this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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[–] Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social 64 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah. At least when nuclear war was the existential threat hanging over humanity you had the comfort that it would all be over in an instant. Now we get to watch a slow unraveling of civilization over decades while things continue to get worse. Fun times.

[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago

It'd be over in an instant for the lucky ones.

[–] Tolstoshev@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Fuck, I didn’t think I’d ever be nostalgic for the constant threat of being nuked, but here we are.

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 62 points 1 year ago (16 children)

Don't just wait passively for it, take action. Everyone can contribute and together we will achieve big things. If we all work together the collapse is not just a dream.

[–] Lt_Cdr_Data@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dont use plastic straws, drive public transport or bike, buy bio food, donate to orgs, glue yourself to the street

and maybe... just maybe... you will change fuck all

[–] MuffinX@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Plastic straws have almost zero to none impact on climate change. It is one of the biggest virtue signaling campaings that managed to scam shit ton of gullible people. Climate change is a never ending process, those who can alter the process have way bigger means to affect it than you and me. Regulate the companies, end the "too big to fail" market monopoly, tax the shit out of billioners. Dont fall to their diversion strategy that we are to blame for any of this shit.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I love how McDonald's went from paper cups/plastic straws to plastic cups/paper straws in my area.

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[–] MBM@lemmings.world 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

... did everyone misread your comment or am I crazy? I have faith that we can make horrible climate change a reality if we just put our minds to it.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nuclear Posadism is so Cold War. We need a new apocalyptic accelerationism.

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean we kinda can't unless we convince billionaires to making money.

That seems to me the crux of the issue.

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago

Veganism is the movement which has the highest potential to change society and is a huge impact on the environment. (IPCC: biggest single step one can take / even without fossile fuels our current food system will still contribute with +2°C to global warming)

And it does not take away from any other activity we should pursue in the fight for climate, while ending support for some billionaires like Wesley Batista

[–] electriccars@startrek.website 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If we all work together the collapse is not just a dream.

Hoping to speed up the collapse I see lol.

I drive a hybrid.

I recycle everything I can.

I pickup litter.

I try to be as power efficient as possible.

I'm not a vegetarian but I don't eat meat everyday.

Plus, I post memes that stimulate conversation like this!

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[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So long as we're pushing for systemic change - we don't dig ourselves out of this by "just taking personal responsibility" harder.

[–] beteljuice@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (21 children)
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[–] XanXic@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

The RNC debate was a pretty big red alert. One of the more popular candidates literally said "climate change is a hoax" and got applause. And most of them would at least admit it was real but immediately talked about removing 'government restrictions' unfairly placed on corporations and climate change is an excuse to burn money for the current party.

Pretty cool.....

[–] ganymede@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

expect they've found a way to 'profit' off the collapse already. might be one of the reasons they're doing nothing to stop it

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago

And when the last land is a desert, the last river dry, the last field poisoned, the last tree cut down, will they realise that one cannot eat money.

[–] mondo_brondo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

The wealthy and the powerful will be the last to suffer the negative effects of climate change.

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[–] MrFagtron9000@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Spoiler alert: The civilization disrupting aspects of climate change are still decades out and the rich countries will probably be fine.

They'll be fine because they can afford the infrastructure projects and increased costs of energy and food.

Now Africa, South America, the poorer Asian countries, tiny Pacific Island nations... Oh boy. I would not want to be a citizen there in 20 or 30 years.

Eventually sea level rise will become a really big fucking problem, like for every single coastal city in the world, even the rich ones. Luckily none of us will be around to see that unless some sort of miraculous life extension technology becomes available.

On the one hand I don't like mentioning this because it gives the right wing ammunition to ignore climate change. But on the other hand some people have such existential dread about it that it's damaging their mental health, they are really overestimating how damaging it will be in their lifetime in their rich country they live in.

[–] raginghummus@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are we supposed to be comforted about the timeline being decades? That's generations alive today.

Scientists are also finding their estimates getting outpaced alarmingly often right now.

The Russia Ukraine war has disrupted civilisation quite significantly with 6 million refugees. We could see over 1 BILLION climate refugees by 2050. 1000 MILLION people having to leave their homes.

