Rivers in Alaska have been running bronzish-orange... because the permafrost is melting.

The 'perma' frost, is melting.

That has huge amounts of methane locked up in at.

Which is 8 to 80x more effective at being a greenhouse gas than CO2.

And also ancient bacteria that could cause previously unknown kinds of diseases in wildlife and possibly humans, they now may or may not be seeping into the environment.

...

We have already had a consecutive 12 months at or above 1.5C global average temps, as of last month.

...

Shit's looking pretty bleak.

“Action”? I think they mean “dithering and superficial half measures”.

Living and dying are the same process. You can't be born without dying. You could say biology condemns us all - very loosely - to a cult of death, as we must all participate.

Capitalism is worse than that. Capitalism is an ideology of exploitation. I'm fine with dying, it's my fault for being born. I don't see why I must submit to exploitation while I do, temporarily, exist.

"Are you telling me that our valued wealth creators are capable of... lying???"

You don’t have to lie if you don’t measure …… for example, methane leaks from natural gas drilling, refining and distribution

Further, what happens when everyone knows the power isn't coming back and instead the roads out of Phoenix all get backed up and people die in the heat of their cars trying to escape the heat of Phoenix. Because heat can kill a lot of vehicles, and a lot of people have ill-maintained vehicles, meaning roads being completely blocked from escape can happen fast.

I really think Phoenix will become the first mass casualty event from climate change in the USA.

EDIT: Obligatory Peggy Hill. Peggy gets it.

Frankly, I am amazed it has not already happened in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, or Austin. The power grid here in Texas is a disaster and the weather conditions are unforgiving. At least in the desert you can do evaporative cooling. That doesn't work where its hot and humid.

Air conditioners will soon be considered life support. In some places it will be a death sentence to have a power outrage. This isn't speculation. It's already happening.

I keep an old evaporative unit in the shed just in case. It only needs 70 watts and can thus run for quite a long time off a car battery or similar. Add a basic camping solar panel and you're more or less set for the day as long as you have water and don't live in a really high humidity place.

Doubt procrastination will stop even after 60-70 becomes a new high in those countries and people start dying en masse

It's okay. Remember the IPCC panel decided in 2018(?) that we'll just go over the limit a bit and then figure out how to pull back down. With magic or something.

I believe a mix of runaway elitism + ecological devastation is the Great Filter. We're at our great filter and definitely will not overcome considering the galactic evidence.

A lot of companies won't even allow remote work which would put a huge dent in commuter related pollution. Will that fix everything by itself? Nope, but it'd be a step in the right direction.

But they won't even do THAT. This one little thing that'd be better for a lot of people and reduce car dependence related pollution for people in areas with little to no public transit access.

I have a hard time believing the US will ever catch up to green initiatives since corporate lobbying pays corrupt assholes more...

First you have to stop capitalist government

lol yeah right

But really though humanity is doomed unless we figure out a way to actually reverse it, because we wont do anything to stop it until its too late to stop (decades ago), so then we wont do anything until it begins creating worldwide problems, which is soon, so by then we will have to have a solution to reverse it.

Yeah, I feel the same. I was having a tough day already but reading this has made me particularly gloomy.

I feel as though we will look back at these days wistfully.