To worry that the planet is heating faster than we have been led to expect and whether we can cope?

[100thingstoknowaboutspace]

I understand that extreme weather events, including spikes in temperatures and longer heatwaves, are a result of smaller incremental rises in global temperature. But the rate of heat records and large jumps in the temperatures during those spikes and heatwaves that we have experienced during the last 10 years feels off the scale for me, and I am wondering how we can actually cope if it continues at this pace? Climate experts talk about 2 degrees warming by mid century, but if we experience heatwaves that are 5 or more degrees hotter or go on longer than this one, I genuinely don't understand how we will cope. At the moment my flat is only just tolerable - with every measure of cooling I could think of. A few degrees more, and survival is literally threatened. Whereas humans may be able to cope with 5, 10 etc degrees lower, as it is easier to heat up, it seems we are reaching the edge of survivability in terms of being able to stay cool enough to maintain life. Not only here in the UK obviously.

I do believe there is still action that we as individuals and as a country (which in turn may impact other countries) can take, but I am scared that things are worse than even experts, in their carefully hedged or caveated statements and predictions, cause us to believe. I am worried I won't be able to keep my child safe as they grow up.

Grateful if anyone can talk me down from this climate anxiety - and also, grateful for insight about what might be most effective for us to do.

Lovely. I work with a lot of young people providing care in hospitals to that generation. We are doing the best we can only to be met with incredible levels of entitlement from that generation, who often have no idea of the conditions youngsters now have to work and live in. How, I don’t know, beyond the fact that that generation never did give a damn about the impact of their behaviour and attitudes on youngsters. When a student nurse tells one of those that they do not get paid anything to work, and in fact have to pay for their so-called ‘training’ and the uniform that they’re wearing, there’s an occasional moment of shocked silence. Then the entitlement, demands and accompanying rudeness just starts up again.

I don’t know why anyone now is working for the benefit of that generation in hospitals. They wouldn’t do it for anyone, that’s for sure.

Sort out the training costs, sort out the ability to progress and sort out the living costs, and none of that is going to change with the mass import of cheap people who can do the work for less. Else where are all the benefits gained from the millions who have already been imported??

Low paid scut work doesn’t pay enough to live on. Particularly care which tends to have unpaid travel time between assignments and the need for your own vehicle. Immigrants often live in very overcrowded environments to keep costs down and be able to send money home. Not many young people brought up here would fancy living 8 to a room sleeping in bunk beds in shifts. Same goes for fruit picking (6 to an unheated/uncooled caravan with “housing” deductions from wages). Some of these people are desperate to earn, some are trapped. Our economic model is broken - we expect free care, low taxes, ice creams on Fridays. The number of people paying in to the system decreases year on year, but the number withdrawing from the system grows and grows. There is slavery everywhere and Westerners are living like the pharaohs of Egypt. Who makes your £3 t shirt? Who does your biab nails, or washes your car? Who cleans your hospital toilets and washes your grandma? Who mines and processes the lithium in your e-car battery? We all need to be more self-reliant, stop spaffing money on shit and pay properly for the things we truly need.

And stop victim-blaming by assuming immigrants are useless to us, perhaps. If we stopped all immigration we would be even worse off than we already are, as a society.

Doesn't really matter what anyone wants now. It's too late. We are in damage limitation but climate change was always going to happen. We've just accelerated the process exponentially. Its not something that we can stop. It never was. The world our grandkids live in is going to be very different.

Look at Venus. It used to be very much like Earth a billion years or so ago. Its proximity to the sun sped up its climate change, caused a runaway greenhouse effect. It will never be habitable again (if it ever was to start with) Earth will face much the same fate, albeit more slowly.

When I wrote my comment, I was thinking about the young people who have finished education but still live at home. They could get some work experience which is what employers want. They would be taking home more money than they would get on benefits.

It was definitely a mistake to make nursing a degree. Student nurses should be paid like in the past.

I’m not from “that” generation and the behaviour you’ve described is awful. I did however have some very shitty jobs when I was young!!

The isle of wight was a lovely 26c. Bit hotter Thursday but again nassive hysteria. And not everywhere in the UK was oppressive. . Might it be that the areas that are more built up, more cars, more electrical modern appliances in place is having an affect on the air quality and humidity. I'd expect the whole of the UK to be an inferno but it wasn't, it seems to be built up areas, more people as well. Shetland island was 15c!! I am going next month lol but that's been planned a while. I still think modern day living and the amount of cars on the roads, jets constantly flying around, the sun itself doesn't fee that hot it is the oppressive air. Also, when will we see billionaires stop using private jets as well ?

