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The public thinks climate change is just everything getting slightly hotter. But it's not.
It's war.
It's fascism.
It's famine.
It's a lack of clean drinking water.
It's forced displacement.
It's pestilence.
It's wet bulb events that will kill tens of thousands in a single day.
In essence, it's a complete collapse of the biosphere with resulting societal collapse.
@Shivviness And let’s not forget fascism. It’s also fascism. Dwindling resources + Displacement -> xenophobia -> fascism.
@aral
Important point I overlooked. I've incorporated it into my original Toot
@Shivviness Ah, not at all, I was just adding to the thread, wasn’t a criticism of your post :)
@aral @Shivviness Xenophobes ought to do everything in their power to combat climate change… But that would demand logical cognition on their part, so…?
@Shivviness
Plague too. New diseases are being created and transmitted to new places
@RnDanger
I will incorporate that
@Shivviness My impression is most people just don’t want to think about at all. It’s become one of those subjects that gets groans and shut down.
@seb321 to be fair, we don't feel like we can make much difference. Politicians generally don't seem to care what we think.
@jane23c Yes, we can’t rely on politicians to solve this. What we can do is prepare as best we can at a personal, family, and local level.
We can only rely on politicians to solve this, gods help us.
It is massive breakdown, and requires massive intervention and only governments have the resources. Whole governments needed, not just the executive branch.
But democracies have politicians that will not do the unpopular thing (mitigation will be very uncomfortable, and therefore unpopular). Fascists are, actually I have no idea where their heads are, but not on fixing climate, demonstrably.
@Shivviness not happy to have learnt of wet bulb events through your message. New fear unlocked... But hey, the more you know
@oparisy
I would not be surprised were we to see wet bulb mass death events on the Indian subcontinent in the hundreds of thousands in a day
Now drww a line around the globe at that latitude: everywhere along the line is having events.
@Shivviness the solution is to work the earth and create a biodiverse garden Eden. It maybe cant be the solution to all this problems. But to many. We have degraded the Land and have to heal it again. Food forsts and permaculture are the pillars of healing us all.
@Shivviness It's estimated that a 1 metre rise in sea levels will permanently displace 40% of the global human population. Yet we see 1st world countries building walls and turning away people in boats to drown elsewhere.
Yes, the climate migrations are already happening.
@Shivviness the discourse should absolutely and without question move away from the "+1.5°C" bullshit that to a general population means exactly "slightly warmer"
Yes, education on warming is not reaching voters in a way that seems significant to them.
The general public has no experience gradient for translating 1.5°C world average rise into heat > energy > catastrophic weather events involving wind and water. It sounds like something you would not even notice.
We need a great communicator.
@stooovie @Shivviness One way to express it would be to say that temperature is really just a proxy for the amount of energy in the system, cos I think it might be easier for people to grasp that more energy = not good.
@Shivviness Small glimmer of light- Sunday morning I watched 2 republican millionaires (maybe billionaires), one came from oil money, admit to climate change and they are investigating in green energy. I had to rub my eyes and make sure my ears weren't producing auditory hallucinations!
@Shivviness When future intelligence discovers our records they'll go "Hmm, that was an intelligent specie, but any top predator that fails to evolve to avoid overpopulation is doomed for extinction by pollution and depletion." Too late now: large populations make technology a necessity, our technology ensures we will remain too fragile to last. We are overpopulated, and the future conflict of resources between cleaning up the environment and supporting the elderly is impossible to resolve.
@Shivviness I agree with your toot Andrew. Its all those things and they will strike fast, hard and without people even realising why.
But my issue is that apocalyptic messaging doesn't work. Hollywood makes films about apocalypses for entertainment for god's sake. In doing so, reality gets trivialised and normalised.
Many people are going to die ignorant and the human species has failed at basic self-education.
@Shivviness extreme wet bulb events are going to be horrifying. Mass dying of labour forces working outside in a single day!
