Have we finally gone over the edge?

I am mildly alarmed; the media goes batshit insane whenever someone predicts the end of the world. We have at best 150 years of actual data, and inferences we can make from observations of, for example, core samples. Are we going to have runaway heat death like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (movie version, please)? I don't know.

I do know that it is not that hard to do easy, inexpensive things to mitigate possible harm. For example, screw your perfect lawn! Plant a crapload of trees instead. I would like the Consumer Electronics Association to determine some sort of universal DC connector so we're not wasting energy in batteries to convert to 120AC because there is no point, they're all DC to begin with!

Yes, let's lower emissions where we can. Keep incrementing the standards. Let's find these alternatives and make them work. It's just a darn good idea regardless.

We in the US have no really poor people. Absolutely no one here is starving unless they choose to. So many safety nets. Truly poor people can get free food, free prepaid cellphones, might have to take a bus.

Meanwhile on the other end of the planet, people are planting rice by hand, wearing rags we send them (indirectly), and if they make the equivalent of $500 a year, they're doing well.

Yes, many are struggling, no doubt. But there are a lot of people like you who are willing to help out. I would prefer that no one needs a safety net, but they do exist.

If your definition of poverty equals “threatened to starve”, you still have more poor people in the US than you might think. Someone might get food through illegal activities, through theft and prostitution. I wouldn’t call that “not poor” though.

Fortunately, and appropriately for one of the wealthier nations on earth, the official definition, eg. by the US census, looks a little different and includes a much higher standard of life that might enable people to actually participate and be part of the society. Have a safe home and access to education and information. And applying those standards, the last figure I remember from ~10 years ago stated ~15% of the population lived in poverty in the US. I doubt this has improved in the recent pandemic situation.

You might chose to not accept these standards for your own perspective - but saying people wouldn’t starve “unless they chose” to is, in my opinion, extremely ignorant.

I don’t think that there’s any place safe from climate change. Some will be more impacted than others, but it’s only a matter of time for all of them. If I had to choose, might pick the Swiss Alps 😀

The other day got a diner with a few friends. 5 people all PhDs in various experimental / life sciences more or less connected to climate change. Started to talk about the latter, which we never really did before. Turns out to be the most depressing diner I’ve ever had.

Few things that we all agreed on : the less scientific people are, the more optimistic they are about the situation and the ability of science to get the problems solved. And the problem(s) that we are facing being multi-factorial and utterly complex, we won’t reach the next century in the same state of comfort that we are enjoying right now.

I don’t think that I will invite them all at the same time again.

There is no question changes are happening. There is no question small temperature variations have catastrophic effects as the weather patterns re adjust. Tides, wind patterns etc. But adjusting they are. There is no question changes will continue.

What there are questions about is how much of it is man pushed and how much is natural progression....but we all agree there is a percentage of both so, really, no downside on improving man controllable conditions.

What we are also neglecting is to understand that natural adjustments to environmental factors have been happening since the world was created. It just so happens to be that we have build cities and lifestyles around the areas that will change and now.....well, WE are on the way of the change.

Without ANY man made climate change (and yes, there is plenty) We would still have, sooner or later, catastrophic changes. This is how continents where made from there Pangea to now (unless you think that didn't have any drama involved). This is what happens with tectonic friction, this is what happens with the tilting of the world or the magnetic fields. The Sahara was once a jungle and now a dessert....way before we where driving V8 cars down I-95 The Everest was under water Before Virgin or Musk went to space, and floods of biblical proportions where taking place...well, you get the picture.

So IMO, we cannot take ourselves away from the effect we are having on the world and the effect that has on our lives and the lives of any living being...but neither can we place ourselves at the center of it and ignore nature.

At the end to the day...if our over population, consumerism, parasitical use of resources and disregard for balance makes the world unable to sustain human life....then Human life will cease and the world will continue spinning around the solar system without us for a few million years more.

The world was once an unlivable sulfurous dioxide based atmospheric planet where life as we know it would never be sustained....nobody is complaining about the changes that lead to it being what is is now. As to what it will become? with or without us, it will evolve.

Plenty of uninhabitable planets out there that have lost their atmospheres (or drastically changed them) without planes, trains and automobiles.

So....it's always about us isn't it?

And yes, we do have an effect in all this, and we could be much more responsible about it. But we are not THAT important to the universe.

Agreed

Not quite disingenuous if they are true. As Archer stated it does not remove our responsibility or guilt, but neither can we just see things from only one prism.

In essence disregarding these facts, however disingenuous it may feel to some, weakens our position as proponents of protecting the environment or addressing the causes and effects of the different facets of this breakdown.

So the arguments must still be at play, if only to give them the appropriate context and disregard as factors.

just my opinion.

edit- add- There are many other climate occurrences like the dust bowl sandstorms of the mid 20th century etc that should be accounted for as well. I don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not a denier of climate change of our part on it, we just cannot pick and choose our facts based on our own narrative. It’s weak.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree

But we need to quit meat for Gates's vegan "burgers"...

You did it first, now is my turn. Fine argument, might help "the world" to avoid "the edge".