Don’t think I need to summarize this one. This is bad news for everyone.

  • @[email protected]
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    19 hours ago

    earlier than initially projected

    There’s that phrase again. If only someone had warned us loudly and repeatedly.

      • @[email protected]
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        97 hours ago

        Well, a lot of people didn’t vote because they believed the genocide/both-sides-are-the-same bullshit, and now Republicans control Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. But no worries, they are very well-known for their stewardship of the environment, so don’t fret.

          • @[email protected]
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            36 hours ago

            What are you doing, pal? Maybe stop howling at strangers to do something and calmly explain what you think they should be doing… especially if you can point sincerely to your example.

            You’re very noisy but not very informative. It’s not endearing.

            • @[email protected]
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              5 hours ago

              I genuinely think we should gather anyone with assets worth more than $1 billion and public flay them. On live TV. Make the message, “if you want to be a piece of shit, we’ll treat you like one.”

              See how long it takes for people to stop wanting to be billionaires.

                • @[email protected]
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                  4 hours ago

                  Tbf, the average billionaire negatively impacts the environment on a level that is hard for people to comprehend. Most people are really, really bad at understanding volume and scale. Like the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire.

                  Example: In 2023, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took an average of 184 private jet flights per year, emitting as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. Elon Musk’s two private jets alone emit 5,497 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, which is equivalent to 11 average people’s emissions in their entire lifetimes.

  • @[email protected]
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    2017 hours ago

    As a finn, I can live with -40 °C winters, let them come. At least the invading russians will drop dead like flies in the winter. Again.

    • @[email protected]
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      2115 hours ago

      as a Canadian, I agree totally. -40 is wayyyy more tolerable than +40. I’ll take Hoth over Tatooine any fucking day of the week

      • @[email protected]
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        47 hours ago

        As someone who whe experienced both-ish, I tend to agree. There is a point where you just get sick when it’s too hot and humid and it’s way worse than being cold. Your system just shuts down and you feel so bad, and if you don’t get away well you die.

        That said, -35° is the coldest I have lived through and without proper clothing it’s not funny being outside! But it beats dying lol.

        • @[email protected]
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          7 hours ago

          Heat pumps work at >100% thermal efficiency.

          Air conditioners dont.

          An air conditioner is a heat pump… That just works in one direction. It uses refrigeration just the same.

          They both rely on creating a thermal gradient between two heat exchangers. And they are both negatively affected by extreme temperature gaps.

          The heat exchanger facing outside with a heat pump must be colder than ambient temperature by a reasonable margin. The opposite goes for an AC. These qualities break down in extreme ranges for typical hardware.

          This also, as expected, reduces the efficiency.

  • @[email protected]
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    1518 hours ago

    We need to be coordinating human effort across the globe on this above all else. China’s the only one taking it seriously right now.

    The people defending the US tariffs on imports of Chinese solar panels are engaging in straight up climate change denial. We don’t have time for industry protectionism. Once the currents collapse, food chain collapse will follow shortly.

    • @[email protected]
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      33 hours ago

      China is better in implementing countermeasures than especially the USA (also looking to the dark future ahead) but if they would take it seriously they would need to do quit a bit more especially driving something like a global CO2-tax, but AFAIK they were the ones blocking such measures (not that other nations are much better). THIS would be effective.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 hours ago

          Re: resource intensive protein sources

          Insect proteins need to move into mainstream. There are enormous amounts of complete protein available for farming and food, but we Westerners are incredibly squeamish and finicky about food. Mostly because of decades of marketing and commercial conditioning.

          For example, dried mealworms are 53% protein by weight.

  • @[email protected]
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    291 day ago

    Summer homes in Europe go up in value. A new market for winter apparel opens too. Just think to the potential market growth. This is going to make a few shrewd entrepreneurs very wealthy. The planet will suffer, but man think of the money.

    • @[email protected]
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      682 days ago

      Millions of species will go down with us, some already have been relagated to extinction by our actions.

