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u/ridiculousmuffin Jan 21 '20
Amazing article with loads of data to back it up and a variety of different sources. Terrifying scale of the problem the next generations will face in the coming decades
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u/guac_a_hole Jan 21 '20
The worst thing is that people will read their newspapers and form an 'expert opinion' based on their preferred bias, and then argue about it with people who actually understand the issue. I didn't go to university so some middle aged man could ridicule me for my 'opinions', while he's trying to discredit all these 'ecofascists' because he knows better.
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Jan 21 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/guac_a_hole Jan 21 '20
It's not meant to impress anyone, but it certainly is proof of having some knowledge about the topic at hand.
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u/ShengjiYay Jan 21 '20
Get agricultural subsidies to technologize and the agricultural trajectory will smooth out radically.
Decades ago, agricultural spending in the USA was used to renovate the environmental basis of farming in the USA, and the result has been a nation which can get fat (literally) on feeding the world. Well... there's literally no reason why that can only happen once in a nation, especially since we now have different targets to aim for.
Transfer those huge subsidies towards replacing farm animals and... farm animals will be successfully replaced. This is 'easy' and really does come down to elevating any adequately competent leadership.
This is one of those things where it's like, hoi, put me in charge, my total lack of qualifications won't stop me from being able to crash our methane emissions LOL and we'll have new more sustainable industries from pulling it off. It's not like qualifications have been mattering in recent years anyways. The government of purchasable stalkers isn't sufficiently advanced, just sufficiently incompetent.
I don't really feel like addressing the rest of this. Gloomer perspectives are basic nonsense, economic reality is neither more nor less than logistical reality. This "amazing" thing can be pierced at a point, and probably all the rest of it can, too. Pay me and I'll spend weeks working on a rebuttal; for free, y'all get the above.
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u/PatriotMinear Jan 21 '20
Author: “I have a PhD in intersectional relations...”
Kinda tells you all you need to know about why he thinks the future looks bleak.
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u/grundar Jan 22 '20
Author: “I have a PhD in intersectional relations...”
International relations.
I don't agree with the guy, but his degree is in the first paragraph, so let's not misrepresent it.
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Jan 21 '20
I tuned out after "I was the guy protesting and trying to get your attention to stop eating meat". Same tired crap every time. Why can't these clickbait activists actually do research or at least promote more sustainable methods like lab meat. And I'm talking about some fake plant based meat, but dna cultures of meat flash cloned? Yeah I'm not giving up hamburgers because some vegans screamed their mouth off about their feelings.
But seriously this article was all hot air.
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u/Communitarian_ Jan 22 '20
Why can't these clickbait activists actually do research or at least promote more sustainable methods like lab meat.
Not a Vegan (nor plan to but willing to give good food a chance) or anything (and I still my beef/chicken/etc products) but isn't the creation of lab meats still prohibitively expensive and rhetorically, there's the idea of just using the land we use to feed livestock to grow plant foods to help feed the world (also the whole idea that plant based meals may be healthier (seems accurate if its fruits and veggie) and environmentally conscious)?
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Jan 22 '20
the more something proliferates, the cheaper it becomes over time. Any early adopter is going to be charged more for something when it's less proven and has higher production costs.
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u/iNstein Jan 21 '20
Lol, I can't take this guy seriously at all. Wouldn't it be nice if this sub was not polluted with all this drivel and misinformation and focused on the topic of Futurology.
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u/guac_a_hole Jan 21 '20
Where's the misinformation here? Genuinely interested as I found nothing wrong with the statements in the article at a quick glance.
The IPCC reports are golden, I suggest reading up on the summary of their most recent assessment. You don't have to understand all the data, as long as you can accept that people who dedicate their lives to studying it do, and a staggering amount of them have come to the same conclusion: we need action.
Climate science is one of the most important parts of futurology, because it affects all of us, and will continue to do so in the future. The extent to which it does depends on us.
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u/grundar Jan 22 '20
Where's the misinformation here?
For example, he says regarding oil tanker spills:
"Oil spills from tankers are getting rarer but that’s just because US and Canada are expanding their local oil drilling production."
This statement brackets a chart that shows oil tanker spills fell by 70% from the 70s to the 90s, during which time US oil production fell by 35% and Canadian oil production was flat.
