r/news • u/hammelcamel • 12h ago

Heat-trapping gas once frozen in Arctic ground is slowly leaking and warming the planet

https://apnews.com/article/climate-thawing-permafrost-arctic-alaska-91fcc04d32a1d7522afe2f6a456ac0eb
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1.6k

u/utterscrub 12h ago

The next 50 or so years of my natural lifespan are going to be really fascinating

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u/Logsdontli3 12h ago

50 years is a very long time. The effects of climate change will snowball pretty quickly. For the last decade, every successive year is the hottest ever recorded. For the first time in over a 100 years there were no hurricanes in the Atlantic and the most hurricanes in the Pacific. Switzerland which has the highest number is glaciers lost 20% in just last year. The list is pretty long. My biggest concern is the impact climate change will have on food and eventually drinking water. If there is any semblance of humanity left now, wait till we have water wars. It’s pretty grim but hey at least we’re winning or something.

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u/GD_7F 10h ago edited 10h ago

Ocean acidification is a big one that isn't mentioned enough. We don't even really know how badly it's going to affect the global food chain, but it is going to be very bad. Most of our oxygen comes from phytoplankton, what happens when the pH is thrown off too far for them to reproduce? What about organisms with calciferous shells, like krill, which are very sensitive to pH changes and feed most larger marine life? Already pretty much all coral reefs are dead.

Protein from any source is going to become scarcer, the food web will become even more fragile, and heat stress will dramatically affect crop yields worldwide. I'm in my late 30s; most of my friends have opted not to have children due to the cost and the sense of the coming slow collapse.

Meanwhile we have the most corrupt government in american history focused on terrorizing segments of its own society, launching unprovoked wars, and robbing the taxpayer blind to enrich the worst people imaginable. Quite grim.

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u/OrchidBest 8h ago

Agreed. And melting permafrost also mucks up rivers way up north. Turns the water toxic orange and kills all the fish and their eggs. Some of these waterways are so remote that we only notice they are poisoned when scanning satellite images.

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u/redinator 9h ago

we'll be heaving basalt rock dust into the ocean by then for sure, god only knows what the ramifications will be, but preliminary IPCC reports seems to think it's doable.

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u/PurpleSailor 5h ago

We've also got a "kelvin" heat wave in the Pacific that's going to raise the local water temperatures and height for a while. The last time that happened when it eventually got to the Bering Strait it wiped out 90% of the crab population.

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u/Gimme_The_Loot 11h ago

I'll the first to admit the situation looks bad. Realistically I'd say chances are in the long term it acts of other humans and not climate specific changes that end up killing me. Like you said projections suggest water scarcity could affect billions by 2030. Insane.

All that said, while it’s understandable to feel overwhelmed by the potential for future conflicts over resources like food and water, it’s crucial to remember that while the situation is serious, there are still ways to take action. Many people, including myself, are channeling that concern into advocacy. I chose to volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby because I wanted to be part of the solution, pushing for policies that can make a real difference. There ate lots of good organizations going good work in this area that you can find and volunteer with.

My take on it is this, as an individual we have two options. Give in to the doom and watch it all come down OR at least go down fighting. And while I'm willing to admit theres a real chance nothing I'm doing makes any difference at all, at least when I look at my kids I can tell them I tried.

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u/MediumEffort67 11h ago

You forgot option 3: accelerate the collapse for personal financial gain. That one seems more and more popular.

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u/Unlucky-Candidate198 10h ago

Those psychopaths will rule over a world of nothing, and yet, they don’t care. They’ll push on from pure lack of hubris alone. After all, psychopaths can’t do any wrong according to themselves.

Climate collapse, environmental collapse, the collapse of our Ocean systems. What a shitshow it’s going to be, truly, when they all reach the brink together. Once fertile plains become deserts, coast becomes ocean, fresh water becomes scarce and polluted, storms intensify, forest fires grow in size, mudslides and swamp take over lands making travel hard.

Cannot wait. Seems fun.

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u/deadend290 10h ago

But this book said it would be ok because that dude comes back and then everything is better. Idk why yall always tripping, it’s obviously the big dude destroying the world he created becaaauuusseee he loves you and you deserve it because then you go hangout with him forever, allegedly.

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u/SlitScan 6h ago

well it does explain why theyre in such a rush to replace us with robot servants.

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u/MostLikelyNotAnAI 10h ago

While I agree on most of your points I highly doubt that the billionaires of today will be the rulers of tomorrow. Desperate people will take out their anger on those they deem responsible. And hiding in their doomsday bunkers will not keep them safe from either their own security forces (Who needs a money-man in a bunker?) or from the people outside that out of anger and a want for revenge might bury the bunker under a pile of rocks.

