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.

The people who read a few Guardian articles and say 'we're doomed' are funny. If we're doomed, why bother doing anything? Just go out then and spend all your savings on a V8, eat meat every meal, fly everywhere, drive to work every day.

The truth is we are not doomed. Automobile technology has taken colossal steps toward fuel efficiency in the last three decades. Your average family sedan consumes less than half of what it used to. Electric cars will invariably become the norm in the next decade or so. Aviation is changing quickly and biofuel or electric planes are well advanced in their development. The era of coal will be over by the end of the decade. Awareness of the impact of meat consumption is growing. As for poorer countries (most have a much lower carbon footprint than the West anyway), well they will very quickly abandon expensive, clunky combustion-engine vehicles in favour of easy-maintenance, cheap once they start becoming affordable second-hand cast-offs from the US and Europe.

The problem is that you people and those who pen 'peer reviewed' papers and Guardian clickbait is that you want change now. It won't happen. It's taken us 150 years to inflict climate-change damage on the planet and so it goes that it will probably take us another 150 years to heal that damage, no?

'those who pen 'peer reviewed' papers'

Scientists, you mean?

'The problem is' that we don't have 150 years to sort the damage. Change absolutely does need to happen now.

But sure, carrying on sneering about 'you people' and 'clickbait'. It's a great look for you.

Agree we absolutely do not have 150 years to deal with it

im someone’s who is pretty distracted by life to keep up with what’s going on. We’ve made some changes as a family in terms of investments and reusing things but I’m sure there’s lots more we could do.

shouldn’t we be building solar farms and wind power stations?

@crawdaddio You personally? Or in general? Yes, we need more renewables – but we also need more reliable storage on the grid. Imagine if we could harvest all the solar energy from this heatwave and actually store it and use it later, that’s the real infrastructure to be invested in.

Gosh, I didn't say communism was state capitalism - literally the opposite, in fact: I said that the Soviet Union and China practice/d state capitalism. Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism* 'reformed' capitalism, it didn't abandon it. It simply isn't the proof that a non-capitalist system would fail that you pretend it is

'State capitalism' is a simplification, of course - that's usual in a generalist discussion, I think? In this case, the simplification might help those who don't have detailed knowledge to see both your Telegraph whataboutery and your cynicism.

I'm interested in whether there's anything in the forms of communism which move away from capitalism entirely which might help us un-fuck things. And I'd like people to know that there are other forms of communism, despite your narrative, in case they are interested too.

And I don't mind you sneering at me (or mischaracterising Bordiga), because you speak very clearly when you do so.

*simplification, for the avoidance of doubt

No that isn't it.

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

A tiny example of what I see as wanton consumerism is how you shop in the UK.

The supermarkets are obscene in supply - designed to make you change your coffee cups and dinner plates twice a year.

Whenever I come back to my native UK I am staggered by the supermarkets alone. Consumer porn. A repulsive level of unnecessary - on every level.

I wonder how many of you on this thread so horrified, take a look at your own consumerism and the spend culture around you.

It is so much more than buying an SUV that contributes.

Personally, I think it's game over. I won't curb my habits for something so utterly pointless.

Maybe they are fed up with the hypocrisy.

I struggle to imagine anyone on this thread has properly railed against CC.

These threads are pathetic.

Pointless, and designed to make the original poster feel some sort of moral superiority in temps without AC.

“The planet’s heating up beyond repair but some people online were hypocrites so bring it on. I am very intelligent.”

I'm forcing myself to forget about it. There's nothing I can do, it's too late to prevent it, we're looking at damage control now and until the big players change, there's nothing us little people can do.

I don't have any children, never fly, recycle what I can and don't throw stuff away just for the sake of having new. My car is a petrol as electric just won't work for me but it is low emission and 12 years old and I plan to run it until it is no longer financially or mechanically viable. I figure I'm doing all I can so I won't worry about it. Hopefully the shit won't really hit the fan until I'm dead.

Guilty of not RTFT.

