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.

The problem may lie with trying to store water in heatwaves.

The time to store it is when it's not hot 😀

For all it's faults, the good people of Birmingham quietly sorted their water situation over a century ago. Many thanks to the people of Wales.

Yes, and so we will need to mitigate for climate change. It's a serious business! But it is perfectly possible to do that.

@SistarSystem However, the uk is not expected to run out of drinking eater entirely in the imminently future. There may be regional shortages which I really do not want to minimise as that is a horrendous thought.

Well, if you're part of the population who experiences regional shortages, then you have run out of drinking water. Little comfort knowing it's raining in Keswick night and day, if you're in Canterbury and your taps are dry.

I think Jamoriquai ought to be the heatwave mascot. Seven days in sunny june, and all that...

This is part of what alarms me. I don't want to live through, or have my child, or grandchildren, live through the agony of that.

You’d need to worry about it fifty years or so ago then. We’ve all been told for decades and many many people just haven’t cared enough to be proactive. The shops are still full of tonnes of plastic crap, we all consume too much EVERYTHING, we eat food that’s been flown in from the other side of the world and we don’t appear to be stopping. It’s a bit late now!

Mitigate for climate change? Do you think someone ought to tell Government? Them having some sort of plan would be a good start, rather than la la la la fingers in ears and business as usual, which is the policy they appear to be adopting.

Will we though? We’ve known about global warming for a very long time but it’s unequivocally worse!!!

Yes, and again, I really don't want to sound as if I am minimising as it is awful that severe water shortages are predicted in the next few decades.

But my point was actually about the assertion that all children born today in the uk are inevitably doomed to a life of suffering. Which simply isn't accurate.

I second your proposal to make Jamiroquai the heatwave mascot - afterall it does feel like an Emergency On Planet Earth!

Sorry again 🫠

Google AI just lied to me. I specifically remember temperatures reaching 38.5c 23 years ago in kent. I remember on the news they said temperatures on the tubes were over 40c.
Google AI denied this and said these temperatures were unknown prior to 2019.
It then fessed up when I pointed out that information was incorrect.
I remember that summer well because it was brutal! Not denying it's getting hotter, but we have had these temperatures before, and not just back in 76.

'Climate Breakdown' would be a much better description of what is happening.

'Global Warming' and 'Climate change' just sound way too gentle and manageable.
If this was going to be manageable people wouldn't have been campaigning so hard for so many years.

@hairbearbunches I imagine dying due to lack of water would be a very arduous death.

I wish people would talk more about birth rates. We keep being told there is a population collapse and that we need to have more kids. Surely we should be having fewer?! I mean, if climate change is going to be as bad as predicted.

In 1900 there were a billion humans. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It’s now eight billion and we’re heading for ten billion. Yes the birth rate has fallen in Japan, Korea and Europe, but Africa’s birth rate is so high the African population is going to double (just as climate change is causing chaos). What will we do when a billion Africans want cheap flights and two cars in the garage?! Also, if the promised breakthroughs in longevity happen, humans will soon be living much longer. In other words, when the lifespan rises to 130, people won’t be dying and making room.

Have you noticed who is running the water companies, and for whose benefit?

Possible, yes; but given (for example) their apparent inability to deal with sewage without dumping it into the watercourses of the country, something they know damn fine and well needs to be done but would increase their costs, and was done routinely before privatisation and the profit motive, I am not at all certain it is probable.

Im not sure for how long they'd be able to import food, it will be needed in the countries that grow it. Also i'm not sure the countries most affected will only experience civil war and emigration, surely they may turn their armies outwards given it's a zero sum game.

The record breaking temperatures they are reporting are record breaking only for the month of June.

The highest temperature recorded ever in England was just 4 years ago in 2022, July 19th: 40.3C

I can't remember exactly where it was, somewhere near Nottingham?

Quite fast. A mere three days, if it is hot. Five if you are unlucky.

Coningsby, Lincolnshire.

Complicated planetary dynamics changes our climate over the long term. The reason part's of Africa where wetter and green at one point is also due to this.

Just moving us slightly closer or further away from the sun can make a big difference. Our planet also wobbles on its access which effects things to. Climate scientists have to take all of these things into account when working out what the man made impact has been.

Horrible!

However, there is no current prediction that people are going to start dying of thirst in the uk anytime soon. The prediction is that if we do not take action, demand will outstrip supply in 2055. So action rather than suffering porn would be wise.

I have noticed that these threads on here and elsewhere often descend into envisaging violent, grisly, entirely hypothetical, deaths in great detail....that probably shouldn't be encouraged... There is a certain type of person who enjoys this though.

I was being factual. I doubt it is something we are facing Real Soon Now, though.

Oh no! I completely understand that you were trying to be helpful and factual.

Climate change is worsening due to human activities and global demand is high!!! Global climate action has made significant progress but not enough.

When these type of events don't attract the same amount of attention anymore, it'll probably be too late. Boiled frog (literally) and all that...

Yes our survival is likely to be challenged sooner rather than later- this is what all tgh"belating" about climate change/ global warming is about. This is not news I was watching programmes like Tomorrow's World talking about global warming and CO2 in the 70's- but we simply haven't held our politicians feet to the fire, which is what needed to happen decades ago and still isn't really happening. Goverments will downplay the effect this will have on your life because they don't want to believe they have to act, it's simpler and less work to believe the scientists are being pessimisstic- make your oewn mind up

This. We’ve known about environmental damage officially since 1962, and there were plenty of people who felt uneasy or unhappy before that, who could have made changes if they were listened to.

Theres too much money, too much power and too much greed involved in technology for it ever to be mitigated against.

There will however be survivors, there always are. Make sure you pass down accurate tales about how people became too distant from the environment we all depend on because of the greed and will to power of rich elites, and failed to care. Just in case your children are among the survivors. Start thinking about what knowledge you’d like to survive the destruction of this age of the world. Not that it will make much difference: some will be recorded as a new religion and some will be wiped out as soon as it stands in the way of male ego, power and wealth. So it has always been and so shall it always be. Amen.

I mean billions of years ago when the first single celled microorganisms emerged there was lots of CO2. Then the cyanobacteria evolved (blue-green algae) and started converting carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. This Oxygenating event oxidised iron minerals into ores and was a catastrophe for the tiny micro-organisms that were used to a high CO2 no oxygen environment. Then you had the evolution of more complex carbon based organisms, plants then animals all of which existed in the carbon cycle either breathing in oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide (us) or breathing on carbon dioxide and expelling oxygen (plants and cyanobacteria and algae). As greenhouse gasses reduced the earth cooled, enabling this fluorishing of complex organisms and the whole place became more livable.

Then we had the clever idea to burn the ancient remains of those cyanobacteria and algae and plants and animals releasing all the carbon stored in their bodies. And that has led to a spike in carbon levels that is causing the earth to get hotter.

In the immediate term this is bad for us. If you take a long term view of the billions of years of the planet then it's less of an issue. And the blue-green algae currently residing in the reflecting pool will be fine. 👍 👍 👍

However, I think those pesky scientists are more concerned with how people and the general nice nature stuff around us will cope rather than pseudo-algae Which has more than proven it's ability to take care of itself.@@