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.

This heat is humid and not like the dry heat abroad. I can enjoy holidays at higher temperatures but I can’t stand our hot sticky weather heat waves.

2025 was the hottest year on record.

1976 is a real problem as people can't seem to get past that.

The planet will be fine, humans not so much.

The collapse of the AMOC keeps me awake at night.

The problem is, people can not/ will not see and accept it.

Of course not, we have bloody comfortable lives. No-one wants to go back to the 90s life, let alone 70s, 50s, 1800s....

We are addicted to energy and oil. We are short-term creatures. I never thought i would feel the effects of climate change in my life time. It will only ger worse. To really scare myself, I have started reading about "Collapse". Fascinating.

Honestly you need to chill out. What is the point of living a life full of worry and stress and misery and panic over things you can’t control?

That is no life at all.

I think people are disillusioned.

You want me to wash my yoghurt pot while China, US and India are pumping out that amount of pollution?

A bit like asking people to empty some water out with thimbles while the titanic goes down.

'Every little bit helps' is a damn lie. And the fact is that the major polluters will do nothing unless forced, and nobody has the political will to do that.

Exactly. I have lived in a hot country too. This is something else.

The Earth is a closed system. The Carbon Dioxide was always there and always will be. There has been many times in history that CO2 levels were much high than today but life prevailed.

Don't forget that when they claim 'highest temperatures since records began' means basically the last 200 years. That's nothing in meteorological terms.

Also, don't forget that science once said that the Earth was flat, the Earth was at the centre of the universe, disease was caused by bad smells and that atoms were the smallest thing possible.

Science has to be questioned constantly. Nothing is certain.

Because some actually happened and the other is a prediction? And even if the prediction of warming turns out to be correct, pinning it on human activity is a bit of a stretch considering the climate has fluctuated massively throughout Earth's history.

Bit of a paradox there. As demand for AC surges, this worsens global warming. AC uses massive amounts of electricity and expels waste heat into the atmosphere.

I am full of misery because I am too hot!

Unfortunately the people who benefit the most from actively destroying the planet can afford to live in air conditioned cocoons

Yes and no! Why is Musk so interested in Mars (which would be horrific to live on)? Even Steven Hawking was saying humans need to colonise other planets. The really knowledgable ones don't even plan on a future on earth.

(Actually i have written that and I sound like a loon...but everything I wrote is true!)

And the immanent cataclysm that has been predicted since the 80's is happening. So there is that.

Who would have thought in the 80s that 40 years later the UK would be talking about air conditioners becoming the norm ?

And there is no magic tech to keep cool, because physics.

It's not the heat we will need to worry about as much as the lack of food when we can't grow or import it.

Musk is desperate to get his name in the history books and has more money than he knows what to do with. He doesn’t care about humanity or climate change. Nothing to do with him being ‘knowledgeable’.

Well the graphs of readings over the last 200 years are going up in a definite slope that doesn't appear to be tapering - if anything it seems like it could be becoming steeper! And the impact of those incremental increases is much greater. I am not going to be here another 200 years to see it going down, if it does, neither my child or likely my grandchildren.

Science should be and is constantly questioned, but not by assuming it's all wrong and starting again. The pace of checking and discovery has accelerated with time.

The IPCC reports are pretty comprehensive (and surprisingly readable, at least the synthesis reports and the Summary for Policymakers).
www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/

Global warming is all about extremes sadly.
More heatwaves, more rain, more hurricanes, more flooding and on and on. I think we're screwed, it's too far gone for one generation (ours) to bring it back

Seems so far to be an almost even divide among posters who think we are f*cked and there is nothing we can do (although it may help with peace of mind to be somehow engaged), and those who are denying it is an issue at all. Honestly not feeling at all comforted by this thread, although I probably should have expected the replies!

On the positive side, it's not too late to make changes, but it needs to be internationally coordinated, and the small minded people who think it's not their problem need to actually do their part.

If we (as in society) had accepted that the climate can change way back when, and put 1% of the effort that has been expended on arguing over why into mitigating the effects, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But we didn't. Despite the fact that every month archaeologists uncover evidence that human settlement has been directly affected by climate change - driving some of the greatest migrations in both prehistory and history.

I’m with you OP, but to get yourself off the anxious ledge, have a look here at all the positive climate news:

www.dailyclimate.org/

Same people no doubt who don’t believe in ‘experts’ or scientists ( many of who have zero vested interests) - it was the same with the Brexit ‘we hold all the cards ‘ brigade -nope, we didn’t -the BBC allowed Patrick Midford masses of airtime as head the only senior economist they could find who backed it and they work very much on ‘balanced arguments’ and even he said at the time it would screw a lot if business up and would be a very long time to bear dividends. With climate, it’s pretty obvious there’s an issue, when they are getting 30 degrees pretty regularly in Stockholm and Copenhagen in the summer when the norm was more like 21 at best!! And yet you have Americans who seemingly bang on the AC Willy nilly at 20 degrees, their gvt are making little effort ( at moment) to move away from oil and gas dependence and populations taking the mickey and moaning about any actions taken to try and slow down the issue ( not just UK by the way)

You're not wrong, we've completely buggered it up, since the advent of the industrial revolution. Anything we do now is crisis management. There will be major consequences for population, in that many areas of the world will become uninhabitable - many of those people will die, but the others will have to go somewhere.
And when AMOC breaks down, mild winters in the British Isles will be a distant memory. It'll be freezing. And summers will be characterised by severe drought.
But it is our children and grandchildren (etc) who will have to cope with and manage the consequences. They won't think too kindly of those who ignored all the warnings we've been getting for decades.

I’ve given up worrying about it helped by the fact I don’t have children. To slow down the inevitable climate disaster all countries would have to work together to make a massive effort. Not going to happen with the likes of Trump in power and massive corporations with vested interests in playing down the consequences of their actions. I recycle, don’t drive, don’t have air con, don’t eat meat. But my efforts will mean nothing, I’m a spec in a galaxy of problems.

The people profiting from ruining the planet will only care once it becomes too horrendous to ignore, by which time it will be too late.

Nope. The carbon dioxide has not always been there. We can say the carbon and oxygen has though.

Most of the carbon has been locked up, in coal, oil trees etc. Then we started to burn it, combining the carbon with the O2. And we have been over 200 years of belching that previously locked up carbon into the atmosphere, as CO2.

Yes, 200 years is not long in geological terms. The changes in the last 250 years would previously taken 10's of thousands of years.

We have known the earth is not flat since the time of the ancient Greeks. About 400 BC.