We're all frogs .....
February 23, 2023 2:11 PM Subscribe
The Side Eye: A climate change reality check. Northern New Zealand has been hit by a series of storm events over the past few weeks, culminating in a full blown Cyclone (Hurricane). It's our "find out" moment, even the right wing has been forced to get on to the "man made climate change is real" bandwagon.
Toby Morris's always excellent Side Eye talks about a more personal view of dealing with extreme climate change.
'The scale of movement is already overwhelming: more than 3 million Americans lost their homes to climate disasters last year.'
We'd like 30+ million Pakistanis loose their home during one flood last year though.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
We'd like 30+ million Pakistanis loose their home during one flood last year though.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:22 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is going to be interesting for all the billionaires who bought property in NZ as a climate hedge.
posted by sid at 2:23 PM on February 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by sid at 2:23 PM on February 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
A lot of those are in the South where I live .... where we've been having an unusual drought
posted by mbo at 2:32 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mbo at 2:32 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
> even the right wing has been forced to get on to the "man made climate change is real" bandwagon.
In New Zealand, maybe. In North America climate change has long since passed the point of culture war no return, and as such those who have staked their identity on denial will remain on that side of the divide come what may. Their house gets carried away in a flood? Antifa blew up a dam somewhere. Their parents died of heatstroke? The Democrats have a bunch of gigantic ovens in a secret location pumping out hot air 24/7 to raise global temperatures and force everyone to drive small electric cars. And so on.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:34 PM on February 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
In New Zealand, maybe. In North America climate change has long since passed the point of culture war no return, and as such those who have staked their identity on denial will remain on that side of the divide come what may. Their house gets carried away in a flood? Antifa blew up a dam somewhere. Their parents died of heatstroke? The Democrats have a bunch of gigantic ovens in a secret location pumping out hot air 24/7 to raise global temperatures and force everyone to drive small electric cars. And so on.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:34 PM on February 23, 2023 [9 favorites]
It's interesting here, a few months ago I'd have agree with you that I thought it was true here too ... but this past week we've seen the leader of our more rightwing party frog marching a member who had publicly denied climate change out in front of the media to recant, something I did not expect. The sight of farms, orchards and vineyards being washed away has kind of focused the "party of the farmers" I guess
posted by mbo at 2:38 PM on February 23, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by mbo at 2:38 PM on February 23, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is going to be interesting for all the billionaires who bought property in NZ as a climate hedge.
Smart money is on where the newly rich Kiwis are escaping to.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:41 PM on February 23, 2023
Smart money is on where the newly rich Kiwis are escaping to.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:41 PM on February 23, 2023
Snark about right-wingers aside, the panel with the caption that starts "Then school went back..." is the one that really resonated with me. My particular corner of the world has thus far been spared the worst effects of climate change, but things have changed a lot in my lifetime (there's barely been any snow, historically-speaking, this winter) and people notice and talk about it, but in that arms-length "wow, pretty weird, huh?" way. Because not very many people, myself included, are really prepared to have Real Talk about what's going on and what's likely on tap in the coming years, climate-wise.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:48 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:48 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I enjoy the Spinoff and Toby Morris. i read it weekly just to keep up with happenings on the opposite side of the world from me. Everyone everywhere should be reminded that we're all in this together, and that the solutions have to be global and they have to be soon.
It's 8 degrees F where i am right now, that's -13 C, but i still know the world is warming, and that we've got to take the pot off the boil if we and the frogs don't wanna end up as soup.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:15 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's 8 degrees F where i am right now, that's -13 C, but i still know the world is warming, and that we've got to take the pot off the boil if we and the frogs don't wanna end up as soup.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:15 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Let me preface this by saying, I know I am neuro-divergent, and this is my special issue. My mom was an environmental lobbiest. Some of my earliest memories were going with her to lobby in DC. That was in the mid 1970s, and it's been a solid march down the road to climate collapse all my life for five straight decades.
