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CrimsonToker707 t1_j6l8tdv wrote

Yeah, that ship sailed a long time ago. Best we can hope for is probably 2°c. If we're lucky.

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johndoe30x1 t1_j6lm0ve wrote

If we literally shut off half of the coal and oil and gas power plants on Earth right now, not as the goal, but as a starting point for cutting emissions rapidly, we would still need luck to stay under 2°C. It’s not happening lol

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dzastrus t1_j6mfeb8 wrote

We're burning more oil all the time. Plastic is everywhere, just everywhere. Our clothing, blankets, a lot of our vehicle parts, all of that. It's a runaway train. Awareness won't do a damn thing. Never has. The 70's had the Ecology movement and they designated the first, Earth Day. They helped stop rivers from burning but big oil just kept getting bigger. Hope all you want, convenience will win out.

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johndoe30x1 t1_j6nvdmf wrote

What I’m getting at is that we could have made modest changes back in the 70’s and even 80’s and it could have been no big deal, like saving the ozone layer. Now we’re fucked even if we took the most drastic measures that were never realistic.

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sg92i t1_j6pco28 wrote

> we could have made modest changes back in the 70’s and even 80’s and it could have been no big deal

Unlikely. Even by the 1960s petroleum had become our way of life, globally (with rare exceptions if we want to account for Amazon rainforest tribes & so on). Jevon's paradox holds that any attempt to decrease our consumption of oil or coal, say by producing more nuclear power generation, would simply make it more affordable for under developed countries to use instead.

And in any case; nuclear power does not give us the fertilizer our crops depend on, and electric transportation -still- is not advanced enough to obsolete our big rigs & seafaring container ships.

And those oil guzzling container ships are one of the planet's biggest sources of greenhouse gases. They are dirty in emissions and inefficient in oil/fuel consumption. The top 10 worst container ships in use -right now- nevermind 40 years ago, EACH emit as much greenhouse gas as all of the cars in North America.

Now I suppose in theory we could have banned petroleum based products (coal, gas, diesel, etc) after WW2 and tried to use the UN to invade & stop any country globally from using them, but I am skeptical that this wouldn't have caused WW3 and nuclear war in short order...

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asdaaaaaaaa t1_j6lnl4s wrote

>If we're lucky.

Sadly, that's been the hopes/mindset this entire time it seems. Still blows my mind I grew up learning about this, and here we are so many years later still not really doing much. Yes, we're adopting some cleaner energy, but I'd imagine the majority is still fossil fuels and polluting heavily. That still doesn't get us past major issues we know we'll be facing eventually, food shortages, refugee crisis, collapsing countries. And we all know humans do extremely well with high stress, scarcity driven situations.

The best I can hope for is that it doesn't get too bad, too fast. Hopefully we have time to adapt however we can and don't fuck it up even more.

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InsuranceToTheRescue t1_j6newio wrote

>Still blows my mind I grew up learning about this, and here we are so many years later still not really doing much.

  • 1824: Joseph Fourier first hypothesizes a greenhouse effect.
  • 1859: John Tyndall first calculates the current greenhouse effect at that time.
  • 1896: Svante Arrhenius first develops a model predicting changes based on composition of the atmosphere.
  • 1901: The term 'greenhouse effect' is coined.
  • 1902: Articles are printed recognizing the idea of global warming as a possible side effect of human industrial activity.
  • 1912: Articles are printed recognizing the greenhouse effect as fact and that consider human industrial activity may warm the planet after several hundred years.
  • 1938: Guy Callendar confirms CO2 as a greenhouse gas and his research suggested that Earth's average temperature had risen over the prior 50 years. Modern computer modeling has proven his calculations to be remarkably accurate.

We have known about this problem for over a hundred years. Our grandparents & great-grandparents knew about it. I can forgive initial ignorance of the problem as it was seen as somewhat beneficial. But global, annual industrial emissions then were about the same as what the US puts out daily now.

We have royally fucked up every step of the way. The way we have built the modern world since the industrial revolution is inherently destructive and cannot be sustained much longer. Now all of these industries are so interlinked, so connected, that the problem is uniquely positioned so its solutions will piss off everyone.

But we have made progress. We've overcome, what's probably, the biggest apprehension people have about fixing climate change: economics. We've proven that emissions aren't directly linked to growth. Countries have been able to reduce emissions in specific sectors without destroying their economies. That's some knowledge we desperately need to spread in order to win over the remaining dissenters. I mean, why complain if it isn't going to cost the economy or jobs?

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unrepairedauto t1_j6np5b9 wrote

In the USA it's cheaper to build new wind and solar farms than it is to maintain 80% of the coal power plants.

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InsuranceToTheRescue t1_j6o5bxp wrote

While wind & solar are the cheapest forms of energy for a lot of the country, there is still need for good old fashioned generators. Their inertia smooths out loading on the power plant and they are currently necessary. We can clean up how they're powered though. Start building modern nuclear reactors and a long term storage facility.