        • @[email protected]
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          192 days ago

          Oh then in that case nbd that we take millions of species who were living in harmony with nature with us. Serves them right for . . . existing in the same 20,000 year period we did.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          112 days ago

          The dinosaurs got wiped out by a catastrophic meteor impact (or so we think). This is different. We are changing the climate at an accelerated pace that’s never been seen before. Species adapt to things over time. You can’t adapt if the weather isn’t stable, and things dip between super hot and super cold, or visa versa, they stay super hot or super cold. We have other examples of worlds like that in our solar systems, and they are dead worlds.

          • Justas🇱🇹
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            18 hours ago

            Permian Triassic extinction event is the one most similar to current situation.

            The level of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose from around 400 ppm to 2,500 ppm with approximately 3,900 to 12,000 gigatonnes of carbon being added to the ocean-atmosphere system during this period.[22] Several other contributing factors have been proposed, including the emission of carbon dioxide from the burning of oil and coal deposits ignited by the eruptions;[27][28] emissions of methane from the gasification of methane clathrates;[29] emissions of methane by novel methanogenic microorganisms nourished by minerals dispersed in the eruptions;

          • JohnEdwa
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            2 days ago

            There have been at least five major mass extinction events in the history of this planet. What will be after us in the future won’t look like it does right now, but right now doesn’t look anything like it did before any of those five events either.
            As the saying goes, life finds a way. We just won’t be around to witness it.

          • @[email protected]
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            152 days ago

            We are changing the climate at an accelerated pace that’s never been seen before.

            He said, right after mentioning a catastrophic meteor impact.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 days ago

            How do you know that the climate is changing at a pace never before seen? Were you there to see it? There have been many mass extinctions in Earth’s history. It’ll be fine.

            • @[email protected]OP
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              102 days ago

              We know what the climate was like in the past by looking at layers in the earth, tree rings, even carbon dating can sometimes given evidence of how the composition of the atmosphere was in the past. There a lot of neat chemistry that we can use to learn what composition the atmosphere and climate had. Obviously there is some amount of error in models, but we do know.

              • @[email protected]
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                1 day ago

                I think there are a lot of errors in the models. Tree rings can only go back so far because most of the early trees are now coal. And trees, while they do live for a long time, don’t live forever. Fossilization is rare and I don’t know if we can get weather data from fossilized tree rings. Carbon dating is useful for organic matter up to 60,000 years ago. The other methods used to determine what the atmosphere was in the past include studying ice samples from Antarctica but that’s only good for the time Antarctica froze till now, it was tropical at some point. Since most scientist think complex life has been around for 500 million years I don’t think we can really say we know exactly what the climate was like and how it changed anywhere past a certain time period.

                • @[email protected]
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                  221 hours ago

                  I think …

                  That’s the problem. Thinking without actual evidence to back it up = your opinion. Having an opinion is fine. But in a discussion such as this you need to come into it with factual data.

                  It’s the equivalent of showing up to a gun fight with a knife, believing you have a chance of winning.

  • @[email protected]
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    1192 days ago

    Basically it’s too late to stop the process. Even if we switched to renewables entirely, there will be a lag. That lag is now in a positive feedback loop.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍
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        722 days ago

        I remember some of the early research showing this when I was in college in the late 90s/early 00s. It’s mostly following the worst-case scenario models from the time, except 50 - 80 years ahead of schedule.

        • @[email protected]
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          101 day ago

          I started watching The Nanny a few days ago (have seen a lot on tv, but never everything) and in one of the first episodes they make a joke about being worried about Global Warming. It was lighthearted, not very serious. That was 1993.

        • @[email protected]
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          262 days ago

          Whether you can risk it or can’t. Its time to disobey our leaders. They dont care. They’ve built protections for themselves. They plan on feeding us to the storms.

          • FartsWithAnAccent
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            272 days ago

            There will be no protection or escape from the environmental changes we’ll be facing, this is not something you can just wait out in a bunker.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 days ago

              Yep, they’ll let the climate kill all of us. Because they won’t truly be living either down there. I’m sure all the training courses for guard loyalty in the world won’t actually do shit when you’re physically down in a bunker without hopes of coming out.