Caveats asides, I honestly don't understand how people can think or talk about anything else. I don't get the collective blindness and apathy. I don't know why everyone isn't out on the streets marching. Why companies and governments aren't truly making climate catastrophe their highest priority. I understand I cannot change anyone, but I remain truly baffled.
posted by birdsongster at 6:16 PM on February 23, 2023 [17 favorites]
Caveats asides, I honestly don't understand how people can think or talk about anything else. I don't get the collective blindness and apathy. I don't know why everyone isn't out on the streets marching. Why companies and governments aren't truly making climate catastrophe their highest priority. I understand I cannot change anyone, but I remain truly baffled.
posted by birdsongster at 6:16 PM on February 23, 2023 [17 favorites]
The comic ending with "and that's why we need to vote" feels absolutely wild to me.
posted by simmering octagon at 7:28 PM on February 23, 2023
posted by simmering octagon at 7:28 PM on February 23, 2023
Why companies and governments aren't truly making climate catastrophe their highest priority.
That one's easy: because (1) they actively profit from the status quo and doing anything about it would require near-term expenses that slightly reduce those profits; and (2) the effects of climate change are slow-moving (until they're not) and not evenly distributed, so if you're filthy rich today because of (1) what do you care what the world's like in 50 years?
It's really that simple, no need to be baffled.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:42 PM on February 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
That one's easy: because (1) they actively profit from the status quo and doing anything about it would require near-term expenses that slightly reduce those profits; and (2) the effects of climate change are slow-moving (until they're not) and not evenly distributed, so if you're filthy rich today because of (1) what do you care what the world's like in 50 years?
It's really that simple, no need to be baffled.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:42 PM on February 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
The Democrats have a bunch of gigantic ovens in a secret location pumping out hot air 24/7 to raise global temperatures
Um. The giant ovens do exist. The USA is building 20 more LNG terminals and Texas and Louisiana.
The companies are from California and Virginia.
These things are methane to climate injection machines, look up Carbon Mapper.org
posted by eustatic at 7:54 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Um. The giant ovens do exist. The USA is building 20 more LNG terminals and Texas and Louisiana.
The companies are from California and Virginia.
These things are methane to climate injection machines, look up Carbon Mapper.org
posted by eustatic at 7:54 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
star gentle uterus
I know that is the official explainer, and I know the religion of capitalism bows down to the Almighty Market Forces of Profit. But I've worked for a lot of different companies and there's a huge leeway in how many public companies chose to spend their money. ClimateTech has lots of problematic practices, sure, but some of them are earnestly trying. Patagonia is just a sports clothes company, but they do seem to be dedicated to ecology.
I live outside Silicon Valley, home to so many of the filthy rich. The fires DNGAF how much you have in your portfolio. Neither do the earthquakes and floods. Climate catastrophe is everywhere, truly everywhere, and I do see that awareness seeping into the circles of the most privileged of late.
posted by birdsongster at 8:01 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
I know that is the official explainer, and I know the religion of capitalism bows down to the Almighty Market Forces of Profit. But I've worked for a lot of different companies and there's a huge leeway in how many public companies chose to spend their money. ClimateTech has lots of problematic practices, sure, but some of them are earnestly trying. Patagonia is just a sports clothes company, but they do seem to be dedicated to ecology.
I live outside Silicon Valley, home to so many of the filthy rich. The fires DNGAF how much you have in your portfolio. Neither do the earthquakes and floods. Climate catastrophe is everywhere, truly everywhere, and I do see that awareness seeping into the circles of the most privileged of late.
posted by birdsongster at 8:01 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Temperate oceanic climates with arable fertile soils or forest-suitable soils are likrly going to fare better than other habitats. The new zealand, tasmania, ireland/uk, france, galicia, biobio to lagos chile, buenos aires, the pacific northwest, etc.
Of course, that doesn't mean these places will: be able to feed their current populations, nor be safe from experiencing increasingly frequent and severe weather etc.
The billionaires think they can swim to the deep side of the pool to compensate for the fact that their companies are dumping raw sewage into the shallow end. I mean, they get to watch more of the disaster before it overtakes them.
There are no Green Havens. There is no sustainable harvest in a changing climate and collapsing ecosystem.
Someday, maybe they will invent a supercomputer smart enough to calculate how poisoning aquifers to burn off natural gas is a net loss. Or that plowing away all the topsoil to feed a baby boom is a sure way to go bust. Or some Alien spaceship will arrive and tell us that crowding animals into Cafos breeds and spreads zoonotic diseases. Or the gods will part the clouds and in a clap of thunder declare that wearing a mask during an airborne pandemic is a good thing.
