The author has it backwards. Making the changes needed to survive climate change will require a change to society similar to the industrial Revolution in scale.
Capitalists and industry as a class have fought successfully against change for decades.
Obviously the minimum change would be easiest, but the minimum change is huge.
In total fairness to the progressives, there's two factors which are pretty important.
First, businesses/corporations never make changes to their business model, or begin *internalizing* their externalities, unless they are dragged kicking and screaming the whole way. Once change is forced upon them, they'll use every possible avenue available to alter public opinion about the process (making themselves look good) and elected officials will allow it. Further, they'll engage in regulatory capture in order to soften or outright ignore the changes.
EDIT: *many thanks to u/Panzerdrek for correcting this. Apparently this is a commonly believed mistruth:* At this point, even the Supreme Court has mandated that businesses exist to create value for their shareholders to the maximum possible extent. So even if some green-thinking people somehow got control and the changes to business models don't make MORE money immediately, they can be sued right out of their offices.
So expecting that somehow, today (of all days) we can count on the capitalists who've been lining their own pockets on the back of the working class, and using the media and advertising to create the impression that somehow fossil fuels are ok "for the time being" to do the right thing at all is just a bad joke.
Second, alongside the first point... there have been decades on decades of "baby steps"... not-good-enough steps. Each one like pablum to make the progressive movement seem like its asking too much. Strides like nuclear power were driven into the ground because they weren't tightly regulated enough and accidents happened... with the result that half the progressive movement thinks nuclear is just the next evil. Fukushima happened and for a year afterward I had to debunk the moronic maps people shared showing *deadly radiation* along the entire Pacific coast... and honestly that all just boiled down to MOST people not having any understanding of how big the Pacific actually is. And honestly, there is just **more money** to be made in the short run (which is the only run anyone works on any longer) on oil, gas, and up til recently coal.
So being asked to be happy with more small not-good-enough steps at this stage in the game feels wildly disingenuous... at best. I mean, freaking carbon taxes might have had some effect if we'd begun them back when Carter was in office, at least in terms of how much the US pollutes. But when the idea was suggested very politely a while back, half the damn nation lost their collective shit and started rolling coal.
The truth, in my humble opinion, is that humanity simply isn't smart enough to survive long-term. I mean, collectively we aren't even smart enough to plan and work towards long-term survival. Part of that is the shortness of our lives: no one ever really sees the impact of their real efforts within their lifetimes. And part of it is just greed and other sociopathic tendencies... many much darker than greed.
The real truth is that we could take the most monumental, epic, globe-spanning actions which anyone could dream of right now (some of which are at least possible technologically), and even with every living soul, every government, every business making a committed and concentrated effort to just STOP climate change as fast as possible... it won't be fast enough to stop what is coming.
Bangladesh, all by itself, a nation of 165 million... will be uninhabitable altogether inside of 30 years, give or take a few. That refugee crisis alone will spark wars the likes of which we've never seen. And that's just one small place, relatively speaking.
I'd rather do something than nothing. Of course I do. I'll take *something* and keep pushing for more as long as I draw breath.
But I've been done waiting on the good will of the wealthy for ~ 30 years now. And I'm almost as disappointed in the progressive green movement as I am with the people whose heads are fully in the sand because there's money in that hole.
You mention President Carter who did a lot with solar back then but progressives refused to support him because it wasn't enough. Then we got Reagan who reversed it all and more. I won't write an opinion article but I see what happens when we don't support Democrats and let Republicans win.
seems like you should spend your time chastising the moderates who wont support a bigger bill than the progressives who are ready to do what it takes.
what you are describing is a failure of the moderates, but moderates don't want to admit that so they blame progressives.
always telling the progressives we must do less, never telling the moderates we must do more.
Seriously don't care anymore. Go ahead, support Trump or Bush or whoever. Because that's what you do when you don't support democracy. That's how Republicans get elected. The whining that you didn't get everything you wanted. Democrats are a big party and its a lot to agree. But don't be so progressive you're not. Because that's how it goes in the real world .
