"This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold"
June 7, 2024 1:11 AM Subscribe
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say - "Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever."
Secretary-General's special address on climate action "A Moment of Truth" [yt] - "Climate change is the mother of all stealth taxes paid by everyday people and vulnerable countries and communities. Meanwhile, the Godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel industry – rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies."
India runs power plants flat out to keep cool in heatwave and election - "In the autumn of 2021 and again in the spring of 2022, coal shortages meant many power generators were unable to start up in response to instructions from the grid... Since then, the government has attempted to prevent a repeat by prioritising coal movements across the rail network and accumulating large coal inventories on site at power generators."
Despite extreme heat, climate change barely rated a mention in India's elections - "Low voter turnout was attributed to ongoing extreme heat, with temperatures in New Delhi reaching as high as 52.9 degrees Celsius, causing a party leader to faint during an election rally. But the sweltering temperatures did little to drive climate up the agenda."
Phoenix Is Facing a Hurricane Katrina of Heat. It's Not Alone. - "You can see the risk here: If you don't have air conditioning, then Phoenix's summer heat quickly changes from unpleasant to deadly... a power failure during a heat wave in Phoenix or any other city will spread the misery far more broadly and kick a Heat Katrina into high gear." (The Heat Wave Scenario That Keeps Climate Scientists Up at Night)[1]
India to spend up to $385 bln to meet renewable energy target, Moody's Ratings estimates - "However, despite the steady growth in renewable energy, most of which will likely be solar power, Moody's expects coal will play a significant role in electricity generation for the next eight to ten years."
US solar installations hit quarterly record, making up 75% of new power added, report says - "Solar accounted for 75% of electricity generation capacity added to the U.S. power grid early this year as installations of panels rose to a quarterly record, according to a report published by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association on Thursday. The country's solar industry saw 11.8 gigawatts of new capacity in the first three months of 2024 as electric utilities continued their rapid additions of the renewable power sources, the report said."
The Solar Breakthrough That Could Help the U.S. Compete With China - "South Korea's Hanwha Group says it will be the first company to use Lumet's technology. Hanwha's Qcells unit, one of the biggest solar-panel makers outside China, is building a multibillion-dollar solar supply chain in Georgia. The company expects the financial savings and performance gains to help it compete with low-cost products from the world's biggest producer."[2]
Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity - "They're delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly."[3,4,5]
EU wind and solar growth displaces fossil fuel generation, report says - "The additional solar and wind capacity helped push the share of total renewables to 44% of the EU electricity mix in 2023 from 34% in 2019. Meanwhile, a decline in coal and gas generation has pulled the share of fossil fuel generation down to 32.5% from 39%."
Secretary-General's special address on climate action "A Moment of Truth" [yt] - "Climate change is the mother of all stealth taxes paid by everyday people and vulnerable countries and communities. Meanwhile, the Godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil fuel industry – rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies."
Fourth and finally, we must directly confront those in the fossil fuel industry who have shown relentless zeal for obstructing progress – over decades.World hits streak of record temperatures as UN warns of 'climate hell' - "Coal, oil and gas still provide more than three quarters of the world's energy, with global oil demand remaining strong."
Billions of dollars have been thrown at distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt.
I thank the academics and the activists, the journalists and the whistleblowers, who have exposed those tactics – often at great personal and professional risk.
I call on leaders in the fossil fuel industry to understand that if you are not in the fast lane to clean energy transformation, you are driving your business into a dead end – and taking us all with you...
Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action – with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns.
They have been aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies – Mad Men – remember the TV series - fuelling the madness.
I call on these companies to stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction.
Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients, from today, and set out plans to drop your existing ones.
India runs power plants flat out to keep cool in heatwave and election - "In the autumn of 2021 and again in the spring of 2022, coal shortages meant many power generators were unable to start up in response to instructions from the grid... Since then, the government has attempted to prevent a repeat by prioritising coal movements across the rail network and accumulating large coal inventories on site at power generators."
Despite extreme heat, climate change barely rated a mention in India's elections - "Low voter turnout was attributed to ongoing extreme heat, with temperatures in New Delhi reaching as high as 52.9 degrees Celsius, causing a party leader to faint during an election rally. But the sweltering temperatures did little to drive climate up the agenda."
Phoenix Is Facing a Hurricane Katrina of Heat. It's Not Alone. - "You can see the risk here: If you don't have air conditioning, then Phoenix's summer heat quickly changes from unpleasant to deadly... a power failure during a heat wave in Phoenix or any other city will spread the misery far more broadly and kick a Heat Katrina into high gear." (The Heat Wave Scenario That Keeps Climate Scientists Up at Night)[1]
The number of unhoused people in the city has boomed along with the total population, rising 72% in the past six years to nearly 10,000. People experiencing homelessness made up 45% of the county’s heat-related deaths last year, compared with 38% for people with housing (the living situation was unknown for the other 17% of deaths).IEA expects global clean energy investment to hit $2 trillion in 2024 - "China is set to account for the largest share of clean energy investment in 2024 with an estimated $675 billion, while Europe is set to account for $370 billion and the United States $315 billion. More spending is focused on solar photovoltaic (PV) than any other electricity generation technology with investment set to grow to $500 billion in 2024 due to falling solar module prices. Global upstream oil and gas investment is expected to increase by 7% in 2024 to $570 billion, following a similar rise in 2023. This was mostly led by national oil companies in the Middle East and Asia, the report said."
And none of the 156 people who died indoors last year had functioning air conditioning. In 85% of those cases, AC units were present but broken. When temperatures hit 110F for weeks at a stretch, cooling systems can struggle to keep up. Retirees and people living from paycheck to paycheck may not have the money for repairs.
India to spend up to $385 bln to meet renewable energy target, Moody's Ratings estimates - "However, despite the steady growth in renewable energy, most of which will likely be solar power, Moody's expects coal will play a significant role in electricity generation for the next eight to ten years."
US solar installations hit quarterly record, making up 75% of new power added, report says - "Solar accounted for 75% of electricity generation capacity added to the U.S. power grid early this year as installations of panels rose to a quarterly record, according to a report published by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association on Thursday. The country's solar industry saw 11.8 gigawatts of new capacity in the first three months of 2024 as electric utilities continued their rapid additions of the renewable power sources, the report said."
The Solar Breakthrough That Could Help the U.S. Compete With China - "South Korea's Hanwha Group says it will be the first company to use Lumet's technology. Hanwha's Qcells unit, one of the biggest solar-panel makers outside China, is building a multibillion-dollar solar supply chain in Georgia. The company expects the financial savings and performance gains to help it compete with low-cost products from the world's biggest producer."[2]
Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity - "They're delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly."[3,4,5]
EU wind and solar growth displaces fossil fuel generation, report says - "The additional solar and wind capacity helped push the share of total renewables to 44% of the EU electricity mix in 2023 from 34% in 2019. Meanwhile, a decline in coal and gas generation has pulled the share of fossil fuel generation down to 32.5% from 39%."
from the q&a:
"Secretary General I'm so glad the applause has stopped so that we can have a conversation. I was a little worried it would take the rest of the hour. It is so good to see you. You have made more than 100 speeches and addresses about climate action. You have sat down and done more than 50 interviews with the media or press briefings about climate action, plus all of the social media posts and videos. What distinguishes the address that you just delivered from all of the others?"posted by kliuless at 1:48 AM on June 7 [4 favorites]
"I think that, um, what distinguished this address is the recognition that we are really in a moment of truth and now there is no time to lose..."
We are a few billion ants who will hopefully gather together to stand in front of a massive rolling freight train. A few will be able to get off the tracks.
Unfortunately what we need most is less some way to not just slow the train but push it back up hill, as ants not being super strong, kinda impractical, but maybe some kind of shade to keep some ants from melting or getting squished.
I know a silly metaphor but in terms of practicality, ants vs train is probably the better bet.
posted by sammyo at 4:23 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately what we need most is less some way to not just slow the train but push it back up hill, as ants not being super strong, kinda impractical, but maybe some kind of shade to keep some ants from melting or getting squished.