              • @[email protected]
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                42 days ago

                They actually need us to do the shit jobs though. It’s the ancient tale of the hubris of monarchs we somehow keep electing

      • themadcodger
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        482 days ago

        If only we knew about this 50 years ago, surely we would have done something!

        Big Oil: side eye Muppet meme

    • Fugtig Fisk
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      21 day ago

      Not to mention the tipping point where it is no longer reversible. And even worse, the huge effect that the current has on basically the whole of the globe!

    • @[email protected]
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      322 days ago

      Humans are pretty resilient. Adaptable to any climate, even the mess of a climate we created.

      Now, I’m not saying that all 8 billion of us will survive.

      What I’m saying is, the minimum viable genetic population for humans is about 2000 individuals.

      • @[email protected]
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        13 hours ago

        Humanity is the only species capable of the arrogance required to believe we deserve to endure. Our survival instincts are ultimately self-defeating because we refuse to evolve socially. Instead we make wars and loot resources, rinse and repeat.

      • XIIIesq
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        14 hours ago

        Right. We survived the ice age with stone age tech.

        Not saying that this makes any of this OK but resilience is absolutely one of humanities highest spec traits.

      • volvoxvsmarla
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        319 hours ago

        I thought it was 500. I think I even read that 50 might be enough by some estimates.

        • @[email protected]
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          10 hours ago

          50 if you’re carefully planning breeding.

          2000 for a good chance to persist long-time under normal breeding conditions

        • @[email protected]
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          216 hours ago

          I’ve seen some of the same estimates. I settled on 2K because that’s what is estimated to have survived the To a supervolcano. Or rather the non-African population that survived.

          Homosapiens in Africa actually did quite well comparatively.

      • Random_Character_A
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        121 day ago

        When food runs out for even a portion of those 8 billion, results are gonna be nasty.

        It’s hard to talk about climate initiatives when 1/3 of the planet is shooting eatch other. In worst case with nukes.

      • @[email protected]
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        81 day ago

        Yep, there will always be humans as long as there is literally anything we can hunt/forage and eat.

        If that will resemble what we perceive as civilisation is another question entirely.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 days ago

    So, what does this all mean for us? It means we have even less time to get our act together. Reducing emissions isn’t just a good idea — it’s crucial.

    I don’t think this will motivate countries to dramatically increase emissions reduction efforts, but I think it will motivate countries to begin geoengineering. Geoengineering is cheaper and easier than rapid emissions reduction, and the results are more immediate. Yes, it doesn’t solve the core problem, which is the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, but it treats the symptom, albeit temporarily. Why put a lot of time, money, and effort into fixing the core problem when you can spend comparatively less time, money, and effort just treating the symptom? Then you can just pretend the core problem doesn’t exist and go about business as usual.

    Edit: sorry, I should have added the /s.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      2 days ago

      I don’t think you realize what a collapsed ocean current means for us. This is existential, not business as usual. Anything we do from here on out that isn’t in service of stopping this is signing our species death warrant.

      • @[email protected]
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        172 days ago

        Haha fricking euros enjoying their moderate climate - wait until they find out what’s real Midwest winter is like. And they want to take my truck and my gas stove? Eff them.

        /too many conservatives probably

          • @Big_Boss_77
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            216 hours ago

            Not in Texas… but drought is my biggest fear with all of this…

        • @[email protected]
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          2 days ago

          I’m way more worried about mean sea level raising above much of our lower elevations. We’re already raising dikes, also making them wider so they can easily be made even higher in the future, accounting for the most pessimistic of projections, but you can’t really keep water out with dikes when the sea is pushing groundwater up. You can do it like the Dutch but if their pumps ever fail they’re royally fucked. Electricity, availability of huge amounts of energy in general, is not something you want to rely on in these matters if you can avoid it.

          We’re probably going to end up with large areas of salt march interspersed by towns on mounds and a couple of lakes to construct those mounds, the dikes only making sure that they’re high, not low, salt marches – not elevation-wise but regarding how salty they are, how often they get flooded. The alternative would be to give up the marches completely and knowing our Frisians no that won’t happen. Barley and sugar beets are naturally salt-resistent, btw, more plants are getting bred for it. Not to mention tasty veggies that allow you to retire your salt shaker

          tl;dr: Wat mutt, dat mutt. Imagine Sisyphus happy.