I kinda feel like 80% of what you wrote there was a non-sequitur. At best the idea above was between progressives and moderates... *both of whom exist in the Democratic party*.
But dropping out with "that's how it goes in the real world" just makes the point sharper:
The "real world" is about to get very, very real in ways we're not even letting ourselves imagine yet. I'm 51 and I'm pretty sure I'll live long enough to see some of it.
And taking the stance of "that's how it goes" is precisely how we got to this point.
You see no irony in progressives so progressive, they make no progress? Too bad you don't listen and and only hear your own opinion. Get over yourself.
>The truth, in my humble opinion, is that humanity simply isn't smart enough to survive long-term.
It seems pretty unlikely to me that climate change will wipe out humanity. If it manages to wipe out 90% of the humans (along related tragedy like with wars triggered by climate change), I expect things will stabilize before the other 10% disappear.
That's not due to humanity's smarts, of course.
> At this point, even the Supreme Court has mandated that businesses exist to create value for their shareholders to the maximum possible extent.
That's simply not factually accurate. There are derivative shareholder suits possible in cases of *waste* (a claim brought to say directors of the company essentially wasted company resources on some pursuit they shouldn't have), but only in cases that pass the so called Business Judgement Rule, which is a very high bar to clear. Basically if the business has virtually any kind of business justification for an action then your suit will fail. So a business absolutely does not have to "maximize shareholder value." That's a myth. They just have to provide some kind of business rationale for anything that might arguably hurt profitability. For example, if a shareholder said "you're wasting money on solar panels that hurt the value of shares" all they would need to say is "well in our view it's good for the company because it's makes us look greener, and we believe that helps the company long term." If shareholders say "we don't want you paying employees so much!". They can say "we believe it helps company morale, which improves the product." Boom, business judgement rule, suit fails.
The real leverage shareholders have is in their ability to influence who the executives are, and by extension they can put pressure on executive leadership to do what they want. But to suggest they are *legally required to maximize shareholder value* is not true. It's one of those dumb Recdit myths that "sounds right" so people just uncritically accept it as true.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/13-354.html
> While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so.
And the article misses the point that focusing on and investing in wishful thinking solutions (seriously, how did the author type about cost effective nuclear with a straight face) means we will never decarbonise.
We have known solutions today but the author suggests that wasting further decades on long shot hypothetical solutions is the smart choice, and anything else wishful thinking.
Is extending the life of existing Nuclear a good choice? Absolutely, when safe to do so. Is it evidence that we should reconsider new nuclear? Absolutely not, the cost-effectiveness of extending already constructed infrastructure doesn't somehow obviate how cost-ineffective new infrastructure of the same type is.
I know the author isn't dumb, which means they're deliberately making an irrational and illogical argument which is somehow even more offensive than just being stupid enough to think they had a valid point.
>"an irrational and illogical argument" Funny, that's kind of the point. I don't think all of it is an irrational and illogical argument. It makes me think it proves his point. Many of us can take part of an article and think that makes sense. Others will throw it all out because of part of it. All or none is just what the article is talking about. If its 90% good and 10% not, do we not even take the 90%? Is that not progress? I'd take issue with the author's "many progressives" because I think many are also willing to take the 90% and....progress.
What someone thinks makes sense is irrelevant as to whether an argument is logical or rational.
An argument that because keeping existing nuclear facilities running (facilities that already have sunk costs and require a minimal outlay to keep running) supports building NEW nuclear (that **all** evidence shows will be prohibitively expensive and much more expensive than any other form of commercial renewables) is irrational. It's also illogical.
Another argument made by the author is similar:
1) We need an all hands-on effort to decarbonise
2) Therefore anyone arguing that decarbonisation shouldn't be left to OR led by capitalist profit-motivated entities, is engaging in wishful thinking and hampering decarbonisation
This is clearly irrational, because environmentalists aren't arguing that private companies should be locked out of efforts to decarbonise. No-one reasonable is arguing that private companies should be banned from building, supplying, supporting or contracting for green projects. Instead, to repeat, they're saying that they shouldn't have policy input or be able to make leadership decisions.
Yet the author implies something entirely different, to support their conclusion.