I know a silly metaphor but in terms of practicality, ants vs train is probably the better bet.
posted by sammyo at 4:23 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
During COVID we accidentally did a massive geoengineering experiment that warmed the earth up even more: Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming.
I guess it's now a race. We have the technologies to swap out enough fossil fuels, to keep this crisis to--well, horrifying crisis levels, rather than absolute disaster levels. Can we implement enough of them in time? It's eerily suspenseful.
Maybe this is a strange place to draw hope, but did you notice the first link was CBS? And did you think about how, a very short time ago, any mainstream news on climate or carbon would inevitably have something like, "But Sen. James Inhofe offered a contrasting view." It's not enough, and there are too many areas where denial is still at play (Biden, trusting US carmakers to come up with EVs that can compete with BYD). But it's better than it was.
posted by mittens at 4:48 AM on June 7 [7 favorites]
I guess it's now a race. We have the technologies to swap out enough fossil fuels, to keep this crisis to--well, horrifying crisis levels, rather than absolute disaster levels. Can we implement enough of them in time? It's eerily suspenseful.
Maybe this is a strange place to draw hope, but did you notice the first link was CBS? And did you think about how, a very short time ago, any mainstream news on climate or carbon would inevitably have something like, "But Sen. James Inhofe offered a contrasting view." It's not enough, and there are too many areas where denial is still at play (Biden, trusting US carmakers to come up with EVs that can compete with BYD). But it's better than it was.
posted by mittens at 4:48 AM on June 7 [7 favorites]
When pathogens proliferate in numbers sufficient to threaten the health of an organism, the organism can respond by increasing its body temperature to an extent that kills them off.
I continue to live in hope that humans, collectively, will soon show ourselves to be smarter than staphylococci. And no, figuring out how to build our own little cysts doesn't count.
posted by flabdablet at 4:52 AM on June 7 [5 favorites]
I continue to live in hope that humans, collectively, will soon show ourselves to be smarter than staphylococci. And no, figuring out how to build our own little cysts doesn't count.
posted by flabdablet at 4:52 AM on June 7 [5 favorites]
The problem is that banks – led by Chase, Citi, Barclays, TD, among others – are funding new fossil fuel developments (while also running ads saying they plan to, oh, I don't know, power all their banks by solar by 2040). And if you are a depositor they are using your money to do it. Here is BankTrack's list of the dirtiest banks worldwide. If you want to learn how to get your money out of banks that are funding the climate crisis, bank.green has a lot of info. If you are in the UK, you can refer to the Bank.Green league tables to see which banks are most climate-friendly. (US bank listing will come this fall.) Reclaim Finance has a lot of good deep dives into why this is THE most important thing you can do to help the climate.
(Note: I have volunteered for a number of climate organizations. I currently volunteer for Bank.Green, because after doing some research I learned that getting banking out of fossil fuels would have the most impact.)
posted by rednikki at 5:11 AM on June 7 [16 favorites]
(Note: I have volunteered for a number of climate organizations. I currently volunteer for Bank.Green, because after doing some research I learned that getting banking out of fossil fuels would have the most impact.)
posted by rednikki at 5:11 AM on June 7 [16 favorites]
I just hope no one tries something drastic that backfires on us. Like
This year: "Let's just fill the upper atmosphere with particles to block sunlight. What could go wrong?"
Next year: "When will this ice age end?"
posted by pracowity at 5:13 AM on June 7 [6 favorites]
This year: "Let's just fill the upper atmosphere with particles to block sunlight. What could go wrong?"
Next year: "When will this ice age end?"
posted by pracowity at 5:13 AM on June 7 [6 favorites]
The thing I find craziest is the line in one of those links which says, effectively, “ok, so we hit 1.63C this last year, but that doesn’t count as passing 1.5C because Reasons”.
I’m phrasing it like that a bit uncharitably, to be fair. Presumably the official 1.5C threshold requires a couple of years in a row or something. Who knows? Temperatures might revert a bit in the next couple of years.
Or they might not.
posted by notoriety public at 5:19 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
I’m phrasing it like that a bit uncharitably, to be fair. Presumably the official 1.5C threshold requires a couple of years in a row or something. Who knows? Temperatures might revert a bit in the next couple of years.
Or they might not.
posted by notoriety public at 5:19 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
The sulfate reduction angle is interesting, in that we might have been unconsciously counteracting global warming with our pollution, until we started scrubbing our emissions. Maybe we could have held off the final reckoning a little bit longer if we had just been slobs and kept spewing the sulfates out too. It wouldn’t change anything in the long run of course. The sulfate effect is powerful but temporary. The carbon dioxide effect is weaker but far more persistent. We would just have been even more doomed by the time the needle started to climb.
posted by notoriety public at 5:26 AM on June 7
posted by notoriety public at 5:26 AM on June 7
bank.green has a lot of info.
Can anyone get the site search to work? I persistently get a 500 error.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:06 AM on June 7 [2 favorites]
Can anyone get the site search to work? I persistently get a 500 error.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:06 AM on June 7 [2 favorites]
@conroyforreal.bsky.social: We’re likely going to experience a mass-mortality heatwave (as in “over a million people will die from a single event”) within the next decade, and I’m guessing most people don’t even really realize that’s a thing that both CAN happen and is almost mathematically certain TO happen.
posted by Wordshore at 6:21 AM on June 7 [9 favorites]
posted by Wordshore at 6:21 AM on June 7 [9 favorites]
It was the opening chapter in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.
posted by cmfletcher at 6:25 AM on June 7 [6 favorites]
posted by cmfletcher at 6:25 AM on June 7 [6 favorites]
bank.green is working fine for me; let me know what bank you want to check
posted by chavenet at 6:27 AM on June 7
posted by chavenet at 6:27 AM on June 7
And then earlier this week I was at lunch with my boss and a vendor, and the vendor was showing us pictures on his phone from his grandfather's hunting trips from the 1930s -- and they were deer hunting in November, but there was no snow in the photos, and this proves global warming is a hoax!
No amount of logic will get this fixed, you have to figure out how to change every idiot's enthusiastic willingness to find the tiniest of things to discredit the whole system and then hold on to it until their dying breath.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:40 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
No amount of logic will get this fixed, you have to figure out how to change every idiot's enthusiastic willingness to find the tiniest of things to discredit the whole system and then hold on to it until their dying breath.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:40 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
The bank.green page breaks when trying to visit specific bank pages. Throws a 500 error.
posted by snwod at 6:47 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
posted by snwod at 6:47 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
The responses of so-called civilized Western nations to this will be telling.
The fallout of runaway global warming will not be felt equally, either economically or geographically. As is common to the human condition, most will not be driven to severe corrective measures until they, specifically, are the ones feeling the direst burdens of the stimulus -- and we in North America and Spain are far behind, let's say, Southeast Asia when it comes to being on the equatorial bullseye and being first in line for completely uninhabitable living conditions.
Hundreds of millions of people will need to go somewhere else to survive. The necessity of that will increase with each passing year and with each horrific weather event that arrives. It is inevitable. And the responses of "close the border, build the wall, stop the boats, end asylum, end immigration" from the right wing in temporarily-safer nations will only increase in volume.
It's up to the rest of us to drown out the latter to keep the former from drowning far more literally.
posted by delfin at 7:02 AM on June 7 [6 favorites]
The fallout of runaway global warming will not be felt equally, either economically or geographically. As is common to the human condition, most will not be driven to severe corrective measures until they, specifically, are the ones feeling the direst burdens of the stimulus -- and we in North America and Spain are far behind, let's say, Southeast Asia when it comes to being on the equatorial bullseye and being first in line for completely uninhabitable living conditions.
Hundreds of millions of people will need to go somewhere else to survive. The necessity of that will increase with each passing year and with each horrific weather event that arrives. It is inevitable. And the responses of "close the border, build the wall, stop the boats, end asylum, end immigration" from the right wing in temporarily-safer nations will only increase in volume.
