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ISiupick t1_iuzvtmn wrote

Reply to comment by shirk-work in ‘Carbon timebomb’: climate crisis threatens to destroy Congo peatlands by sector3011

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about extinction. Those 2-3 bln climate refugees you mentioned - they're not going to just keel over and die. They'll have to go somewhere and we're going to have a few wars about it. Russia is already flying migrants in and sending them on their merry way to Europe, basically using them to drain resources and fuel anti-migrant sentiment. In the meantime we ourselves will have to deal with droughts and scorching hot weather with all that other shit going on.

Just thinking about it stresses me out, I don't want my kid living through it.

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shirk-work t1_iuzwyyc wrote

The universe has always been against us. We just got lazy the last hundred years or so. Complacent with a very unusually comfortable situation. There's definitely going to be tensions, war, famine, and so on but that's been the norm for humanity more so than the current situation. we've been through worse multiple times. Check out the worst year ever. Dang most of the time you wouldn't expect all of your kids to make it to adulthood yet here we all are. It's not about life being tough it's about giving it a big fat middle finger and existing anyways.

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ISiupick t1_iv0691j wrote

I have to disagree on the universe thing - the universe keeps trucking along, whether we exist or not. I do have to agree on the fact that we have to give it the middle finger and exist anyway. Thing is, we've been against ourselves this whole time.

Wars, famines and especially climate change are mostly man made. Oil companies have known the consequences of burning fossil fuels for at least 40 years and not only did they not help, they actively hid the research and kept fucking us over. The war in Ukraine, as an example, can be blamed on one man, yet millions suffer.

Just to put a bow on this discussion - "save the planet" seems like such a stupid idea. Earth became a thing 4 bln years ago, humanity is all but a blip in it's history. We should focus on saving ourselves.

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CagedBeast3750 t1_iv0hztd wrote

But that is and always has been our nature. In the big picture, "man made" is natural. It doesn't really counter his point - its how we exist, and probably won't change until we're gone. Who knows maybe when the floods come a few will survive and we'll take our game of thrones novels, add some morality lessons, and call it the new testament.

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sotek2345 t1_iv0l9v1 wrote

On the flip side, one person not existing makes it easier for the rest of the species (less resource use, no carbon emissions, etc.) Spending too much time thinking about this lately. Probably not healthy.

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MeSpikey t1_iv0xkpa wrote

Definitely not healthy but very understandable.

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Gemini884 t1_iv22z1r wrote

Where did you read that there will be more than a billion(upper end estimate) refugees?
Read IPCC report on impacts instead of speculating-
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-sixth-assessment-on-how-climate-change-impacts-the-world/

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ISiupick t1_iv2floh wrote

I was taking about the 2-3 bln people the previous comment mentioned. By no means its an accurate number

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