Yeah, somehow I don't believe it. If we truly are only 7 years away from being totally fucked then I don't think we can actually do anything about it at this point. I mean, if it's true I feel like my coworkers who talk about this kind of stuff all the time would trade in their SUVs and start carpooling... You know, actually try to do something about it. But even the people I know who believe the world is gonna end in 7 years bc of global warming don't do anything about it unless it's superficial and only requires them to post a comment online.
Read Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts-ebook/dp/B07Y8FHFQ7" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmi...</a>
Except... what's going to happen is that "not enough" will get done by then, and the world won't end overnight. So what's the point, exactly?<p>This is like the death cults claiming The World Will End At Exactly... - and it doesn't, and the whole thing fizzles out.<p>1.5C will suck. 2C will suck more. Etc. But it's not like there's some magical point where it won't suck.
I mostly see 2 talking points in these comments:<p>(1) I, personally, cannot do much.
(2) If it were really so bad, people would already do something.<p>I expect more quality comments in the next hours so I won't go too much into detail but we have to understand that every single person and decision counts. And just like with climate change: There will be runaway effects (or call it "critical mass"), which means that first there are only a few people that change their behavior/lifestyle/voting, then there are more and then finally it's a big movement. It happened with Solar, it happened with vegan foods, it will happen with EV vehicles, and it will happen with many more things.<p>People change. Governments change. We can mitigate climate change. And we do. But the most important steps are believing in our power and conceptualize our lifestyle changes positively. E.g. greener cities, more walkable areas, more home office, less working, less waste. These things! All positive for the climate. All good. Let's do this.
As an european this feel very US-centristic to me. "Green new deal" is something in the US right?<p>When I visited the states, I was kind of shocked how bad the public transport system was. It's hard to be a tourist in a city like LA for example.<p>It also feels like it gotta suck to be in that traffic every day which I am sure many are. So many cities seems completely built to for everyone to have a car. There is no walking distance anywhere.<p>Ofc I rented a carto travel around since there was no other option available. While I really enjoyed the large straight roads of the US it just amazed me that there was so bad sidewalks, little to no bicycle paths and bad public transportation systems.<p>What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. I have a hard time believing that when there is literally no other option than using a car.
As an european this feel very US-centristic to me. "Green new deal" is something in the US right?<p>When I visited the states, I was kind of shocked how bad the public transport system was. It's hard to be a tourist in a city like LA for example.<p>It also feels like it gotta suck to be in that traffic every day which I am sure many are. So many cities seems completely built to for everyone to have a car. There is no walking distance anywhere.<p>Ofc I rented a carto travel around since there was no other option available. While I really enjoyed the large straight roads of the US it just amazed me that there was so bad sidewalks, little to no bicycle paths and bad public transportation systems.<p>What I don't get is how the US will ever get to zero emissions. I have a hard time believing that
The common theme in the comments seems to be anti-alarmism. Which is certainly smart because alarmism from the past made many false predictions. Al Gore wrote a nice essay about how much damage his alarmism caused.<p>History predicts we have a very bad crisis coming.<p>WW2 ~79 years ago
American civil war ~77 years before ww2
Age of revolution ~70 years before
glorious revolution ~91 years before
anglo-spanish war and japanese shoguns ~100 years before
war of the roses ~100years before<p>We have a pattern of great conflict. It looks like climate change is setting up the cause for a great war with china. Hence all this talk about Taiwan, Australia, Japan, UK, France. As far as I am aware ABC is reliable news.<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-war-with-china/100511294" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-04/taiwan-preparing-for-...</a><p>From a Canadian point of view, it's hilarious how we are being treated like a protectorate. Even more interesting, there's an awful lot of talk about building new chip fabs in the usa and europe. Also seems like the plan is to let Taiwan fall.
Reading the comments I think it’s important to not read too much into the exact number on the clock. It’s similar to how nothing really happens on your exact birthday. Instead see it as a discussion starter and way to highlight the issue for more people. The clock does provoke a bit, which is good in this case.
Here's a real 'climate clock', albeit one which only looks back:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#/media/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#/media/File:Ice_A...</a><p>Notice how the last interglacial was markedly warmer than the Holocene (the current interglacial which began ~11.700 years ago). The question to ask, and this is a serious question, is how the planet ever survived this climate crisis. If the records can be believed this interglacial is markedly cooler than the previous 3 at least, the peak temperature of the previous interglacial lies above the most pessimistic prognoses for the current era yet, still, earth abided and life did not end.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum#/med...</a><p>Even the current interglacial shows some marked ups and downs with a clear trend toward lower temperatures. The "climatic optimum" - the period with the highest average temperature - lies some 8000 years in the past, since then the trend has been towards lower temperatures with the eventual drop into the next cycle of glaciation somewhere in the future. If those dire predictions hold truth, how can it be that human civilisations actually came to thrive in the stone age?<p>To put it bluntly, this type of scaremongering only serves to discredit the concept of anthropogenic climate change, it is the climatic equivalent of 'there are 5G transponders in vaccines'. The more this type of apocalyptic messaging is pushed, the more the messengers will start to resemble religious zealots instead of objective agents.
Aren't we already kind of screwed? It feels like we're more picking what type of crash we want, rather than avoiding the crash.<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-amazon-rainforest-antarctic-ice-gulf-stream/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-tipping-points-a...</a>
Kurzgesagt: Can YOU Fix Climate Change? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc</a><p>Link in response to people asking what everyone is doing, should be doing, and can be doing...
Kurzgesagt uploaded a video about this recently. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc</a>
Interesting to see all the pictures of existing clocks... with lower numbers than the current one. Clearly it's increased in the past and I'm willing to bet it'll increase again.