It's up to the rest of us to drown out the latter to keep the former from drowning far more literally.
posted by delfin at 7:02 AM on June 7 [6 favorites]
> We are a few billion ants who will hopefully gather together to stand in front of a massive rolling freight train.
or maybe the rescuers (down under) vs. environmental villains?
posted by kliuless at 7:19 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
or maybe the rescuers (down under) vs. environmental villains?
posted by kliuless at 7:19 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
The idea that civilization is even going to survive this feels like the Bargaining stage of grieving. It’s not hard to look around and see who’s still at Denial or Anger.
But I don’t think any of it is going to help. I’m somewhere between Depression and Acceptance. It depends on the day.
posted by notoriety public at 7:30 AM on June 7 [8 favorites]
But I don’t think any of it is going to help. I’m somewhere between Depression and Acceptance. It depends on the day.
posted by notoriety public at 7:30 AM on June 7 [8 favorites]
The idea that civilization is even going to survive this feels like the Bargaining stage of grieving
That's interesting. I'm pretty skeptical, but even I think it's a fools errand to be overly fatalistic. This is a hugely complex and slow moving thing that has never happened in history.
No one really has any idea how it will go. It makes sense to me to take a curiously engaged and effortful posture.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:33 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
That's interesting. I'm pretty skeptical, but even I think it's a fools errand to be overly fatalistic. This is a hugely complex and slow moving thing that has never happened in history.
No one really has any idea how it will go. It makes sense to me to take a curiously engaged and effortful posture.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:33 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
And, again, it will not be symmetric. There will be places where the most dramatic effects will happen rapidly -- for example, I am classifying 125F heat in India as "it is happening RIGHT NOW in real time" -- and there will be other places that will be gradually less comfortable, and spending gradually more to remain so while watching faraway places collapse entirely.
"Civilization" covers many factors. Many of them have changes about to be forced upon them. Others require a conscious effort by people to say "I will give something up to help others, even if I don't feel personally affected by what's ailing them yet," and whether that's something that you view as a common part of the human condition or a modern society is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by delfin at 8:10 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
"Civilization" covers many factors. Many of them have changes about to be forced upon them. Others require a conscious effort by people to say "I will give something up to help others, even if I don't feel personally affected by what's ailing them yet," and whether that's something that you view as a common part of the human condition or a modern society is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by delfin at 8:10 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
>The idea that civilization is even going to survive this feels like the Bargaining stage of grieving. It’s not hard to look around and see who’s still at Denial or Anger.
I think the idea that civilization will go extinct is the bargaining coming from the majority billions of people who simply will not be allowed to survive the coming century. Civilization will go on, it will just make our ugly present look like a fuckin utopia in comparison. All the good people dead and gone with only pockets of the world's worst humans along with whatever unfortunates they saw fit to exploit through continued life.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:17 AM on June 7 [8 favorites]
I think the idea that civilization will go extinct is the bargaining coming from the majority billions of people who simply will not be allowed to survive the coming century. Civilization will go on, it will just make our ugly present look like a fuckin utopia in comparison. All the good people dead and gone with only pockets of the world's worst humans along with whatever unfortunates they saw fit to exploit through continued life.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:17 AM on June 7 [8 favorites]
Just the other day a friend on Facebook told me that there's nothing to worry about because plants love carbon dioxide. Also that he drives 100,000km per year and wishes for everyone the same freedom and enjoyment he gets out of fossil fuels.
posted by clawsoon at 8:18 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 8:18 AM on June 7 [3 favorites]
If you apply Write's Law to solar power and batteries, within a decade:
1. Building new solar power, or connecting to a solar power grid, will be cheaper than burning any fossil fuel for daytime use.
2. Battery prices are going to be low enough that using them as "peaker" plants instead of gas plants will be cheaper; use "free" power during the mid-day and have it buffer against power spikes.
3. Batteries will drop in price 30%-50% for automotive use (and become lighter per unit power). This doesn't rely on a breakthrough, just incremental production improvements.
With batteries being half the cost of electric cars, having them drop in price by half makes electric cars seriously compete with the sticker prices of gasoline cars.
Next-gen stuff, like Hydrogen/Solid State Batteries/Synthetic carbon fuels, will probably take longer than a decade to take off.
Under this "the world doesn't change direction", we still get millions of people dying from climate change, but we don't get a civilization level collapse. The world gets hotter, coastal areas flood, and industrial civilization keeps limping along.
In 20 years we have WTO rules that allow punitive tariffs on net carbon emitting countries, electric cars with 1000 mile ranges that recharge to 80% in 10 minutes, hydrogen fuel cell transport trucks and cargo ships, nuclear baseload generation, battery banks, and superconducting energy grids leveling power requirements and eliminating fossil based power generation, expensive synthetic atmospheric carbon fuels (tripling fuel costs, but carbon-neutral) used by legacy aircraft , transport and shipping. Hydrogen powered aircraft start taking off.
By this point maybe a quarter billion people are dead from climate change related disasters and CO2 levels start to fall; key to this is that CO2 emissions from "climate traitor" countries are detected using satellites and charged as tariffs to fund CO2-capture factories, with the resulting carbon dumped underground.
As far as I can tell, that is roughly the "optimistic" plan of non-climate denying rich individuals who don't support radical action, with the plan that their millions of dollars are enough to protect them from being the quarter billion dead. Basically, 15-20 years too late.
The less optimistic models of what happens under this scenario are really bad.
posted by NotAYakk at 9:10 AM on June 7 [18 favorites]
1. Building new solar power, or connecting to a solar power grid, will be cheaper than burning any fossil fuel for daytime use.
2. Battery prices are going to be low enough that using them as "peaker" plants instead of gas plants will be cheaper; use "free" power during the mid-day and have it buffer against power spikes.
3. Batteries will drop in price 30%-50% for automotive use (and become lighter per unit power). This doesn't rely on a breakthrough, just incremental production improvements.
With batteries being half the cost of electric cars, having them drop in price by half makes electric cars seriously compete with the sticker prices of gasoline cars.
Next-gen stuff, like Hydrogen/Solid State Batteries/Synthetic carbon fuels, will probably take longer than a decade to take off.
Under this "the world doesn't change direction", we still get millions of people dying from climate change, but we don't get a civilization level collapse. The world gets hotter, coastal areas flood, and industrial civilization keeps limping along.
In 20 years we have WTO rules that allow punitive tariffs on net carbon emitting countries, electric cars with 1000 mile ranges that recharge to 80% in 10 minutes, hydrogen fuel cell transport trucks and cargo ships, nuclear baseload generation, battery banks, and superconducting energy grids leveling power requirements and eliminating fossil based power generation, expensive synthetic atmospheric carbon fuels (tripling fuel costs, but carbon-neutral) used by legacy aircraft , transport and shipping. Hydrogen powered aircraft start taking off.
By this point maybe a quarter billion people are dead from climate change related disasters and CO2 levels start to fall; key to this is that CO2 emissions from "climate traitor" countries are detected using satellites and charged as tariffs to fund CO2-capture factories, with the resulting carbon dumped underground.
As far as I can tell, that is roughly the "optimistic" plan of non-climate denying rich individuals who don't support radical action, with the plan that their millions of dollars are enough to protect them from being the quarter billion dead. Basically, 15-20 years too late.
The less optimistic models of what happens under this scenario are really bad.
posted by NotAYakk at 9:10 AM on June 7 [18 favorites]
A quarter billion dead? I think it’s optimistic to expect a quarter billion alive, once the supply chains snap, and the wars start, and the fertilizers stop showing up, and the tractors don’t have gas, and the roving hordes of starving people everywhere, even in the rich countries, strip everything bare and eat the seed corn, and then each other.
The modern, integrated global society is the thing keeping eight billion people alive and peaceful. And it takes a staggering amount of fuel, and also a staggering amount of peaceful cooperation to keep that running. When the next world war breaks out, it won’t have to be nuclear to end civilization. All it’ll have to do is stop shipping for a year.
posted by notoriety public at 9:21 AM on June 7 [13 favorites]
The modern, integrated global society is the thing keeping eight billion people alive and peaceful. And it takes a staggering amount of fuel, and also a staggering amount of peaceful cooperation to keep that running. When the next world war breaks out, it won’t have to be nuclear to end civilization. All it’ll have to do is stop shipping for a year.
posted by notoriety public at 9:21 AM on June 7 [13 favorites]
Depressingly, I keep coming back to this Simpson meme that makes the rounds.
posted by Kitteh at 9:21 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 9:21 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
I think the idea that civilization will go extinct is the bargaining coming from the majority billions of people who simply will not be allowed to survive the coming century. Civilization will go on, it will just make our ugly present look like a fuckin utopia in comparison.