Then again, they will tend to be foreign labour workforces so 'no-one' will care 
@Shivviness plus increased disasters from more volatile weather systems: Wind, Rain/Flood, Earthquakes and Fires
@Shivviness It's actually everything getting out of order.
Our infrastructure is build for certain conditions. E.g. weather conditions.
Now if the climate changes, so does the type and frequency of weather.
And suddenly the infrastructure starts to break:
Simple example:
If it rains more often in huge amounts of rain water, then many stretches of ground might not manage to dry or get rid of the water before the next rain arrives.
@Shivviness While the dry periods in between when it's a couple degrees hotter, dry out the ground and make it even less capable of handling water. Rises the probability of a flooding.
Did I mention that we had 3 century-level floodings in the south of Germany this year, and it's not even July? Cool.
And that applies to man made infrastructure too: The systems are made for certain ranges of weather. Over do it, and roads, bridges, buildings start to crumble.
@Shivviness And last but not least, for Europe it will actually mean at some point (and sadly that could even happen in the next couple decades already):
- very cold weather
- huge problems with agriculture
for the simple reason, that we have an "unnatural" warm climate due to certain circulations in the Atlantic. Which are about to go over their tipping point. It might still take years before the effects take, but then it might be us who will be refugees going southward. Irony, isn't it.
@Shivviness And it absolutely kills me when media outlets describe it as people "believing" in #ClimateChange or not,
As if it's a religious doctrine for which there is no evidence nor proof.
No, Morons. One does not *believe* in climate change. One *accepts reality* or rejects reality.
@Shivviness yeah, thanks. already panicking!
So much this.
People will flee their countries when they become uninhabitable. And they will seek safe new homes - and that will lead to war in one way or another.
We humans are unable to cooperate even on a national or continental level, why would anyone assume we can do it on a world level?
I fear things will get ugly fast, and I'm definitely living in a privileged nation (Germany).
@Shivviness
It's just another stochastic tool that the wealthy will take advantage of to make poor people die, a few less mouths to feed-- it's a feature not a bug
All four horse persons accounted for.
And it isn't coming. It's already here.
War: Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, ...
Famine: Gaza, Sudan, Eritrea
Pestilence: USA, Mexico, lots and lots of places actually (mosquitos migrate, too)
Death: India, and all the high temp places.
Of course, most go uncounted, and the underlying cause is often not acknowledged by the governments that need to do the mitigation, preparedness and response (I dont think we are going to get ro "recovery" on climate).
@Shivviness @susankayequinn And the ecosysytems collapse is happening right now as well. My blog describes how SAI can cool the earth in 2 years and keep temperature steady even if CO2 keeps rising. We still need to slash CO2, but slow er and avoiding collapse
Risks are many times smaller than impact #climatechange and manageable
Please read the blog before you disagree
And sorry, its very long and thorough
(she/her) @hanscees ha, did you tag me because I'm an aerosol scientist who thinks geoengineering is wildly dangerous and irresponsible, or was that just luck?
As I keep saying, somehow things are "desperate" enough to try (more) world-changing dangerous technology but never desperate enough to tax the rich or force fossil fuel companies to pay for decarbonization (or get nationalized).
@Shivviness
@susankayequinn @Shivviness Just luck. But do read my arguments please. Not using Aerosols is also a bit risky you know at where we are Now.
@hanscees the argument is *always* "things are bad so we have to try this risky thing" and never "things are bad, let's do the things we know work rather than try something that costs billions and is super dangerous but it's a tech solution and we believe strongly in tech solutions because that's not at all how we got into this mess"
The problem is social/political and that's where we should put our time/energy/money. Magic Tech Will Save Us is ultimately another way to delay.
@susankayequinn @Shivviness yes, but the "right" social political solution will not be achieved and the #amoc doesnt care.
I am appalled how scientist are as religious in their thinking like other people. The world does not abide to what you think is right and I want my children not living in a nightmare.
The only right comparison is the current impact of #climatechange versus the impact of #SAI. Not #SAI versus some religious version of what you thing should happen.
