Climate doomism!

[Heloin]

We're rapidly approaching the point where there isn't enough to eat or drink for everyone. Even just using the United States as an isolated example, nearly half the country is in a severe drought and it's only getting worse as aquifers dry up and there's less snow in the winters to melt.

Maybe, maybe not. After all, this is an extrapolation of existing data. After all, back in 1894, there was a prediction, that London will be buried under horse manure. This was named "Great Manure Crisis". Still... there should be a plan in case if food crisis really happens.

That the crisis was more metaphor then factual use of evidence and that public transit in the form of trains and trolleys and later cars negated horses as a form of transit is totally lost then.

[Sky Reavers]

That the crisis was more metaphor then factual use of evidence and that public transit in the form of trains and trolleys and later cars negated horses as a form of transit is totally lost then.

Still... extrapolation is not always the truth. There can be extra variables, which are unaccounted for. Yes, climate change will bring problems, but I have a suspicion, that apocalypse part is an exaggeration. Perhaps, this is done to get more viewers and raise awareness.

I mean, if they tell people "Climate change will cause global famine and people will fight over boiled rats in hellscape", it will attract more readers, than "Climate change will bring some hardships, such as hotter summers and increase in food prices"

I won't deny, that there are problems, that need to be solved and the faster the better. But full doomerism is just harmful for mental health if you ask me. Besides, climate change can yield not only problems, but also some opportunities if cards are played right. So far, I'd rather view things with cautious optimism.

[Ethel mermania]

Maybe, maybe not. After all, this is an extrapolation of existing data. After all, back in 1894, there was a prediction, that London will be buried under horse manure. This was named "Great Manure Crisis". Still... there should be a plan in case if food crisis really happens.

That the crisis was more metaphor then factual use of evidence and that public transit in the form of trains and trolleys and later cars negated horses as a form of transit is totally lost then.

Horses and horseshit clogged NYC till cars took them out. Public transport existed while horses were still a primary means of transportation

[Senkaku]

People are just stubbornly refusing to live where the water is, and instead living where it isn't.

In which case the only way to get them the water is through massive engineering schemes or population transfers... which is functionally the same thing as not having enough. This whole "on paper we have enough, don't be alarmist" nonsense is just another form of denialism, really; no one is going to pipe Lake Michigan over the Rockies to quench the Southwest anytime soon, and it's equally unlikely that the people of Los Angeles will collectively decide to strike out for Quebec if water supplies in their area continue to tighten. The same goes for food, when it's discussed in similarly broad terms of there being enough calories globally to go around in theory or whatever-- is there a plan to turn the burger I just saw someone throw out into a bag of rice in Indonesia? Are we going to completely unwind the global food markets, or are we facing shortages because of structural inefficiencies that are ultimately political in nature? It completely ignores path dependency and the reality of our present political economy.

[Senkaku]

Talking as if any of these others have had oil companies researching them for ages before they hit the academic mainstream (which they covered up and was only recently brought to light), have had physicists and geophysicists and climatologists screaming for the past few decades about them, had a bunch of their predictions come true, etc...

Are we still ten years away from total meltdown?

Look at the state of your country. The start of "total meltdown" was some time ago, it's just a slightly longer process than zombie apocalypse movies have mistakenly led us to believe.

[Saiwania]

Some doubts can be cast on whether plastics are really needed. It was mentioned earlier that its one of the "four pillars" of the modern world, but as it stands- we're looking at too much plastic pollution already existing with no clear way to recycle a lot of it. It breaks down too slowly and when it does, its undesirable. We're seeing a flood of micro-plastics getting into the entire world's water supply and all of its food chains and its even being found in rain, soil, and all other environments, even the ones supposedly more pristine/untouched by our settlements.

It is looking like plastics are more trouble than they're worth and we'll eventually need to ban it entirely. We're consuming a credit card's worth of plastic every year by default.

https://theconversation.com/microplasti ... too-169854

[Heloin]

That the crisis was more metaphor then factual use of evidence and that public transit in the form of trains and trolleys and later cars negated horses as a form of transit is totally lost then.

Still... extrapolation is not always the truth. There can be extra variables, which are unaccounted for. Yes, climate change will bring problems, but I have a suspicion, that apocalypse part is an exaggeration. Perhaps, this is done to get more viewers and raise awareness.