I don’t know — the big empty land masses where global warming will actually improve livability include very sparsely populated Canada, Siberia, and Greenland. If you were the leader of China or especially India, both of which will have plenty of nukes, would you be willing to let your hundreds and hundreds of millions die passively in the heat or would you try to take what you wanted with unlimited numbers of conventionally armed soldiers backed by a threat to nuke the invaded countries cities if they deployed nukes on the battlefield?
It looks to me like we’re going to fuck around and find out.
posted by jamjam at 10:15 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
I don’t know — the big empty land masses where global warming will actually improve livability include very sparsely populated Canada, Siberia, and Greenland. If you were the leader of China or especially India, both of which will have plenty of nukes, would you be willing to let your hundreds and hundreds of millions die passively in the heat or would you try to take what you wanted with unlimited numbers of conventionally armed soldiers backed by a threat to nuke the invaded countries cities if they deployed nukes on the battlefield?
It looks to me like we’re going to fuck around and find out.
posted by jamjam at 10:15 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
I think we have already achieved Peak Fucking Around. and now we get to Find Out.
posted by supermedusa at 10:17 AM on June 7 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 10:17 AM on June 7 [2 favorites]
None of the land up there is usable, if I'm remembering correctly. It's boggy, it's not good soil, it'll require absolutely mammoth efforts to cultivate at scale. The American central plains were (in their current state and not the prior prairie state) cultivated by hundreds of thousands of people over 150 years? The people who want to use defrosted tundra will not have a tenth of that time frame and likely won't have reliable weather/climate tools to help. In addition to everything I'm not aware of because I'm not a farmer, that would be difficult or impossible to deploy or use in defrosted tundra.
I feel like the first mass heat death event is going to look like Chernobyl, but with many hundred different, smaller impact, overlapping hazards on top of the entire area being a big, open air, corpse pit.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:40 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
I feel like the first mass heat death event is going to look like Chernobyl, but with many hundred different, smaller impact, overlapping hazards on top of the entire area being a big, open air, corpse pit.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:40 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
There is a scene in the Decameron where Boccaccio describes a father weeping, alone, as he struggles to bury his entire family. there is no one left to help him (the Black Death, bubonic plague). Let's hope we have people, and places to dig those pits. I mean, if the opening scene in Ministry for the Future actually happened (and I hope it never does) how the hell would you handle all of those bodies, in that heat? so much death in such a short time would overwhelm any infrastructure.
posted by supermedusa at 10:59 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
posted by supermedusa at 10:59 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]
What wrong turn did I take to wind up in r/collapse
posted by pullayup at 11:55 AM on June 7 [7 favorites]
posted by pullayup at 11:55 AM on June 7 [7 favorites]
I don’t know — the big empty land masses where global warming will actually improve livability include very sparsely populated Canada......If you were the leader of China or especially India, both of which will have plenty of nukes, would you be willing to let your hundreds and hundreds of millions die passively in the heat or would you try to take what you wanted with unlimited numbers of conventionally armed soldiers...?
What are they going to DO up there then? Sure, it might be a lot cooler, and that's a very good motivation to want to park yourself somewhere up there as opposed to participating in a major mass mortality event where over a hundred square miles the bodies are bloating, turning black and exploding in the heat, but you can't farm. The growing season isn't long enough, not so much because before climate change it was too cold, but rather because there isn't enough sun even if it does get warm enough. There is no way to produce food. There IS no viable soil that can keep food crops alive. There aren't the raw materials you'd need to build housing and infrastructure. The timber available runs as far as supplying campfire wood. A party of ten people would start having to walk a significant distance to get that within a week of establishing a base.
So all the food and shelter and everything else would have to be transported up there to the poor Chinese refugees - and where is all the food and material going to come from? First of all you'll be burning tons of fossil fuel to bring it up there. Second of all, any area producing the food you want to transport up there is going to need themselves it to sustain the lives of the people producing it... If you just take their produce they'll die and next year there will be no crop for you to take away at gunpoint.
No, if the Chinese army decides they want to invade Canada, it will only work if they invade an already populated area that is able to produce food. Let's say they plunk themselves down in Alberta and Saskatchewan and take over the cattle and grain farms there - and kill all the Canadians. They'd have to kill them one way or another. There isn't exactly going to be surplus food anywhere. The Chinese could replace us in the southern livable strip of the country without too much trouble. The bigger challenge will be getting all their troops and their refugees up here, not winning against any resistance once they arrive. Invading our south might work for China if Alberta and Saskatchewan was one of the lucky areas still able to support organized societies. But taking over our north? All they could do up there is sit on a rock and be stung by black flies and wait for somebody to bring in supplies.
We're not up there because it's too cold, we're not up there because there IS nothing there. It's not even practical to make an airstrip because you'd have to bring everything in by float plane or drop it by parachute. Once, way back in the fifties they did just that - they brought in a big crew by air who spent the entire summer building the air strip on the muskeg while being eaten alive by the black flies. It took them the entire summer to make the ground level and solid enough to land the planes to get them out of there so they could go home for the winter. When they came back in the spring the muskeg had swallowed the entire airstrip, and they couldn't even find the thing.
But seriously, if China wants to take over Alberta and Saskatchewan they probably won't find any Canadians there to oppose them - the Americans are going to get there long before them. If Phoenix and Salt Lake City get too hot, or lose a working infrastructure, people are going to head north seeking cooler weather. I am expecting a mass migration of American citizens who just get in their cars if they have them, or walk if they don't. "Not going to try to survive another summer like the last one." It's 1,800 miles from El Paso to Calgary. If you travel 20 miles a day, by bicycle, you can get there in three months.There's no bloody way that they could be stopped at the border when and if they decide to head up to Canada en masse. These are Americans. Of course they are going to bring their guns.
No, China is not going to be the threat to Canadian sovereignty. Three weeks of unlimited unofficial migration and the Americans are going to outnumber us.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:55 AM on June 7 [10 favorites]
What are they going to DO up there then? Sure, it might be a lot cooler, and that's a very good motivation to want to park yourself somewhere up there as opposed to participating in a major mass mortality event where over a hundred square miles the bodies are bloating, turning black and exploding in the heat, but you can't farm. The growing season isn't long enough, not so much because before climate change it was too cold, but rather because there isn't enough sun even if it does get warm enough. There is no way to produce food. There IS no viable soil that can keep food crops alive. There aren't the raw materials you'd need to build housing and infrastructure. The timber available runs as far as supplying campfire wood. A party of ten people would start having to walk a significant distance to get that within a week of establishing a base.
So all the food and shelter and everything else would have to be transported up there to the poor Chinese refugees - and where is all the food and material going to come from? First of all you'll be burning tons of fossil fuel to bring it up there. Second of all, any area producing the food you want to transport up there is going to need themselves it to sustain the lives of the people producing it... If you just take their produce they'll die and next year there will be no crop for you to take away at gunpoint.
No, if the Chinese army decides they want to invade Canada, it will only work if they invade an already populated area that is able to produce food. Let's say they plunk themselves down in Alberta and Saskatchewan and take over the cattle and grain farms there - and kill all the Canadians. They'd have to kill them one way or another. There isn't exactly going to be surplus food anywhere. The Chinese could replace us in the southern livable strip of the country without too much trouble. The bigger challenge will be getting all their troops and their refugees up here, not winning against any resistance once they arrive. Invading our south might work for China if Alberta and Saskatchewan was one of the lucky areas still able to support organized societies. But taking over our north? All they could do up there is sit on a rock and be stung by black flies and wait for somebody to bring in supplies.