@hanscees I've seen religious devotion to science and you're much closer to that than I am, with your belief in the Magic Tech Solution of geoengineering. And how you think the scientists who don't agree with you are apostates who want their children living in a nightmare, refusing to make the "right comparison."
Perhaps--and I know this is "crazy"--you're wrong and the majority of scientists who think geoengineering is a reckless non-solution are right.
@susankayequinn @Shivviness the only thing on which #sai scientists have a say is on how much risk there is or is not toward what is in their scientific field. And not a millimeter more.
What I call religious is knowing you can safe people from suffering and not willing to do that because of a conviction you have. Not based on the scientific facts or proof, that is the stuff of science and is inter subjectieve. But your conviction to not even research it. (1/2)
So show me the science that states how safe something is and we will compare it to what unchecked #climatechange will do.
You are wrong and your science bubble is not speaking about facts but conviction. You have no claim on morality only on facts in your field. And you are severely abusing the word science.
(2/2)
@hanscees But go ahead and keep advocating for geoengineering. You'll likely convince a messianic billionaire group or nation state willing to gamble with other people's lives (not coincidentally the same people who refuse to put their resources toward stopping the burning of fossil fuels).
@susankayequinn @Shivviness for people following this discussion, I am not pro geo-engineering, I am pro #sai., which is one specific technique where the sun is blocked by Aerosols.
#sai is not without risk, but the impact when a responsable controlled implementation goes wrong is way less dangerous than the #climatechange scenario we are in right now which will impact 8 billion people. (1/4)
The arrogance of western scientists to not make #sai as safe as possible is a staggering mistake grounded in thinking of ten years ago. Science as constantly underestimated how fast #climatechange goes worse. (2/4)
Read my blog for the scientific papers that underpin my thinking which obviously some stubborn scientists won't do. They want their fairytale world where all humanity starts using less energy. Well I want that too, but its not going to happen on time. And meanwhile people in India are being burned alive in heatwaves of 50 degrees Celsius. (3/4)
There are #sai scientists doing work, but we need live experiments and we need lots of money to do that. So when we need this #sai handbrake we know how to use it as safely as possible.
And no, its not something I really want at all, I want that fairytail world too. But we need all the measures we can get to safe our world.
Watch this video on the #amoc and how it will impact #europe. It is a nightmare and it is getting close. #climatechange #ClimateEmergency
Don't believe we are totally fucked by the #ClimateCrisis? Watch Prof. Rahmsdorf explain just one of the #TippingPoints: Tipping risk of the Atlantic Ocean's overturning circulation, AMOC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNNW8c_FaA
@hanscees
It's not arrogance, it's "Ivory tower" - typical people from university talk to each other and have no clue about political or societal processes other than described in the great books written by the same academic people.
It's a beautiful world, where you can convince everyone to stop using cars, breeding cattle and voting for racists without riot police and military interventions.
Great in a long perspective, not so when things are going south quickly.
Real world, unfortunately, is full of people, who can steal and sell for copper scrap the last working pump from a central power/heating plant in a Siberian village in January to get some booze. And they are allowed to vote (which is better that any other option anyway).
Word!
And the danger in SAI is also socio-political. Look at the current state of global politics.
And imagine SAI would start in 2028.
Cees says, emission reduction under SAIA regiment can be far slower than they must be...
So by 2038, CO2 in the atmosphere and CO2 and NO2 are as high and higher as they would be under SSP5-85.
But yay: we got SAI and weather is still like 2025. Also, adaption in hardware and social politics is put off.
But the people in power haven't changed. They're still playing their obnoxious geo games. So in 2038, along comes a Putler and threatens to sabotage SAI if his demands aren't met.
An appeasement conference in Munich fails.
In 2039, Putler sabotages SAI.
And the global temperature suddenly heats from 1.4C to 2.2C in one go.
All the energy hidden before under the coat of SAI is now unleashed.
So civilisation collapses.
But at CO2 for 2.2C – and sudden feedback impacts will be emitting even more GHG.
