this is usually an interesting discussion to have, and there are a lot of interesting questions to ask in this field–so let’s ask and talk about a few. feel free to answer as many as you want, or ask your own of people in the comments. here are two groups of three that i think are good to start:

  • Do you suffer from anxiety about climate change and its effects?
  • Have you ever made significant individual lifestyle choices because of climate change?
  • Have you ever thought of leaving where you live because of potential future climactic effects? Have you actually moved already because of them?
  • Do you think the world can limit global warming to 1.5C or 2C? Where do you think we’ll “level off” in terms of warming–especially if you don’t think we’ll meet either of those goals?
  • What do you think of proposed technologies like carbon capture? Do you think they’re useful, or a technocratic waste of time? Can they be viably used at large scale on any reasonable timeframe?
  • Do you support something like climate reparations either now or in the future? Do you think such a thing is even viable?
  • Daedalus@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago
    1. Not really ‘anxiety’ yet, more of ‘concern’ and ‘interest’. There may be anxiety later if we turn into tornado country.
    2. Yes. I don’t have and will never have a car, I don’t replace appliances until they are destroyed/unrepairable, I avoid stuff that looks nice if I can’t justify it.
    3. No. But I live in one of the more ‘resilient’ areas. May change in future.
    4. We’re still increasing the rate we’re adding CO2 (though this will change soon), so no, we’ll not limit it below 2C. There is no political will for a drastic WW2-style effort to go carbon-zero in a short time (even if it’s technically achievable). Temperatures will keep rising until CO2 levels actually start decreasing, and there may be more positive feedback effects (methane, water) that will make them rise beyond that point. I don’t think we’ll level off below 4C. If positive feedbacks kick in, the limit is unpredictable, may even be 8C. We will be able to reverse either of those (unless we go full Venus), but at an extreme human cost in the latter case.
    5. Absolutely useful, as a part of the solution. People often say we shouldn’t do this, we should do that, (solar, nuclear, reforestation, carbon capture, less cows, geoengineering etc.) - you can’t have everyone do one thing and you shouldn’t have all your eggs in one basket - we need to do everything at once (well, I don’t think geoengineering is a good idea anytime soon). Of course CCS should not be used as an excuse to emit carbon elsewhere (see also: biomass, biofuels). If we get hit by positive feedback effects, we will need to be drastically carbon negative - and for that, CCS (or geoengineering) is needed (reforestation only works until you, uh, reforest everything).
    6. Yes, but not as described on said post - we need support for worst-hit countries, and refugees from those countries (this may include moving entire populations in case of small island nations). I don’t support giving money to large semi-fascist regimes like China (and increasingly India) unless it involves directly supporting ways to replace their carbon-based economies. It will not happen and we will pay for the consequences. I.e. I don’t support ‘climate justice’ here, I support ‘stopping climate change’.
    • DM_Gold@beehaw.orgEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I think the consensus is that if we even reach a warming of 3 C, the continuation of the human race is at risk no? If we hit 8C I’m pretty sure most humans would be dead and gone.

      • Daedalus@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        There is no single ‘extinction point’ other than becoming self-sustaining.

        We will survive 3C alive and (sort of) well, just all of humanity affected, unless it triggers something like the clathrate gun - that one seems to have been mostly ruled out recently, fortunately, but there are other positive feedback loops (e.g. water vapor is a major greenhouse gas).

        8C would be a major extinction event, but at that point what’s left of humanity would be fully mobilized mitigating the problem (at that point you probably couldn’t avoid geoengineering).

        I don’t like the ‘temperature threshold’, ‘time limit’, etc. rhetoric - it comes mostly from politicians and it leads to ‘we can’t do anything anyway’ kind of thinking. When we’ve gone past 2C (which I’m almost certain we will), ‘we’re all going to die’ is not going to help - the problem is still there and still needs to be solved.

        Note - current-ish projections aren’t that bad: but 2C is the very optimistic scenario and I’m not sure the ongoing industrial rise of India and eventually Nigeria (and other large developing countries) is well estimated there.

        • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPMEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Note - current-ish projections aren’t that bad: but 2C is the very optimistic scenario and I’m not sure the ongoing industrial rise of India and eventually Nigeria (and other large developing countries) is well estimated there.

          i’ve generally been a fan of Climate Action Tracker’s work in this regard; at least for the people in my circle, i think it very helpfully illustrates the range of most likely outcomes. right now its estimate is anywhere from 2.2C to 3.4C of warming, assuming we stick to established policies, with a best guess of 2.7C. (that sounds about right to me, tbh, absent a feedback loop) it also illustrates the impact of committing to better policies

          • Daedalus@beehaw.orgEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that source - though this seems - incomplete (I am aware this is probably outside of their control)

            EDIT: I’m being intentionally pessimistic because I assume a lot of industrial growth - still powered by coal (at least one China’s worth) and I basically expect every target to be not met (which so far has mostly been the case).

      • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPMEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I think the consensus is that if we even reach a warming of 3 C, the continuation of the human race is at risk no?

        something around there is when it’d get really, really bad for most people yeah–and at that point i think we’d be nearly certain to hit some sort of feedback loop so we’d probably need to do geoengineering and/or intensive carbon capture to not really lose control. but it’s tough to say what, if any threshold is truly “unadaptable” for humanity.

        • DM_Gold@beehaw.orgEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          True. With the limited data we have we can estimate when it will get really bad, but humans are if nothing, resilient.