      • @[email protected]
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        92 days ago

        I’m pretty sure that’s already signed, let’s be real, nothing is going to happen, we’re fucked

    • ignirtoq
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      172 days ago

      Geoengineering is cheaper and easier than rapid emissions reduction

      I don’t know if your whole comment is sarcasm, but every part of this statement is wrong. We are in the very, very early stages of developing the technologies needed for the level of geoengineering required to mitigate what we have already done to the environment. To roll it out to the levels needed would be far more difficult and expensive that converting our entire way of life to renewables, which should really say how hard and expensive it would be given how utterly daunting of a task full conversion to renewables is.

      Now, putting in token investment and paying lip service to geoengineering, that’s cheaper and easier than switching to renewables. But that’s not even treating the symptoms. That’s just your standard con game against the broader population to try to manipulate the conversation.

      • @[email protected]
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        To roll it out to the levels needed would be far more difficult and expensive that converting our entire way of life to renewables

        The cost of geoengineering solutions has been estimated to be less than $5b/yr, which includes R&D. In other words, this is something that the government of New York City (annual budget: >$100b) could easily do alone without any international support, even in the face of significant opposition.

        In contrast, ending fossil fuel use requires significant international cooperation and is regularly stymied by opposing interests. NYC obviously cannot do it by itself.

        So from a pragmatic perspective, geoengineering is definitely the easiest solution. In fact IMO the lack of progress on emission reduction makes it inevitable, at some point some country will weigh the risks of climate change and take matters into its own hands.

        • @[email protected]
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          14 hours ago

          The cost of geoengineering solutions has been estimated to be

          A thought experiment on developing a and maintaining an aircraft fleet to inject dust into the stratosphere. Assuming global cooperation. Assuming that solution works. Assuming you can scale up the dust production without driving up cost. Assuming there are no side effects. Assuming variations in weather don’t trigger war now that there’s someone to blame. Assuming it doesn’t disrupt our food production. Assuming it doesn’t lead to additional extinction events. Assuming -0.3°c over 25 years is enough

        • @[email protected]
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          at some point some country will weigh the risks of climate change and take matters into its own hands.

          Yeah, I could see that happening. Maybe even the US. Maybe Elon Musk reads a Twitter thread about geoengineering, decides it’s the solution to warming, starts a company called GeoX and convinces Trump and the Republicans to give him and GeoX $5 billion a year, he buys a bunch of jets, fills them with sulfur dioxide and has them fart out a bunch of it around the Arctic every year. GeoX stocks soar, Musk becomes the first trillionaire, and the US federal government has added only a trivial amount to its already vast debt total. It almost doesn’t matter if it works or not.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 days ago

        Yes, it was sarcasm. But, I think the push for solar geoengineering, or as some people are calling it “solar radiation management” is coming.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 days ago

          Geoengineering is the most expensive, least effective choice. It risks making things worse and it risks triggering conflict over local effects. It’s not a good idea.

          … but it’s starting to look like a necessary one, because we keep screwing up even more

    • Rhaedas
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      52 days ago

      You tried, but your tone and wording was off. Some people would state all that fully believing things can continue and we’ll tech out way out of trouble. And we WILL absolutely jump to geoengineering to try and preserve status quo, cost or not. The alternative is to change society dramatically, and that won’t happen voluntarily. And the great news is once we start geoengineering, we dare not stop because the reaction will spike things even worse.

  • Icalasari
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    272 days ago

    Huh. That’s oddly freeing

    “Oh we’re all fucked guaranteed. The stress is gone”

    I mean, still gonna be for eco measures and such, but it’s like a weight is off my shoulders in terms of worry

    • @[email protected]
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      182 days ago

      It’s not freeing. We may have locked in some really bad changes but it can always get worse. It more critical than ever to get a handle on our green house emissions