We are on course for significant disruption to food supply before 1.5C warming. Doesn't matter how rich your country is, with global food supplies low and that maybe people on the move, civilisation as we know it will change significantly. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/12/global-heating-likely-to-hit-world-food-supply-faster-than-expected-says-united-nations-desertification-expert

To be clear: I am not a doomerist. Don't dwell on this and do nothing. Get angry! This is being done to you. This was not inevitable, it was the decisions of the most powerful and richest people in the world. Get out there and take action, the movement needs you.

[–] vivadanang@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Luckily none of us will be around to see that unless some sort of miraculous life extension technology becomes available.

I dunno mate... antarctica is collapsing much faster than anyone anticipated. Brazil's winter was a scorcher.

Canada's on fire. Tropical storms are hitting LA. sadlol... I suspect we might be around to see even worse.

[–] Knusper@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I mean, I feel like this year in particular illustrates quite well that there are already very real impacts of climate change in rich countries, with Canada, Greece, Hawaii etc. burning. Which makes it worth to delay climate change as much as possible, even if we can't or don't want to stop it at livable levels.

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[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The interesting part are those who still don’t write letters to their congressmen and still vote for climate deniers. I just can’t.

It would be insanely easy to solve: Not one of the billionaires out there would recognize if they only had 999 mil left and neither would anybody else. That‘s a cool 10 trillion to pay towards climate change. You‘re welcome.

That money was earned using earth, so to saving earth it goes back (because no earth, no money and our billionaire overlords suprisingly havent saved us yet.)

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Though I agree with you on taking money from the rich people, that's mostly not how it works. Most rich persons has most of his "worth" in stocks. Even scammer musk's worth mostly is "worth" because of his ownership of Tesla and the such. He doesn't actually have that money.

Most importantly: It's not insanely easy to solve, Sven if you pump in trillions. Even if we stop pumping carbon in the air tomorrow it will still take centuries until the atmosphere is back to normal, barring any carbon capture.

The problem with is that the extra CO2 in the air comes from energy we took from burning fossil fuels. If we want to capture it back, we need to spend the same mount of energy that the world spent for the past, say, 2 centuries, from non carbon sources to get that done. This energy does not include the energy that the world needs to function.

That is an insane amount of energy that, again, has to come from non carbon emitting sources.

Also, until all energy comes from non carbon emitting sources, carbon capture is useless because if both you'll spent 100 carbon for each, say, 50-70 (optimistically) carbon you capture.

If I say "Were not even close to 100% non carbon emissions in energy creation" it's a huge understatement. I believe something around 10% of our energy production is non carbon emitting. Cars are not included.

Making all out cars electrical is also cute. It's a nice thought if it weren't that all that electricity still mostly comes from CO2 emitting sources so including conversion losses electrical cars may actually send more CO2 in the atmosphere.

You want to actually solve this?

Make ALL our electrical generation non CO2 emitting in the next 10 years. Air and solar are cute, but fractional and will remain that, probably for ever. We need nuclear power plants like there is no tomorrow in all countries, even the "bad" ones.

This obviously isn't going to happen.

We will likely end up with some form of atmospheric engineering where we're going to meas with the atmosphere, seeding clouds, or pumping other chemicals in there that negate the effects of CO2. I'm unsure what the results of that will be though

Either way, you and I will NOT see the end of this, that is for our children's children

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[–] ThePac@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You people think it will be a night and day collapse? Get real. The rich will continue to get richer and you'll toil away in relative comfort as you do now.

[–] TokyoMonsterTrucker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It will seem far away until the day that your home is burning down or under water. And that day is coming.

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[–] Muehe@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (10 children)

You people think it will be a night and day collapse? Get real.

You know that's the thing, nobody really knows. It's all predictions based on necessarily flawed models. And they range from relatively mild changes until the turn of the century on the one hand, over methane released from thawing permafrost leading to a steep acceleration of warming in the middle, to having crossed an irreversible tipping point decades ago that will lead to an algae bloom in the oceans which will render the atmosphere unbreathable on the other hand. We can only hope it's on the former end of the spectrum, but I wouldn't bet on it personally.

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[–] MyDogLovesMe@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago

Hey, it’s not easy being …green.

