The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us

[G_j]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/14/earth-death-spiral-radical-action-climate-breakdown?CMP=share_btn_fb

Climate breakdown could be rapid and unpredictable. We can no longer tinker around the edges and hope minor changes will avert collapse

@GeorgeMonbiot
Wed 14 Nov 2018 01.00 EST


It was a moment of the kind that changes lives. At a press conference held by climate activists Extinction Rebellion last week, two of us journalists pressed the organisers on whether their aims were realistic. They have called, for example, for UK carbon emissions to be reduced to net zero by 2025. Wouldn’t it be better, we asked, to pursue some intermediate aims?

A young woman called Lizia Woolf stepped forward. She hadn’t spoken before, but the passion, grief and fury of her response was utterly compelling. “What is it that you are asking me as a 20-year-old to face and to accept about my future and my life? … This is an emergency. We are facing extinction. When you ask questions like that, what is it you want me to feel?” We had no answer.

Softer aims might be politically realistic, but they are physically unrealistic. Only shifts commensurate with the scale of our existential crises have any prospect of averting them. Hopeless realism, tinkering at the edges of the problem, got us into this mess. It will not get us out.

Public figures talk and act as if environmental change will be linear and gradual. But the Earth’s systems are highly complex, and complex systems do not respond to pressure in linear ways. When these systems interact (because the world’s atmosphere, oceans, land surface and lifeforms do not sit placidly within the boxes that make study more convenient), their reactions to change become highly unpredictable. Small perturbations can ramify wildly. Tipping points are likely to remain invisible until we have passed them. We could see changes of state so abrupt and profound that no continuity can be safely assumed.

..more..

[beachbum bob]

1. Hate to say but mankind never takes radical actions....

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. this OP needs more K&R

[dembotoz]

3. the earth is fine...just its current biological infestation call humans..they are in trouble

[Kaleva]

5. In the grand scheme of things, humans are just a little mosquito buzzing in the ear of earth.

And we might not even be that far up the scale.

[G_j]

6. No just humans..

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds

Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds


The huge loss is a tragedy in itself but also threatens the survival of civilisation, say the world’s leading scientists

Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Mon 29 Oct 2018 20.01 EDT

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.

The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.

“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”

“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”

..more...

[NoSmoke]

13. Not really,

it is as if the earth has malignant cancer and the cancer cells are human (relentless, uncontrolled, destructive growth which will, if left unchecked, eventually kill the host).

[Blue_true]

15. The Earth is not fine.

The greenhouse gases that we are putting up are going to stay there, even after we and every other living thing is dead. Earth will likely end up as a "lifeless" planet, even as it's other functions continue.

[Kaleva]

4. The earth is not dying. It has a few billion years of life left.

[Autumn]

19. How about the people living on it? Do they have few billion years of life left?

[Kaleva]

22. No, every species on Earth has a finite lifespan.

Humans will go extinct at some point unless we leave and colonize other planets.

[roamer65]

25. It has around 1 billion viable years left.

The Sun's luminosity will increase greatly as it runs out of hydrogen and expands. If the orbital position of Earth does not change, I have read its about 1 billion years till the end.

[Kaleva]

28. From what I read, the sun will start expaniding in about 5 billion years

and fully consume the Earth in 7 billion years. Most life on Earth, except the hardiest, will end in about 1 billion years.

[Hortensis]

9. Maybe chill a bit and check

that passionate 20-year-old 's excitement against more mature and knowledgeable people, even some experts?

She's reminding me of the Never Nancys here who think they have to elect ignorant radicals to run the Democratic Party or the nation will be lost. We are on the brink, and this is their only chance to save us!

Btw, both a "brink" and overweaning righteousness in "the only ones with the wisdom to save us" are identifying characteristics of radicals.

And so is really bad judgment.

😱

[FirstLight]

10. In our lifetime...

I'm pushing 50 and I know it's gonna look very different in the next 5-10 years...

I told my kids DON'T have kids, there's no reason to bring any more humans to this shitshow. I worry about their lives and how they are going to manage.

It's not just humans that are in danger, we've already been driving animal species to extinction...and the coral reefs, ocean acidification, etc. I hate it when people say the planet will be fine without us - NO - we have definitely damaged the earth in our wake and it might not recover...think Mars.

I don't see any coordinated effort to change drastically...humans are not that smart IMO

[Duppers]

12. Thank you.

My 31yo son decided not to have any children, i.e. not subject any more lives to suffering.

I worry about the horrors he will be dealing with in 25yrs.

[roamer65]

23. We need more to make the decision he has made.

He should be rewarded with tax breaks and guaranteed old age care.

[Blue_true]

20. Actually, think Venus. Earth is headed there.

Mars is unique because of it's strange and weak magnetic field. The magnetic field can't repel solar winds as can Venus' and Earth's magnetic fields. Venus has an atmosphere of boiling gas, mostly sulfuric. Earth will likely one day have a boiling mixture of gases and maybe at some point, sulfurous gases will become the dominant type.

[WhiteTara]

11. It's not the planet that will die, it's current life on the planet.

[Blue_true]

14. Sometimes.

I wonder whether Venus was not once inhabited and it's inhabitants destroyed it's climate and ultimately themselves. The gases that we are putting into the middle and upper atmosphere are going to largely stay there unless we develop technology that extracts greenhouse gases out of the middle and upper atmosphere.

[pansypoo53219]

18. more likely mars. we are killing theoceans, water, the air,animals, BEES.

humans eliminated darwin & we now infest the planet. maybe a super volcano can save us. or humans finally extincted themselves.

[Blue_true]

21. Mars is the way that it is because of it's sporadic magnetic field.

The magnetic field is weak and sporadic and can't prevent the solar wind from sweeping the planet. Mars does have an atmosphere, very little, and it has stuff that our atmosphere does not, like elemental Sodium.

[0rganism]

16. radical actions are what brought us to this situation

unfortunately, they were not seen as radical at the time

and whatever actions are taken in the name of remedy are branded as radical whether they are or not.

residents of the biosphere will not escape our fates while chained to a yoke of capitalist priorities.

[NutmegYankee]

17. The Earth is fine.

Humans on the other hand, they’re fucked!

[G_j]

31. Pretty much all life

not just humans

[NutmegYankee]

32. Nah, single cell life will do fine.

And new life will evolve to replace that which went extinct.

The Earth has had far worse shocks than global warming in its past.

[roamer65]

26. Completely unaddressed topic is the decrease of atmospheric oxygen.

It is decreasing. That's what happens when you hack down the forests and kill the oceans.

[Kurt V.]

27. K&R

[jeffreyi]

29. 3 and 17

Agree.

[gtar100]

30. Take a look at all the republicans you know.

Are any of them willing to change? What about all the Saudi oil execs or, for that matter, any oil executive or investor in oil company stocks? How many of these people, the ones with a vested interest in fossil fuels, are willing to do a damn thing about the environment? I'd wager close to zero. It's pathetic. Materialism teaches we all have this one life and can therefore escape the consequences of our actions if we die before the shit hits the fan. Or there is the religious crowd who seem to have no concern for the earth because they're going to some place better after they die. Apparently enough people buy into these views and end up screwing up the earth for our children. How many times do you hear, "Oh well, I'll be dead by then". I'm so fucking sick of these cultural values that put selfish interests over the quality of life for everyone and for the future. Our children will have no choice but to clean up our messes or risk extinction. If they spit on our graves, I won't blame them. I just hope they have the chance.