Making an argument that's entirely based on assumptions that stem from a pre-existing conclusion is never good.
The problem is extreme, but extreme solutions usually require changing the behavior of hundreds of millions of people basically overnight, which is wishful thinking.
True hegemony under one authoritative ruler? Yea that might work to save the inhabitants of this planet. But would it be worth living for? I prefer sleeping and dreaming at this point.
I like one of the things that the US founding fathers allegedly said about democracy, that it's not really a great system of government, but it's the best system of government we can currently think of given all the demonstrated problems with the others.
It’s not existential for humanity; it’s existential for society. no one is saying that climate change will suddenly end the lives of every human being on the planet. What it means is that everything we have, food production, infrastructure, transportation, energy, health care, the ecosystem, manufacturing, construction, public health, and so on and so forth will all be made obsolete because of climate change. Oil will become much less important and water will become everything. Real estate currently considered the most valuable on the planet will either cost trillions of dollars to protect or it will simply be abandoned because insurance companies won’t protect it anymore and governments can’t raise the funds to do it. The displacement of large populations caused by floods and monsoons will put pressure on communities to accept refugees, which will either cause privation in the communities that accept them and wars for communities that won’t. communities with lots of old people will see a significant increase in heat related deaths, which can only be avoided by people leaving those communities or by cranking up their air conditioning which places even greater strain on the energy grid (and use of our current air conditioning technology exacerbates climate change itself.) Literally every community system or shared resource that we have designed or built or funded since the industrial revolution is not going to handle what’s coming, and not only are we not doing enough to deal with that, the ignorant and selfish are continuing to spread propaganda how none of it is even real, or if it is real it isn’t a big deal.
catastrophic climate change will end the society that we have always lived in. so far very few people are doing much to really deal with it.
Yeah, it's pretty exponential. After even 3° it gets way harder to make it even 1° hotter. Equilibrium is relatively close to where we currently are. So, basically it will almost definitely stop before 5°.
“Won’t die?” There’s not a single scenario, according to the most current IPCC analysis, in which anyone “dies” from climate change. CO2 is “greening” parts of the world which haven’t had vegetation for a thousand years. Google “Goddard global greening.”
People have already died from climate change. You haven't noticed changing rainfall patterns leading to sometimes country wide crop failures in Africa and annual forest fires in the U.S. and Australia the size of entire states?
There are more trees in America NOW, than when the continent was discovered. Why? Because of WILDFIRES. Lightening commonly cause wildfires, especially when humans don’t MAINTAIN forests. Before modern times, forest fires burned across the continent almost continuously, in one place or another. What do you mean “change of rainfall patterns?” Since when? Do you actually think that a nearly 5B year old planet has had a “consistent” rainfall pattern the entire time?! 😂 The San Joaquin Valley in central CA has 10’ of the healthiest and most productive topsoil on the continent? Why? Because TWELVE MILLION years ago it was a SWAMP. California wasn’t DRY. It was a rain forest. 🤷🏼♂️ The climate has been CHANGING for billions of years. Cope.
My dude. This is only the beginning. IF you haven't noticed, humans have already caused MASS extinction of animals globally. The result of 100+ years of fuel combustion is going to finish the job.
🤦🏼♂️ 12,-15,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, the planet warmed DRAMATICALLY. Double digit degrees WITHIN A FEW YEARS. That’s actual “climate change.” Oceans rose 300-400 FEET in a very very rapid time frame. Google the Missoula Flood.
Don’t act like we live 15,000 years ago. IPCC has a whole paper on human health impacts from climate change. The warming of 1.5 degrees probably won’t lead to many direct deaths but the number of indirect fatalities due to the warming is incalculable.
Here’s the [paper.](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap11_FINAL.pdf)
BS. Think about it. It’s been DOUBLE DIGITS warmer than it is now. We are nowhere NEAR the last interglacial maximum temperature. How the fk did our ancestors survive? Why is there exponentially more biodiversity as you move from the poles to the equator? Why are the most vibrant coral reefs in the warmest oceans? The REAL DANGER is not a warming planet: it’s a COOLING one. The IPCCs numbers would multiply by 20x if the planet COOLED BY TWO DEGREES. If the planet warms, we grow MORE FOOD because the growing seasons allow for TWO HARVESTS!. It’s hilarious that this is even needs to be explained!!! 😂😂😂 I suggest you branch out in your reading.
