Anyone else see that huge changes are happening right now and we’re still sleep walking?

[RudsyFarmer]

its Interesting to me that life is just carrying on while there are huge, seismic shifts occurring globally that will impact us. It’s like the start of the pandemic actually. When I read the paper and Covid had been found in China and I thought, ah China, that’s along way away and within a couple of weeks we were at the beginning of lockdowns and my joke about hoarding pasta became a reality.

We’re about to have a heatwave in October. We now have wildfires as standard in Europe every summer and mass migration of people from continents that are starting to become inhabitable are overrunning areas of Italy and Greece. More and more people will start moving away from devastated land in search of more temperate weather, food, housing and employment.

This isn’t something that will be happening in a decade. It’s happening right now. The places that used to grow our food are going to start conserving the food for their own people. I want to feel positive but I can’t see how times are going to get better from here. I read the news and it feels really, really fucking bleak.

We have already moved to get some land so we can at least try and grow some of our own food. Teaching DC how to sea fish too. Teaching them about edible weeds. Sounds so ridiculous as I sit on my M&S sofa, my smart phone in hand, having eaten food shipped from god knows where.

There is still hope that we can lessen the worst of it. But we need to act much more robustly than we are.

Here is something new that lots of us can do;

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/04/worlds-dogs-going-vegan-would-save-more-emissions-than-uk-produces

It’s fine to look at options. You’re not alone. Most people can’t afford it but there’s a reason the very rich are creating bolt holes in NZ

Even though the UK is on the 'slightly better than shit' list. I think our biggest issue is going to be feeding ourselves.

🙁

My nephew is an architect in NZ a lot of very expensive projects were abandoned long befoe covid

I went to an ExR meeting 5 years ago and it was the most desperately depressing 2 hours I've ever spent? There was a 'grieving silence' which felt like the CND 'die-ins' that my parents did in the 80's.

I left thinking what's the bloody point.

So that was very non-effectual in my book and I'm sure plenty of other attendees felt the same and never went back.

The most wide reaching effect of a Yellowstone eruption would be much colder weather. Volcanoes can inject sulphur gas into the upper atmosphere, forming sulphuric acid aerosols that rapidly spread around the globe. Scientists believe sulphuric aerosols are the main cause of climatic cooling after an eruption.

So the bright side of a supervolcano eruption would be global cooling ?

Yes.
Global cooling and mini-ice ages have always followed major volcanic outbursts.

If a supervolcano goes bust though, that is a different kettle of fish.

Maybe we'll get wiped out by a comet.

I'm just re-watching Don't Look Up. I'd forgotten how good it is.

The scale of destruction unimagineable, except on telly.

It would set off chain reactions that would devastate a lot of arable land, and the immediate effect on global sea temp is a huge variable.

It would set off chain reactions

Bloody Diana Ross. I knew she’d be behind Armageddon.

I am worried about the mass migration of people. The thing is we shouldn’t really know any of this. It’s only coz we have access to data that we need to face it. Really we should take life as it comes just like everyone before us.

we’re not supposed to know so much.

ah yes, that reminds me… A fucking I. That’s another worry.

TBH I am more worried about what happens if/when the polar ice caps melt, or enough of them melts ( I don't think it has to be the whole shebang ?) to cause some serious issues across the globe, not sure I would be investing in current ports, put it that way, Leeds or sheffield might be a better bet longterm ?

AI might help

But on migration I think we’re still at we’ve got to help everyone who needs it phase, and being aghast at anything that might be done

It’ll probably turn on a dime

Do you think that those voting Labour go on holidays to run-down seaside resorts and wear kiss-me-quick hats?

I don't. Some posters seem to think their shit don't smell, as long s they vote Labour, environmentally speaking that is.

No, they’re Tories.

The Labour people drive to rundown seaside places in their Volvos, tut about Tory deprivation and go home for a nice Malbec over dinner with their friends. At which they can all agree how terrible state schools are - because of the wicked Tories - and how they were saved from the horrors of private schooling by being able to buy the house for £1m in an area with a good comp which Jemima simply adores.

