Don't overstate 1.5 degrees C threat, new IPCC head says – DW – 07/30/2023
www.dw.com
Jim Skea, the new head of the UN's IPCC climate panel, said it was not helpful to imply that temperature increases of 1.5 degrees Celsius posed an existential threat to humanity.

In short, we aren’t on track to an apocalyptic extinction, and the new head is concerned that rhetoric that we are is making people apathetic and paralyzes them from making beneficial actions.

He makes it clear too that this doesn’t mean things are perfectly fine. The world is becoming and will be more dangerous with respect to climate. We’re going to still have serious problems to deal with. The problems just aren’t insurmountable and extinction level.

  • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    152·
    1 year ago

    pretty sure we’re fucked.

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/30/world/antarctic-sea-ice-winter-record-low-climate-intl/index.html

    when the AMOC goes, we’re gonna see ecosystems collapse. When the ice shelf breaks off into the sea, we’re gonna see sea levels climb rapidly.

    can human civilization survive? perhaps if we can get everyone to work together. ww2 levels of mobilization and federalization of resources.

    I think this would require the UN to have a no-bullshit-session with the worlds top climate and systems folks, then each and every country declaring a national emergency to address the climate crisis. Which means we’re going to finally have to get the assholes rolling coal in their giant pickup trucks festooned with trump flags to give up their bullshit. And everyone will have to cut their energy consumption and face changes to their lives and diets that will help us prepare for the really hard times ahead and feed the starving that are already resulting from mass drought & the war in Ukraine.

    I doubt we’ll ever get the rolling coal big truck assholes to give up their bullshit, so… No, we’re fucked, we’re going to die badly in most cases, and it’s almost entirely our own fault. I let the last few generations off because they didn’t enjoy the excess, they’re simply going to get stuck with the bill.

    Cheers, hope I’m very very wrong.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      …Changes which will never happen and will themselves cause untold suffering and millions of deaths, so no one will ever support them.

      What we need is a method that would not negatively impact human standard of living. Human expansion into space would do it; we’ll require the energy and resources up there to geoengineer in a non-stupid way and get the energy and resources to get off Exxon-Mobil’s oily cock and undo ocean acidification anyway.

      So let’s do that instead. We can prevent the civil war that would erupt from climate austerity too.

      • BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        Dude - I’m really sorry, an escape hatch for the rich people who can pay to be onboard isn’t a solution. We’ve been living unsustainably - this, by definition, can’t be sustained. We need to change now so we can make that change as comfortable and human as possible; otherwise we’re going to be stuck reactively responding to each successive disaster, or crop failure, or ecosystem collapse, or climate migration wave etc.

        We need to get ahead, now.

        • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Human expansion into space is anything but that and the idea that it is is just meaningless capitalist propaganda. Human expansion into space consists of:

          • Building space solar power stations (SSPSes) to beam power down to the Earth 24/7 to replace the coal plants

          • Mining calcium and magnesium from the Moon and near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) to bind with the excess CO2 in th oceans to stop and reverse ocean acidification

          • Mining rare-Earth elements from NEAs to mass-produce electric cars and batteries down here ln Earth to replace gas vehicles

          • Build O’Neill cylinders to preserve and rebuild ecosystems in safe places where poachers will never be able to reach

          Among other things.

      • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        We don’t have time for that.

        The way I see it, we have 3 main paths

        We cut everything we’re doing, go local and human powered, and adapt to conditions as they change.

        Super-intelligence and/or full automation (whichever comes first, we soon get both). It makes capitalism pointless, it lets us expand into space scaling geometrically, and it tells us exactly how we can change things here to maximize habitability

        We keep doing what we’re doing until the “just in time” supply chains we use to minimize costs collapse. Either the US military’s plans for this are good and we minimize loss of life, or we starve. Industries collapse immediately, and maybe we lose the ability to produce higher technology - at the very least it won’t be nearly as common. Hopefully we can still work on AI and robotics or there’s no real way out of it

        Path 1 is probably not happening. Path 2 and 3 are just a race between the next revolution in technology and the climate. It’s looking pretty close right now - so doing anything to tip the scales, however slightly, is a great idea