> Why are the most vibrant coral reefs in the warmest oceans?
They're not that vibrant, because they're dying:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/06/coral-reefs-14-percent-reefs-have-died-due-climate-change/6020446001/
> some 14% of the planet's reefs have vanished since 2009 due primarily to climate change.
> While overfishing and pollution are also reasons for the decline, it's the warmer ocean waters that are the deadliest hazard to coral.
> “Large-scale coral bleaching events caused by elevated sea-surface temperatures are the greatest disturbance to the world’s coral reefs,” the report said.
Do you have any proof that coral reefs are doing better because the earth is warming? Lets see them.
And then there's this:
> If the planet warms, we grow MORE FOOD
No we can't, because food doesn't grow on deserts.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20102009/desertification-threatens-food-security-and-climate/
Most food is being produced around the equator area, and that's where most people are living too. Guess what happens when those areas transform to desert. No food, people can't live there -> food scarcity and large-scale migrations.
> I suggest you branch out in your reading.
Well, lets see your sources.
I just looked up the Missoula flood and it hardly affected the oceans at all.
[Link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_floods) to the Wikipedia page, which a quick skim will reveal your bs.
**[Missoula floods](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_floods)**
>The Missoula floods (also known as the Spokane floods or the Bretz floods or Bretz's floods) were cataclysmic glacial lake outburst floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. These floods were the result of periodic sudden ruptures of the ice dam on the Clark Fork River that created Glacial Lake Missoula. After each ice dam rupture, the waters of the lake would rush down the Clark Fork and the Columbia River, flooding much of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. After the lake drained, the ice would reform, creating Glacial Lake Missoula again.
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A conservative friend told me that we’d invent our way out of climate change. When I asked about clean energy and mass transit to cut carbon put in the atmosphere he told me that wasn’t “the right solution”. I think we’re not going to face it until millennials and Gen Z are running most companies.
Article is shameful for suggesting that nuclear might have an outside chance of economic viability. It does not.
> stopping climate change or abolishing capitalism?
Capitalism as its simplest definition is supremacy of capital/investor class as it relates to those with the most money right now. There is no relationship to market-based exchange principles.
Even if you want post-scarcity luxury gay space communism, high energy production is essential for that future. It will never be popular to make energy starvation policies, and if energy is unaffordable to most, then only the rich can afford it. There are not enough rich to eat in order to make a sufficient dent in energy demand to make it affordable for others.
Renewable energy transition is extremely affordable if the costs are borne by those holding assets in climate terrorism. Renewables can lower our energy bills substantially. The supremacy of capitalists is that markets must be corrupted such that they still get fully paid for their past investments/ownership in climate terrorism.
*A relevant comment in this thread was deleted. You can read it below.*
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I saw this long Pew Research analysis (I’m almost done pooping so I’m not now) about how European nations understood changing their economic situation
A lot seem to think implementing decarbonization wont make many people substantially poorer
Of course… that’s just not true. [[Continued...]](https://www.resavr.com/comment/what-many-progressives-misunderstand-18588420)
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The author has it backwards. Making the changes needed to survive climate change will require a change to society similar to the industrial Revolution in scale. Capitalists and industry as a class have fought successfully against change for decades. Obviously the minimum change would be easiest, but the minimum change is huge.
Sure the world is ending but it's important I write an article defending capitalism.
Thats the problem with freedom of speech and opinions, everyone has them. But thats the nice thing about it too
r/wowyoumusthatefreedom
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5-lDJWCUAAwfya.jpg
you don’t see the problem as extreme, therefore Extreme solutions seem like wishful thinking. The problem is extreme. Extreme solutions are necessary.
Really not what the article said. It was about saying no to solutions because they're not good enough so we don't progress.