It might indeed help. Hopefully it will. I’m not thinking of migration in terms of UK and small boats etc, I’m just contemplating the scale of it and how that will turn things on its head globally.

in 50 or so years we are going to have the biggest depopulation event in history as child birth in industrial countries dives through a mix of lifestyle changes, changing sex habits, the decline of the family and the increase in cyber sex. It will be catastrophic.

at the same time child birth will go off the scale in emerging countries as healthcare improves.

there will be a huge, unstoppable movement of people to the northern hemisphere as these growing populations seek to spread and escape global warming.

Western culture and probably capitalism will collapse. There won’t be enough people to sustain either. There will be no central way of thinking. Traditional Christian views of ‘love thy neighbour’ which is the bedrock of modern day western civilisation will be crushed. There will be no common ground. In fact it’s already disappearing.

throw AI into the mix, along with a breakdown of trust law and order as an ‘every man for himself’ environment will take hold. Everywhere.

OR the opposite, global dictatorships will emerge - 1984 or brave new world style. We will be communists. And if you think that’s a good thing then you are gravely mistaken.

anyone who is stupid enough to think that this is a conservative vs labour situation is totally, totally in cuckoo land.

we’ve had the good times, the good days are running out,

you may as well enjoy them whilst you can.

uk political party / right left bickering will seem quaint in fifty years time.

we won’t know what’s hit us.

the only hope I can see is to concentrate on responsible capitalism, where the globe benefits in order to invest in communities abroad so people don’t need to migrate.

we need to reward clever people for coming up with solutions to enormous problems.

we need to stop arguing about identity. We are all in this together. We need to work together.

maybe global socialism I don’t know. But one thing that’s for sure is that we in the west will all have to learn to get by on less. A lot less.

Some of us are not "sleepwalking", we are enjoying our lives as much as we can, while we pretty much know that humanity is fucked regardless of what we do.

Me, for instance:

I do not have children, so that's one less source of huge stress I need to worry about (if I had had them I would be sick with the anxiety of knowing they are going to live the toughest time on Earth and see levels of starvation, war and death previously unseen)

I am late 40s, so I think I may still have a chance that the Earth as I know it won't get too fucked up in my lifetime. I'm pretty sure I'll still be alive when things start to deteriorate though, I just hope I won't have to witness and experience the worst that is to come.

I am in a privileged position, living in a first world country which is geographically isolated, so low chances of being reached by millions of starving, strong, unstoppable hordes as many European countries are at risk of.

So no, I am not sleepwalking, I am very much awake and doing the best I can. What's the alternative? Scream and laugh hysterically?

Trouble is too many people enjoy the drama and are not happy without something to worry about, like those idiots Just Stop Oil. All they do is annoy people and lose sympathy. Do they really think invading les mis was good publicity
As i said above, ive been in Naples this week , nobody mentioned the earthquakes. They have 100s a year and have about 2 weeks notice of an eruption.
I

@MistyBay I was watching a programme about South Korea, they’ve gone past the point of child replacement level or whatever it’s called. Nothing they can do. Depopulation and AI make me marginally hopeful.

Also @junbean Dont choose Japan for a “safe” alternative … the earthquakes, oh god. They’re waiting for “the big one” too and also I feel I saw an article then other day about the economy not doing so well.

There's publicly available maps with zones marked off with risks such as landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis. It's legally required to disclose this info in a real estate sale. I've got a translation of the map anyway, and there are safe places away from natural disasters. Any building made after 1982 is required to be fortified against earthquakes. When I said I researched I meant it lol And they are dealing with inflation like everyone else.

The buildings are fine and safe but I was more on about the mental aspect of it. Have you/ family grown up around earthquakes? Are you used to them? How would you cope in larger ones when the whole rooms shaking around you and glasses are clattering and you’re swaying slowly. That’s the thing I struggle with most 😅

@unsync googled Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Collapse. If/when ( it has occurred before, thousands of years ago) it happens, do we get a new ice-age ?

Why is Depopulation going to be such a catastrophe though?
To my mind a few billion less people is the answer to all environmental ills, food shortages, etc?
If you’re meaning there wont be workers about to do all the hard work - well, surely in 50 years time AI will have taken over anything we don’t fancy doing ourselves?

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertility-rate

This is interesting. Looking at the fertility rate declining worldwide. This will present lots of challenges - mostly ageing populations.

For more on population, Hans Rosling is interesting.

Although 'Population Matters' have critiqued some of his theories:

https://populationmatters.org/news/2018/04/population-factfulness-where-hans-rosling-goes-wrong/