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9Wind t1_j6lv7j3 wrote

Best I can do is 6C, take it or leave it. I need to call an expert in to check if we are still meeting international agreements and buy a frame for the collapse of civilization.

You know how it is. /s

Seriously, we were fucked the moment those scientists started killing themselves and crying when showing their new data.

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Flatline2962 t1_j6l9xe5 wrote

Yeah but in the next *decade*? Like, we knew that it was almost certainly going to happen but a lot of models put it further out.

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CrimsonToker707 t1_j6lac1v wrote

Lol all the models and predictions so far have been wrong, usually by a huge amount.

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Faintfury t1_j6la4vc wrote

Everyone knows that already. Don't waste CO2 creating this study. At least do something slightly less obvious.

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Emgimeer t1_j6n65ru wrote

I had an existential crisis for the last month or so. I thought it might have been my "midlife crisis" as I have heard people go through. I have had too much on my mind about the direction civilization is going on and what getting older will be like for the next 40-50 years.

I hope not too much changes in the next few decades. I hope we can find ways to stave off a complete collapse of everything we have built.

Everything I've learned about has told me that this isn't going to go well for anyone. The US might do much better than many others historically, but the way everything is organized is optimized to depend on large systems, and if things break down, so do all the large systems, and thus the US itself will be untenable.

Without food and energy, will we simply cease to be? Will we resort to nomadic ways with the loss of our technology?

No matter what way I look at it... I feel like I am living like a GOD right now, and this time is coming to an end. Enjoying amazon and getting milk from a corner store might become memories I think of fondly.

This stopped scaring me as much as it used to, because I've been reading some very important material.

There is a book about "4000 weeks", where it talks about what living well means, and how we live 4k weeks on avg, 5k if we are lucky.

I also read the perennial philosophy by aldous huxley, Sartre's "Being and Nothingness", and "unbounded wholeness" by Klein. The first talks about how all religions are based on some of the same things, and those things are possibly the truest things. The second talks about existentialism and explores questions related to the meaning, purpose, and value of human existence. The third is about the mystical side of buddhism, logic, and its' philosophy.

All of these literary works, combined with many discussions with friends and family, I've been able to stop having panic attacks when the subject of "the future" comes up, or my own inevitable death. My palms would sweat, I'd get dizzy and anxious, my heart would start racing, and I'd feel nauseous intermittantly. I spent almost 2 weeks thinking about this stuff all day long and genuinely being fucked up over how much worse the future could go than I had hoped for when I was younger.

It feels like very little has changed since an "inconvenient truth" came out. I can no longer imagine humanity lasting long enough to make it to the stars and figure out star trek levels of technology. I can only imagine Mad Max.

This is the worst feeling that I've ever felt.... and I've been through a LOT OF STUFF!!!

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BaronVonNumbaKruncha t1_j6ohcud wrote

All I can say is that I've had these fears since the 80s, yet somehow we're all still here. Hopefully I can be just as pleasantly surprised in my final days.

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greynolds17 t1_j6nc090 wrote

I felt the same way. had extreme stress levels thinking about the future and depression from doomscrolling on r/collapse. Sometimes I still venture over there to see what's going on but I don't let it bother me. At this point, it helps me to be ignorant of the far future. I think a year out maybe at most and occupy myself with what's happening now. we might all die in a nuclear war or the collapse of society in 20 years but what am I going to do to stop it? I prefer to focus on things I can change to make my life better as it happens. I can only hope I am wrong and things will be relatively ok, but that's just hope.

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Ello_Owu t1_j6oxrg4 wrote

Like you said, you want to look back fondly on these times. Enjoy them to the fullest and let the world unfold as it should. There will be an end to all of this someday, nothing lasts forever, but think of every day like a second chance to relive your most cherished memories.

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Earth_Friendly-5892 t1_j6n07ai wrote

And Republicans continue to deny or ignore climate warming-even as Americans lose their lives and property. They’ll back the fossil fuel industry until their dying day because of their greed and lust for power. It will be up to the majority of democrats ( Manchin not included) to continue to fight for clean energy and take other measures to control the situation as best they can.

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greynolds17 t1_j6nbct4 wrote

we might all just die, I hope not, but we might, and that's something I am pretty much comfortable with at this point.

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strik3r2k8 t1_j6lk4a4 wrote

Get the confetti, champagne a party horn and watch the thermometer.

“Here it comes! 1.5C! WE DID IT! 🥳”

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snirfu t1_j6la8t3 wrote

Wow, AI really is the existential threat we should be worrying about if it's giving us news like that. (/s)

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4215-5h00732 t1_j6ldiz7 wrote

AI be like...

Me: what's 2+2?

AI: 4!

Me: no, it's 3!

AI: you're correct, it's 3; sorry.

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