Until then, expect the climate deniers to be like the covid deniers.... clinging to their propoganda while the ventilators struggle to keep them alive.
They would rather die than admit they might be wrong. They often want us to die either way. If we wait for them to get it, they will complete their murder-suicide pact with the biosphere and the 6th mass extinction will reset complex organisms back a few dozens of millions of years.
I never did get the hang of Thursdays.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 8:47 PM on February 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
Of course, that doesn't mean these places will: be able to feed their current populations, nor be safe from experiencing increasingly frequent and severe weather etc.
The billionaires think they can swim to the deep side of the pool to compensate for the fact that their companies are dumping raw sewage into the shallow end. I mean, they get to watch more of the disaster before it overtakes them.
There are no Green Havens. There is no sustainable harvest in a changing climate and collapsing ecosystem.
Someday, maybe they will invent a supercomputer smart enough to calculate how poisoning aquifers to burn off natural gas is a net loss. Or that plowing away all the topsoil to feed a baby boom is a sure way to go bust. Or some Alien spaceship will arrive and tell us that crowding animals into Cafos breeds and spreads zoonotic diseases. Or the gods will part the clouds and in a clap of thunder declare that wearing a mask during an airborne pandemic is a good thing.
Until then, expect the climate deniers to be like the covid deniers.... clinging to their propoganda while the ventilators struggle to keep them alive.
They would rather die than admit they might be wrong. They often want us to die either way. If we wait for them to get it, they will complete their murder-suicide pact with the biosphere and the 6th mass extinction will reset complex organisms back a few dozens of millions of years.
I never did get the hang of Thursdays.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 8:47 PM on February 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
So let us commit to a new path, welcome those who join in good faith and leave behind the no-nothings proud of their ignorance.
Find the others who are willing to be happy to have enough. Join or found communities that can feed and house and protect people while not starving, displacing or killing wildlife and flora.
Avert from profit-at-all-cost and choose the less polluting, more reusuable, more renewable. Less quantity, more quality. The choice isnt between fossil fuels and pricey eCars, the choice is between death and bicycles, carpools and buses.
Less new children, more investment in the children we have. Every McMansion is an opportunity to house several families, every van, minivan and suv could be the local microbus service. Let the sunshine dry our clothes, let the sun be our lamp and the moon our nightlight. Get off the zoomba/peloton fitness treadmill and turn compost, replace lawns, build birdhouses, and plant useful things for humans and beasts and bugs. Put away your mouse poison and adopt/spay a cat.
Vote, pettition, boycott, protest
[redacted]
Because this is not just the fight for a better life, its a fight against those whose pyschopathic love of power and money and dominance has unleashes a high tech global megamachine that turns the biosphere into money and death.
We were never going to live forever, [redacted] those fuckers before they finish [redacted] us all.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 9:01 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Find the others who are willing to be happy to have enough. Join or found communities that can feed and house and protect people while not starving, displacing or killing wildlife and flora.
Avert from profit-at-all-cost and choose the less polluting, more reusuable, more renewable. Less quantity, more quality. The choice isnt between fossil fuels and pricey eCars, the choice is between death and bicycles, carpools and buses.
Less new children, more investment in the children we have. Every McMansion is an opportunity to house several families, every van, minivan and suv could be the local microbus service. Let the sunshine dry our clothes, let the sun be our lamp and the moon our nightlight. Get off the zoomba/peloton fitness treadmill and turn compost, replace lawns, build birdhouses, and plant useful things for humans and beasts and bugs. Put away your mouse poison and adopt/spay a cat.
Vote, pettition, boycott, protest
[redacted]
Because this is not just the fight for a better life, its a fight against those whose pyschopathic love of power and money and dominance has unleashes a high tech global megamachine that turns the biosphere into money and death.
We were never going to live forever, [redacted] those fuckers before they finish [redacted] us all.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 9:01 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
A few book recommendations for birdsongster that might reduce the bafflement:
Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff (2022)
Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (2002)
The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard (1957)
Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann (1922)
What it boils down to is that most of the decisions about what humanity actually does next are in the hands of a minuscule and self-selected group of humans, all of whom are barking mad, and all of whom spend very large amounts on hugely successful efforts to persuade the rest of us to revere them and aspire to be like them.
