this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Four alarming charts that show just how extreme the climate is right now | CNN (edition.cnn.com)
submitted 1 year ago by yesdogishere@kbin.social to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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Soaring temperatures. Unusually hot oceans. Record high levels of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and record low Antarctic ice. We’re only halfway through 2023 and so many climate records are being broken.

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[–] cassetti@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Back in 2019 I was having a campfire in my backyard with some friends including a retired couple in their late 60's. He had just retired from IBM. We got on the subject of climate change and how terrible it will be for future generations.

"I mean, not like it's going to affect us" he said as they both chuckled uttering that classic line (my wife nor I could believe they said it out loud).

Fast forward a year. He caught Covid from one of their out of state friends who stayed with them for a weekend. And guess who caught covid. He died December 30th 2020 from a disease he very much could have prevented. The irony was undeniable, as he succumbed to Covid-19, a cruel twist of fate potentially amplified by the very climate change he dismissed

[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He died before he could have been vaccinated though. The very first vaccination was December 8th, 2020.

[–] cassetti@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Knowing them and their political affiliations, they likely would have refused to get the shot regardless. To them it was nothing worse than the flu and everyone was overreacting.

[–] phikshun@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Seems like the humans are in a bit of a pickle.

On one hand they can keep using fossil fuels, and that will allow some humans to live more comfortably while they pump so much planet warming gasses into the climate system that it guarantees the future sterilization of the planet.

On the other hand, they could mandate a planet-wide ban on fossil fuels, which would be problematic because their food system is entirely reliant on fossil fuels, without which they could only feed about one billion humans.

Or maybe they will choose to gamble, and attempt to exert their control of the climate system through stratospheric injection of sulphate aerosols. It will be neat to see what possible unanticipated consequences this leads to!

Well whatever the humans choose, just know that we're all rooting for you! 🍿🎉

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Pikachu use Shock(ed face)

[–] Xenxs@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Well, that's not great.

[–] fastandcurious@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Unless big corporations do something about it, we are doomed, individual efforts are going to do no shit We have hit 45C and its not even peak summer

[–] cykablyatbot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How are large corporations going to reduce meat consumption? Or reduce the number of international flights people take for vacation? How will they make entirely unsustainable industries like fast food, fast fashion, and cruise lines go out of business? To say nothing about the rampant inhumane working conditions and cruelty in those industries.

Certainly a lot of the issues are dependent upon the world's industrial infrastructure and that is not something that we necessarily have a handle on. But all the people building the new sustainable infrastructure are just regular people and individuals who decided to do something.

[–] sem@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It is not how capitalism works. At first individuals should start prefer local production and production of more green companies. And only after that corporations change their politics. For example, there is a yearly rating of green electronics (how much green electricity company uses, how clean production is, etc.) but customers do not care. And if customers do not care, why corporations should care?

[–] CMahaff@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think expecting each person to trace the incredibly complex chains of businesses and processes that result in every product they buy is unrealistic. Sure, some stuff is obvious, but plenty is not.

It reminds of of an episode of the Good Place where an angel buys a tomato at the supermarket and inadvertently commits like 14 sins due to the deep chains of unethical practices that brought the tomatoes to the store - which of course no one could possibly know when they picked it up.

IMO corporations aren't going to self-regulate and consumers arent going to do 2 hours of research on everything the buy - it's supposed to be the governments job to spend the time identifying pollution sources and regulating them away - but with regulatory capture and corruption that doesn't usually happen either.

[–] cykablyatbot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You don't have to trace shit to know fast food, fast fashion, and cruise lines are unsustainable. It is obvious we are producing more emissions when we fly for vacation, buy huge trucks and SUVs we don't need.
Much of what we need to do is both obvious and easy because it merely involves us NOT buying things.
And most of the worst stuff like fast food, fast fashion, huge vehicles, and excessive meat consumption don't do anything to sustain a higher quality of life. Many of them reduce it.

