Whatever dent we make today will be visible in decades. This is Moses in the desert, people, if we do what’s right, we won’t see the promised land, but our descendants will
That would’ve been true in the 1970s,but we’ve hit too many run away effects. We could entirely stop all fossil fuels use tomorrow and we wouldn’t see a drop in co2ppm for longer than it would take for all things built by humans to decay.
But it wouldn’t increase by 3+ppm per year. It wouldn’t stop temperatures from rising for another 10-20 years, but at a slower pace that makes sub +2C possible.
It would still increase, just not as much… And no, it wouldn’t make sub 2c possible. we have a lot of methane currently suspended from the carbon cycle that is releasing more and more each year at current temperatures. On top of this the wildfires frequent at current temps release more carbon than the natural world sequesters each year.
This is without addressing anything with the ocean.
Bible stories aren’t real either.
But these kinds of myths, like those of other religious traditions, have some very important truths about humanity. In this case, it’s that it’s worth struggling for future generations. Early abolitionists might have not lived to see emancipation, but it was still worth it to fight the good fight.
It’s hard not to feel nihilistic. Especially because even in the worst case scenario, it’s extremely unlikely that humans will become extinct. No, the worst case scenario is worse than that: the people who are most responsible for exacerbating the climate crisis will also be the ones with the resources available to shield themselves from the devastation. Even if society as we know it completely collapses, people will survive, and on our current trajectory, those people will be the worst of us.
For me, it’s less about saving the planet from the climate crisis, more about doing what little I can to maximise the likelihood that the people who inherit the earth aren’t the assholes who are willfully profiting from human misery — the ones who see themselves as the greater good.
Sometimes when I feel hopeless about humanity’s chance to liberate ourselves before climate catastrophe truly rolls in, I wonder whether it’d be better if humans were gone entirely. Maybe I’d rather see the world burn completely than for it to go to the disgusting people who make me ashamed to be human. Ultimately, I don’t believe this — I’d be dead already if I did. I don’t think my life matters all that much, but I’m not one of the people who would be deemed worth saving by the billionaires and autocrats, so I might as well stick around and fight for, and with all the other forsaken people to build things that are worth preserving; I figure that communities and solidarity will be even more crucial in the future than now.
A few years ago, my best friend was in a coma and on a ventilator for a few months, before eventually dying. The hardest part of that period was when we didn’t know whether he would survive or not, because I had to go about my life despite his absence, and yet I couldn’t grieve yet. That feels sort of like how climate change feels now. I want to grieve, but I can’t, because there’s still work to do. The earth isn’t dead yet, and unlike when my friend was in hospital, my actions do have an impact on the end outcome. The analogy breaks down though, because I did get the chance to grieve my friend’s death, there won’t be a checkpoint like that for me, because the world won’t end, per se. The only thing that’ll be ending is my ability to impact the world, when I’m too dead to grieve for anything.
I imagine my desire to see the world burn rather than hand it over to the undeserving probably stems from a desperate desire to grieve what has already been lost, and what has not yet been lost, but will be. I wish I could allow myself the chance to despair, because that can be healing, eventually, but there simply isn’t time to do that precisely because this isn’t about me and my grief. There’s still work to do, and I can’t let myself collapse now, lest even more of our descendants future is eroded. I feel hopeful for the future because I have to in order to survive long enough to give the people who come after me a better shot at building something I never could. It’s a tremendous amount of pressure though.
So how do we have readings going so far back, like even in the late 1800s? Is this just an assumed average for back then?
Lots of different independent methods and sources that correlate, along with some approximations. Actual measured readings aren’t as accurate or match up in the early periods, which is why the IPCC decided to use 1980 as a baseline to start from for consistent and abundant data to compare with. This continues to be a side argument about if we’re really past 1.5C or not, since the graphs start differently. The “good” news is that as time goes on, that argument becomes less relevant because the differences shrink and catastrophic converges.
old trapped air
Here is the Mauna Loa data line from 1958, matching the top figure.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Mauna_Loa_CO2_monthly_mean_concentration.svg
The rest has been matched and synchronized to it using other sources. I’m not climate scientist, but I would guess the best sources are ice samples from polar regions where it accumulates from top and melts from bottom. CO2 dissolves in water and when snow falls and turns into permanent ice in such places, it captures a snapshot of that period’s atmospheric gas content, among that the CO2 level.
Tree rings are another used source for historical estimates
I got one word for you: Vote.
Corporations like BP push individual responsibility and personal carbon footprint[1] to try to neutralize you from achieving real policy gains which would have a much greater impact than your individual action. Time spent trying to convince people to vote for politicians who take climate change seriously is far more productive than time spent trying to educate people about their so-called carbon footprint. Of course we all play a part but seeing this chart it’s clear we need more action and that’s why I’m saying this.
[1] https://www.nprillinois.org/2023-12-18/how-big-oil-helped-push-the-idea-of-a-carbon-footprint
politicians who take climate change seriously
lol
I don’t see a dent…
The dent is atleast it’s stopped following an exponential growth curve
Ok. So we can start the next year with some optimism.
Things are going to get a lot worse unfortunately.
You can’t say that without plotting in log scale
No, it didn’t. Do a linear semilog plot.
No, we had precisely zero measurable impact on the Keeling curve.
And yet you can see the small dent the collapse of USSR made.
lol. That’s because awareness doesn’t work.
That period between 1990 and 1995 where there seems to be 3 consecutive years where it slowed to a relative crawl… Imagine if we did that. What if we plateaued there for a few years - decades even - and then started dropping. A wonderful thought.
I think that’s partly due to the fall of the soviet union, which caused a noticeable drop in carbon emissions.
So you’re saying… /j
On a more serious note, I don’t consider myself to be entirely out of the loop on historical events, but I had just never made the connection that the soviet union fell quite that recently. That’s only a handful of years before I came into the world.
