How come DU is so pessimistic about climate change?

[minivan2]

Shouldn't we be taking steps to help stop it? Obviously our first step is to get rid of those wackos in congress in November. But we all should do small things to help. Instead of saying "Ah we're all gonna die!" we should say "We might die, but to make things better let's walk to work/school, recycle, turn off necessary lights, and vote in November."

[HERVEPA]

1. Uh, we're probablly already past the tipping point, so it's likely moot anyhow.

[vt_native]

2. I agree

Likely moops anyhow

[HERVEPA]

4. Sorry. I meant to say Moor. :-)

[scarletwoman]

7. I thought you meant mook.

[Shivering Jemmy]

8. Tipping point for what?

What exactly is the outcome that we have now locked in? How do you assign a probability to it?

[sendero]

3. It's way too late...

.... and without the cooperation of China, Brazil, India and Europe it would be futile anyway.

Get ready, it is coming.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. You want to know why I'm pessimistic about climate change?

Or about our ability to do much of anything to stop it? First, we're probably past the tipping point, as noted above. Second...see how fast people's concern for climate change evaporates when one starts talking about the things that would be necessary to have any effect, at all (like taxing gasoline at a much higher rate to encourage lowered consumption). Given the choice between stopping climate change and having cheap gasoline? DU, apparently, will take cheap gasoline. See also the threads in the past with significant numbers of people being extremely butthurt about the phaseout of incandescent light bulbs. Fuck the environment, fuck using less energy, I don't care about that because I don't like CFLs!

[scarletwoman]

6. For one thing, we ARE all going to die. That's pretty much a given for all biological life forms.

For another thing, it's pretty much too damn late to do much about it.

Walking to work, recycling, turning off lights. etc. is fine as far as it goes - saves money, anyway. But it won't do shit about forestalling severe drought and major weather events. We're already locked in, thanks to the supremacy of the fossil fuel industry, and the lock they have on our political/economic system. It's simply too late to turn the tide. Major die-offs ahead, including the human species.

The earth will balance herself and survive. Us humans? Meh. We're just a blip in the sweep of geologic time.

[Shivering Jemmy]

9. Doubt humans will die off

Will there be drastic population reductions? Perhaps. But I can't put a probability on it..

[scarletwoman]

11. "Die-off" doesn't mean total extinction, just a greatly reduced population.

I live in Minnesota, "Land of Ten Thousand Lakes". Every year some of those 10 thousand lakes experience some degree of "die-off" of the fish population - most often due to winter-kill. Most lakes recover their fish populations, eventually - as long as the basic ecological supports for the fish remain basically constant.

However, there are definite "tipping points" which prevent fish populations from recovering - agricultural run-off and algae growth, drops in water levels, over-fishing, invasive species - shit happens.

The human species is not magically immune from environmental stresses - how many famines in Africa have we witnessed over the past many decades? Add to that wars, in particular resource wars - oil is still a biggy for now, but water wars loom large in the future - and I would say that the "probability" of a great deal of human die-off in the future is fairly large. Not any sort of total extinction, but how long will large populations of people without land rights, without water, without a means to produce food last?

[minivan2]

10. Well, thanks for depressing me everybody.

Now I know that there is nothing to do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. I will try to cheer you a tad

While I think we are beyond the tipping point for effects to happen, 400 ppm for example, silently governments are working on something

This is rarely reported in any press, and I have been too sick after Comicon to read the climate action plan for my county. Or for that matter the strategic triennial plan. Shah, don't tell anybody. Serious, me, my board of supers and the spokesperson are the only ones who know.

I will make an exception and post that article when I finish writing it here, on the main page no less, in the hope this inspires people to find out what local officials are doing. I guarantee, if your county or city has one of these, like the WH action plan, your friendly press has kept it away from you.

Now these plans will only make things less bad, not stop them.

[bluedigger]

13. I think I'm more fatalistic than pessimistic about climate change.

I think it will mean the eventual end of our petrochemical/consumption based civilization, with some pretty dramatic social upheaval, but humanity is nothing if not resilient. No other species has spread around the globe to inhabit more environments than we have, which is part of the problem, but it will also be our salvation. Eventually another civilization will rise from our ashes, probably pretty quickly on the human time scale, as it will be difficult to erase our accumulated knowledge base; and it will be even more magnificent, as the overall trend of history seems to indicate.