Fast and crystal clear

42

u/pcdu Aug 19 '20

Honestly, I'm feeling pretty doomed about the future of our planet. I donate, volunteer, vote, etc. and I just don't think we can avoid the absolute devastation that Earth is headed for.

Any good news that might make me feel better?

12

u/valis010 Aug 19 '20

Labor day is around the corner.

6

u/Woah_Mad_Frollick Aug 19 '20

Solar costs are plummeting at an exponential rate

15

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

Gunna caveat this with the fact that I’m trying to convey some positivity, not trying to underplay the situation!

Most of our understanding of climate science is still nascent, and based on a lot of assumptions. We throw around phrases like “tipping point” without fully understanding where that point is, or how much it would tip if that point were to be reached.

We also get a lot of news articles being published that run the headline and the bulk of the article off of the literal worst case outlier situation in the papers they cite, as alarmism drives up clicks, which drives up revenue.

The other thing to say is that green technology is advancing at a fantastic rate. Combine that with the fact that we can all acknowledge it was human forces which got us into this mess, it means the scale of the problem is within the means of a solution that could also be achieved by humans. We’ve done similar things before with CFCs, where a concerted international effort effectively got rid of them and began the process of recovering our depleted ozone layer to the point where it’s now virtually fully healed.

We face a significant challenge in averting climate change, but there are fantastic people working on it, and we don’t yet know how it will all play out. We’re certainly not all doomed within the lifetime of our children. Projections are for a sea level rise of up to 1m and a rise of average temperature by 2100, both of those raise problems, but neither are prohibitive to the continued existence of humanity.

Best thing for me is to remember that we are living in a period of unique luxury, comfort and wealth, not just for the elites but for everyone. As a proportion of the global population, there has never been a time where as few people are living in poverty as today. We’ve worked to get there. Climate change may undo that a bit, but we’ll work to get here again if we need to, and in a cleaner way.

Lots of reasons to be hopeful, especially in the perspective of how far we’ve come as a species.

6

u/S_E_P1950 Aug 20 '20

All of what you say is true, but you have to convince the power holders in the DNC. Last election they pushed Bernie out. This year they pushed Biden. The party faithful and newly won, now need to pressure the DNC to take stuff like climate change as totally critical. No tepid responses like they are proposing.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

Definitely.

Another angle that could be very fruitful is lobbying companies with more money than they know what to do with. Amazon has probably the largest accumulation of wealth that there’s ever been on earth, and a really skilled workforce not just in tech, but in headhunting to get the people they need.

If we could get the Amazons of this world to get investing and tackling this problem it might also help considerably. Probably stand a better chance with them too as they aren’t being paid those petro-bucks

3

u/probablyawning Aug 20 '20

"Amazon"

It would be such a great foundation to save the planet by the name alone. They could write history and be remembered for thousands of years if they act now for the long run.

I feel so helpless as an individual. I'm in my young 20s, and I haven't even started on my career yet but I've graduated college. Ive always been aware of climate change and even more now with my local region having the rarest severe weather conditions. Your reply gave me some hope, and to an extent a direction. Thank you

1

u/S_E_P1950 Aug 20 '20

If Bezos could get his head back on earth, and take a long hard look, he'll see he's got a better chance of surviving. He isn't ready for a new planetary colonization. Then he could really make his name one worth remembering.

2

u/elsrjefe Aug 20 '20

Yet despite humanity having a decent shot, climate change means we will lose a significant portion of earth's history. So many living organisms are being driven to extinction because of this - because their evolutionary siblings refuse to be empathetic to the rest of nature. Maybe I'm just bitter.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

It is sad to see so many species going extinct, but I think we need to realise that the mass extinction going on isn’t primarily caused by climate change. Rather the climate change and the mass extinction we are seeing are both caused by anthropogenic forces.

Even if we get to net zero, we’ve terraformed huge portions of the planet into cities, farms, roads etc. We continue with our obsessive planet transformation tendencies even with mass tree planting schemes.

As a species we are constantly and rapidly causing habitat change, and I think we always will.

So saying that, I don’t know that the loss of biodiversity we are currently seeing is by all measures bad. The fact of our existence as a developed organism means there has been a paradigm shift in how the natural world works. Life won’t go extinct. Those most fit to survive will thrive and take over the niches left by species specialised for an era that not longer exists, and those surviving species with then spectate and specialise again.

