Climate change: just how f***ed are we?

[obsessedwithsleep]

Obviously it's on my mind at the moment and it seems that nothing of any significance is being done. Like we're just watching those juggernaut come down the road and not even trying to the move the car.

Anyway, as the title says: how awful will the future be? What is the most likely degree rise by 2100? What does this actually mean in reality?

Would love to hear people's thoughts and wisdom.

What a horrible, nasty way to say it. This kind of attitude stinks just as much as people who don't do what they can. I hope nobody says something like that about your children or anybody you care about

Hardly an example of thinking about others which js what is needed from everybody on all sides

Come up with a solution that will actually work instead of getting offended perhaps. Getting offended doesn't make it not true.

Also, you're part of the problem. Your attitude prevents people engaging because it's so aggressive and portentous, even delighting in that. I can't imagine ever taking pleasure in addressing young children like you just did.

These replies are to Hot, sorry all. I got upset!

I'm not offended by the truth, I'm offended by your delivery of it and your delight in berating others because of it. You're not addressing people who aren't doing what they can, you're not addressing people sat in cars on the school run. Don't direct your ire towards pleasure at what their children will suffer

Parenting in the west is pretty polluting, amongst the better off anyway. I expect there are plenty of poorer families who don't have a car, can't afford a holiday and buy clothes and toys second hand.

You reference SUV's because you are lazy or cant be arsed to educate yourself appropriately

Oh the sanctimonious MNer who thinks they are so much more intelligent than the rest of us. And an ex-pat telling us all how to think in the UK too - even better.

Yes that IS it. When someone arrives for the school run 45 minutes ahead of time and leaves their engine running the entire time, that may only have a small effect on the wider climate change picture especially given what China is pumping into the atmosphere all the time. But it has a massive effect on the local air pollution picture.

And much consumption is absolutely down to wanting status symbols and wanting to show off on social media. Some is down to thoughtlessness like businesses keeping lights on all night.

Some is down to other issues. For example I went swimming last night and I drove there because I was coming back later at night and didn't feel safe cycling. Wouldn't it be nice if men stopped attacking women and we could walk and cycle more, and use our cars less?

The pp isn't. She's pointing out the ridiculousness of having children and then taking active steps to ruin their futures.

@riesenrad she did, what she said that upset me was:

"Good luck to your kids, their future is screwed."

Yes it's total delight, I'm so happy that kids futures are ruined, yay! Are you insane?

People NEED berating, because they are doing stupid things like what I said. They need told what they are doing is ruining the future, how else do you want to tell them? We have tried nicey nicey, we've tried for decades, it's quite obviously not worked. Time to be blunt, if things don't change, that's it. If you want to continue being all nicey nicey, then go ahead, but bugger all will change. That time has long passed.

You addressed me directly, somebody who has said that they're worried for their children and are aware of the dire state of things and are doing what they can. What part of the plan to wake me up did you hope to achieve by saying "Good luck to your kids, their future is screwed." ?

I was coming back later at night and didn't feel safe cycling. Wouldn't it be nice if men stopped attacking women and we could walk and cycle more, and use our cars less?

Actually @riesenrad this is a really good point and coincidentally part of a wider discussion I’ve been having with my parents. My dad has worked in climate science and renewables since the late 1960s and he’s always maintained that women’s rights, safety, education, emancipation, and access to reproductive healthcare would make a huge, huge impact to global efforts against climate change. Bigger than some of the more ‘obvious’ ones, potentially.

Many many many animal species are completely doomed. Including our own. We are past the point of no return. The planet will carry on and new species will thrive beyond the extinction of those who couldn't make it. Or a few pockets of small few living in pockets of environment which could continue to support life.

I'm meaning the ones not doing anything, like my neighbour that drives her car everywhere for no good reason, or the parents that don't give a shit about buying all kinds of crap and throwing it out. Thought that was obvious from the topic of my whole post about the parents that don't care and just carry on blindly like nothing is happening.

Ok, it felt like you were addressing me and obviously it wasn't nice because I am so worried about it. I'm educating myself precisely so that I can do what I can so the suggestion that it's pointless because they're screwed anyway is hard to take. And it's worth bearing in mind that's how it comes across, particularly if you want to inspire action over inaction with the kinds of people you're talking about.

No we are not doomed. Climate doomism is not helpful at all to getting through climate change.
medium.com/climate-conscious/climate-doomism-is-the-new-climate-denial-f4a48ddd970

Oh, tee hee, you're so cute!

Very pragmatic, while so many people are worried about the suffering lined up for their children and grandchildren.

@AndreaC74
”Yes in the Ice Age when temperatures dropped by 6C in 6mos to 10yrs…far more drastic than an increase of 1.5C in 150yrs, there were fewer people and guess what the only technology they had was fire and sewing animal skins into clothes. You seriously think humanity today which survived that with so little then is going to just go extinct? Please”

You answered:
Climate flip is unproven but if its accurate, then we could see the collapse of civilisation (as we know it) very quickly..

What do you mean? You can’t possibly mean that Ice Ages don’t exist? It is well proven that the planet goes through phases of glaciation, called Ice Ages.

Sadly most people won't be inspired by any action we take. There are people on MN who have said they will ignore a hosepipe ban because they like their grass to be green. 🙄Some (many really) won't care until it is way too late and life has already changed, then they'll complain they weren't told.

Nicely nicey “hasn’t worked”?! Oh, by what fucking measure? We currently have a carbon footprint per capita the same as we did in 1860! How’s that not progress towards net zero?

1860- You know when working class worked 16hr days, 6 days a week, but still starved to death, only had one set of clothes (no pjs), no bed to sleep on, no running water, no electricity, no access to education, no cars, no phones, no computers, no medical care. When women had no rights, reproductive or otherwise.

So what sone progress has been made - partly because we have off shored the making of everything we buy

But it's no where near enough

You wouldn't be happy if the train from Glasgow to London chucked you off at Carlisle because sone progress has been made

We don't need to worry about the 10% who won't do anything - sone people are born selfish , that's human nature so we need to ignore them and work around it

No, it’s not due to “off shoring”. It’s due to eliminating coal.
I agree it’s not enough, but my point is that “nicey nicey” does work as it has resulted in significant progress and so there is no reason to claim it doesnt work and so you don’t need to resort to fear based extremism to get people to take action to mitigate climate change and solve the crisis.

Life has improved, but our treatment of the world has worsened. If you believe it's actually ok, there's nothing I can say that will persuade you otherwise, you're one of the ones that won't help the situation.

Production of 'crap' has not helped the world at all, and that is a big part of pollution. Excessive car use is a big part too. There's many parts to pollution now other than just coal.

And eliminating coal wasn't exactly done nicely was it? Or would you consider making many people jobless 'nice'?

It is the kind of action we need though, but it needs to be way worse than that unfortunately now. It won't effect a million or so people, it will effect billions. All because we didn't take enough action in previous decades and instead laughed at environmentalists.

Coal hasn't been eliminated
Just in the uk
It's used to make the things we buy