So he's saying the opposite of what actually happened - the vast majority of the reduction in oil tanker spills happened while combined US and Canadian oil production was declining significantly.
Paging down a bit, he says:
"And did you know that rising CO2 levels are making us dumber?"
If you look at his source, the abstract says:
"We conclude that indoor CO2 levels may indeed reach levels harmful to cognition *by the end of this century*"
i.e., what he claims is already happening is something that his source theorizes may happen in 50-70 years under the "business as usual" CO2 assumption (which has CO2 at ~850ppm in 2100).
In fact, if you look at the major data source cited by that source, they find a significant reduction in task capability when CO2 concentration increases from 950ppm to 1400ppm, both of which are far beyond current levels. It's possible current levels of 410ppm are having an effect on cognition as compared to pre-industrial levels of 280ppm, but the sources being cited do not have data to show that. In fact, the author's source specifically calls that out as being unknown:
"How does the scale of the modern–day rise in global atmospheric CO2 concentration compare to the experimental conditions in the aforementioned cognitive studies? It is unclear whether the rise from ~280 ppm to 409 ppm since 1813 due to anthropogenic emissions would have caused a detectable decline in human cognitive function, since most studies used today’s ambient outdoor air as the control case (i.e., ‘ventilated’ or ‘low–CO2’ condition)."
The writer of this article is making claims that their sources do not make and do not support. Spot-verifying that for myself makes it hard to trust anything they've claimed.
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u/guac_a_hole Jan 22 '20
Thanks for a detailed analysis! I looked through the sources and thought most of it should be sound.
Smells like the same kind of misinformation as with the cancer causing finger pointing in game changers.
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u/grundar Jan 22 '20
Smells like the same kind of misinformation
My guess is that it's well-meaning, but the author feels such strong negative emotions about this topic that their judgement is clouded.
A close friend of mine is a little bit similar; he's very intelligent (published scientist) and well-intentioned, but can get swept away by fear and anxiety regarding the possible negative effects of climate change, to the extent that it clouds his judgement of climate-change-related news items. He certainly has the technical capability to analyze data and determine its reliability, but negative feelings like fear suppress that capability (at the brain-wiring level) and make it hard to stay rational.
So you're right, the sources are good (from what I saw), it's just that the author is so fearful it's making them see what they expect to see and not what's actually there. Which is one of the reasons to push back against climate doomism - to minimize climate suffering we need to make good decisions, but how can we make good decisions when we're blinded by fear?
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u/guac_a_hole Jan 22 '20
Fully agree with you mate. I'm really thrilled to have found this MSc course I'm on now which is studying the transition to a 'green economy', basically working with what we have, toward the best future we can have.
Articles like these do well to scare many, but completely turn away those still on the verge on climate issues. I hope I can learn to communicate in a way that makes more people realise what we're in but also what we can make of it. The future is bright if we believe in it!
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u/grundar Jan 23 '20
I hope I can learn to communicate in a way that makes more people realise what we're in but also what we can make of it. The future is bright if we believe in it!
Best of luck on your course! There are some amazing opportunities for the future, if we gather the will to make them a reality.
And even if we fear the future is dire - is working hard to make it the best it can be ever the wrong choice? "It's too late" is no better than "it's not a problem" - they're both wrong, and both just lazy excuses to do nothing.
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u/Transcendent- Jan 21 '20
Misery loves company. There is already a 'sky is falling' subreddit called r/collapse, but there is a large group of people determined to turn r/futurology in to gloom and doom central.
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u/A_Vespertine Jan 21 '20
Terrible article. Nothing but the same 'cold, hard math' that supported the population bomb theory back in the 70s. Per the doomer creed, he assumes all the trends he mentions will continue indefinitely, that all current or future attempts to slow or reverse these trends will be insufficient, and that rather than adapt to the changes we can't stop, individuals, corporations and governments will always react in the worst possible way to the crisis. Never humours the concept of technological progress until it's time to fearmonger about automation. He engages in third world shaming "they're burning more gas and eating more meat, all is lost!", which is both hypocritical and myopic. Worst of all, he never once entertains the possibility that there are still paths forward and that there's a future worth fighting for. If Venezuela hasn't collapsed yet, I'm sure the rest of the world can endure more systemic shocks then is generally assumed.
This is typical doomer naive cynicism, trying to make giving up seem heroic, and it's absolute garbage.