I mean, if they tell people "Climate change will cause global famine and people will fight over boiled rats in hellscape", it will attract more readers, than "Climate change will bring some hardships, such as hotter summers and increase in food prices"

No, everything you just said is wrong, totally and without fault. We are already experiencing the better parts of the best case scenario which will only get worse in the coming decade. We can still alleviate those worst case scenarios with direct action now.

I won't deny, that there are problems, that need to be solved and the faster the better. But full doomerism is just harmful for mental health if you ask me. Besides, climate change can yield not only problems, but also some opportunities if cards are played right. So far, I'd rather view things with cautious optimism.

When you doubt the worst case scenario which will likely happen without direct action then you do deny the problem. You want to be optimistic and think everything is going to be fine then go back to 1980 and stop the existential problem we have been left with then.

That the crisis was more metaphor then factual use of evidence and that public transit in the form of trains and trolleys and later cars negated horses as a form of transit is totally lost then.

Horses and horseshit clogged NYC till cars took them out. Public transport existed while horses were still a primary means of transportation

No, the problem was ended in most major cities by the early 1920s, well before cars could have hoped to but a dent in horse usage in cities. Cars only surpassed trains, trams, and the like in the 1950s and that was part of a deliberate effort to force the wider adoption of cars and also racism. But that's overly simplified and you know that already.

[Mtwara]

Hello,

I am not a doomer, humans always do the right thing eventually, we will cut it very fine and some people will definitely get hurt along the way.

Transitioning countries to net or negative zero is enormously complicated but in practice we can already do most of it - governments just have to accept it will make the Manhattan Project look small.

The current human population is sustainable but only if we change the way we live. I don't mean we need to eat bugs, but we do globally need to consume less overall, and manufacture what we consume in more intelligent ways, such as hydroponics, and where I live maybe start reconsidering Blackpool and Whitley Bay as proper holiay destinations unless you're very well off.

Particularly for those of us in the developed world - a temperature increase of 2C will be an unpleasant inconvenience. There is enough money and smart people in the system to redesign life around a new climate, I suspect kids in school today and the few generations that follow them will broadly work in industries either preventing, remediating or protecting from climate change, and that this will also filter down to some developing countries although some places will just become unliveable.

I also think ecofascism will become a proper thing.

[Ethel mermania]

Still... extrapolation is not always the truth. There can be extra variables, which are unaccounted for. Yes, climate change will bring problems, but I have a suspicion, that apocalypse part is an exaggeration. Perhaps, this is done to get more viewers and raise awareness.

I mean, if they tell people "Climate change will cause global famine and people will fight over boiled rats in hellscape", it will attract more readers, than "Climate change will bring some hardships, such as hotter summers and increase in food prices"

No, everything you just said is wrong, totally and without fault. We are already experiencing the better parts of the best case scenario which will only get worse in the coming decade. We can still alleviate those worst case scenarios with direct action now.

I won't deny, that there are problems, that need to be solved and the faster the better. But full doomerism is just harmful for mental health if you ask me. Besides, climate change can yield not only problems, but also some opportunities if cards are played right. So far, I'd rather view things with cautious optimism.

When you doubt the worst case scenario which will likely happen without direct action then you do deny the problem. You want to be optimistic and think everything is going to be fine then go back to 1980 and stop the existential problem we have been left with then.

Horses and horseshit clogged NYC till cars took them out. Public transport existed while horses were still a primary means of transportation

No, the problem was ended in most major cities by the early 1920s, well before cars could have hoped to but a dent in horse usage in cities. Cars only surpassed trains, trams, and the like in the 1950s and that was part of a deliberate effort to force the wider adoption of cars and also racism. But that's overly simplified and you know that already.

Cars were already causing traffic issues in the city prior to the first word war.

Here is a video that is only tangentially related to my point, but its a cool video

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx5sUa_2SD8

[Czardas]

I suppose quasi-doomer describes my attitude fairly well. I think we are already well past the point of actually averting the effects of anthropogenic climate change altogether; from this point onwards what we should be aiming for is to minimise the damage, but even that seems an unrealistic prospect in the face of institutional resistance to the necessary changes from governments and corporations and the continued obfuscation of the issue by people who have a vested economic interest in the status quo and/or have drunk the climate denial Kool-Aid. Human extinction is a pretty extreme and unlikely outcome, but I definitely see our current civilisation undergoing a collapse of some sort, comparable to the fall of the Western Roman Empire or the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. I still think there's a moral imperative to do whatever we can as individuals and as a society to combat the causes and effects of climate change but I'm increasingly pessimistic about the efficacy of such efforts. I think it would be in the best interests of people of my generation to die before they make it to 60, to be honest.