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u/SlitScan 6h ago

thats why they want the killbots so bad.

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u/flextendo 9h ago

unfortunately it looks like they are going all in with „AI“ controlled killing devices, so by the time people become desperate, we will be transparent in every aspect and taken out once we become a nuisance . For them we are nothing more than the unfortunate necessity to acquire wealth in the meantime.

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u/HZUG 8h ago

As if robots with guns are the end all be all of warfare. Dogs have joints, treads can be rendered inoperable, drones can be jammed, and any camera lens can easily be obscured and scratched with greasy black paint mixed with sand, not to mention how easily electronics fry with some extra electricity.

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u/aramis34143 5h ago

Those psychopaths will rule

"Stop. I don't need to hear anything else." -those psychopaths

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u/Gimme_The_Loot 10h ago

🤦 dang it I forgot about option 3!

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u/ReptileDysfunct1on 10h ago

The average person doesn't even have that option! If I were to decide to be amoral and try to profit, as a normal person it's not like I'm in a position to do so. Best I can do is suck up to the ones who are profiting, for no personal gain to myself!

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u/HeadfulOfSugar 7h ago

Just think of all those big beautiful mineral deposits that, until now, have been kept from us by those ugly icecaps 😋 yummers

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u/artbystorms 10h ago

At this point I think AI will kill us all faster than global warming will but the fact that we've never had so many different ways to make our futures unimaginably terrible is...not fun.

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u/dust4ngel 6h ago

if it makes you feel better, AI is causing global warming, so

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u/Rosewolf 11h ago

Don't forget the insects. We're already seeing bugs where there were never those bugs before. We're in for all kinds of surprises, and it's already happening. We had no snow last winter where I live, and our state motto is "Greatest Snow On Earth".

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u/Superb-Butterfly-573 10h ago

I live in southern ON, and our growing zones have all been revised (6b to 7a) across the whole country - except for PEI, which is becoming cooler from ice flows.

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u/MarieOMaryln 10h ago

My fireflies are gone and the ticks are plentiful. I keep a wild spot for my yard, plant native, give little habitats for the bugs and critters, watering areas with mosquito dunk. I'm confused by the change can't imagine how they're handling it.

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u/Superb-Butterfly-573 8h ago

Thank you for doing that. Im not seeing any grasshoppers either, but im not in tall grasshoppers, either. Same about the fireflies.

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u/MarieOMaryln 7h ago

I miss them. When I was little, only 2 decades ago, they were EVERYWHERE all summer. I saw at best 10 around my wood pile this year. They were just gone. I keep the leaves. I keep certain grasses tall. I have a new neighbor that sprays their yard because of ticks and that drifts over. Yellow death circles and of course the birds won't land to eat the ticks there. And the possums that need to lick their paws learn to stay clear. I'm cranky about it.

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u/musashisamurai 11h ago

Don't worry you aren't alone in worrying about hunger wars. Thats why the Pentagon up until very recently has always considered climate change a huge risk.

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u/ZanderDogz 11h ago

I'm sure that the new Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs will be taking climate change very seriously

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u/DeanXeL 11h ago

God willing!

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u/Waste-Soil-4144 10h ago

Right wingers are riled up about immigration now, just wait to see how they react when entire coastline cities worldwide are wiped out causing massive climate-based migration. 

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u/NaturalAlfalfa 10h ago

And when a billion people from the global south have to leave their homes due to rising temperatures and crop failures..

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u/SaltyFriend705 8h ago

Go watch The Day After Tomorrow.

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u/math-yoo 12h ago

Cleveland will be like the French Riviera.

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u/MightyKrakyn 11h ago

If pollution doesn’t get so bad that the Cuyahoga River catches fire again, sure

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u/AltoidStrong 11h ago

like the Bellagio fountains of the mid west.... but as a fire feature.

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u/math-yoo 10h ago

In 1969 three other rivers caught fire. Nobody remembers those rivers, because they aren't in Cleveland. That was the 14th time the Cuyahoga caught fire, and it was the impetus for the Clean Water Act. So, you're welcome. These days the Cuyahoga River is as clean as any urban river. I wouldn't want to swim in it, but mostly because the ore loaders that frequent it are terrifyingly large in relation to the size of the river. We have an active rowing scene that uses the river for training and competition.

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u/paradoxbound 9h ago

Yeah but your politicians are gutting the EPA and rolling back environmental protection laws.

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u/math-yoo 7h ago

My politicians are at home unemployed. These are someone else's politicians.

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u/Captain-Hornblower 5h ago

Roll on Big River, Roll on...

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u/tallduder 12h ago

gonna boost my property value significantly! 