Too much for meaningful survival in the tropics.
Worse even if the Putler-eq comes along in 2048...or 2058... or 2078..
I say, we let civ. collapse "naturally" at 1.8C.
"Naturally" because it's the trajectory mankind is on anyway, judging from obnoxious geo politics and a prevailing "culture" of non-solidarity and MeMeMe.
A crash at 1.8C kills 90% in Global North, ie all highly tech dependent population, and all cities. Including myself and my daughter.
Trees take over.
And pull down lotsa CO2, and very fast.
Like in the years 1610 and 1940.
Meaningful survival stays possible in the tropics.
Europe is lost due to nuclear reactors in meltdown staying without concrete sarcophagi.
The deadline in my project plan has passed for the required global culture change that might have staved off collapse, even under 2C. But it's now inevitable.
The sooner Tech civilisation collapses the better –
from the perspective of the survivors and their offspring. Our generation is lost, of course. But better to sacrifice 1 generation than to lose too much habitable land due to too much CO2 and NO2.
@anlomedad @susankayequinn
There is a good chance democracy can win over unequality and we do end up with a world living on renewables. The gloom of the Orange skies under #sai will probably have that effect I hope.
Also because #sai will require a global treaty people Will have to face the doom humanity has cast upon itself. I think this will also lead to further treaties to abolish non renewable energy use.
@anlomedad @susankayequinn and I keep being surprised how people block me for "down playing the dangers of #SAI"
Do show where in my blog I do that. I cite the latest scientific papers and objectively cite the risks. But please show scientific papers that state otherwise. (1/3)
The fact people block me shows how they are "religiously" or "emotionally" blocked to think about the doom #climatechange will bring and to envision what might help and works in reality.
#sai works, it is cheap. With more research we can make it as safe as possible.
#geoengineering is not a slur, and #sai is one of the technologies that actually works. (2/3)
You don't convince me with what you're saying. False assumption a) we could make SAI safe.
We can't.
Because humans will be humans.
Terrorists like Putlers do come along.
Munich appeasement conferences do fail.
It's just the way humans work: a tiny subset is utterly sociopathic and rules the world. It's always been like this. Always.
SAI is not safe. Because humans aren't safe. And you'd have to let all following generations to remain peaceful and SAI going. For hundreds of years.
You can't guarantee their peacefulness. But you happily impose on them the immense burden of GHG and the Magic Tech of SAI. For hundreds of years.
That's kicking the can down the road – again.
False assumption b):
mankind were at stake.
It isn't. Human extinction from climate change or even WW3 is impossible.
What's at stake is this tech civilisation and all the knowledge amassed in 4000 years.
False assumption c):
mankind were able to emit enough GHG for a middle-of-the-road emission scenario – let alone a high-em-scenario.
It can't. Because such a pathway "requires" utter non-solidarity in the global "community".
And such a mindset is incapable of keeping the ball rolling for long enough that supply chains keep working until the required amount of fossil fuels got emitted.
Such a mindset is INCAPABLE of cushioning the blows on societies from extreme weather impacts!
And thus, such a mindset can't keep supply chains open and will be crashing against the wall.
So if mankind isn't capable of emitting enough GHG for a middle-of-the-road warming, let alone high-end warming,
it is unnecessary and even counter-productive to try and prolong the period until the crash by deploying aerosols into the stratosphere.
Counter productive – if your goal is to keep as much habitable earth and climate zones intact as possible.
(If your goal is merely to get safely to your own, personal retirement age – ah well – that's the MeMeMe mindset, the neoliberal virus that has eroded moral yardsticks of even normal people in all of Global North and is seeping into Global South, as we speak.)
I truly think you haven't thought anything through of what you're saying.
And your constant accusation of ideology or religious something or other is ridiculous.
You might be smart. But you stopped thinking too early.
Sit down again.
Think again.
@susankayequinn @Shivviness also being a scientist in field A doesnt mean you are a scientist in field B. And such a decision involves a field or 40 probably.
Everyone, read Andrew's post above.