kief@reddit
The world will survive. Humans are another question though.
03263@reddit
I think some humans will survive, the less domesticated ones.
mooky1977@reddit
Say the words, Bart.
Empty-Equipment9273@reddit
Faster than expected^TM
pakZ@reddit
Drink, drink, drink, drink!!
GuayFuhks88@reddit
The title of the article doesn't agree with the study's authors or the data about food production.
They cite limited instances where specific food operations have seen disruptions but there is NO DATA showing that food production is dropping globally.
The biggest near term threat to global food production is not climate change but the fertilizer shortage from the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
While there are certainly challenges from a warming climate and planet, especially to agriculture, a warmer climate is by no means automatically a less productive one. In fact, somewhat counterintuitively deserts shrink during warmer climates because warmer climates are also wetter climates. Total average precipitation increases linearly with temperature. Furthermore, plants ability to tolerate heat is a direct function of relative humidity. In short the more humid it is, the more heat a plant can tolerate, so when the article says:
...this is more harmful to animals, including humans, but not to plants. "heat index" is actual temperature adjusted for humidity based on what it feels like to humans.
Coco_Cannibal@reddit
Accelerated cropland expansion since 2000 makes up for the losses and destroys the last remnants of nature on a daily basis, we are winning the war of attrition against all life on this planet.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00429-z
GuayFuhks88@reddit
Additional cropland does not account for a near doubling of output. Both the govt and international orgs credit the increase to better farming practices, better irrigation infrastructure, better crop varieties and better equipment and technology.
Bandits101@reddit
Probably fodder accounts for a great dal of increased production. Feed lots to cope with land cleared for grazing. Fossil fuels are responsible for the vast majority of increased anything, including fertilizer.
Obviously none of it is in any way sustainable. The down side will not resemble the up. Disorder and chaos similar to any collapse scenario is normal.
LingeringDildo@reddit
Don’t worry, the world will hit a wall and be a lot less hot after a few years.
wanton_wonton_@reddit (OP)
Extreme heat is already damaging global food production. In India, a 2022 heatwave cut wheat yields by up to 34 percent in some states and reduced milk production from heat-stressed dairy animals. In Brazil, climate extremes damaged soy, corn, coffee, sugarcane, fisheries, and supply chains.
Scientists warn some regions could face up to 250 days each year too hot for safe outdoor labour under continued emissions, threatening the agricultural workforce that feeds billions.
At the same time, oceans absorbing more than 90 percent of excess planetary heat are destabilising through marine heatwaves, coral reef collapse, and fisheries disruption while governments continue expanding fossil fuel extraction despite decades of warnings.
We are getting fucking fucked.
GuayFuhks88@reddit
I notice you are careful to say "in some states" because in actual fact food production in India has steadily increased for decades with few hiccups. The Indian government reported that total output has steadily risen from about 197 million metric tons in 2000–01 to roughly 354 million metric tons 2024–25.
These same trends are true across the globe. We are not running out of food globally.
GCC is actually projected to shrink deserts and expand the total amount of arable land across the globe. That is not to say that certain crops won't become non-viable in certain places; we will have to adapt of course, but we are not projected to see significant reductions in global food production over the medium and long term. In the short term we may see reductions from the fertilizer shortage from the War in Iran.
Coco_Cannibal@reddit
They expanded cropland area, like china. So the greater yield came at the cost of massacring nature and ecocide. The lost land will not mitigate climate impact anymore, but contribute to it.
Here is a study to cropland expansion in China and India and the pressures both face, die to the high populations.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724032984
PatrolMan2129@reddit
Yes, but for a beautiful moment in time, we created a lot of value for shareholders.
DynTraitObj@reddit
I'm mid 40s and I remember when I first learned this was coming. It was 7th grade. We have no excuse and tbh the best thing that could happen to this planet's short-term health would be most of humanity starving. We had DECADES of warning that this was coming
FruitSilent1169@reddit
It’s interesting and actually alarming how the rising heat is already causing so many crop failures and making our food systems so much more fragile. We really need to get better at protecting our finite resources like topsoil and water supply, and move away from fossil fuels if we want to at least stop the planet's bleeding.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/wanton_wonton_:
Extreme heat is already damaging global food production. In India, a 2022 heatwave cut wheat yields by up to 34 percent in some states, cut cabbage and cauliflower yields by half and reduced milk production from heat-stressed dairy animals. In Brazil, climate extremes damaged soy, corn, coffee, sugarcane, fisheries, and supply chains.
Scientists warn some regions could face up to 250 days each year too hot for safe outdoor labour under continued emissions, threatening the agricultural workforce that feeds billions.
At the same time, oceans absorbing more than 90 percent of excess planetary heat are destabilising through marine heatwaves, coral reef collapse, and fisheries disruption while governments continue expanding fossil fuel extraction despite decades of warnings.
We are getting fucking fucked.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tbgkkh/the_world_is_getting_too_hot_to_feed_itself/olgibop/