We're not up there because it's too cold, we're not up there because there IS nothing there. It's not even practical to make an airstrip because you'd have to bring everything in by float plane or drop it by parachute. Once, way back in the fifties they did just that - they brought in a big crew by air who spent the entire summer building the air strip on the muskeg while being eaten alive by the black flies. It took them the entire summer to make the ground level and solid enough to land the planes to get them out of there so they could go home for the winter. When they came back in the spring the muskeg had swallowed the entire airstrip, and they couldn't even find the thing.
But seriously, if China wants to take over Alberta and Saskatchewan they probably won't find any Canadians there to oppose them - the Americans are going to get there long before them. If Phoenix and Salt Lake City get too hot, or lose a working infrastructure, people are going to head north seeking cooler weather. I am expecting a mass migration of American citizens who just get in their cars if they have them, or walk if they don't. "Not going to try to survive another summer like the last one." It's 1,800 miles from El Paso to Calgary. If you travel 20 miles a day, by bicycle, you can get there in three months.There's no bloody way that they could be stopped at the border when and if they decide to head up to Canada en masse. These are Americans. Of course they are going to bring their guns.
No, China is not going to be the threat to Canadian sovereignty. Three weeks of unlimited unofficial migration and the Americans are going to outnumber us.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:55 AM on June 7 [10 favorites]
[A mass heat death event] was the opening chapter in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.
I recall how harrowing that was. I could barely read it.
We were driving home from my elderly Mom's (yes, driving. It's 200km one way, the trains aren't frequent and Mom's town has crappy transit. And we need the car to ferry Mom to appointments, shopping errands, etc ). Anyway... we were driving home from my elderly Mom's, on one of the several secondary highway routes that we prefer. As we drove through small towns, hamlets and villages, farms, it it was driven [ahem] home to me that these people will always need personal vehicles... or they will have to move.
In N America, we have this fantasy that we can replace big fossil-fuel powered personal vehicles with... same-sized EVs, and on a 1-to-1 basis. That's not a solution, that's an unrealistic punt. We need FEWER personal vehicles, and those few should be smaller. They're building smaller EVs in China now, but of course we've banned them here.
As impressed as I am with global EV progress, I don't think they will scale as well as we need to replace ALL fossil-fueled vehicles. We will stumble at several weak spots - resources, infrastructure, recycling. My friend's Tesla 3 got a small amount of body damage on the left rear quarter, last fall. Something that would have maybe been $3k and a week to fix on a conventional car. It was a battle with insurance, a struggle to find a body-shop to take it on, and when they finally arranged repair, it took several weeks to complete. No infrastructure, folks. Another friend is an architect who designs car dealerships. Building and fire codes are green or nonexistant when it comes to safe facilities for working on EVs.
Our doofus premier in Ontario is openly dismissive of green initiatives (his late brother coined the term "the war on cars"). And of course the premier of Alberta is in full-on denial.
So... I'm a bit cynical about averting some bad climate outcomes. But there's hope - the wealthiest of us will claw their way into more temperate climes and survive. yay...
posted by Artful Codger at 12:58 PM on June 7 [3 favorites]
I recall how harrowing that was. I could barely read it.
We were driving home from my elderly Mom's (yes, driving. It's 200km one way, the trains aren't frequent and Mom's town has crappy transit. And we need the car to ferry Mom to appointments, shopping errands, etc ). Anyway... we were driving home from my elderly Mom's, on one of the several secondary highway routes that we prefer. As we drove through small towns, hamlets and villages, farms, it it was driven [ahem] home to me that these people will always need personal vehicles... or they will have to move.
In N America, we have this fantasy that we can replace big fossil-fuel powered personal vehicles with... same-sized EVs, and on a 1-to-1 basis. That's not a solution, that's an unrealistic punt. We need FEWER personal vehicles, and those few should be smaller. They're building smaller EVs in China now, but of course we've banned them here.
As impressed as I am with global EV progress, I don't think they will scale as well as we need to replace ALL fossil-fueled vehicles. We will stumble at several weak spots - resources, infrastructure, recycling. My friend's Tesla 3 got a small amount of body damage on the left rear quarter, last fall. Something that would have maybe been $3k and a week to fix on a conventional car. It was a battle with insurance, a struggle to find a body-shop to take it on, and when they finally arranged repair, it took several weeks to complete. No infrastructure, folks. Another friend is an architect who designs car dealerships. Building and fire codes are green or nonexistant when it comes to safe facilities for working on EVs.
Our doofus premier in Ontario is openly dismissive of green initiatives (his late brother coined the term "the war on cars"). And of course the premier of Alberta is in full-on denial.
So... I'm a bit cynical about averting some bad climate outcomes. But there's hope - the wealthiest of us will claw their way into more temperate climes and survive. yay...
posted by Artful Codger at 12:58 PM on June 7 [3 favorites]
Climate change may cost $38 trillion a year by 2049, study says
38 trillion dollars in damages each year: World economy already committed to income reduction of 19 % due to climate change
posted by jeffburdges at 2:51 PM on June 7 [2 favorites]
38 trillion dollars in damages each year: World economy already committed to income reduction of 19 % due to climate change
posted by jeffburdges at 2:51 PM on June 7 [2 favorites]
When i get super depressed about climate change, i put my faith in the K-Pg boundary. 75% of all species on Earth became extinct, including functionally every non-aquatic tetrapod species larger than 50 pounds except for crocodilians.
Sure, humans are probably fucked. But the planet will be fine without us, and the rats or the raccoons can inherit from us and eventually develop thumbs and language and archaeology and learn our history and remember us.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:02 PM on June 7 [4 favorites]
Sure, humans are probably fucked. But the planet will be fine without us, and the rats or the raccoons can inherit from us and eventually develop thumbs and language and archaeology and learn our history and remember us.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:02 PM on June 7 [4 favorites]
I'd expect human survive climate change, but the planetary boundaries report semi-ranks human activities by their danger levels (wiki, previously), with climate coming in only 4th after:
1st) novel entities, like pesticides, plastics, and organohalogen,
2nd) biosphere integrity, likely correlated with others, and
3rd) third being biochemical flows, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus usage in fertilizer.
Afaik heatwaves like the recent 49.2°C (120.5°F) in Delhi still kill relatively few people. I'm unsure how quickly this crosses some line, but maybe the lines differ enough among people, so then the death rates could creap upwards somewhat gradually.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:23 PM on June 7 [3 favorites]
1st) novel entities, like pesticides, plastics, and organohalogen,
2nd) biosphere integrity, likely correlated with others, and
3rd) third being biochemical flows, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus usage in fertilizer.
Afaik heatwaves like the recent 49.2°C (120.5°F) in Delhi still kill relatively few people. I'm unsure how quickly this crosses some line, but maybe the lines differ enough among people, so then the death rates could creap upwards somewhat gradually.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:23 PM on June 7 [3 favorites]
Afaik heatwaves like the recent 49.2°C (120.5°F) in Delhi still kill relatively few people
They are now more frequent. What we haven't yet seen is a prolonged, multi-day extreme heatwave, possibly in concert with some other compounding factor like widespread power failure.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:56 PM on June 7 [2 favorites]
They are now more frequent. What we haven't yet seen is a prolonged, multi-day extreme heatwave, possibly in concert with some other compounding factor like widespread power failure.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:56 PM on June 7 [2 favorites]
If you enjoy thinking about tipping points--and who doesn't?--Stefan Rahmstorf has posted his recent talk on the AMOC, describing the potential collapse of the current and its likely effects on climate.
posted by mittens at 4:13 PM on June 7 [4 favorites]
posted by mittens at 4:13 PM on June 7 [4 favorites]
I've had this idea for a while that the steady rise of fascism around the globe may be a direct response to climate change.
On some level, we all know that things are very, very bad. Even the people who loudly insist everything is fine, they sense the truth deep down. You find yourself sweating through enough hot December days, and there's just no denying that something is broken. And I think a lot of people feel like the planet just won't get fixed, like there's no pulling out of this death spiral, and the despair they're squashing down is making them nuts.