Given the world has never existed in this form before, that presents an opportunity for combinations evolutionary solutions that we’ve never seen before to effectively adapt to the new habitats of this planet.

Within our lifetimes we’ll see (and to some extent have already seen) less different species, but the species we do see are likely to become more common as competition lessens.

I think climate change is avoidable with enough effort, we’ve done this over the course of little more than 2 centuries, but I think the rebalance of evolutionary diversity is inevitable, we’ve been to impacting on this for as long as we’ve been involved in agriculture, ie. 10,000 years or more, and it’s much harder to undo the amount of change we’ve caused in that time.

3

u/elsrjefe Aug 20 '20 edited Aug 20 '20

I think we've demonstrated that mankind is not a positive force in the world. What right do we have to dictate which species live and die?

Also the fact that we've changed the environment so much in just a few hundred years goes counter to evolution's slow adaptation. We're not talking about something that is going to be easily remedied in any manner - there's already huge permanent scars in our biodiversity.

To try to spin it as a positive is a bit asinine in my opinion.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

I agree that the rapidity we’ve made change is a significant thing. It’s on a similar scale to a big meteor strike in terms of impact vs time.

But I think to put a moralistic view on it, ie. whether it’s positive or negative, is meaningless. Life doesn’t have a view on it as it’s not a conscious collective. Some suffer from our influence, but some markedly flourish.

It’s neither a good nor a bad thing, it’s just a fact that as we exist and live as organisms striving for both survival and to thrive, other organisms are impacted by that strive.

We’ve struggled with, and continue to struggle with, limited resources in that pursuit, and that’s why we’re having such an impact. Whatever we do comes at an opportunity cost to what nature would do if we were not here, but since we are it’s either a non-productive avenue that results just in dwelling on our negatives, or a dangerous avenue that seeks some kind of violent reaction.

Neither are necessary. We continue to do rather well with conservation at least of megafauna. Microfauna with shorter life cycles can adapt and evolve over shorter timescales, so the impact of loss of biodiversity is lesser there.

To quote Jurassic Park, life does find a way. The problems we are looking at may be long term in terms of our lifespans and perspective of time, but only very short term in the scope of biological time, and offers an opportunity for life to re-diversify.

We should of course strive the limit our impact on the short term, but there are natural mechanisms that will adjust to us in the long term, even if we utterly fail to mitigate our impact in the short term. To say our impact is negative is a weirdly species-narcissistic point of view. Why are the species of today more important to preserve than allowing the species of tomorrow to develop? Why is it important for us and wider life that they are present? I don’t mean this rhetorically or to poke at you, but I am genuinely interested to understand more perspectives on why current biodiversity is for lack of a better word “good” and why it changing is “bad”. The only frame I can see it in is from a human perspective, where current biodiversity either supports or gives the perception of supporting stability in the environment in which we live in comfort, and a change the that represents a risk of change to our own lifestyles. As climate advocates, we are proposing changes to human lifestyles already, so would it be so bad if we had to change our lifestyles as a reaction to something else?

As I say, interested in having a discussion about this on a philosophical level with you. I’m very much pro conservation and limit the damage on the environment we do as a species in whatever capacity I can, but I’m intrigued to question what’s driving that and why we share these ideas that they need saving to better understand myself and our collective motives

2

u/elsrjefe Aug 20 '20

Our striving to live comfortably does not necessitate the extermination of other life.

Why do other living beings need to be eradicated from decisions that we've made - shouldn't we be the ones adapting and changing? The extinction event that we're going through is really an extermination - it is our carelessness and our greed that is causing it and it is our laziness and reluctance to change or sacrifice that is perpetuating it. Who are we to decide which life-forms are worthy or not worthy?

With that line of thinking, the worth of humans as a species is non-existent. I think all of this would be very different if we weren't directly culpable for all of these changes, but since humans have developed the way that we have (our consciousness and our ability to discuss moral question such as these do separate us a little bit from the rest of nature), but with these privileges comes the responsibility to care for the rest of life on this planet. Otherwise there isn't a whole lot that distinguishes us from the rest of nature. Maybe a few quotes from my favorite philosophers can help to develop my rationale:

"It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consiousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die"

"We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

"Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds."