Dangling shiny things to teach babies to reach and grab never really stops working.
posted by flabdablet at 9:11 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff (2022)
Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (2002)
The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard (1957)
Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann (1922)
What it boils down to is that most of the decisions about what humanity actually does next are in the hands of a minuscule and self-selected group of humans, all of whom are barking mad, and all of whom spend very large amounts on hugely successful efforts to persuade the rest of us to revere them and aspire to be like them.
Dangling shiny things to teach babies to reach and grab never really stops working.
posted by flabdablet at 9:11 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
We have global systems that have no problem moving wealthy tourists, predatory capital and raw materials all over the world, but then insist there is no way to use those systems to rescue refugees, deliver food or education. We have a digital panopticon to spy on our shopping and entertainment and guess autocomplete our phrases, yet we are told it cant find fraud waste and corruption in our agencies, companies and politicans.
We regulate, police and harrass women and non whites to within an inch of their lives and often more... but we can't regulate the poisons coming off smoke stacks, railroads, mines or consumer goods.
All the tools for green regulations and enforcement exist. They are just in the hands of the exploiters, the polluters, the colonizers and crooks.
Sieze the cockpit before they crash the plane. Slam on the breaks before they derail the train.
They will not police themselves nor regulate themselves, no investigate themselves. They have to be persuaded, coerced or replaced.
There is no economy on a dead planet.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 9:14 PM on February 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
We regulate, police and harrass women and non whites to within an inch of their lives and often more... but we can't regulate the poisons coming off smoke stacks, railroads, mines or consumer goods.
All the tools for green regulations and enforcement exist. They are just in the hands of the exploiters, the polluters, the colonizers and crooks.
Sieze the cockpit before they crash the plane. Slam on the breaks before they derail the train.
They will not police themselves nor regulate themselves, no investigate themselves. They have to be persuaded, coerced or replaced.
There is no economy on a dead planet.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 9:14 PM on February 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
in the hands of the exploiters, the polluters, the colonizers and crooks
all of whom understand on a visceral level, even if they won't admit it even to themselves, that their ongoing ability to keep on doing what they do rests squarely on persuading the public to keep treating them with respect.
Oops.
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 PM on February 23, 2023
all of whom understand on a visceral level, even if they won't admit it even to themselves, that their ongoing ability to keep on doing what they do rests squarely on persuading the public to keep treating them with respect.
Oops.
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 PM on February 23, 2023
The comic ending with "and that's why we need to vote" feels absolutely wild to me.
In context it's election year here in NZ
posted by mbo at 9:57 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
In context it's election year here in NZ
posted by mbo at 9:57 PM on February 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Flabdabet thank you, i much enjoyed that.
I humbly offer this in trade.
Back to New Zealand, I forget which 3cr program said it but: "we're not greener, we're younger. We havent had as much time to trash the place, but we are trying to catch up to you [queensland] in pollution and sheep stations."
In the american imagination, New Zealand is a never-never land. The converible sports car dream that a middle aged, polluted and crowded american can use as a wish fulfilling placeholder. They will destroy NZ if given half the chance.
The spin-off animated comic hits the note: we have sleptwalked past normal into the age of disasters and the dissonance of our everyday lives is cracking us. Just as the frogs actually jump out, the lemings don't suicide off cliffs. We accuse these animals of the behaviors we are trapped in.
Society and culture are great and necessary things hikacked to keep us trapped in an industrial civilization that has run its course and is a dead end. Sandbags will not be enough. Collective survival, collective regulation and mitigation and clean-up and adaptation. Build arks, save peoples, save species, restore and migrate habitsts. We broke it, we save it or we all perish trying
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 11:43 PM on February 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
I humbly offer this in trade.
Back to New Zealand, I forget which 3cr program said it but: "we're not greener, we're younger. We havent had as much time to trash the place, but we are trying to catch up to you [queensland] in pollution and sheep stations."
In the american imagination, New Zealand is a never-never land. The converible sports car dream that a middle aged, polluted and crowded american can use as a wish fulfilling placeholder. They will destroy NZ if given half the chance.
The spin-off animated comic hits the note: we have sleptwalked past normal into the age of disasters and the dissonance of our everyday lives is cracking us. Just as the frogs actually jump out, the lemings don't suicide off cliffs. We accuse these animals of the behaviors we are trapped in.