But instead of uniting to do anything actually useful they regress into violent little children, and they look for a big strong daddy to lead them. It feels so bad to be scared all the time, and the big strong daddy tells them the bad feelings are really the fault of those awful people over there, the ones who are weak and pathetic but also have way too much power. Doesn't it feel good to hate them? Doesn't it make you feel strong? Once we're rid of them everything will be OK and the bad feelings will stop.
It's been eerily cool in my part of Southern California. Chilly, even. I'm a short drive away from miserable heat, but right here it's like November never ended. I know these lovely gray days are just a different manifestation of the climate being fucked, but I'm savoring not sweating. Every cool day I get feels like it may be my last.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:52 PM on June 7 [16 favorites]
On some level, we all know that things are very, very bad. Even the people who loudly insist everything is fine, they sense the truth deep down. You find yourself sweating through enough hot December days, and there's just no denying that something is broken. And I think a lot of people feel like the planet just won't get fixed, like there's no pulling out of this death spiral, and the despair they're squashing down is making them nuts.
But instead of uniting to do anything actually useful they regress into violent little children, and they look for a big strong daddy to lead them. It feels so bad to be scared all the time, and the big strong daddy tells them the bad feelings are really the fault of those awful people over there, the ones who are weak and pathetic but also have way too much power. Doesn't it feel good to hate them? Doesn't it make you feel strong? Once we're rid of them everything will be OK and the bad feelings will stop.
It's been eerily cool in my part of Southern California. Chilly, even. I'm a short drive away from miserable heat, but right here it's like November never ended. I know these lovely gray days are just a different manifestation of the climate being fucked, but I'm savoring not sweating. Every cool day I get feels like it may be my last.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:52 PM on June 7 [16 favorites]
What wrong turn did I take to wind up in r/collapse
1. You didn't. We as a society did.
2. IIRC, the optimism thread is down a few more. That might have been the right turn you were looking for (no pun intended).
@jeffburdges : the "heatwaves like that kill relatively few people" only holds so far as:
1. @et-bulb doesn't exceed the threshhold for human long-term existence in an area, and as time goes on there will definitely be more places where this happens consistently - not just the one off extremes we've seen the past few years
2. These high temperatures so far (except for heatwaves like in Europe) have often been (AFAICT) in areas where people have generally been living in high/humid areas. They've adapted in a lot of senses. So even in extremes they can tolerate it more as they're withing general tolerance limits.
As time goes on and people in cooler climates who have not adapted who are on the "fronts" of the expanding heat, will suffer likely more and see more deaths than those who are experiencing a general increase.
I'm very willing to be told I'm wrong on this. But that's how I am guessing things are going to play out.
There will be much more death as this goes on to places that aren't adapted to it yet.
And of course, we now have seen the first island officially evacuated due to climate change.
https://apnews.com/article/panama-island-guna-climate-change-f368711649ff6986ea25a79534405a84
Add in the reactionary and racist politics that are burdgeoning in our times and man, I am so glad I'm probably gonna be dead by 2050. I pity the youth who have to live in this hell hole. Especially when Jensen Huang and MS and all these dudes are bound and determined to shove AI everywhere with the vast amounts of energy required to run these things.
Again, maybe my interpretation of the heat adaptibility is wrong so if anyone has more info on that process or what's expected would be interesting to see. Just saw that AMOC presentation earlier today. Scary stuff.
posted by symbioid at 4:57 PM on June 7 [1 favorite]
1. You didn't. We as a society did.
2. IIRC, the optimism thread is down a few more. That might have been the right turn you were looking for (no pun intended).
@jeffburdges : the "heatwaves like that kill relatively few people" only holds so far as:
1. @et-bulb doesn't exceed the threshhold for human long-term existence in an area, and as time goes on there will definitely be more places where this happens consistently - not just the one off extremes we've seen the past few years
2. These high temperatures so far (except for heatwaves like in Europe) have often been (AFAICT) in areas where people have generally been living in high/humid areas. They've adapted in a lot of senses. So even in extremes they can tolerate it more as they're withing general tolerance limits.
As time goes on and people in cooler climates who have not adapted who are on the "fronts" of the expanding heat, will suffer likely more and see more deaths than those who are experiencing a general increase.
I'm very willing to be told I'm wrong on this. But that's how I am guessing things are going to play out.
There will be much more death as this goes on to places that aren't adapted to it yet.
And of course, we now have seen the first island officially evacuated due to climate change.
https://apnews.com/article/panama-island-guna-climate-change-f368711649ff6986ea25a79534405a84
Add in the reactionary and racist politics that are burdgeoning in our times and man, I am so glad I'm probably gonna be dead by 2050. I pity the youth who have to live in this hell hole. Especially when Jensen Huang and MS and all these dudes are bound and determined to shove AI everywhere with the vast amounts of energy required to run these things.
Again, maybe my interpretation of the heat adaptibility is wrong so if anyone has more info on that process or what's expected would be interesting to see. Just saw that AMOC presentation earlier today. Scary stuff.
posted by symbioid at 4:57 PM on June 7 [1 favorite]
"On some level, we all know that things are very, very bad. Even the people who loudly insist everything is fine, they sense the truth deep down. You find yourself sweating through enough hot December days, and there's just no denying that something is broken. "
Then you have my mom who for years pretended it wasn't true, and besides Jesus is coming back any day now. Now she's in her 80s and I can tell she's ready to "go home to the lord" She knows what's coming. The sad part is it's all "in the plan" "We know this is going to happen because Revelation".
If I have fatalism, it's as a reaction to her fatalism, which drives this entire society, religion and capitalism and denial and "progress" consequences be damned. Add in anti-Other hatred (which somehow my mom in her personal capacity for love and forgiveness is unable to see the speck in her religious communities eyes). It is, the speck I mean. The blinded by love sort of thing. "The world is evil, but *I* most certainly don't stand for it (even though 100% support of the Republican party that got us to where we are today). I think she is afraid to find out, deeply terrified, even if she feels justified. I think she has this absurd hope that "He" is coming back and will make it all better (at least for those who get to escape with the precious "rapture"). OK, sorry. there. end /r/collapse /r/atheist /r/communist /r/anticiv etc...
posted by symbioid at 5:18 PM on June 7 [4 favorites]
Then you have my mom who for years pretended it wasn't true, and besides Jesus is coming back any day now. Now she's in her 80s and I can tell she's ready to "go home to the lord" She knows what's coming. The sad part is it's all "in the plan" "We know this is going to happen because Revelation".
If I have fatalism, it's as a reaction to her fatalism, which drives this entire society, religion and capitalism and denial and "progress" consequences be damned. Add in anti-Other hatred (which somehow my mom in her personal capacity for love and forgiveness is unable to see the speck in her religious communities eyes). It is, the speck I mean. The blinded by love sort of thing. "The world is evil, but *I* most certainly don't stand for it (even though 100% support of the Republican party that got us to where we are today). I think she is afraid to find out, deeply terrified, even if she feels justified. I think she has this absurd hope that "He" is coming back and will make it all better (at least for those who get to escape with the precious "rapture"). OK, sorry. there. end /r/collapse /r/atheist /r/communist /r/anticiv etc...
posted by symbioid at 5:18 PM on June 7 [4 favorites]
There was research that found lethal wet bulb temperature occur between 32°C and 35°C wet bulb for most people, so that's quite a range already. There maybe enough other factors that widen this further, so the heat death rate climbs somewhat gradually, which then provides everyone an excuse for inaction, even once we establish some trend towards increasing heat death rates.
India had 1/2 M deaths from COVID, so a rate like 0.000379. Texas had 104k deaths from COVID, so a rate like 0.003614. I suppose yearly rates wind up like 1/3rd of those numbers, so like 0.1% in Texas.
At what yearly death rate would you think Texas descides everyone must reduce CO2 emissions? 1%? I'd think higher because oil winds up way more essential than COVID's social costs, and some years they avoid major power outages, so those years only poor people die. India should be more rational than Texas of course, but reaction time still lags considerably.