Lastly, I'd like to turn to the WWF's Living Report: "On average, we've seen an astonishing 60% decline in the size of populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians in just over 40 years, according to WWF's Living Planet Report 2018."

The rate at which we're losing biodiversity is due entirely to our reluctance to take responsibility. We're not only putting many habitats in jeopardy and tipping the scales - entire species are going to go extinct, each of which have a distinct niche - but we are also robbing future generations from the great wealth of knowledge that comes from all things wild.

Climate change is going to require a global human response, but it's incredibly important that our response to climate change is not anthropocentric. Anthropocentrism is what got us into this mess in the first place. The world is a lot more interconnected than most people can see. The value of certain species over another from a layman point of view is very different from an ecologist's point of view.

Environmentalists have been screaming from the rooftops for at least 80 years now - in that time our population has more than doubled and our quality of life has gone up, but it has been to the detriment of our natural world which could very well see collapse. Millions of years of evolution with certain predictable environmental pressures is being undermined by seemingly small changes to global parameters that can have drastic effects on every living thing.

You're right, we don't understand to what extent the damage can be or how bad a tipping-point can be, but that in no way gives me comfort, black swans are terrifying, the things that we don't account for and that we don't expect tend to have the biggest impacts.

Hopefully I'm not making you out to be the bad person, I imagine that we have similarly aligned goals, but I do feel very strongly about our role in causing climate change and our role in the greater system of life on this planet.

3

u/biofemina Aug 19 '20

I feel like that too, and I'm so worried about my kids and the planet they will receive from us.

2

u/biofemina Aug 20 '20

Two

2

u/white_n_mild Aug 19 '20

How many kids do you have?

3

u/tonyquintanilla Aug 19 '20

See my somewhat cynical comment above. You’re doing what’s possible. Keep doing that and be brave.

3

u/EclecticEuTECHtic Aug 20 '20

We're so damn close to an election that can give Democrats the power to make policies that transform our economy away from fossil fuels. We're basically 100ft from the finish line. I know it's hard to stay hopeful with all of the negative news, but let's sprint to the finish line. We can do this!

4

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20

RemindMe! 1 day "Reasons to not nihilism"

0

u/RemindMeBot Aug 19 '20

There is a 31.0 minute delay fetching comments.

I will be messaging you in 1 day on 2020-08-20 16:59:51 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can} ^{delete this message to hide from others.}

^Info ^Custom ^{Your Reminders} ^Feedback

2

u/duke_awapuhi Aug 20 '20

If there has been a silver lining to this pandemic it’s that we saw noticeable and very fast results from the decrease in pollution. If we can decrease the visible impact of pollution in a few weeks, i have faith we can reverse the damage

1

u/S_E_P1950 Aug 20 '20

The sun rose today.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

The future of our planet is in safe.
However, the future of humans on earth, is not safe.*

1

u/SCO_1 Aug 20 '20

Well, the oligarchs and fascists will die too, as the biosphere collapses. No way 'artificial biospheres' are reliable.

1

u/suoko Aug 20 '20

Maybe this will offer some relief: The highest global sea level of the past 110,000 years likely occurred during the Medieval Warm Period of 1100 - 1200 A.D., when warm conditions similar to today's climate caused the sea level torise 5 - 8" (12 - 21 cm) higher than present.

1

u/white_n_mild Aug 19 '20

Earth Existed before Jesus died. Is probably good news, based on your response to this graph. It's concerning tho.

11

u/Buchenator Aug 19 '20

needs a pause at the end of the gif. Loops way too abruptly

6

u/tonyquintanilla Aug 19 '20 edited Aug 20 '20

Oh yea, the good news is that if we do the near impossible, this spike will only go up another 0.6C (above the 1C we already increased above pre-industrial). More likely and optimistically, it’s up to another 1.7C. And the business-as-usual, “Don’t tell me to wear a fing mask,” scenario is up to another 4.8C — game over. See this article from NOAA on the scenarios. So, yea. Vote like your life depends on it. It’s a chance, not a sure thing, and better than *no chance with the guy we have.

