This is it - climate change is really beginning to bite

[Wowwee1234]

We know the climate is changing and it is us. This particular heat wave feels like the next step up after a winter of devastating storms.

YABU - It's just too hot
YANBU - This is the taste of things to come.

Oh my god, we had summers like this in the 90s. We’ve always had spells when it’s been hot for ages.

It’s only been a few days 😂

Rather than looking back a piddling few decades - and even then only in bad faith to continue arguing over the causes - I repeat my suggestion that energy would be much better directed to mitigating the effects of inevitable climate change.

Maybe realising it has happened before and irrevocably affected human civilisations in the past In fact the decline of the very first empire was because of climate change. So why should our be any different ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire

Obviously we've all read this - we are discussing climate change aren't we ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2-kiloyear_event

You can carry on living as if those things will make a difference. That is one way of living your life as if life will continue and it's not a bad way.

Maybe not berating people for being selfish and uneducated though. That never won anyone over anyway, you'll just piss people off and make yourself cross.

Climate has always changed but it doesn't happen at random.

<pedant alert>But it is chaotic.

One of the most selfish articles I ever read was by a journalist over 60 I think.

He was someone who had flown all over the world multiple times a month. Had been to multiple countries etc etc.

But now he had come to his senses.

And he was lamenting the state of the world. Judging people who want to go one maybe 1-2 holidays a year. How people fly too much and he was going to stop using aeroplanes, get ris of his passport and everyone should do the same- or else climate change.

I thought- OK for him to say that at his age when he's pretty much seen most of the world isn't it.

It's hard to comprehend the level of narcissism and idiocy that believes it is in anyway remotely possible to control the climate.

Imagine splitting a group of people on a desert island into two groups. One says: "Right, we need: shelter, water, food. Let's get cracking".

The other group says: "If we work hard to not have any fires, just sip from rockpools and wait for something to eat to drop past we'll be OK". Presumably before deciding to use leaves as currency.

Summer is hot call the papers!

Somehow I doubt that most of the residents of Texas will accept that climate change is responsible. Did you hear what the Governor said when asked who was to blame? Apparently it's just one of those things and only "losers" look to apportion blame.

Texans voted heavily for the people who were going to implement Project 2025, who considered the NWS and NOAA to be "hotbeds of climate alarmism" and wanted them defunded. It may sound cruel to say it, but this is what they voted for.

Kerr County sat on Federal funding and refused to use it for early warning systems because it came from "the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House" - which is a bloody cheeky thing for Trump supporters to call Biden.

The irony of people who reject Darwin becoming paradigms of his work is making me question my atheism. If there is a God, they sure have my sense of humour.

It's not about being noble, or putting oneself through anything. My original comment was to a poster who had expressed that she felt worried about the climate, and in a subsequent post suggested that perhaps she ought to adopt the more fickle outlook of a previous poster who was essentially shrugging and saying that 'The earth will be fine, humanity will be wiped out and good riddance.' I was suggesting that the mental gymnastics required to minimise our own authentic emotional response to the warming climate (worry, sadness, anger etc), are not always helpful. Better face reality and make provisions than kick the can down the road by telling ourselves that it'll be alright somehow.

20+ years ago I watched a TV programme about the role of the gulf steam and what will happen if it weakens and fails. It certainly stayed with me. It will be the end for us, basically.

@PencilsInSpace I think my post may have come across as a bit po-faced and much harsher than I intended; I'm in no way saying that we ought to live in despair, only that, if despair arises in our awareness in response to the heating climate, we allow ourselves to feel it. Ditto anger, helplessness and all the rest of it. That said, of course we continue to live day to day, finding joy and comfort and inspiration in the ordinary things we experience. Like you say, we can hold both the dread and the delight simultaneously. I too take comfort in my relative smallness and the transience of all things. Far from living in despair, there is a lot of joy in my life.

My post was really a direct comment on a PP's post, where a woman expressed worry about the climate and mused as to whether she ought to adopt another poster's somewhat more glib outlook. I was suggesting that we're generally better off allowing ourselves to feel what we feel rather than trying to convince ourselves otherwise.

This sentiment was heard quite a bit around 2018-19 when Extinction Rebellion mobilised tens of thousands across the country and journalists were exploring the widening of the Overton window in endless column inches. Many, both activists and commentators, were mature men and women who had indeed benefited from frequent travel to remote places, seen the many wonders of the natural world, and were now suggesting we all curtail our flying for the good of the planet. "Hypocrites!" cried many. "That's all very well for you!".
And of course "I'm not having anyone telling me what to do."
And "I bet they have children though."
And "Did you type that on a smart phone?"
And "You drove to work, didn't you?"

This illustrates the purity trap which people try to set, effectively removing any sense or expectation of personal responsibility. You can call anyone a hypocrite and be done.

The truth is, of course, that the writer which Finteq is referring to correct. It would be better if we all stopped flying. There is no way to argue that this isn't so. "But now he had come to his senses" -yes, that's it. And truth often exists independently of what feels fair. Science has made us more aware if the scale of the problem and better equipped to find ways to solve it. These don't necessarily align with what we want for ourselves or feel we somehow deserve because people before us had those things, while living in blissful ignorance.

It's possible to have holidays without wrecking the planet. I haven't flown in a decade, yet I've had adventures everywhere from Helsinki to Valletta, County Mayo to Bucharest.

50 years ago, my DM was trying to do her best to save the planet.

I have no idea but I do know at this point it's irreversible and the climate in one way or another has always changed. We were warned for a long time. We just have to manage with it as best we can now.

Do you think we have come to the point of no return? If so, is there any point in aiming for net zero? I'm not being graduate, just genuinely interested and wondering what I can do personally.

Weather is chaotic. Climate isn't. Unless you're talking about positive feedback loops. We don't know if and when they will happen but they can be avoided by limiting the amount of CO2 and methane emitted.

Yup, typically "oldie" pulling up the draw bridge behind them! It was OK for them to "enjoy" things, but not for the next generations! Sheer hypocrisy!

Yup, the "movement" started in the 80s, but people were laughed at and ridiculed.

Goady..not graduate 😁

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that reducing emissions of CO2 and methane won't make a difference to the increase in temperatures?

I'm not trying to 'win over' selfish and uneducated people. They won't be won over, they need to be stopped from what they are doing. Selfish people are going to be pissed off because they don't care about the rest of us. They want to continue doing what they are used to doing. And if I 'make myself cross' then that would be a small price to pay for restricting emissions and giving future generations a better future.

We berate selfish people all the time. They get pissed off. They are forced to change and society benefits.

You think their stoicism will be boosted by looking back and knowing we knowingly ignored the experts in pursuit of profits and a tan?

Does it make you feel better to make fun of people who are making changes in their own lives to try to slow this down? At least you'll never know the sky is falling if you keep your head buried in the sand.

Especially if you moved with the times and installed air conditioning