I do think high wet bulb temperatures shall cause mass deaths eventually, just not sure they'll provide some shock that prompts action.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:27 PM on June 7 [1 favorite]
India had 1/2 M deaths from COVID, so a rate like 0.000379. Texas had 104k deaths from COVID, so a rate like 0.003614. I suppose yearly rates wind up like 1/3rd of those numbers, so like 0.1% in Texas.
At what yearly death rate would you think Texas descides everyone must reduce CO2 emissions? 1%? I'd think higher because oil winds up way more essential than COVID's social costs, and some years they avoid major power outages, so those years only poor people die. India should be more rational than Texas of course, but reaction time still lags considerably.
I do think high wet bulb temperatures shall cause mass deaths eventually, just not sure they'll provide some shock that prompts action.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:27 PM on June 7 [1 favorite]
I've had this idea for a while that the steady rise of fascism around the globe may be a direct response to climate change.
My longstanding assessment is that climate change and rising support for fascism are both consequences of population pressure. Once people start feeling a bit hemmed in by the sheer numbers of people around them, many will find some convenient outgroup to blame for that.
posted by flabdablet at 10:55 PM on June 7 [2 favorites]
My longstanding assessment is that climate change and rising support for fascism are both consequences of population pressure. Once people start feeling a bit hemmed in by the sheer numbers of people around them, many will find some convenient outgroup to blame for that.
posted by flabdablet at 10:55 PM on June 7 [2 favorites]
I am not optimistic about climate change.
At best we already have at least 2ºC firmly locked in, and no sign of that rise coming to an end anytime soon. The soft landing option is no longer on the table.
We don't know the full consequences of all that, beyond it is almost certainly going to be very disruptive, costly, and destabilising.
And there is way too little being done to address it. The sense of urgency and scale of the danger is missing.
posted by Pouteria at 11:01 PM on June 7 [3 favorites]
At best we already have at least 2ºC firmly locked in, and no sign of that rise coming to an end anytime soon. The soft landing option is no longer on the table.
We don't know the full consequences of all that, beyond it is almost certainly going to be very disruptive, costly, and destabilising.
And there is way too little being done to address it. The sense of urgency and scale of the danger is missing.
posted by Pouteria at 11:01 PM on June 7 [3 favorites]
"Humanity will suffer but we will adapt and survive" is a sentiment I see a lot and I think it's an astonishingly solipsistic thing to say and an entirely speculative coping mechanism. What about every other living thing on this planet? We've already lost like 50% of the insects in some places, you think the rest of them are going to survive and adapt as this shit gets even worse?
posted by Dokterrock at 11:14 PM on June 7 [6 favorites]
posted by Dokterrock at 11:14 PM on June 7 [6 favorites]
The sense of urgency and scale of the danger is missing
except in China.
posted by flabdablet at 12:46 AM on June 8 [2 favorites]
except in China.
posted by flabdablet at 12:46 AM on June 8 [2 favorites]
I've had this idea for a while that the steady rise of fascism around the globe may be a direct response to climate change.
My longstanding assessment is that climate change and rising support for fascism are both consequences of population pressure. Once people start feeling a bit hemmed in by the sheer numbers of people around them, many will find some convenient outgroup to blame for that.
I don't want to derail the thread (and this would make a great seperate discussion) but this has been on my mind a ton lately and I think you're on to something. I personally also blame late-stage capitalism and a rise of a second gilded age, where society in many countries has split into haves and have-nots. See the current housing affordability crisis. It doesn't help that many of the haves (tech workers, upper-middle class white collar, etc) tend to be the ones supporting centrist political parties (I would include US democrats in this) that want to enforce the status quo.
Unfortunately I don't know of an easy solution to this.
posted by photo guy at 2:43 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
My longstanding assessment is that climate change and rising support for fascism are both consequences of population pressure. Once people start feeling a bit hemmed in by the sheer numbers of people around them, many will find some convenient outgroup to blame for that.
I don't want to derail the thread (and this would make a great seperate discussion) but this has been on my mind a ton lately and I think you're on to something. I personally also blame late-stage capitalism and a rise of a second gilded age, where society in many countries has split into haves and have-nots. See the current housing affordability crisis. It doesn't help that many of the haves (tech workers, upper-middle class white collar, etc) tend to be the ones supporting centrist political parties (I would include US democrats in this) that want to enforce the status quo.
Unfortunately I don't know of an easy solution to this.
posted by photo guy at 2:43 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
There is no easy solution. You cannot change a flat tire while speeding down the freeway. You have to stop, which is costly and disruptive.
posted by supermedusa at 6:51 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
posted by supermedusa at 6:51 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
India had 1/2 M deaths from COVIDNo, that’s the number of deaths India reported from COVID. The number of actual deaths is unknowable but likely about an order of magnitude higher. (And it’s important to remember that climate/weather deaths are also going to go undercounted at the time they occur.)
posted by mbrubeck at 7:00 AM on June 8 [2 favorites]
> What about every other living thing on this planet?
the urchin in the (not so proverbial) coalmine...
Sea urchin pandemic spreads beyond Red Sea, endangering coral reefs - "A sea-borne pandemic that wiped out sea urchin populations in the Red Sea has spread and is taking out the species in parts of the Indian Ocean and could go global, scientists in Israel say."
'Simply catastrophic': California salmon season to be restricted or shut down — again - "While more Chinook salmon returned from the ocean to spawn last year than in 2022, fishery managers said the population is expected to be so small that they must be protected this year to avoid overfishing."
The brown pelican crisis of 2024 is here - "Brown pelicans are appearing on California's coastline. They are showing up emaciated, starving and weak. Dr. Elizabeth Wood of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center of Orange County explains."
when every other living thing on this planet is becoming an indicator species, nature probably isn't healing.
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM on June 8 [9 favorites]
the urchin in the (not so proverbial) coalmine...
Sea urchin pandemic spreads beyond Red Sea, endangering coral reefs - "A sea-borne pandemic that wiped out sea urchin populations in the Red Sea has spread and is taking out the species in parts of the Indian Ocean and could go global, scientists in Israel say."
The particular species of sea urchin impacted is a well-known protector of coral reefs and the deaths put the already fragile reef ecosystem in even more peril.no salmon (of a doubt ;) thanks for all the fish!
The pandemic was first noticed in the Gulf of Aqaba a year ago and researchers say they have since identified the pathogen behind it through molecular analysis. They are linking it to mass deaths across the Red Sea, the Arabian peninsula, and as far as Reunion Island off Madagascar.
The pathogen kills fast and violently - in just two days colonies can be lost - making it hard to assess how many are dying, said Omri Bronstein, a zoologist from Tel Aviv University and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.
It seems to be heading east towards the tropical waters of the Coral Triangle that extends off southeast Asia and Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
'Simply catastrophic': California salmon season to be restricted or shut down — again - "While more Chinook salmon returned from the ocean to spawn last year than in 2022, fishery managers said the population is expected to be so small that they must be protected this year to avoid overfishing."
Fall-run Chinook salmon are a mainstay of commercial and recreational fishing and tribal food supplies. But their populations are now a fraction of what they once were — dams have blocked vital habitat, while droughts and water diversions have driven down flows and increased temperatures, killing large numbers of salmon eggs and young fish.or brown pelicans in southern california...
In 2021, almost all of the endangered winter-run Chinook eggs in the Sacramento River were wiped out, cooked in dangerously hot water. The Pacific Fishery Management Council told state and federal water managers in 2022 that the conditions also could harm eggs of spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon. Expressing their “grave concerns,” they said “a major factor” was the “high river temperatures that were under (the U.S. Bureau of) Reclamation’s control.”
The brown pelican crisis of 2024 is here - "Brown pelicans are appearing on California's coastline. They are showing up emaciated, starving and weak. Dr. Elizabeth Wood of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center of Orange County explains."
when every other living thing on this planet is becoming an indicator species, nature probably isn't healing.