I bought CO2 sensors for an Arduino project. The firmware is calibrated to 400 ppm. It is rapidly becoming in accurate because baseline keeps going up.
There is no dent at all. 3+ppm increase in CO2 is faster than 10 year average. Even as energy transition is progressing globally, war on Russia, forest fires and drought is going to make emissions sticky.
Our masters prefer profit much much much more than planetary survival.
Incapable until directly affected
Perhaps we should start actually trying
But we’re out of ideas!
Fine. I’ll finally give up plastic straws.
Plastic straws are not the problem. If we use petroleum to make plastic that carbon is effectively captured in that straw. It can create pollution for sure but it’s not adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Nothing individually is “the” problem. We have a wide variety of problems to choose from.
That’s not how anything works!?!?! It was 100% captured in the petroleum, even if the process of petroleum->plastic straw is 99% efficient you’re adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.
And it’s nowhere near that efficient! Cracking alone is 65-86% efficient with probably a minimum of 2 other processing steps of similar efficiency (SWAG of 27-64% final efficiency). The waste isn’t all greenhouse gasses, but a good amount is…
The production process for paper straws also produces greenhouse gases. Making paper also used up a tree somewhere. So this notion that switching from plastic straws solves the problem is false. Its impact is negligible.
It’s virtue signalling by fast food companies who should be focusing on switching to using green energy and using electric transport rather than making us all suffer with soggy straws.
I’m just replying to the original comment sarcastically joking that giving up plastic straws is the solution when we all know it isn’t.
Also the complete irony of the plastic (coated) containers still often used for beverages, but serving with a paper straw… I always hate it if I am too slow to just refuse the straw. Keep that damn thing. I’d rather just drink from the cup.
First step to prove you actually mean it:
No more fucking meat on your plate!
We put like 6 fossil kalories in and get 1 animal tissue kalorie out. This is inane! Our species is about to commit suicide and we point fingers at greedy, selfish billionaires and at the same time keep devouring our biosphere because we’re accustomed to a taste.
I know this alone won’t save us, but no solution will be enough if we don’t agree on this simple thing:
Next time, I will no longer knowingly chose exploitation, misery and annihilation.
Buy cheap legumes or expensive meat alternatives, I don’t care. But stop paying for this madness! Then go for CEOs, billionaires and politicians. But start with the most simple, obvious realization first.Buy cheap legumes or expensive meat alternatives, I don’t care. But stop paying for this madness! Then go for CEOs, billionaires and politicians.
The idea of only demanding change from the people in power when the change already happened in the masses seems so weird to me. They have the power (or at least had the power, it might be too late now) of stopping this crisis. Each and every one of us can only contribute a little, and failing every once in a while is only human, considering the amount of ads and the sometimes overhelming disparity between availability of plant/animal based foods.
We need to make it easy to go as vegan as possible. And we can only do that if the CEOs, Billionaires and politicians do it. Because they are the ones that are making it hard right now.
I demand change from every single capable human on earth, including the 1% and you. And if the elite isn’t willing then we show them we are better than them. Aren’t we? Or do we watch them do nothing while doing nothing as well?
What I’m challenging is the idea that the responsibilities are equally distributed. With great power comes even greater responsibility. The relationship between the two isn’t even linear, that’s why we tax bigger income and bigger wealth higher than lower incomes and the same applies to this.
Their potential to change is so much higher that it is fair to demand change more heavily from them than from the average Joe.
Edit: showing we are “better” is not the goal here and won’t achieve any change in the 1% btw
I agree again. I want them to be held accountable for everything they do.
But what to do when the powerful won’t move, because they live even more comfortable and save then us? It’s classic prisoner’s dilemma and I argue in favor of doing what is right, not what others should do first. And it’s not even a sacrifice:
If you dare to look at each of the animal industries production chains it’s plain evil from start to finish. It needs to be shut down fast. And it takes very little effort to change your diet. Quitting meat, going plant-based, is nothing more than a slight inconvenience. Again, I know this alone won’t save us, but it would have a huge impact on our planet AND our health. It’s the easiest Fuck You! you can send, no need to get off of the sofa, no need to protest, no need to riot. You just vote with your receipt at the supermarket, capitalism-style. It’s an easy step to live up to your convictions and switch off one part of this global suicide machine we’re running.
The irony that someone downvoted you because actually doing anything about it is a step too far for most people.
They just love to explain to me how their actions doesn’t matter and more rich and powerful people should change first. Comfortably waiting for a revolution. The corporations they buy their stuff from. Those evil billionaires with their private jets!
But we are all the same.
You can afford a plane? Of course you fly to visit your friends party in Ibiza. You can afford meat? A car? Holidays in Asia, weekly packages from Amazon? Why say no to a good life, right? We’re just as greedy, shortsighted and selfish, but with less resources.
So if you understand the horror that lurks in our near future, if you take responsibility for you actions and your life on this planet, then you change, one step at a time. And this really is a no brainer: Go buy some fucking beans.
The chart indicates another way to fix global warming. We could add to the atmosphere. It would take a massive amount… Maybe have boil the ocean?
water gas is a particularly intense greenhouse gas :p
Exactly! You only have to boil so much before it starts a feedback loop and boils itself off. It’s efficiency is genius! Say it with me: “the solution to pollution is dilution.”
I think nuclear war is maybe a better option. If we nuke the usa several imbalances are corrected:
- turnabout is fair play
- nuclear winter buys us time
- radiation might help new live forms that can handle living in an irradiated, heat blasted, wasteland evolve
That way we can keep the oceans.
Steal jupiter
Great outside the box thinking!
I think humanity might own it…
Somebody get elmo to do some
research onhype for this amazing investment opportunity.
