The planet's vital signs are going haywire, says WFLA's Jeff Berardelli
The next years are going to be fun… The world is burning while the fossil fuel industry is chugging along like everything is great as long as you buy enough co2 credits.
I’m scared in what kind of world my children will have to live in…
Weather and even temperature are a bit of a red herring in all this. The extreme weather is caused by the rising temps and feedback loops, but what's happening is just the heat trying to normalize.
We're not going to end up with 70c at the equator and -30c at the poles. Look at the cretaceous temp, CO2, and fossil records and you'll see that the temp evens out even with CO2 massively higher then today, and you end up with things like temperate rainforest at the south pole.
Our real issue and the one we should be actively fighting against (as in actual in-the-street rebellion) is the absolute destruction of the environment. Chemical dumping, strip mining, industrial fishing, industrial agriculture, forever chemicals, microplastics, desertification and deforestation. These things are going to cause ecological collapse and kill almost everyone in the next generation or two, no question about it.
We don't have to worry about the heat getting us
You are right, all these other problems are also really bad. A lot of stuff is happening at the same time. It's hard for me to read about all the shit that is going down and not be able to do anything impactful against these things.
Yeah its really tough and I try to limit my doomscrolling to the amount needed to stay informed.
One huge problem with all this is that it effects the most privileged the least, and even the day to day things we can do to feel like we're helping are only really available to those of us with that privilege. Like, I could say "start a vege garden, buy hemp and wool clothes, fix things in your workshop instead of buying new" but yeah, those aren't really options most people can take unless we change the underlying structure of our society first.
But then, why don't we try changing society so we can then fix these issues?
In the end, it's all part of the class war, and we're losing badly.
I'm living in a flat, this limits what I can do on my own. But I'm looking into getting some solar panels to put up on the balcony, coupled with a storage battery this should bring down the kW/h I need from an external provider.
In the far future I would like to move out of the city and start producing more of my own food, but prices are just to high right now.
Don't be convinced that by lowering your impact you can make any change. Corporations want you to think that because if the masses think that they are the issue then they can continue what they are doing. The only way we can contribute is if we all get on the streets and protest. If millions of people get out on the streets for an indefinite amount of time, stop working, stop buying things, and demand change then we will get change.
no, those peple will be just mowed down by automatic weapons fire until put in their place.
AI's creators are taking care to ultimately obsolete as many people as possible. If you're not a source of profit to a capitalist you're disposable. If you're a source of a cost then you're to be disposed of as fast as possible. There are several billion people fleeing uninhabitable areas, they'll gladly replace spoiled woke kids at their spots in factories and glass towers.
Sorry for bluntness but this is the reality in the minds of those who rule.
Weather and even temperature are a bit of a red herring in all this. The extreme weather is caused by the rising temps and feedback loops, but what’s happening is just the heat trying to normalize.
More and more severe extreme weather events are a bad thing, aren't they?
Environmental destruction is bad, yes. But climate change causes a host of major issues (adding ocean acidification to your list). Rising temperatures and extreme weather certainly will cause deaths and trouble long before the heat normalized, if that ever happens.
Bad weather is also expensive AF. There's a reason reinsurers such as MunichRE aren't on the climate change denial train: They see the writing on the wall of not being able to back the insurers you buy your flood insurance from at a price point anyone could afford. If the damages become too high on aggregate, things simply become uninsurable (hence also why states don't require nuclear plants to have insurance but back them themselves but that's another can of hidden subsidy worms).
People are talking about "but investment in climate-friendly technology costs money and we must think of the economy and prosperity" -- motherfucker if you were thinking about prosperity and the economy you wouldn't set us on a path towards cities being destroyed faster than we can build them. Broken window fallacy times a million.