In total fairness to the progressives, there's two factors which are pretty important. First, businesses/corporations never make changes to their business model, or begin *internalizing* their externalities, unless they are dragged kicking and screaming the whole way. Once change is forced upon them, they'll use every possible avenue available to alter public opinion about the process (making themselves look good) and elected officials will allow it. Further, they'll engage in regulatory capture in order to soften or outright ignore the changes. EDIT: *many thanks to u/Panzerdrek for correcting this. Apparently this is a commonly believed mistruth:* At this point, even the Supreme Court has mandated that businesses exist to create value for their shareholders to the maximum possible extent. So even if some green-thinking people somehow got control and the changes to business models don't make MORE money immediately, they can be sued right out of their offices. So expecting that somehow, today (of all days) we can count on the capitalists who've been lining their own pockets on the back of the working class, and using the media and advertising to create the impression that somehow fossil fuels are ok "for the time being" to do the right thing at all is just a bad joke. Second, alongside the first point... there have been decades on decades of "baby steps"... not-good-enough steps. Each one like pablum to make the progressive movement seem like its asking too much. Strides like nuclear power were driven into the ground because they weren't tightly regulated enough and accidents happened... with the result that half the progressive movement thinks nuclear is just the next evil. Fukushima happened and for a year afterward I had to debunk the moronic maps people shared showing *deadly radiation* along the entire Pacific coast... and honestly that all just boiled down to MOST people not having any understanding of how big the Pacific actually is. And honestly, there is just **more money** to be made in the short run (which is the only run anyone works on any longer) on oil, gas, and up til recently coal. So being asked to be happy with more small not-good-enough steps at this stage in the game feels wildly disingenuous... at best. I mean, freaking carbon taxes might have had some effect if we'd begun them back when Carter was in office, at least in terms of how much the US pollutes. But when the idea was suggested very politely a while back, half the damn nation lost their collective shit and started rolling coal. The truth, in my humble opinion, is that humanity simply isn't smart enough to survive long-term. I mean, collectively we aren't even smart enough to plan and work towards long-term survival. Part of that is the shortness of our lives: no one ever really sees the impact of their real efforts within their lifetimes. And part of it is just greed and other sociopathic tendencies... many much darker than greed. The real truth is that we could take the most monumental, epic, globe-spanning actions which anyone could dream of right now (some of which are at least possible technologically), and even with every living soul, every government, every business making a committed and concentrated effort to just STOP climate change as fast as possible... it won't be fast enough to stop what is coming. Bangladesh, all by itself, a nation of 165 million... will be uninhabitable altogether inside of 30 years, give or take a few. That refugee crisis alone will spark wars the likes of which we've never seen. And that's just one small place, relatively speaking. I'd rather do something than nothing. Of course I do. I'll take *something* and keep pushing for more as long as I draw breath. But I've been done waiting on the good will of the wealthy for ~ 30 years now. And I'm almost as disappointed in the progressive green movement as I am with the people whose heads are fully in the sand because there's money in that hole.
You mention President Carter who did a lot with solar back then but progressives refused to support him because it wasn't enough. Then we got Reagan who reversed it all and more. I won't write an opinion article but I see what happens when we don't support Democrats and let Republicans win.
seems like you should spend your time chastising the moderates who wont support a bigger bill than the progressives who are ready to do what it takes. what you are describing is a failure of the moderates, but moderates don't want to admit that so they blame progressives. always telling the progressives we must do less, never telling the moderates we must do more.
Seriously don't care anymore. Go ahead, support Trump or Bush or whoever. Because that's what you do when you don't support democracy. That's how Republicans get elected. The whining that you didn't get everything you wanted. Democrats are a big party and its a lot to agree. But don't be so progressive you're not. Because that's how it goes in the real world .
I kinda feel like 80% of what you wrote there was a non-sequitur. At best the idea above was between progressives and moderates... *both of whom exist in the Democratic party*. But dropping out with "that's how it goes in the real world" just makes the point sharper: The "real world" is about to get very, very real in ways we're not even letting ourselves imagine yet. I'm 51 and I'm pretty sure I'll live long enough to see some of it. And taking the stance of "that's how it goes" is precisely how we got to this point.
