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We are going to die out, you know that don't you?
Climate change is not real?
Even when concentrations of carbon dioxide level off, the impacts of climate change will extend centuries into the future. The planet has already warmed 1.8°F (1°C), including a run of 627 months in a row of above-normal heat. Sea levels have risen about a foot and oceans have acidified. Extreme heat has become more common.

All of these impacts will last longer and intensify into the future even if we cut carbon emissions. But we face a choice of just how intense they become based on when we stop polluting the atmosphere.

Right now we’re on track to create a climate unseen in 50 million years by mid-century.
[scientificamerican.com]

Rugglesby 8 May 2
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13 comments

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1

I think the real concern is whether or not we can elect someone who is smart. I am really tired of the idiots we have had. Need someone who can really think instead of repeating the stuff we know does not work.

Maybe America is the same, here in Australia, the politicians bribe the population with the promise of shiny things, tax cuts which won't even cover the cost of other increases they bring in. But people here are stupid, not all, but it doesn't make any difference, we have 4 major parties, and I don't trust any of them.

0

We will see if we are smart enough to come up with a way to stop the rapidity of this. Personally I think we are smart enough to develop a means but it will probably cost to much, not be profitable enough, or just not allow for a balanced profit and loss statement.

2

It is an obscene reality that our greatest curse on this planet is Ourselves. We are the scourge of the Earth in plain numbers , and living conditions will get worse with little change in our behavior. We are a stubbornly insane species dooming ourselves. Tragic.

0

I think the Earth has a greater capacity to right itself than we presently imagine... but in order for her to get back up, we gotta stop kicking her while she's down. The forests during the carboniferous period were pretty epic. I mean, that was like 300 million years ago, but plants like greenhouse conditions. Presently we are destabilizing things too much for this to matter. I'm curious to know how those doing the math on this thing figured in the possibility of a resurgent forest growth (if we can just leave it alone and let it grow back!). CO2 stimulates vegetative growth. Anyone who has done any indoor cannabis cultivation knows about that. So long as we keep crushing the "lungs" of the planet though... this fact doesn't make a whit of difference. Isn't it Ironic that to a major extent, the pickle we are in today is a result of how we utilize 300 million year old compost? It actually makes a lot of sense. There was a saturated CO2 environment at that time as well... thanks to the prolific plant growth (and those ocean going cyanobacteria), that carbon was naturally sequestered and we get to live in an oxygen rich world. What is happening now, is directly link to event and conditions 300 million years ago. Wild!

Nature will compensate, and evolution accelerates under challenging conditions, the simpler, shorter species evolve more quickly. You are right, we are recreating the greenhouse of millions of years ago. Of course there were no humans back then, but maybe dinosaurs will re evolve.

@Rugglesby Well... I'm certainly not hoping for anything cataclysmic, but it is heartening to know that with each massive climate shift and mass extinction event in the past, life resurged with greater sophistication and complexity than ever before. Things will get knocked back, but so long as we (all of life on earth) can hang on by our fingernails... I have no reason to believe the progress of evolution will be lost. We are very, very close to being able to diddle with some very fundamental aspects existence on earth, as well as finding other habitats. This is both frightening and exciting at the same time. CRISPR/Cas9 is a magic goddamn door and I can see some crazy rainbows through the keyhole... most have no inkling how powerful this discovery is, its going to take some decades to reveal its plumage to the public. That and the acceleration toward AI and neural interface.... link that with our soon to be interplanetary mobility, and we are going to see some things that make Sci-Fi look tame and unimaginative. I have high hopes for the future.. but first we have to stop destroying it. Forests are the best technology to reverse what is happening ... I mean we can make gadgets to do it... but trees already do the job perfectly, cheaply, and they even self-replicate. So, we rely on forests to provide a lot for us... I'm a carpenter myself. But we need to start shifting tech away from habits that deplete living systems. Which we are doing... but it is shloooow and we have a good head of steam behind the old paradigm.

2

Of course, we are.we infinitely breed and take from a finite planet.

2

Hmmm... it looks rough.

0

Applied science could change this cycle if the money was available to do so.

1

I don't care much, to be honest. I'll be dead before the planet becomes inhospitable to life, I'm sure. I just want to cause as little harm myself, and enjoy as much of it as I can, while it still exists in its current state. Not really concerned with what happens when I'm gone.

2

One can only hope that future leaders will be sufficiently powerful, educated and ambitious, and humanistically oriented enough to push scientific and corporate interests in a parallel direction toward fixing this. And soon.

I wish I see see such future leaders waiting in the wings, we have one potential here in Oz, but he says he won't go into politics. He has registered a political party in an attempt to push our leaders in the right direction.

I love your optimism!

@Spinliesel, it's a defensive position. But in all seriousness, how can one be other? To me, cynicism is ultimately self-destructive.

@Condor5 personally, I am in favor of anarchy. But keep that a secret.

@Spinliesel my lips are sealed.

4

We are frogs boiling in the pot much of the world is in denial of.

2

If man-made climate change wasn't real, it seems a certainty to me that we will all die out in not much time at all.

If, with the global technological reach our species has, we can't affect the atmosphere of our planet, then what hope would we have to protect ourselves from natural catastrophic changes to the global environment?

Without the ability to terraform, extinction in some future time seems unavoidable.

I think extinction at some point is inevitable, societal collapse before then. It would happen with or without climate change, just possibly a little sooner with.

1

I suspect you're 100% correct. I give the human race about 200-years, but that's the optimistic side of me talkin'... it's probably more like 100-years. Glad I never had kids. Other life forms here will evolve in new ways after we're gone. 50-million years and the next intelligent life forms with opposable thumbs can try again.

sadly, yep, I agree on your timelines. I wasn't going to have kids for these reasons, my kids, nieces and nephews are all going kid free.

5

It's the least we deserve. The Earth will heal itself after we're gone.

That was Carlin's perspective. Hard to disagree.

yes. and new species will evolve and life goes on for quite some time.

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