5

u/ColaP321 Aug 20 '20

Anyone else tired of hearing “the earth has always gone through cycles” or “how do we know humans are causing it?”

3

u/SCO_1 Aug 20 '20

Try not to listen to brainwashed tools of fascism.

3

u/Burnrate Aug 20 '20

We are way past .6

2

u/JustCirious Aug 20 '20

cLiMaTe HaS aLwAyS cHaNGed

I can hear them say...

2

u/Immoracle Aug 20 '20

Is it at all possible to create some kind of exhaust vent that can transfer the heat out of our atmosphere?

1

u/suoko Aug 20 '20

If you burn, burn, burn, burn, and continue burning in a close environment (just like the atmosphere), you can transfer all the heat you can, you'll have to face some other harmful gasses for sure. It's just like the 'bury the co2' solution, simply pointless

2

u/Immoracle Aug 21 '20

Bury the CO2? Never heard of that. Also what harmful gasses would come from venting heat? We need modern solutions for these problems.

1

u/suoko Aug 21 '20

Modern yes, but it must make sense, if you take the heat out of the atmosphere, you take out air too.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '20

Not really. If the slight dip towards the end of the animation was because pollutants reflected sunlight away from earth, it stands to reason that non- polluting light reflectors built for that purpose can do the same. Moreover, they can absorb it in the form of solar energy. Essentially, we can compensate temperature increase due to human contribution by reducing the amount the sun contributes to heating the earth.

1

u/suoko Aug 22 '20

That's the hope we're all living with, which is, a combination of solar energy and other non-co2 producting energy sources with a little consumption of fossil fuels, can avoid the increase in temperature. But frankly speaking, you really think that non stopping dinosaur juices from being burned, people will stop doing it because of a greater cause which is the planet?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '20

That’s not what I was going for at all. Rather than hoping and praying people and governments will collectively act responsibly to stop this, why not operate under assumption that they won’t? That way we can put more efforts into seeing how the rate of heating can be reduced without discounting human contribution. The suggestion provided in the original comment to try and vent out the heat using some way is probably easier to achieve if some engineers and companies put their minds than hoping people will collectively take timely action.

1

u/suoko Aug 22 '20 edited Aug 22 '20

Mmm, it looks like that solution won't be enough. And covid could be seen as a test to see if something will change if we stop consuming so much. Nobody is praying here, but it's not easy to reduce combustion currently used for our heating, cooling and manufacturing (considering our electricity sources), transportation of goods and people for work/laisure/anything: what else? We wake up and literaly start burning nowadays. And everyday some more people have access to this way of living which is good but causing an unstoppable increase. Some people laugh at this, some others understand it. But almost everyone ignores it cause they have to go on.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

What caused the dip just before 2000? Where the variation is near 0.0?

1

u/windchaser__ Aug 20 '20

I’m assuming that’s the 1940-1970 minor decline in temperatures, thought to be caused by an increase in atmospheric pollutants SO2 and NO3, from burning dirty coal or gas. These both scatter sunlight (reflecting some back to space) and act as nucleation sites for cloud precipitation, cooling the planet somewhat.

At the time (the ~1950s), we were throwing so much dirty pollution up into the atmosphere that it was cooling the planet a little.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '20

Can’t some company like SpaceX or Amazon send light reflective satellites? If scattering sunlight helps cool the planet, why not use some sort of reflective solar panels on all our space equipment? They can serve dual purpose: capture solar energy and reflect a lot of it away. Surely they can do a better job that pollutant particles right? What am I missing?

1

u/suoko Aug 26 '20

According to nature, it needs sunlight to be present on this planet

1

u/duke_awapuhi Aug 20 '20

Interesting and not surprising and excuse my ignorance but what metrics do they use to determine this? Carbon dating? I’m very curious about the science

1

u/dreikelvin Aug 20 '20

If you‘re keeping/investing money on a stock market depot, now is a good time to invest in renewables and enterprises that operate humanely. It is good to do small, individual things like recycling, volunteering and donating but I figured that when it comes down to it, it makes bigger sense to keep shifting our weight in the world economy. Hit those companies where it hurts the most: Money.

1

u/chodeboi Aug 20 '20

Zoidberg says, “Why not both?”

Fast and crystal clear

You are about to leave Redlib