Society and culture are great and necessary things hikacked to keep us trapped in an industrial civilization that has run its course and is a dead end. Sandbags will not be enough. Collective survival, collective regulation and mitigation and clean-up and adaptation. Build arks, save peoples, save species, restore and migrate habitsts. We broke it, we save it or we all perish trying
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 11:43 PM on February 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's actually raining again right now in Auckland, more flooding and evacuations
posted by mbo at 1:39 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mbo at 1:39 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
birdsongster, I feel like you shared some existential bafflement.. I have moments where this does seem inexplicable, and I mean that so literally and I truly hope no-one feels compelled to try and explain the situation to me.
before someone regurgitates the cynical/rational explanations as to why we are in this predicament, understand that it may not be necessary to do that.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:39 AM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
before someone regurgitates the cynical/rational explanations as to why we are in this predicament, understand that it may not be necessary to do that.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:39 AM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
thank you elkevelvet, deeply appreciated
posted by birdsongster at 3:20 PM on February 24, 2023
posted by birdsongster at 3:20 PM on February 24, 2023
I felt some existential dread for a number of months a good while back, but then I started asking myself if/how proposed climate/ecology solutions work within the maximum (em)power principle (MPP), aka "systems which maximize their flow of energy survive in competition".
At first, obeying the MPP sounds impossible, after realizing naive shit fails, ala capitalist green growth or global communism. Instead, you realize nature works well within the MPP, so obeying the MPP is absolutely possible.. a comforting thought.
It's kinda like how trees & solar prove we can have quite a lot of energy by historical human standards, even if not enough for air travel, personal cars, or global supply chains.
Yet, nature does things we're currently unwilling to do.. nature too abstracts ala sexual selection, but nature also reifies more quickly and draws smaller boundaries. I think each company like Patagonia suggests this future "human ecology" world can be a bit more like our current world.. a differently comforting thought.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:14 PM on February 24, 2023
At first, obeying the MPP sounds impossible, after realizing naive shit fails, ala capitalist green growth or global communism. Instead, you realize nature works well within the MPP, so obeying the MPP is absolutely possible.. a comforting thought.
It's kinda like how trees & solar prove we can have quite a lot of energy by historical human standards, even if not enough for air travel, personal cars, or global supply chains.
Yet, nature does things we're currently unwilling to do.. nature too abstracts ala sexual selection, but nature also reifies more quickly and draws smaller boundaries. I think each company like Patagonia suggests this future "human ecology" world can be a bit more like our current world.. a differently comforting thought.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:14 PM on February 24, 2023
> "Temperate oceanic climates with arable fertile soils or forest-suitable soils are likrly going to fare better than other habitats ... ireland/uk, france ..."
Unless the Gulf Stream shuts down. Then ireland/uk suddenly become the arctic.
posted by kyrademon at 6:01 AM on February 25, 2023
Unless the Gulf Stream shuts down. Then ireland/uk suddenly become the arctic.
posted by kyrademon at 6:01 AM on February 25, 2023
Temperate oceanic climates with arable fertile soils or forest-suitable soils are likrly going to fare better than other habitats. The new zealand, tasmania, ireland/uk, france, galicia, biobio to lagos chile, buenos aires, the pacific northwest, etc.
That's where the smart money was even ten years ago. But Tassie, NZ, and the PNW are all being hit much harder by climate change than expected. Large chunks of France are too. Other areas that were expected to get clobbered aren't feeling it so much yet. The next ten years are going to be even more interesting than expected.
posted by rednikki at 6:20 PM on February 25, 2023
That's where the smart money was even ten years ago. But Tassie, NZ, and the PNW are all being hit much harder by climate change than expected. Large chunks of France are too. Other areas that were expected to get clobbered aren't feeling it so much yet. The next ten years are going to be even more interesting than expected.
posted by rednikki at 6:20 PM on February 25, 2023
What areas have suffered less than expected from climate change?
posted by jeffburdges at 2:43 AM on February 26, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 2:43 AM on February 26, 2023
Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfall, after which South American becomes a desert.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:26 PM on March 1, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 3:26 PM on March 1, 2023
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posted by mbo at 2:15 PM on February 23, 2023 [1 favorite]