This broadly covers my thoughts as well, except I do think large-scale localised human extinction is a likely outcome given a) the climatic feedback loops that we’re only just now starting to discover, which will promote much more rapid warming within the next century, and b) that the planned extinction of much of humanity—preserving only the “important” people in first-world countries—appears to be the goal of the ruling classes, and one they are very well positioned to carry out.

Will they succeed? I doubt it. I think the rate of cataclysmic climate events will increase, and we’ll therefore see more massive famines—all exacerbated and encouraged by state action (war, sanctions, etc.). I don’t think the rich will get their underpopulated utopia through natural means. But it’s hard to escape the conclusion that current climate policy is designed to kill as many people as possible.

Ordinary people have no chance of making a difference. Possibly a civil war and balkanisation of the USA would be positive from a climate perspective, in that it could reduce the footprint of the US military, the single largest polluter worldwide. But this would come at a high cost in human lives.

[Torisakia]

I know, this question is heretical. But what if this predicted end of the world and collapse of civilization just won't happen at all?

Yes, it might happen in worst case scenario, but what if it won't? That's gonna put lots of doomsayers in a rather awkward position...

That's what we call "wishful thinking". But I guess if we're able to convince ourselves of it, then when it does happen we'll bargain and say "it wasn't THAT bad" when the world is collapsing around us in a fiery inferno.

[Narland]

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61495035

tl:dr; "climate doomism" is the feeling that we've ALREADY run out of time to prevent disastrous global warming from happening, and that humanity is "doomed" to extinction because of it. Sort of the extreme opposite to climate-change denial. The article's author collected the opinions of some climatologists who insist that it isn't too late to act; speaking as a layman about climatology, though, I too feel that we're well past the point of no return, mostly because governments and corporations aren't going to do enough about it. I don't think we as species are doomed to extinction because of it, but I think we're going to see a lot more wars for resources and territory, coupled with mass famines and mass migration of impoverished people - which will trigger further nationalistic response etc etc. So, I don't think I qualify as a full "doomer", but as a "quasi-doomer" nevertheless. I still try to reduce my impact on the planet, but I know perfectly it's totally useless, as my behaviour isn't going to change the world anyway.

Are you a doomer, too? Are you optimistic? Are you a fellow "quasi-doomer"?

I am a total cynic regarding this.

When I was a kid:
We were all going to freeze to death when the earth becomes the great snowball of doom. Siverberg's sci-fi for young adults "Time of the Great Freeze" (it was a good read for a kid despite its fantastical assumption) was on the recommended reading list by my teachers. Broadcast and print media trumpeted it. Geology journals treated it like it was a given. My older college cousins would discuss what should be done to stop it. And It was all our fault.

Solution: Give up your rights, privileges and immunities as a human being. Pledge fealty to unelected technocrat overlords. Let them implement a Statist plan that cannot fail, it can only be failed. And just maybe, we can fix this.

Today:
We are going to burn when the earth becomes the great greenhouse of doom. Entertainment to young adults proffers this fantastical assumption. Geology journals treat it as a given. College kids fret over wht should be done to stop it. And it is all our fault.

Solution: Give up your rights, privileges and immunities as a human being. Pledge fealty to unelected technocrat overlords. Let them implement a Statist plan that cannot fail, it can only be failed. And just maybe, we can fix this.

Why I am a cynic.
The message is fear-mongered. It is presented with all the subtlety and grace of organized crime enforcers offering "protection" from broken kneecaps. The solution is to give up our personhood and swear fealty to a group of unaccountable overlords (with Pietistic devotion) who are supposedly smarter, faster, and stronger. You are not allowed to question them or offer contrary evidence to dogma, or reasonable alternative models to their orthodoxy. Doing so makes you a heretic (denier in todayspeak) who must repent or be rebuked and silenced.

Also
Why I don't believe that it is wholly or even mostly artificial:
+Climate always changes. It is a given. Parts of the earth go from swamp to plains to desert and whatnot on a regular basis. Mountains rise and fall. Oceans wax and wane. Continents drift. Mean temperatures over geologic ages rise and fall.
+When climate changes quickly we call it weather. Some weather conducive to life, and some weather is dangerous.
+The Sun and orbit is the greatest single determiner of the state of the Earth's climate.
+Parts of the Cretaceous had the highest average mean temperatures (at 17c higher than now).
+The last Glacial Maximum (one of the lowest which started warming about 20,000 years ago saw a mile/1 1/2 km of ice over what is now Chicago and Oslo, and sea levels +135m /150 yds lower. It was the coldest the earth has gotten in the last half billion years. We have been warming up since (the LGM).