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM on June 8 [9 favorites]
Yeah, the staph that brings on a fever isn't the only thing, or even the first thing, that the fever kills off.
posted by flabdablet at 7:18 AM on June 8
posted by flabdablet at 7:18 AM on June 8
Temperature records in the ocean have been broken every single day of the past year
posted by jeffburdges at 10:02 AM on June 8 [3 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:02 AM on June 8 [3 favorites]
We'd inherently need more restrictions upon people when trying to manage more people with fewer resources, flabdablet. We've other options besides fascism of course, but dictators, fascism, etc all provide easy ways to impose more restrictions.
We live under capitalism so everything has capitalist flavors, photo guy, but any 19th or 20th century ideology would reach the same point, because they're all productivist aka they all demand economic growth, and even abusing fossil fuels. There exist views with good insights like MMT and Georgism, but even they all still bake in economic growth.
We absolutely should adopt the half-earth plan, of excluding humans from half the land and half the sea, Dokterrock. Yet, realistically human supremacism reigns across essentially all ideologies, both left and right. We expect mid-term collapse of both ecosystems and human civilization, so the question becomes "What can be saved?" And the ecosystem side of that question includes "Are humans going to keep doing this shit?"
Tim Garrett says "food is free" in Haʻapai Tonga, in the sense that "everyone except a handful of foreigners had direct or indirect access to a fixed, finite quantity of fertile land where they could grow throughout the year". If otoh you're not part of the existing villiage social network, then there was no food for you to buy, meaning they've kept food out of the formalized economy.
It's an example of how a population adapts to the post-growth enviroment of life on a small island. We could adopt similarly inflexible schemes, or maybe somewhat modern economy that rations everything, or maybe any local ideology works, but internationally nations could sabatoge one another's growth all the time. "Are humans going to keep doing this shit?" should impact which of those sounds preferable.
If we otoh want money to mediate everything and earn interest, then we're maybe locked into cycles of growth & collapse. I'd rank cyclical growth & collapse among the worst option for "every other living thing on this planet", but it sounds terrible for humans too.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:22 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
We live under capitalism so everything has capitalist flavors, photo guy, but any 19th or 20th century ideology would reach the same point, because they're all productivist aka they all demand economic growth, and even abusing fossil fuels. There exist views with good insights like MMT and Georgism, but even they all still bake in economic growth.
We absolutely should adopt the half-earth plan, of excluding humans from half the land and half the sea, Dokterrock. Yet, realistically human supremacism reigns across essentially all ideologies, both left and right. We expect mid-term collapse of both ecosystems and human civilization, so the question becomes "What can be saved?" And the ecosystem side of that question includes "Are humans going to keep doing this shit?"
Tim Garrett says "food is free" in Haʻapai Tonga, in the sense that "everyone except a handful of foreigners had direct or indirect access to a fixed, finite quantity of fertile land where they could grow throughout the year". If otoh you're not part of the existing villiage social network, then there was no food for you to buy, meaning they've kept food out of the formalized economy.
It's an example of how a population adapts to the post-growth enviroment of life on a small island. We could adopt similarly inflexible schemes, or maybe somewhat modern economy that rations everything, or maybe any local ideology works, but internationally nations could sabatoge one another's growth all the time. "Are humans going to keep doing this shit?" should impact which of those sounds preferable.
If we otoh want money to mediate everything and earn interest, then we're maybe locked into cycles of growth & collapse. I'd rank cyclical growth & collapse among the worst option for "every other living thing on this planet", but it sounds terrible for humans too.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:22 AM on June 8 [1 favorite]
We absolutely should adopt the half-earth plan, of excluding humans from half the land and half the sea
There is nothing inherently wrong with the presence of humans in any given environment, as long we're integrated with it in ways that don't wreck local biodiversity. All that setting up and enforcing exclusion zones would achieve is destroying completely satisfactory indigenous communities and making cities even worse. Industrial capitalism has been shoving unconscionable numbers of indigenous peoples aside for centuries; any ideology that does likewise while claiming to be green badly fails my sniff test.
Just having the humility to think of ourselves primarily as large animals rather than little tin gods would get us a long way toward where we need to be.
posted by flabdablet at 11:53 AM on June 8 [6 favorites]
There is nothing inherently wrong with the presence of humans in any given environment, as long we're integrated with it in ways that don't wreck local biodiversity. All that setting up and enforcing exclusion zones would achieve is destroying completely satisfactory indigenous communities and making cities even worse. Industrial capitalism has been shoving unconscionable numbers of indigenous peoples aside for centuries; any ideology that does likewise while claiming to be green badly fails my sniff test.
Just having the humility to think of ourselves primarily as large animals rather than little tin gods would get us a long way toward where we need to be.
posted by flabdablet at 11:53 AM on June 8 [6 favorites]
"Half-Earth is less detailed plan than aspirational goal." (Dean Kuipers)
As I understand it, half-earth doesn't actually specify what happens wherever humans seem well integrated, which I oversimplified above. We're still inherently discussing new restrictions upon human activities though, even if only possible future activities.
You referenced human populations who're currently well below both consumption and carrying capacity, but under half-earth they'd be expected to stay that way, or even relinquish some adaptations to modernity. At least some Amazon deforisation comes from indigenous people becoming cattle ranchers, which of course becomes forbidden.
In practice, I'd expect half-earth would depend almost entirely upon indigenous peoples doing the enforcement. I suppose tribes would convince everyone they've integrated some half-earth flavor into their religion, and plan to minimize everyone else's access, after which they gain some much stronger land rights.
We've no political pathway towards any of this now anyways, but ironically the tropics contains 36% of the earths land mass, and the tropics shall become uninhabitable. We'd want rain forests instead of deserts there though, which becomes tricky.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:48 PM on June 8
As I understand it, half-earth doesn't actually specify what happens wherever humans seem well integrated, which I oversimplified above. We're still inherently discussing new restrictions upon human activities though, even if only possible future activities.
You referenced human populations who're currently well below both consumption and carrying capacity, but under half-earth they'd be expected to stay that way, or even relinquish some adaptations to modernity. At least some Amazon deforisation comes from indigenous people becoming cattle ranchers, which of course becomes forbidden.
In practice, I'd expect half-earth would depend almost entirely upon indigenous peoples doing the enforcement. I suppose tribes would convince everyone they've integrated some half-earth flavor into their religion, and plan to minimize everyone else's access, after which they gain some much stronger land rights.
We've no political pathway towards any of this now anyways, but ironically the tropics contains 36% of the earths land mass, and the tropics shall become uninhabitable. We'd want rain forests instead of deserts there though, which becomes tricky.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:48 PM on June 8
Aside from discussing EVs, flabdablet's link above quotes David Fishman in Sept 2023: "it’s likely China’s coal consumption will tick upward to peak in 2023, plateau in 2024, and begin its long decline thereafter."
At least so far in 2024, coal consumption continues increasing in China, but increases have slowed slightly, but supposedly from weakness in real estate markets, and how the government reacts, not renewables. Also, increases in 2023 were larger than expects, so some slowing looks reasonable.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:58 PM on June 8 [1 favorite]
At least so far in 2024, coal consumption continues increasing in China, but increases have slowed slightly, but supposedly from weakness in real estate markets, and how the government reacts, not renewables. Also, increases in 2023 were larger than expects, so some slowing looks reasonable.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:58 PM on June 8 [1 favorite]
What is causing the record rise in both China’s coal production and imports? (June 2023)
Also China coal production increased faster in recent years than ever before.
China consumes just over half the world's coal
Share of electricity production by source
Share of electricity production from coal, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 12:39 AM on June 9
Also China coal production increased faster in recent years than ever before.
China consumes just over half the world's coal
Share of electricity production by source
Share of electricity production from coal, 2023
posted by jeffburdges at 12:39 AM on June 9
“‘I had to do it’: Climate scientists risk jobs, jail to save dying planet,” Anna Pivovarchuk, Al Jazeera, 16 June 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 6:45 PM on June 19 [2 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 6:45 PM on June 19 [2 favorites]
Climate scientists risk jobs, jail to save dying planet
Don't look up.
posted by flabdablet at 12:21 PM on June 20 [2 favorites]
Don't look up.
posted by flabdablet at 12:21 PM on June 20 [2 favorites]
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posted by chavenet at 1:22 AM on June 7 [5 favorites]