[–] Larvitar@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The concerning part is always "it's happening faster than they predicted!" I'm not sure what contributes to the models being so far off.

[–] cykablyatbot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

They aren't really far off it's just that the models don't show every feature of the climate because they are models, not reality. But regarding the broad strokes the models are accurate and relevant.
Also CNN peddles fear and useless information. They thrive on sensationalism, not by informing people.

[–] cykablyatbot@lemmy.fmhy.ml -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I wish that for even every 10 alarmist articles about climate change published there was one about the various steps and programs being worked on to address it.
But no. Just more selling of fear and sensationalism.

There is very little information regarding that in mainstream news and it is a serious disservice. People need to understand these issues if we are going to contribute to them or vote for them intelligently.

[–] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago

China for example is doing a huge amount to decrease their impact, but you won't hear about anything positive in China since they must be portrayed as the enemy. That aside, the only way out of even worse global warming and the only way we can mitigate it is to move on from capitalism, and that's a non starter in the western mainstream.

Mainstream news is meant to run interference for billionaires (who of course benefit by destroying the survivability of the planet). Why would it present these issues in a clear, accurate, and understandable way?

[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are lots of good programmes, of course. But the fact is that global emissions continue to rise year on year. We haven’t even managed to stabilise emissions yet, let alone cut.

[–] cykablyatbot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Of course not. That isn't remotely possible for well over a decade. That doesn't mean that there is not a massive effort to build new sustainable infrastructure that will replace what we currently have. We spent 50 years building the current infrastructure that depends on fossil fuels. It's not going to be replaced overnight, or even in a few years.
What people don't realize is that when emissions finally start dropping year after year, the reduction will happen relatively quickly after that. That part of the change will be dramatic and observable. The hard work being done right now not so much.
Think about EV cars and trucks; once adoption rises to over 50% a year, the transition to 90% EVs will happen very quickly because no one will want to invest in the old tech and the manufacturing will have scaled up dramatically and be much more mature. What people don't realize is how much of the hard work was done before EVs were being mass produced. Developing and building the battery and car factories and establishing all the supply lines is the hard part, not building cars in the factory.

The same timeline will happen with many other sustainable technologies that are where EVs were in 2005 or 2010.

[–] JasSmith@kbin.social -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's a very lucrative industry now. People are making fortunes and careers on climate change. You can't expect honesty or clear information on the back of that. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

My take is that a) man-made climate change is happening, and b) it's not nearly as bad as alarmists claim. The global average temperature is projected to increase by 2-4C over the next 80 years.%20by%202100.) I'm sorry, but that's just not an "emergency." You know what is an emergency? The 4.6 million people who die each year because they can't access cheap energy. We should, immediately, work to make energy cheaper and more abundant for more people, even if it increases our carbon output. Saving lives today is obviously much more important than potentially saving lives 100 years from now.

[–] Kettlepants@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I respectfully disagree.

At our current trajectory there will be mass death and significant swathes of the planet will simply be uninhabitable.

The view that we should release more carbon than we already are doing now is, in my opinion, reckless and selfish.

[–] galaxies_collide@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ll have to find the source later, but I read somewhere that each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature reduces overall crop yields by 10%. Also, tropical forests that rely on high humidity environments will start drying up causing drastic ecological and an increase in fires. Yes, the fear mongering sells news, but that doesn’t mean you can write off climate change as a big deal.

[–] JasSmith@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature reduces overall crop yields by 10%.

That sounds on the high side, so I'd want to read a source before I accept it. Let's say it's true for a moment, and crop yields decline by 20-40% over the next 80 years. Take a look at global wheat yields over time. The use of technology to improve yields has resulted in explosive growth to output. Our continued improvements for the next 80 years will more than make up for even a 40% reduction.

I must be clear: I am well aware that there will be consequences to a 2-4C increase in temperature. I'm claiming that those consequences are not as bad as the millions of people dying each year at present because they lack access to cheap energy.