Fruit and vegetable picking and other seasonal agricultural work can never easily be filled by local populations. That's true the world over. The problem is it's temporary (often a few months a year) and also takes place in the countryside which generally has lower living costs AND lower pay than the city. So because the work is temporary it isn't feasible for most people living nearby to make a living from it because what do you do the rest of the year. For the same reason it doesn't make sense for someone living in eg London to uproot their life and move there. It also doesn't make sense to temporarily uproot there because the amount you earn (even if you are saving like mad) isn't going to offset the more expensive costs of your life in a city. Whereas it is rational for people from lower living cost, lower pay countries to come to the UK countryside for 3 months, work like mad and save like mad because the amount that they earn relative to their costs back home is worthwhile.
Thats separate to all the other debate about migration. But apart from massively automating farming (as the Netherlands does though they still have migrant workers) or the cities completely collapsing at least part of the agricultiral workforce will need to be migrant labour.

And yes cockneys used to go on hop picking holidays. But people don't want to spend their annual leave doing that in the main and that's fair enough.

Well, yes, they do - tarmac and brick heat up and then release heat. There are interesting canyoning effects in streets with high building which means that heat and pollution get trapped in. Scientists study these and take them into account when constructing towns and cities. And no - the sun wouldn't feel any different, it hasn't changed. More of the heat from it is trapped as greenhouse gases (hence the name) reduce the amount that escapes back into space.

That's not what this thread is about, though. Climate change is the inevitable, predicted, simple consequence of us irrevocably releasing millions of years of trapped CO2 back into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels/deforestation etc. The sucking out of which carbon dioxide made the planet habitable for life in the first place. This is exacerbated by urban environments, as you point out. But that's not climate change - it's a localised phenomenon.

Shetland island was 15c!!

Yes I'm in the Hebrides and we've had 13-14° all week. Probably the only time people down south are jealous of our weather 😄

On a pastoral island surrounded by water rather than in a city whose roads and buildings hold and reflect heat, several degrees of latitude further north (8.5 approximately), and someone expresses surprise that it's cooler in Shetland than it is in London?

Yes, that’s correct, it’s why people posting about us needing to up birth rates is absolute nonsense.

Oh I have already been told plenty on here about that! Posters get quite angry about it for some reason!

It really is not. It's not even that new. The data has been around for decades. People prefer to ignore it because it's too scary to contemplate. The blissfulness of the ignorant.

That is sensible. We can’t choose to be born but we can choose not to make the future harder for everyone.

I am an immigrant in the uk. I pay tax, work in schools, educate children, spend my hard earned cash in uk shops . I am educated, polite and take care of others . Immigrants are part of the fabric of society. We're not an "alien" section of it. Most of us help this country more than it helps us. So I agree with you.

How is your very anecdotal comment contributing meaningfully to the conversation?

And food and water?

Nope. The planet isnt in any danger what so ever. We are. The planet will recover from whatever we do. The irony of people complaining about environmental issues online! There is nothing remotely scary about climate change. It's just been turned into the new religeon. Anybody can use "It's couse of the environment innit" excuse to justify anything. Do you seriously think driving an EV is going to save the planet? Have you ever questioned why the answer to every environment crisis is more taxes and tariffs and fines?

ThePeppyOpalScroller
There is nothing remotely scary about climate change.

Wildlfires are your friend! Just ask Spain, Portugal, Turkey, South Australia, Victoria, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, New Mexico, California.....

Actually I am extremely afraid of wildfire, even though only 118,310 acres of England went up in flames last year.

Those firefighting blokes do it out of the goodness of their hearts and don't have to be paid wages out of our taxes, as you know. So yes, more wildfires, more firefighters, more taxes. It's tough.

You’re right, the planet isn’t in danger, it has survived massive climate shifts for billions of years. It’s the animals, plants and people that are in danger!!!

Just so. And that is scary for the animals, plants and people, no?

Definitely!!!

People will always choose to deny that there’s an issue because it helps to justify their own choices.

It isn't. It was a lighthearted comment confirming what another poster had said about the difference in temps. Feel free to scroll on by if it doesn't interest you.

The other thing was that the reason that trees were able to fossilise as coal was that the microorganisms that rot wood down hadn't evolved at that point. So dead trees just got compacted in the ground.

Those microorganisms do exist now so there will be no more coal created in the future.