Anyone else terrified about climate change

[catstring]

How on earth can we sleep at night knowing we are just sleepwalking into the abyss. Our children and their children will suffer won't they.

And Genderwitched has a point. No-one is prepared to give up their lifestyles. That is why we have a crisis.

Genderwitched

Nothing you do personally will have any environmental impact apart from to make us feel happier and feel more empathetic.

I rarely drive because I’m lucky to have great public transport. I never fly and rarely eat meat. If you and I were allocated our own personal carbon allowance I’m pretty sure by not having birth children I’d come out just fine against you.

But it makes FUCK all difference. This is not a personal issue, we have literally been sold a lie that this is a consumers issue and that everything we buy or don’t buy has an impact.

You have to do without electricity, buy nothing, go nowhere - and everyone on this planet has to do the same to ensure humans are alive in 200 years.

No one is going to do that - not you, not me, not anyone.

Genderwitched... watch the 11 min video I posted upthread. Individual consumerist choices aren't going to cut it in dealing with the problems we're facing. Human industrial activity in aggregate is the problem, and isn't going to be changed by Mrs Watkins at number 61 recycling her fabric conditioner bottles and switching her digi box at the wall. We need to rethink fabric conditioner and digi boxes etc per se.

malificent7

I agree, species come and species go, we are no different. The planet will ultimately survive but we may not. We have had our turn.

Human industrial activity in aggregate is the problem

Well thats my point, but because everyone will have to do it, nobody will bother.

You have to do without electricity, buy nothing, go nowhere - and everyone on this planet has to do the same to ensure humans are alive in 200 years.

You have absolutely no data or evidence for this, so you? It’s all about feelz and intuition and technicolour mental images of the earth on fire and polar bears standing on shrinking icebergs. The alarmist press has us all very well-trained: all it takes is one “hottest summer” headline and hysteria ensues.

Personally I’m very encouraged by then general public’s ever-decreasing interest in the climate change issue. They know they’ve been sold a pup, and they aren’t buying.

Well, it's the tragedy of the commons. One person's advantage causes a detriment to everyone else.

The tragedy of the commons is a term used in social science to describe a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action.

People will never give up their standard of living in material terms (abundant electricity, out of season food imports, long haul flights etc) even if it means their quality of life is impacted (having a clean, unpolluted environment and temperate climate). We need governments and businesses to decarbonise (and deplasticise, and all the rest). Trying to go single-use plastic free shows it is virtually impossible for consumers to do alone. The blame cannot be placed at the door of the ordinary citizen.

Climate change is a strange mixture of being very fast compared to previous changes in the geological record and pretty slow on human timescales.

I'm less terrified than I am angry that there was an opportunity to almost completely avoid this and it was prevented by rubbish excuses. It's basically just a series of engineering problems, working out how to generate energy without carbon emissions.

It's not difficult for a civilisation which sent people to the moon and worked out how to blow us all up with nuclear weapons. We only need to decide to do something about it. We can still avoid the worst.

I do t believe nothing can be done. Looks at the blue planet programme. That has done such a lot to raise awareness of our oceans and pollution especially our callous use of plastic. David Attenborough is a saint un my eyes.

We need to keep shouting about this. Social media is a good platform. We need to educate the young and go from there.

The climate in the world changes whatever man does

But apparently it changes even faster when you have groups being lavishly funded to tell us it does ... University of East Anglia, anyone?

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

Overall I do my best to avoid waste, recycle and all the rest of it, but beyond that I really can't get worked up about it

But apparently it changes even faster when you have groups being lavishly funded to tell us it does ... University of East Anglia, anyone?

Yes. There’s an entire industry now built up around the climate change agenda. It’s deeply corrupt.

Lol

More corrupt than all the incredibly rich people in power doing nothing about it when they could because they know they will be dead?

Say you’re right and there’s nothing to worry about.

Result: a few corrupt people start charities or make money off selling solar panels or green taxation.

Or if I’m right - end of the world and on our way to it all the wealthy people consume everything.

laurie fairycake interesting article you linked to.
The headline says the world is approaching the tipping point, yet you seem to think this tipping point has already been and gone within your lifetime?

Yes, I wasn’t posting that one specifically about tipping points as I’ve read others that say we’re passed it.

That one is interesting too.

so which one is it? have we passed tipping point or not? or is it the case that no one has a clue and there's a hell of a lot of scaremongering over global climate change which has happened for billions of years and will continue to happen whether i accidentally leave the bathroom light on or not>

Well it will definitely happen whether you leave the light on or not

I have no idea which exactly it is, I’ve just read multiple articles saying we’ve passed it and nothing can be done

Not really. I'll be dead long before anything drastic happens and I don't have children. No one I love will still be alive by then.

The best thing we can do is go vegan

I thought that has been debunked now.

www.ecowatch.com/vegan-environment-emissions-2509383659.html

I'm not sure it's as simple as that though, Laurie. Granted nobody has to buy solar panels, but there's also a lot of (possibly equally biased) research around the disadvantages of so-called green taxes

And that's before we consider what else could have been done with the billions given to the climate change industry ...

I have no idea which exactly it is, I’ve just read multiple articles saying we’ve passed it and nothing can be done
see this is what's wrong though; you very confidently stated that the tipping point had been and gone. That article you linked to says we are approaching it and many others don't think there will be a tipping point.
I've just had a random thought;years ago most people believed in a God. In christianity a pretty wrathful god who could smite them down.
Nowadays more people are believing in science. Have we transferred our fears of the future to a wrathful science which will punish us for our deeds, rather than a god who will punish us?
ie, are we naturally programmed to think an apocolypse is going to happen and we just need to appropriate outlet for it?

No, I confidently stated I believe the tipping point has been and gone but I don’t know this.

So let me be clear. There are multiple (hundreds) of sources saying it’s over. I now believe this.

No, I cannot prove it to you.

Could you link to one of the articles Laurie? I have heard the same btw, so am definitely not doubting you! I’ve tried googling but can’t find anything definite.

There's more than one tipping point though, and ultimately it's hard for scientists to predict a 'human extinction' tipping point. I believe the tipping point to keep warming at 1 degree above pre-industrial levels has passed, and that the tipping point to keep it at the two degrees set out in the Paris agreement is approaching. From what I've read, temperatures being 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels would be very very serious, however there is a big difference between two and four degrees above pre industrial levels when it comes to climate change. Then there is the uncertainty of triggering chains of events, eg. Melting of permafrost, changes to jet stream coinciding. To state that the tipping point to ensure humans are still around in 150 years has passed in your lifetime doesn't seem to follow what I've read. I'm in no way denying climate change or it's seriousness btw.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2017/03/16/have-we-passed-the-climate-change-tipping-point/amp/

www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/en_id/article/z43wpx/goodbye-world-weve-passed-the-carbon-tipping-point-for-good

www.climatecentral.org/news/world-passes-400-ppm-threshold-permanently-20738

I can try, last time I looked was about 6 years ago and it was so bloody worrying I stopped looking

That last article is from a couple of years ago. I will have to look harder for the more scary ones.