Apparently the US government isn't an approved image host , so here is the url of a chart of the Smithsonian's estimate of Global mean temperature over the last 500 millions of years. http://www.climate.gov/media/11332

[Risottia]

We're rapidly approaching the point where there isn't enough to eat or drink for everyone. Even just using the United States as an isolated example, nearly half the country is in a severe drought and it's only getting worse as aquifers dry up and there's less snow in the winters to melt.

What do you mean "approaching"? There's some 2 billion people who don't have access to enough clean water or food.

[Christian Confederation]

With the advancement of Nuclear power and more people being responsible about not polluting the earth we can solve the problem. Climate change is a threat but not some "change your ways or *Insert Famous city* will be underwater by *insert year*!" Threat.

The rapid industrialization of the 3rd world could cause major damage to the environment. Which we should work on.

[Risottia]

With the advancement of Nuclear power and more people being responsible about not polluting the earth we can solve the problem. Climate change is a threat but not some "change your ways or *Insert Famous city* will be underwater by *insert year*!" Threat.

Venice isn't underwater right now just because we built dams. Jakarta is being abandoned because it's sinking.
Maybe you should try and keep up more.

[Kerwa]

With the advancement of Nuclear power and more people being responsible about not polluting the earth we can solve the problem. Climate change is a threat but not some "change your ways or *Insert Famous city* will be underwater by *insert year*!" Threat.

Venice isn't underwater right now just because we built dams. Jakarta is being abandoned because it's sinking.
Maybe you should try and keep up more.

A lot of Venice was groundwater extraction though. (And consolidation).

[Christian Confederation]

With the advancement of Nuclear power and more people being responsible about not polluting the earth we can solve the problem. Climate change is a threat but not some "change your ways or *Insert Famous city* will be underwater by *insert year*!" Threat.

Venice isn't underwater right now just because we built dams. Jakarta is being abandoned because it's sinking.
Maybe you should try and keep up more.

That's why we plant more trees

[Uawc]

We're not going to seriously try and deal with this until it's too late, which is very soon according to science. If Russian and/or Chinese nukes don't kill us all, the planet we've treated so harshly will. We're on the brink and we're just monkeys who are too stupid to not destroy ourselves.

[Victorious Decepticons]

I shall irritate doomers, and all other fearmongers about every subject ever, with my infinite supply of "meh's" and lack of concern - not only up to, but even after, I start using a pontoon boat to get around the new Canals of Central Florida.

Seriously. I do not allow myself to panic about anything nor feel even temporary fear about much (there would basically have to be a wildfire across the street - not "predicted," but right fucking there - for me to even put a bit of pep in my step in response to the danger), and I categorically disbelieve doom-and-gloom about everything. Am I always right? As a Not-God, no, I'm not always right. Sometimes I even get bit. But I can say with as much certainty as a human can talk about anything, that my mental health is infinitely better than that of those who allow fear into their lives - and that the end result is going to be the same, regardless, which makes it pointless to harbor fear.

That said, I don't go and roll coal or do the stupid anti-environmental stunts that some of my state's co-residents have been known to do. I do plenty for the general environment. It just makes sense not to want to live in a pit of pollution and to not throw away things that are better off recycled. But if someone tells me something's for "climate change" in particular, I'm going to roll my eyes and send the "shut down/don't talk to me about that" body language, and if he persists, he will be blasted with the fact that I believe Earth is over a billion years old, and good for about 5 billion more no matter what, and to get the fuck away from me with his toxicity and fearfulness before I MAKE him go away.

Modern Homo sapiens range from Oymyakon (coldest permanent human settlement, by winter average temperatures [which reach -89F!]) to Mecca (hottest permanently inhabited settlement, says Weather Underground's site), and we can handle ANY temperatures Earth throws at us on any widespread scale. As a species, we have survived floods, famines, volcanoes, desertification, ice ages and heat waves, oceans disappearing and new seas emerging, and even more. We are as close to fucking invincible as exists in real life. Anyone worried about climate change in the slightest strikes me as deliberately ignoring the entire history of human migration, survival, and thriving over the last million or so years (however old the oldest known skeleton is).