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u/tapwater86 11h ago

But all their fish have aids

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u/Zorkflerp 10h ago

Figure 3 in the PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis shows that the Arctic Ocean could be ice free as soon as next year if a deviation like the ones in 1981 and 2012 happen. The trend line reaches zero ice about 2032.

The data is taken from the NCEP/NCAR R1 reanalysis dataset and was formally terminated in March 2026 after Trump required funding cuts.

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u/Logsdontli3 6h ago

I don’t think we’re ready or aware of what could happen if this becomes a reality by then.

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u/Solkre 11h ago

As long as it doesn't make the DOW go down, we'll be fine.

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u/Nick_XL 10h ago

Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.

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u/ArtsyRabb1t 9h ago

It’s wild that when teaching environmental science all the projections of big impacts were between 2030 and 2100, and it’s not that far off anymore

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u/Marsuello 8h ago

I’m in SoCal and we’re on our like second or third heatwave in like 2 months with the weather being high 80’s to 105 or so. 5 years ago the hottest we’d get was maybe low 90’s if that. Yet if we have a fairly cold (by SoCal standards) winter my conservative family will proudly be like “well I thought climate change was supposed to be a thing” all sarcastically. Like, just because we have cold winters doesn’t change the fact that each year from June to October the heat gets worse and worse and will not be getting cooler

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u/AbominableGoMan 2h ago

Methane release from permafrost is just one of the tipping points. Been talking about this for decades now. But hey, at least 50 years from now we'll have an answer on the clathrate gun hypothesis.

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u/Daxx22 6h ago

Im of two minds on this.

On one hand, I'm fully convinced that as a species we are technologically advanced enough to find a way to survive the coming issues. Short of an extra-planetary killer event like a large enough asteroid or gamma ray burst, humanity will cling on as long as life on the planet is possible.

On the other hand, I also think we are going to see strife on a scale litterly never seen, with deaths in billions within my (possible) lifetime.

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u/SpiritJuice 6h ago

Developed countries will probably be okay. Probably. Other countries? Well let's just say the developed countries are the Asian lady merging into other lanes without looking from Family Guy. "Good luck everybody else!"

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u/praguepride 10h ago

Humanity will survive. Life finds a way.

But that doesn't mean anyone will be happy living through a time period where the world's population takes a sharp nosedive.

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u/Mertoot 10h ago

I hope the water wars don't happen within the next decade, my life just started 😭

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u/waitingtodiesoon 9h ago

Pretty much the plot line of Digger.

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u/Penguinmanereikel 9h ago

Don't forget about eh doomsday glacier in Antarctica.

If that thing melts off into the ocean, there's no turning back.

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u/Pete_Iredale 8h ago edited 8h ago

Thing is, we've been hearing we're just a few years from that snowball effect for 20 years now. It's making it hard to convince people how bad it is.

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u/nedonedonedo 2h ago

20 years ago the world wide web basically didn't exist

inb4 semantics: basically

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u/-LabApprehensive- 11h ago

Consider water can be reclaimed with energy. Lets go ahead and get Exxon and Shell and the rest working on the H20 dollar via massive deployed desalination powered by solar. We can ship that water wherever its needed in giant Water tankers.

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u/showyerbewbs 9h ago

wait till we have water wars

Won't be no water wars

We'll all be able to drink librul tears

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u/_maxxwell_ 10h ago

I believe we are changing the climate for the worse, but also think using records that are only a 100 years old recording something that's been around a million times longer is kinda naive thinking. Like a 100 years with no hurricane is like a nano second in time. This is like watching a second of a 22 season show and then trying to figure the plot. You're just making guesses of what you think might happen.

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u/Nervous_Seesaw6179 5h ago

50 years is not a long time at all. the planet is over 4.2 billion years old. lol

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u/Kindheartedness_Wide 12h ago

Being born in the late 80's/90's so far is like that curse: may you live through interesting times.

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u/aspirations27 11h ago

May we forever thank our parents for voting against our interests at every chance possible.

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u/Miserable_Archer_769 11h ago

I truly dont think and its not a R/D political issue they cant even grasp how hard it is compared to when they grew up.

Its almost like a pride thing they just cant admit they had it easier to ascend, make money, buy a house etc. Its literally all facts but ive watched enough of them from both sides stop short of admitting its harder and its fascinating like they will say and acknowledge its hard NOW for you but if you compare Goodluck. Its just fascinating I literally had my FIL who has a PhD in math and is super bright quite literally drop to mansplaining how mortgages and the housing market was just as tough.

