Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn | Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms
Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn
We can't do anything about it, we are literally under the rule of a system that is predicated on exacerbating the problem in perpetuity. And peopl are so thoroughly gaslighted that they are cognitively incapable of picturing an alternative. As if that wasn't enough, it promotes and rewards those who champion the destruction, and severely punishes and demonizes those who don't.
The only way out of this is coordinated violent global uprising. I'm in, if you are too let's get planning.
It's like we're stuck in a bad movie, right? Big corporations, with their greenwashing antics, are like villains pretending to be heroes. They've known about the climate crisis for ages but kept pushing their meats, coal, SUVs and oil. Now, they're acting all concerned, but it's just for show. And the politicians? They're all talk, no action. It's always about the next election, never about the next generation. Meanwhile, the young ones are out there, literally sticking themselves to roads, begging for a future. But do they get listened to? No, they just get scorned. The worst part, as you said, is the injustice of it all. The big shots who caused this mess? They'll be chilling on their private islands or in their fancy bunkers while the rest of us deal with the consequences. It's a messed-up world where money talks louder than the planet's screams.
At least in a film there's normally a single person to target and the day is magically saved.
Young people gluing themselves to roads aren't making life difficult for oil CEOs or politicians. They're fucking with people trying to get to their jobs, people trying to get to the hospital, trying to get to their aunt's funeral. And where I live almost no one has access to any non-car alternatives. That's why those people are scorned.
Hi, just an inter-generational message:
25 years ago, I used to be a colleague of a lead author of that report. Like the others, he flew to global conferences, gradually built up a portfolio of papers, and so became a a famous professor with an interesting life, and can now release such reports with obvious timing to influence COP28 (and thereby get government support for the team to continue such research projects...).
But the contents are not really "news", most of this was predictable by those of us who knew the science back then 25 years ago, which was also reported the hottest year for a millenium. My thoughts then were similar to some of those some you write below (->above?). So I went to protests, and (by train, bicycle) to COPs to try to bridge the gap between science and policy, and instead of papers tried to spread knowledge via interactive web tools (really new tech then). I didn't nurture a career, because I didn't expect society to survive for so long. I assisted for a while near the core of IPCC and EU policy, but without papers and flights for networking, was easily disposable. Now 25 years later I sit shivering, in relative poverty, with little influence. To keep trying, I revive my interactive climate model (admittedly needs much more at the impacts end - no such big team), still hoping such tools could communicate something papers don't. I'm not judging who was right, just telling younger people - be aware this is a long-term game.
As I wrote in another post recently, tipping points are real, but thresholds vary by region and sector, and we don't know them accurately. So if you integrate over risk you get a curve - non-linear of course, but not showing that any year is particularly special - unless we make it so, socially.
The world won't do anything until mass migrations start happening, wars break out and people become desperate. The rich and wealthy will wall themselves out as long as they can while we kill one another.
The rich are betting that they'll be the survivors to continue the species .... but chances are they'll just last a bit longer then everyone else and die out along with everything.
Humans survived and thrived as long as they did because they did things together. They won't last long if not enough of them are around. Especially in a hostile environment that we're definitely creating for future generations.
That is already happening and I don't see people do shit.
Having children is the single most potent pacifier there is, once people have children they have the perfect excuse to mask their fear and subjugation by saying they now only and singularly care about their fucking children, and therefore will fight to maintain their status as slaves at any cost, and go against their fellow slaves fighting for freedom.
Not having children is the single most biggest reason why people don't give a fuck about life after they've died. They only care to maximise their individual fun for their lifetime. And what happens with the people that come after them, they couldn't care less.
(Just to show how bland such general statements are.)
We're already toast, just don't feel it yet. Mankind's time is over, it's just a slow decline, until it isn't.
FINANCIAL RUIN?!? SHIT IS ON NOW!!
Corporate execs right now: "If it's not happening next quarter then it's not my problem!"
You know who else has, dangerously short-term intelligence? My two year old son...
Yeah, sure, just stop buying electricity I guess.
But their two year old son is the lynchpin to the entire economy!
"If you hate slavery so much, just don't buy slaves! Vote with your wallet instead of your voice and actual vote, people! The market will always serve democracy and equality, it's historically proven!"