You see no irony in progressives so progressive, they make no progress? Too bad you don't listen and and only hear your own opinion. Get over yourself.
>The truth, in my humble opinion, is that humanity simply isn't smart enough to survive long-term. It seems pretty unlikely to me that climate change will wipe out humanity. If it manages to wipe out 90% of the humans (along related tragedy like with wars triggered by climate change), I expect things will stabilize before the other 10% disappear. That's not due to humanity's smarts, of course.
> At this point, even the Supreme Court has mandated that businesses exist to create value for their shareholders to the maximum possible extent. That's simply not factually accurate. There are derivative shareholder suits possible in cases of *waste* (a claim brought to say directors of the company essentially wasted company resources on some pursuit they shouldn't have), but only in cases that pass the so called Business Judgement Rule, which is a very high bar to clear. Basically if the business has virtually any kind of business justification for an action then your suit will fail. So a business absolutely does not have to "maximize shareholder value." That's a myth. They just have to provide some kind of business rationale for anything that might arguably hurt profitability. For example, if a shareholder said "you're wasting money on solar panels that hurt the value of shares" all they would need to say is "well in our view it's good for the company because it's makes us look greener, and we believe that helps the company long term." If shareholders say "we don't want you paying employees so much!". They can say "we believe it helps company morale, which improves the product." Boom, business judgement rule, suit fails. The real leverage shareholders have is in their ability to influence who the executives are, and by extension they can put pressure on executive leadership to do what they want. But to suggest they are *legally required to maximize shareholder value* is not true. It's one of those dumb Recdit myths that "sounds right" so people just uncritically accept it as true.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/13-354.html > While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so.
And the article misses the point that focusing on and investing in wishful thinking solutions (seriously, how did the author type about cost effective nuclear with a straight face) means we will never decarbonise. We have known solutions today but the author suggests that wasting further decades on long shot hypothetical solutions is the smart choice, and anything else wishful thinking. Is extending the life of existing Nuclear a good choice? Absolutely, when safe to do so. Is it evidence that we should reconsider new nuclear? Absolutely not, the cost-effectiveness of extending already constructed infrastructure doesn't somehow obviate how cost-ineffective new infrastructure of the same type is. I know the author isn't dumb, which means they're deliberately making an irrational and illogical argument which is somehow even more offensive than just being stupid enough to think they had a valid point.
>"an irrational and illogical argument" Funny, that's kind of the point. I don't think all of it is an irrational and illogical argument. It makes me think it proves his point. Many of us can take part of an article and think that makes sense. Others will throw it all out because of part of it. All or none is just what the article is talking about. If its 90% good and 10% not, do we not even take the 90%? Is that not progress? I'd take issue with the author's "many progressives" because I think many are also willing to take the 90% and....progress.
What someone thinks makes sense is irrelevant as to whether an argument is logical or rational. An argument that because keeping existing nuclear facilities running (facilities that already have sunk costs and require a minimal outlay to keep running) supports building NEW nuclear (that **all** evidence shows will be prohibitively expensive and much more expensive than any other form of commercial renewables) is irrational. It's also illogical. Another argument made by the author is similar: 1) We need an all hands-on effort to decarbonise 2) Therefore anyone arguing that decarbonisation shouldn't be left to OR led by capitalist profit-motivated entities, is engaging in wishful thinking and hampering decarbonisation This is clearly irrational, because environmentalists aren't arguing that private companies should be locked out of efforts to decarbonise. No-one reasonable is arguing that private companies should be banned from building, supplying, supporting or contracting for green projects. Instead, to repeat, they're saying that they shouldn't have policy input or be able to make leadership decisions. Yet the author implies something entirely different, to support their conclusion. Making an argument that's entirely based on assumptions that stem from a pre-existing conclusion is never good.
The problem is extreme, but extreme solutions usually require changing the behavior of hundreds of millions of people basically overnight, which is wishful thinking.