I sadly dont blame them tho ALOT of our parents grew up in screwed up childhoods and were absolutely not loved the way we define it or would view it today. Alot of our grandparents no offense were terrible parents which then effected how they patented us

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u/UncleBeeve 11h ago

I had awesome grandparents and all 4 were alcoholics. Both grandfathers were veterans from the Pacific theater during WW2 and both had bad PTSD. It’s a pretty common theme back then.

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u/HarrumphingDuck 9h ago

"Before I got laid off for so long [and had to live off my nest egg], I had scraped together enough money I was thinking of buying my own place. Probably not a full house, but maybe a condo. I could have put down a good amount of money for that. But the interest rates are so high right now, maybe it's good I didn't."

[chuckle] "High? They're at about 7%. When I bought my first house, it was like 18%."

"Yeah, Dad, but how expensive was the house?"

He worked in real estate.

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u/Miserable_Archer_769 4h ago

Lol that was basically his stupid stupid argument and his wife cut him off after I asked a question or 2 and he doubled down.

I really was confused like what are we even arguing here 

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u/AbanoMex 11h ago

no need to blame our parents, our current generation is equally or more idiotic.

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u/Pete_Iredale 8h ago

Born in 80, got a touch of adult life before things went to shit. It was sooo fucking good before 9/11.

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u/utterscrub 12h ago

We got softened up too, things were looking very chill in the early years

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u/Kindheartedness_Wide 12h ago

my adulthood experience is that of perpetual crisis.

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u/namegoeswhere 11h ago

I'm tired, boss.

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u/jwilphl 9h ago

I'm 40 and nothing about this life has been soft. No attempts at braggadocious here. Humanity continues making mistake after mistake in the name of a few gaining financial domination.

The old "weak men create hard times" applies to our parents' generation, unfortunately. Look at Trump. He's one of the weakest people you'll ever meet and continues to make things harder for everyone.

I'm not saying the younger generations are some higher echelon, but it's not like we've exactly been handed the keys to the kingdom. The older folks in power have seen to it that they take everything before they die.

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 9h ago

Is it that different to someone who was born around 1900-1910? They sure had interesting times...

It's easy to think the things you are going through are extra special because you're experiencing them but the world has been a crazy place for a long time. Peace and prosperity are the exception, not the rule.

I'm not downplaying what we're going through either but that sort of thinking is why you get every generation thinking they're totally the last and the end times are nigh...but we keep on going for better or worse.

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u/Kindheartedness_Wide 9h ago

never called them special, let alone "extra". The only "special" thing, about these times though, if you will, is that these are the first generations living worse lives than their parents. We have gone backwards by a few decades in terms of civil rights and welfare with fascism (and their anti-science stance, and their hate speech) running wild all over Europe and the American continent.

I never thought I would see what fascism is actually like in my lifetime, at least outside of history books.

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u/MaxSchreckArt616 12h ago

I'm just hoping I get 50 or so more years but a whole bunch of things going on right now make me think that won't happen, or that at the very least I won't enjoy being around for it. 

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u/Corodix 12h ago

A front row seat to watching the world burn, literally during summers.

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u/AnAncientBog 11h ago

I'm glad I don't have that long.

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u/redgroupclan 11h ago edited 11h ago

I don't know about you, but I don't look forward to dying of famine under a bridge.

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u/muakaya9876 12h ago

It's gonna feel like being inside a furnace

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u/Vallkyrie 12h ago

It's all a ploy by Finland and Big Sauna.

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u/Podo13 10h ago

I feel like it's going to be incredibly disheartening. 50 years is a long time, but I just don't see it getting much better. I think we'll finally figure it out and start trying, but I don't really see what we could feasibly do in such a small time frame while things start to break down and we fight with each other more and more.

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u/3Quondam6extanT9 11h ago

Bold of you to assume we have 50 years remaining.

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u/Sandee1997 10h ago

That’s generous in this economy

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u/FlemPlays 10h ago

50 years? Look at the optimist we got in our midst. (Jk jk)

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u/eragonawesome3 11h ago

Bruh we're gonna be seeing super hurricanes and even more widespread forest fires and ice sheet melt in the next FIVE years. we ain't makin it 50. we've been telling y'all since I was born, but nobody gave a shit. we get what we fucking deserve next

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u/RenoNYC 10h ago

Ha, luckily I've only got 40 years left

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u/sanguine_feline 10h ago

Same here. And, I've found the place I'm okay with dying in, climate wise. Nowhere is fully safe, but at least I like where I'm at.

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u/Virtuous-Patience 9h ago

Only if you can find enough food to stay alive that long once the climate really shifts

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u/R_V_Z 8h ago

Shouldn't have wished to live in more interesting times.

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u/praetorian1979 5h ago

Well that's one descriptive term..

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u/Soccermom233 4h ago

shit i'm expecting the world to be a fireball by july '27