this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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I think that's a very valid call out actually. And I've already agreed that they fail to articulate any tangible action to address the problem. This is precisely what we should be focusing on in my opinion. If things are as bad as the scientists say they are, then we need to start talking about real tangible solutions which involve moving away from capitalism and growth oriented economy.
I don't think the world is going to end either, but thing is that we're in uncharted territory. Nobody knows how bad things will get, but there are a lot of reasons to believe t hat there will be very serious disasters. In fact, we're already seeing them happening each and every year on a phenomenal scale.
I think you're completely correct that food supply will likely be one of the major problems going forward, and that will cause mass migrations and wars as people fight over remaining habitable areas of the planet. This will also lead to a break down of global supply chains, and that's going to be a very bad news for western countries that have become largely deindustrialized.
Also worth noting that it's absolutely not a given that things will be better in western countries than in the global south. The global south is already close to peak global temperature, so there isn't going to be a huge amount of fluctuation. However, it's the cooler climates that have to deal with higher temperature gradients, and that's what tends to cause a lot of the disasters. This can already be seen with massive forest fires across US and Canada in the past couple of years.
Exactly. When I ask "Why should I believe them?" I don't mean they're lying, I mean what have they done to make me believe what they are saying is true? Calling me a science denier is not enough. You brought up China. China is doing everything the West says they want to do without the alarmism. So it makes me think the alarmism is simply political performance.
Yes. I'm originally from the Mediterranean region, every year there's been a growing amount of forest fires. Where I live (West/North Europe) has been getting "Mediterranean" summers with random shit like 2ft of snow in April. I'm not blind to the problems. But I'm also not blind to the fact Earth has been here for billions of years, and supported life for hundreds of millions of years. I'm not arrogant enough to think that the world will end if I buy a plastic bag.
And that's the crux of the issue for me. They focus on "emissions" and "atmospheric temperatures" (directly affected by emissions), so what it does is just prevent investment in "non-green" energy which translates to keeping the "developing world" underdeveloped. Don't quote me on this, but I think the US has greatly reduced how much they invest in "non-green" energy so underdeveloped countries in Africa are shit out of luck.
Yup. Cause the changes in temperature are so great. If the temperature of the sea goes up a few degrees, coral dies. I've seen the white coral with my own eyes. I've dived and seen fields of dead coral that stretches for kilometers.
I just don't think the scientists who wrote that open letter are genuine. That's it. And usually I have a good sense for that sort of thing.
I too would be less alarmist about climate change if my government was taking significant steps to address it.
Exactly. They're exaggerating to persuade the government to do something. But we don't look at the intent, we look at the effect. The effect is division. Because what the liberals cleverly do is they move the discussion from the solution to the belief. So it's never "climate change is real - should we do nuclear or solar?" it's "is climate change real?" that's their trap. It's not me that frames the discussion, it's the "powers that be". They frame it as "we need to convince people it is happening" rather than "it's happening, we need to convince people to adopt nuclear".
I very much agree with you that the discussion in the west is largely performative. We can see it with stuff like tariffs on Chinese EVs, solar panels, and so on as well. Clearly western governments see economic warfare as being more important than addressing the climate crisis. We also see resistance towards practical solutions like nuclear power. Germany is a perfect example where they dismantled nuclear industry and now use coal instead. The fact that China is pushing the transition without the panic is a strong indicator that they believe that it's possible to navigate the crisis without our civilization collapsing.
It is worth noting though that even though life has navigated many challenges, extinctions do happen. And life forms absolutely can bring about their own demise as seen with the Great Oxidation Event. If our activity is changing the climate at a rate that complex organisms aren't able to adapt to, then we could trigger an extinction event as well. It's going to be little consolation to us that life will continue on in a different form afterwards.
That said, you are absolutely correct that the west is using the climate crisis as a political vehicle to justify why the rest of the world can't develop the way the west did. This very much needs to be called out. What we really should be saying is that the west carries the most responsibility for the crisis historically, and people living in the west are consuming disproportionate amount of energy today. So, the west needs to own majority of the responsibility.
Regarding the paper, I think there is some evidence that AMOC collapse could happen, and it will be bad news for Europe. That, of course, doesn't mean the paper isn't politically motivated.
It's also worth nothing we're already in an extinction event, and our planet has only had something like four prior major extinction events in its history
Indeed, we shouldn't kid ourselves that this will all just blow over.