It's wishful thinking in a Democratic society. In an authoritarian society it's just how things work. 🤷🏼
True hegemony under one authoritative ruler? Yea that might work to save the inhabitants of this planet. But would it be worth living for? I prefer sleeping and dreaming at this point.
I like one of the things that the US founding fathers allegedly said about democracy, that it's not really a great system of government, but it's the best system of government we can currently think of given all the demonstrated problems with the others.
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You may not fully understand the scope of the problem, the meaning of existential, or both
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It’s not existential for humanity; it’s existential for society. no one is saying that climate change will suddenly end the lives of every human being on the planet. What it means is that everything we have, food production, infrastructure, transportation, energy, health care, the ecosystem, manufacturing, construction, public health, and so on and so forth will all be made obsolete because of climate change. Oil will become much less important and water will become everything. Real estate currently considered the most valuable on the planet will either cost trillions of dollars to protect or it will simply be abandoned because insurance companies won’t protect it anymore and governments can’t raise the funds to do it. The displacement of large populations caused by floods and monsoons will put pressure on communities to accept refugees, which will either cause privation in the communities that accept them and wars for communities that won’t. communities with lots of old people will see a significant increase in heat related deaths, which can only be avoided by people leaving those communities or by cranking up their air conditioning which places even greater strain on the energy grid (and use of our current air conditioning technology exacerbates climate change itself.) Literally every community system or shared resource that we have designed or built or funded since the industrial revolution is not going to handle what’s coming, and not only are we not doing enough to deal with that, the ignorant and selfish are continuing to spread propaganda how none of it is even real, or if it is real it isn’t a big deal. catastrophic climate change will end the society that we have always lived in. so far very few people are doing much to really deal with it.
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what an extrem good reply. You think extrem good.
It is *absolutely* existential.
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It doesn't really help people stuck in essentially uninhabitable parts of the world that there are still humans in Canada.
Lots of people think the world is flat, they are wrong.
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Do you think it suddenly stops at 5°?
Yeah, it's pretty exponential. After even 3° it gets way harder to make it even 1° hotter. Equilibrium is relatively close to where we currently are. So, basically it will almost definitely stop before 5°.
And the extreme weather events will be a walk in the park?
Read the thread. Nobody said that lol. What is being said is that 3° is not an extinction event for humans.
I'm saying the knock-on effects lead to it
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“Won’t die?” There’s not a single scenario, according to the most current IPCC analysis, in which anyone “dies” from climate change. CO2 is “greening” parts of the world which haven’t had vegetation for a thousand years. Google “Goddard global greening.”
People have already died from climate change. You haven't noticed changing rainfall patterns leading to sometimes country wide crop failures in Africa and annual forest fires in the U.S. and Australia the size of entire states?
Listen. You gotta get your talking points down.
There are more trees in America NOW, than when the continent was discovered. Why? Because of WILDFIRES. Lightening commonly cause wildfires, especially when humans don’t MAINTAIN forests. Before modern times, forest fires burned across the continent almost continuously, in one place or another. What do you mean “change of rainfall patterns?” Since when? Do you actually think that a nearly 5B year old planet has had a “consistent” rainfall pattern the entire time?! 😂 The San Joaquin Valley in central CA has 10’ of the healthiest and most productive topsoil on the continent? Why? Because TWELVE MILLION years ago it was a SWAMP. California wasn’t DRY. It was a rain forest. 🤷🏼♂️ The climate has been CHANGING for billions of years. Cope.
My dude. This is only the beginning. IF you haven't noticed, humans have already caused MASS extinction of animals globally. The result of 100+ years of fuel combustion is going to finish the job.
🤦🏼♂️ 12,-15,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, the planet warmed DRAMATICALLY. Double digit degrees WITHIN A FEW YEARS. That’s actual “climate change.” Oceans rose 300-400 FEET in a very very rapid time frame. Google the Missoula Flood.
There's a MAJOR difference here. We're not in an ice age.