[–] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Slowly…

In human time, yes. In world time, no.

The problem IMHO is that the ”information“ feels like propaganda. “You need to stop doing this, because the planet needs you to“ I mean come on, 80% of all the greenhouse gas emissions come from 10 companies.

Don’t FridayForFuture us, FridayForFuture them.

Oh, and one thing to add to trigger a whole lot of people: Most of the people are dependent on those companies, because they earn too little to get an alternative. And saying they are the reason is like telling a POW that their crafting of shells kills Americans.

[–] vivadanang@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Car dealerships in the US are whining that they can't move the expensive EV's car makers are producing. Meanwhile the world is burning. We need a crash program to replace every damned gas powered vehicle needed, while eliminating hundreds of thousands completely off the road where possible. Cities should have sidewalks, bikepaths, and mass rail transit everywhere in the US.

If we don't do it, we're pissing in the wind.

edit: same with renewable generation - no more nimby bullshit. build it all. no one's view is worth another summer like this.

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[–] RalphWaldoEmers0n@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This is my first comment on Lemmy!

….

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[–] shiveyarbles@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago

Yeah at the end of the day, this is a failure of our government. It's so stuck on profits and processes, it can't save itself from certain death.

[–] Gnubyte@lemdit.com 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm thinking of moving to a state that's colder where I can buy land that has water within the property.

I also think to do anything sizeable you need the resources a company can bring. Our problems are at scale. You need a scaled resource pool and reinvestment in that to work up to some of the issues. I like the idea of carbon extraction for example, but I don't see any resources invested in it from US companies.

[–] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Carbon extraction isn't a viable solution until its whole area is running on green energy. With current technology, at least, running it on a green power source will make less of an impact than hooking that green power source up to replace some fossil fuels.

In other words, don't rely on heal spells until the battle's over. They'll never outpace incoming damage.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also, as far as resource costs go, planting tree is more efficient at capturing carbon then any industrial scrubber. Research should still be done, but anyone trying to sell a scrubber plant is just fishing for VC funds.

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[–] EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Geepers, you mean you’ve been sitting here watching the weather, but ignoring

1.) Thousands of fires keeping smoke in the air

2.) Harsh winters developing where snow hardly used to fall

3.) Winters all but disappearing where it used to be deep snow annually

4.) The water cycle breaking and several landmark bodies of water going dry before our eyes

5.) Intensifying hurricane seasons, affecting new zones

And more?

[–] electriccars@startrek.website 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Who said I was ignoring all that? I'm well aware. But what the Fuck am I supposed to do about it?

I drive a hybrid, pickup litter, recycle, make most of my own food from scratch, and talk about how we need to do more (like with this tongue-in-cheek meme). I ain't in Congress (yet), but even if I was look how productive they're being towards this issue.

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

It's already happening, collapse on this scale is a slow process, and hard to observe from within.

The roman empire didn't collapse from start to end in a single lifetime, after all.

Nobody alive today will be around to see the "collapse" collapse, the extremely dire breakdown that comes as a sudden crisis in civilisation terms, but we will continue to see a lot of hardship from our dated and crumbling institutions and our society slowly losing its grasp on what it is, etc.

In the end, just like the romans, our civilisation's collapse doesn't mean apocalypse, it's not the end.

All civilisations rise and fall, and while ours is by far the grandest and strongest in many respects, it's also the weakest, relying entirely on extremely fragile global systems that, should they fail for even a single month, would throw the planet into chaos (electricity grids/Internet), hastening or even triggering that final sudden crisis, once three slow rot of a dying civilisation has already set in.

But until then, such events will be overcome. Not until that rot has truly set in, and a sudden crisis is upon us all, will things finally collapse as we know it.

So that's kinda good news for us, right? :-)

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I live in Michigan where we just had at least 7 tornadoes yesterday, and NOAA is basically saying get used to it, this is the new normal. I’ve been in this house for 20 years and I’ve never seen devastation like this. I’ll be without power for several more days because massive 200 year old oaks were snapped like toothpicks and my street is littered with downed power lines.

7 people have died, and when this happens in winter (which they’re saying it will), people will freeze to death in the aftermath. Things will get ugly soon.

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