Tl;dr: Climate change should be ignored with the force of a thousand suns. "Concern" about it is literally an insult to the human species. We WILL be fine - whether some people hate that fact or want to call me kooky or ignorant for saying it, or not! Past climate history shows that humans will go on, and not only that, we'll thrive, and the fearmongers will be proven wrong, as fearmongers always are.

[Adamede]

I shall irritate doomers, and all other fearmongers about every subject ever, with my infinite supply of "meh's" and lack of concern - not only up to, but even after, I start using a pontoon boat to get around the new Canals of Central Florida.

Seriously. I do not allow myself to panic about anything nor feel even temporary fear about much (there would basically have to be a wildfire across the street - not "predicted," but right fucking there - for me to even put a bit of pep in my step in response to the danger), and I categorically disbelieve doom-and-gloom about everything. Am I always right? As a Not-God, no, I'm not always right. Sometimes I even get bit. But I can say with as much certainty as a human can talk about anything, that my mental health is infinitely better than that of those who allow fear into their lives - and that the end result is going to be the same, regardless, which makes it pointless to harbor fear.

That said, I don't go and roll coal or do the stupid anti-environmental stunts that some of my state's co-residents have been known to do. I do plenty for the general environment. It just makes sense not to want to live in a pit of pollution and to not throw away things that are better off recycled. But if someone tells me something's for "climate change" in particular, I'm going to roll my eyes and send the "shut down/don't talk to me about that" body language, and if he persists, he will be blasted with the fact that I believe Earth is over a billion years old, and good for about 5 billion more no matter what, and to get the fuck away from me with his toxicity and fearfulness before I MAKE him go away.

Modern Homo sapiens range from Oymyakon (coldest permanent human settlement, by winter average temperatures [which reach -89F!]) to Mecca (hottest permanently inhabited settlement, says Weather Underground's site), and we can handle ANY temperatures Earth throws at us on any widespread scale. As a species, we have survived floods, famines, volcanoes, desertification, ice ages and heat waves, oceans disappearing and new seas emerging, and even more. We are as close to fucking invincible as exists in real life. Anyone worried about climate change in the slightest strikes me as deliberately ignoring the entire history of human migration, survival, and thriving over the last million or so years (however old the oldest known skeleton is).

Tl;dr: Climate change should be ignored with the force of a thousand suns. "Concern" about it is literally an insult to the human species. We WILL be fine - whether some people hate that fact or want to call me kooky or ignorant for saying it, or not! Past climate history shows that humans will go on, and not only that, we'll thrive, and the fearmongers will be proven wrong, as fearmongers always are.

Yah this is why the world is going to shit.

[Blargoblarg]

I'm not quite full doomer yet, so I picked the third and fourth options in the poll. I think we still have a chance to fix/undo climate change, but it's gonna be really difficult since there's not much time, and I seriously believe that in order to fix this problem we've got to do away with capitalism.

[The Alma Mater]

With the advancement of Nuclear power and more people being responsible about not polluting the earth we can solve the problem. Climate change is a threat but not some "change your ways or *Insert Famous city* will be underwater by *insert year*!" Threat.

Venice isn't underwater right now just because we built dams.

1. Note a potential problem
2. Take steps to precent the problem from happening
3. See that your actions were succesfull and prevented the problem from occuring
4. Enjoy thousands of people claiming step 2 was unneeded since "nothing happened"

[Saiwania]

Feelings aren't going to matter in terms of survival, if a location is regularly at wet bulb temperature of above 95F. That place is effectively too hot to survive in comfortably. Sweating wouldn't cool someone off in that context. Granted, extreme heat isn't going to kill them instantly, but they have an hour or two at best to find air conditioning or cooling.

How utterly foolish to believe that people will be fine ignoring global warming until it's too late. You're effectively ceding territory to abandonment or civilizational collapse for the few areas which were previously too cold to be comfortable, but will become just as hot as any other, if it is business as usual for long enough.

People can't do everything they need to do indoors, and if a problem isn't at a power plant, someone has to go outside and fix whatever is delivering power to homes and businesses if there is a problem that arises- as they inevitably do.

[Risottia]

...he will be blasted with the fact that I believe Earth is over a billion years old, and good for about 5 billion more no matter what...

Your belief is wrong.
The planet is about 4.5 Gy old; monocellular life appeared some 3.5 Gy ago (multicellular life is much more recent), but the planet is bound to become completely inhabitable in LESS than 1 Gy.

[The Huskar Social Union]

I try to be optimistic about the future of the planet and humanity as a species but my god is it fucking hard sometimes. Cant help but fall back into that "we are doomed lmao" mentality every now and then.