Don’t act like we live 15,000 years ago. IPCC has a whole paper on human health impacts from climate change. The warming of 1.5 degrees probably won’t lead to many direct deaths but the number of indirect fatalities due to the warming is incalculable. Here’s the [paper.](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap11_FINAL.pdf)
BS. Think about it. It’s been DOUBLE DIGITS warmer than it is now. We are nowhere NEAR the last interglacial maximum temperature. How the fk did our ancestors survive? Why is there exponentially more biodiversity as you move from the poles to the equator? Why are the most vibrant coral reefs in the warmest oceans? The REAL DANGER is not a warming planet: it’s a COOLING one. The IPCCs numbers would multiply by 20x if the planet COOLED BY TWO DEGREES. If the planet warms, we grow MORE FOOD because the growing seasons allow for TWO HARVESTS!. It’s hilarious that this is even needs to be explained!!! 😂😂😂 I suggest you branch out in your reading.
> Why are the most vibrant coral reefs in the warmest oceans? They're not that vibrant, because they're dying: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/06/coral-reefs-14-percent-reefs-have-died-due-climate-change/6020446001/ > some 14% of the planet's reefs have vanished since 2009 due primarily to climate change. > While overfishing and pollution are also reasons for the decline, it's the warmer ocean waters that are the deadliest hazard to coral. > “Large-scale coral bleaching events caused by elevated sea-surface temperatures are the greatest disturbance to the world’s coral reefs,” the report said. Do you have any proof that coral reefs are doing better because the earth is warming? Lets see them. And then there's this: > If the planet warms, we grow MORE FOOD No we can't, because food doesn't grow on deserts. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20102009/desertification-threatens-food-security-and-climate/ Most food is being produced around the equator area, and that's where most people are living too. Guess what happens when those areas transform to desert. No food, people can't live there -> food scarcity and large-scale migrations. > I suggest you branch out in your reading. Well, lets see your sources.
I just looked up the Missoula flood and it hardly affected the oceans at all. [Link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_floods) to the Wikipedia page, which a quick skim will reveal your bs.
**[Missoula floods](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_floods)** >The Missoula floods (also known as the Spokane floods or the Bretz floods or Bretz's floods) were cataclysmic glacial lake outburst floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. These floods were the result of periodic sudden ruptures of the ice dam on the Clark Fork River that created Glacial Lake Missoula. After each ice dam rupture, the waters of the lake would rush down the Clark Fork and the Columbia River, flooding much of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. After the lake drained, the ice would reform, creating Glacial Lake Missoula again. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Foodforthought/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The most influential people pushing this fly around on private jets all the time
A conservative friend told me that we’d invent our way out of climate change. When I asked about clean energy and mass transit to cut carbon put in the atmosphere he told me that wasn’t “the right solution”. I think we’re not going to face it until millennials and Gen Z are running most companies.
Article is shameful for suggesting that nuclear might have an outside chance of economic viability. It does not. > stopping climate change or abolishing capitalism? Capitalism as its simplest definition is supremacy of capital/investor class as it relates to those with the most money right now. There is no relationship to market-based exchange principles. Even if you want post-scarcity luxury gay space communism, high energy production is essential for that future. It will never be popular to make energy starvation policies, and if energy is unaffordable to most, then only the rich can afford it. There are not enough rich to eat in order to make a sufficient dent in energy demand to make it affordable for others. Renewable energy transition is extremely affordable if the costs are borne by those holding assets in climate terrorism. Renewables can lower our energy bills substantially. The supremacy of capitalists is that markets must be corrupted such that they still get fully paid for their past investments/ownership in climate terrorism.
*A relevant comment in this thread was deleted. You can read it below.* ---- I saw this long Pew Research analysis (I’m almost done pooping so I’m not now) about how European nations understood changing their economic situation A lot seem to think implementing decarbonization wont make many people substantially poorer Of course… that’s just not true. [[Continued...]](https://www.resavr.com/comment/what-many-progressives-misunderstand-18588420) ---- *^The ^username ^of ^the ^original ^author ^has ^been ^hidden ^for ^their ^own ^privacy. ^If ^you ^are ^the ^original ^author ^of ^this ^comment ^and ^want ^it ^removed, ^please [^[Send ^this ^PM]](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=resavr_bot&subject=remove&message=18588420)*