I heard on the radio earlier we need to half current transmissions to keep within the 1.5 degree increase by 2030, which apparently will still mean very hot summers.

problem is, we each can (and should) do our bit but have no control at a country level. Developing countries are also suggesting the West take a bigger hit on emission reductions as we’ve already been through our industrial revolutions and created a shit ton of the problem. Hard to argue with to be fair, although there are alternatives nowadays.

The pandemic showed how adaptable peoples behaviour can be. Personally I think this will only come from big leaps in technical advancements though.

let’s hope Scotland doesn’t become independent as we’re all gonna want to move there.

*emissions not transmissions!

Ok Love.

I do want to be more sustainable but the sustainable choices are so bloody expensive. Even simple things like biodegradable bags are fortunes more.

I drive a battered 12 year old Land Rover, it’s worth 5k at the most. I need a big car for work purposes. I can’t afford finance, I scrape by as it is.

A large electric car would be £30k or £400pm on finance. How are normal people finding that sort of money per month?!

I struggle to imagine anyone on this thread has properly railed against CC

What does that mean?

Very fucked.

To combat it, you'd need to stop holidays abroad, limit the amount of children people have, stop all production of unnecessary items (this would be a very very long list), reduce food shipments and use what is in the country more, stop car usage completely, and a lot of other harsh changes that will affect people's lives majorly.

People on MN get upset if they can't water their grass. You tell me if they'd agree to the above without complaint. 😂

To be fair, if we end up in a world war climate change will be the least of our worries

Lots of people have mentioned reducing the population and having fewer children and of course that is key, but no Western government is ever going to incentivise that because we need lots of future tax payers and public sector workers to support a huge ageing population. Italy has the fastest declining population in the world. Is the government there celebrating? No. They are very scared, to the extent that they wheel out the Pope to tell people to stop buying pets and have children instead. I don't know how we undo this massive pyramid scheme we've all got ourselves into.

@WinterDeWinter Yes, I am interested. In my ideal world we would work in small, local economies as much as possible. Housing would be allocated and restricted to one per person. We would work within our local communities, rotating jobs and covering all the necessary things such as care work, food growing, libraries, local councils. Public transport would be green and either free, or very cheap. There could be a number of electric vehicles on a shared scheme as well. I have many other ideas I would like to see happen, but I don't know if these are socialist ideas or more like benign anarchy. People would resist such ideas and call them dictatorship, but I feel I live under a dictatorship already - I am forced to participate in the capitalist system if I don't want to starve. My planet is being destroyed, without my consent. We are going to have a new prime minister but I don't get to vote etc.

It’s hot in summer…

It's not all or nothing though. The longer we leave it the worse it will get. We can do something now to change things and not let it get too much worse but it has to be pretty soon. And what we have to do is stop burning fossil fuels.

Reducing population is a daft idea

What matters is the number of people multiplied by emissions per person

Birth rates are falling especially amongst polluters , but it takes decades to impact population size and we need change now so it's emissions per person that needs to change

Unless you think government should propose a 50% instant population cull

What’s your point?

Gosh, I didn't say communism was state capitalism - literally the opposite, in fact: I said that the Soviet Union and China practice/d state capitalism.

Yes you did say that communism was state capitalism, you even gave a BS definition of it that proved you don’t know what capitalism or communism is:

It's true that Iron Curtain countries did not have a good environmental record (though we cannot know how they would be responding to the crisis now). But their 'communism' was simply state capitalism - a perversion which shifted ownership of the market from corporations to the state.

I'm interested in whether there's anything in the forms of communism which move away from capitalism entirely which might help us un-fuck things

FFS, no there isn’t because all the forms of communism which “move away from capitalism” implemented IRL historically have proven to be far worse for the environment than capitalism. I’m not saying capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have to date. Communism is worse. You mentioned several times there are “other systems” and I’ve asked what are these other systems better than capitalism and you’ve dodged the question every time.

@gnilliwdog
We would work within our local communities, rotating jobs and covering all the necessary things such as care work, food growing, libraries, local councils.

This rotating jobs is a recipe for disaster if you mean that we’d all take turns doing a different job every month or whatever. Most jobs require skills you know…it’s not like anyone can decide to be a farmer for a month and actually successfully grow food. I wouldn’t want to live in a society where Bob the gardener was also my brain surgeon.