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.

Until the ultra wealthy stop using private jets and super yachts nothing much will change.

And yet people get angry at protestors for highlighting and actually raising awareness over these issues. The way people directed their anger at protestors was awful, and we have politicians now who want to make it illegal to protest.

Until we have politicians who aren’t in the pockets of fossil fuel companies nothing will change.

I am desperately sad for our children, having to leave early because the buildings are dangerous in this heat.

That's a good point. Wonder if we'll get three classes of people: The super rich in insulated luxury (and helpers). The middle classes scratching around for resources. And the poor basically burning / starving.

Actually India's carbon footprint is tiny- miniscule compared to any Western country- and its birth rate declining.

My DH is also in climate science for the last fifty years. We're very fucked I'm afraid. And it's been known about for pretty much 100. And I'm in psychology, and I can tell you we're not about to get 7 billion people to change their behaviour. This book lays it out rather starkly if anyone really wants to face it.
www.amazon.co.uk/Uninhabitable-Earth-Story-Future-ebook/dp/B07H7Y6JX4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3MX8GJOWBIU4U&keywords=the+uninhabitable+earth&qid=1658154945&sprefix=the+unin%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1

Babies aren't the problem, older people are. The birth rate isn't going up (it's going down). Love expectancy is going up, that's why the population is increasing.

Yeah, it's not people that are the problem. It's the lifestyle expectations of the wealthy people (wealthy on a global scale, so that includes pretty much everyone in the UK) that is killing the planet.

1 westerner accounts for a hell of a lot more climate damage than 10 people in underdeveloped countries. There are sites which have the stats on average emissions per capita and the US and Dubai come out top, if I remember rightly.

Extremely extremely extremely fucked. And a lot of it is already “baked in”: even if we hit net zero now, today, lots of what’s coming will still happen. This past year of wildfires, storms, and today’s heatwave is like the trailer for the epic trilogy that’s coming our way.

I work in sustainability and every day is depressing, but also with snippets of hope. I think our best hope is mitigation and management: flood defences, sea walls, managed retreat, adapting our infrastructure. We can’t stop it, but we can live with it. (While at the same time, trying to stem it: every 0.1 degree increase is worse. We’re on track for 2 degrees which is bad, but not as bad as 2.1, etc.)

Fucked. I have a health condition and am on a load of meds that make really heat sensitive and I've pretty much been written off since Friday evening, migraine, nauseaus, woozy, cramps, weakness, labored breathing. It's not even that hot where I am (comparably) and there's been a few times where I've genuinely wondered whether I'm gonna need to call 111.

I'm 32 and have an 8 month old and I'm terrified for the future. Whats his planet going to look like and will I even be there to hold his hand through it. We don't have anyone in charge who seems to give a fuck and rather than trying to make things better they seem to be actively making it worse just to line their pockets.

It's incredibly worrying, and that makes it incredibly difficult to face and easy to say 'nothing I can do about it. It's the politians/corporates/ other countries' etc ect. I am speaking from my own experience, and I am working on overcoming my own worry about this and facing up to thinking about what I can do, and lending my support to the organisations that are already trying to do things to tackle climate change.

I think on some level change does have to come from us, the normals. But it seems overwhelming at times and that leads to no action.

But you realise that the period after this warm period isn’t going to be a cool period don’t you?

Yes! We’ve all bought into the “recycle” message and skimmed over the “reduce, reuse” part.

That's because everything is done to keep them alive whether they want to or not

I dont quite understand how fast the changes will happen. Obviously in some bits of world and eco systems the changes are now. I hear millions being displaced already. Is it going to be like dominos and happen very quickly or is it going to get bit by bit more challenging. I could have 40 years left to live and my children 70.

Overpopulation is a racist myth. It's not the people that are the issue, it's the corporations and governments who refuse to do anything about the problem whilst telling us to abandon plastic straws.

We all want economic growth and money in our pockets.

We are also addicted to crude oil.
Nothing is going to change in the near to mid future.

People lobby for electric cars and reduced packaging. But how much of the car is made from plastic or has used up some other type of carbon releasing energy?
I currently work in the NHS, an awful lot of items are single use plastic and wrapped up in single use plastic.

I am not questioning morality but only want to point out some areas of our lives that are very difficult to change in favour of the future of our planet as we know it.
And really, what is the answer?

We have to start investing and force corporations to cough up funds. No more talk.

I don't eat meat, fish or processed food, and v little dairy ( milk in coffee)
I don't have a car.
I have 2 DC.
I don't buy a lot of stuff.

I am now at the point where I am looking at Prince William jetting over the world and preaching to brown people like me about climate change, and I am like "I will be damned if I am going to do anything more."

What are the small bubbles of hope?

Sorry! Snippets. I'm tired and was reading your username at the same time

Did you watch that David Attenborough breaking boundaries on Netflix

It's bleak. Very very bleak.

We need massive transformations that the current government seem unable to lead. We KNOW how to fix many of the problems - leave fossil fuels in the ground. It will mean a lot of change which we seem unable to organise at scale.

Absolutely, epically, mind-numbingly f----d in every orifice we possess.

People are worried about heat, but weirdly unaware that rising temperatures are evaporating our water and droughts are going to affect our food supplies. Refugees will become the norm, then scarcity, then nationalism again, then finally a world war over resources.

Oh, and rising temps are affecting fertility, so we can be prepared for a dearth of females in all sorts of species. Mass extinctions are already in process.

It's very bleak - and I agree with the previous PP who said that you simply aren't going to get the behaviour change required to make a difference. Look at the number of "it's called SUMMER sheeple" posts on Facebook to see how desperate the situation is 🙄

🤣🤣🤣🤣

@obsessedwithsleep Bubbles, snippets, granules – be warned whatever you call it, it’s SMALL.

There is hope in how much work is being done already, by small companies and big, who are working and investing to manage and mitigate this. It’s not being ignored on any level. Lots of very very clever people (I’m not one of them, lol) are coming up with innovations and solutions to advance renewables, electrification, develop projects, etc. Technology isn’t a sole solution – and I’m not a big believer in carbon capture and storage, or nuclear, for example – but it’s one part of the solution.

From a nature POV, seeing rewinding projects succeed and things like the reintroduction of beavers take off and thrive and spread in the wild is good news. Watching teenagers dedicate themselves to climate justice gives me hope: they’re not daunted or apathetic, they’re inheriting this, they’re mad as hell about it (rightly), and they’re working to change it.

The number one thing we all can do that actually does have some impact, more than reusable shopping bags or giving up avocados, is switching our money out of pensions, banks, insurance and other financial institutions that invest in fossil fuels. Money talks.