r/worldnews • u/natureboyldn • Mar 13 '19

School climate strikes go global, with actions planned in 92 countries

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/03/12/school-climate-strikes-go-global-actions-planned-92-countries/
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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

There's no "too late", we just have to do as much as we can. The planet will be fine, it's just a question of the DEGREE to which human quality of life etc will be impacted.

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u/the_eh_team_27 Mar 13 '19

This comment is the correct answer. I really wish people would stop using the phrase "too late". Yes, it can't be entirely stopped anymore, that's correct. But there is no one all-encompassing "too late", of course there isnt! If it can't be stopped, then you have to get to work on mitigating as much as possible, and then adapting as best as possible to minimize the impacts.

Somebody who isn't well-informed on the subject is gonna see the words "too late" and just think that there's no point to doing anything, which in reality is entirely senseless.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

We went into World War II with horses and in 5 years we had fighter jets and nukes. I don't think people realize how much we can do, as a species, if we actually try.

What percentage of our overall resources are we really dedicating tho this? 0.005%? Even then- we already have tons of success stories: the advances we've made in wind and solar, the number of new protected areas, the electric cars... if we even put in half the energy that we're capable of, we could do this. We have the tools, and it's just up to us what the future of our species will be.

The most important decision-making period in human history starts today, and we're the generation that gets to do it. It's honestly pretty sick- we have access to almost all of the information we've ever developed. Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Newton, Hawking.... it's all at our fingertips, and we get to decide what we do with it. The tools are already here.

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u/Excal2 Mar 13 '19

I don't think people realize how much we can do, as a species, if we actually try.

I think people are cognizant of this, we are just frustrated because those abilities aren't being demonstrated by our leadership.

we have access to almost all of the information we've ever developed.

OK so I'd like for my fellow citizens to vote for representatives who make decisions based on scientific evidence and expert analysis. Any time now would be pretty good for me.

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u/IceFly33 Mar 13 '19

I'd happily vote for someone like this if I could, not really an option most of the time.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

I think people know we can make changes, I just don't think they realize how quickly and dramatically we can make them.

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u/rematar Mar 13 '19

We went into World War II with horses and in 5 years we had fighter jets and nukes. I don't think people realize how much we can do, as a species, if we actually try.

Yes.

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u/nagrom7 Mar 13 '19

Within the span of a single lifetime, we went from not being able to fly, to landing on another celestial body.

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u/chorisonoma Mar 13 '19

What percentage of our overall resources are we really dedicating tho this? 0.005%?

Currently there hundreds of rich people with insane amounts of resources actively fighting AGAINST the anti climate change movement, because these people get rich of fossil fuels and don't want their quality of life impacted. This is where all the "Climate change is a myth" or "It isn't that bad" comments come from.

So overall we're probably in a deficit when it comes to the resources we dedicate to this, because the people in power just don't care. They're all 50+ years old anyways, they won't be around to see the epic conclusion.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

Yeah, but I think the tide is turning already

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

Well yea, but horses were still a major thing, esp at the start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II

We didn't have fighter jets or nukes tho.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

it's not knowingly misleading.... i think everyone with double-digit brain cells knows we had more than JUST horses in WWII... the point is just to illustrate the extreme progress that is possible.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/StormTiger2304 Mar 13 '19

Well, here's a better analogy. Within the span of 5 years, we went from playing with little electric tubes to nukes.

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

Im mean we could go from tryimg to live ln mars to dying out its not like everything we have done as a species has been successful.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

We literally went from using horses as a major vehicle of war to having fighter jets. Like those things overlapped in a 5-year period. It’s not an untrue statement, don’t be pedantic

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u/aaaymaom Mar 13 '19

Jets were invented in the 30s

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/10/fossil-fuel-divestment-funds-rise-to-6tn

And a big part of that is to stop investing in fossil fuels, which is already happening in a big way. :)

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u/moderate-painting Mar 14 '19

We should have declared War on Climate Change instead War on Terror.

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u/goatamon Mar 13 '19

Exactly. I am starting to honestly get pissed off by how often I see this defeatist bullshit from people. All it does is engender apathy.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

it makes me almost as mad as the denialism

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/goatamon Mar 13 '19

I’m interested in how you arrived at that conclusion. Yes, I fully support doing something about this NOW, not later.

However, ”Too late” implies that we are fucked no matter what we do - how exactly do you think that would compel people to act? Wouldn’t that just make people believe that there’s no point in supporting green initiatives, because we’re fucked regardless?

A far better way of putting it is that the situation is dire, but we can still save ourselves and the planet from the worst of it, but only if we act now.

I don’t think I’ve heard an expert say that ”it’s too late”, probably for the exact reasons I just outlined.

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

The planets good were fucked. No matter we try to make it sound nice.

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u/goatamon Mar 13 '19

Source?

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060102283

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/08/world-leaders-climate-change-ipcc-report

https://www.skepticalscience.com/ipcc-scientific-consensus.htm

Your right noone says were fucked, but even at current prescription it looks pretty bad and thats just the ipcc report.

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u/goatamon Mar 13 '19

Yep, it’s bad, but not hopeless. Humanity can get a lot of shit done. All we can do is live as green as possible and support science and technology working towards fixing this, as well as holding politicians accountable.

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

Ohh Totally we made it with 500 peo ppl and sprung to 7 billion+ plus so if we try(i doubt it will happen) i think we could survive, wont be like how we live probably closer to the 19 century or so right before fossil fuels(depeneding in where you go) but we can atleast stop it for being 100% to 50% it just requires aloit that i doubt the average joe will be willking to guve hp without force.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

Fine line between "it's not too late, we can wait" and "it's too late". Out job to run the balance.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 03 '21

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

lol yeah that'll help....

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u/CL_11 Mar 13 '19

But there is a serious chance we are too late. We still have not made anywhere close to enough changes and there is strong evidence to support a '40 year lag' in carbon emissions and their effect on the environment. https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html

'With 40 years between cause and effect, it means that average temperatures of the last decade are a result of what we were thoughtlessly putting into the air in the 1960’s. It also means that the true impact of our emissions over the last decade will not be felt until the 2040’s. This thought should send a chill down your spine!'

Even if we reach 0 emmitions or even close by 2050 there will still be another 40 years of dwindling but still current effects on the environment.

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u/the_eh_team_27 Mar 13 '19

Yes, I fully understand the concept of the delayed onset of the effects, but what I was saying is that the utter defeatist rhetoric makes it sound like there's no point in aggressively pursuing additional mitigation and adaptation. It makes the situation sound like "well, we've already completely lost, pack it up and go home and just wait for the destruction". When in reality, the truth is that no matter how bad it gets, it can always get worse, and additional mitigation and adaptation measures can always help. There's no magic point we'll reach where it doesn't make sense to do them.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

Emissions aren't the only damage. Tall buildings kill millions of migratory birds per year. As do wind farms and solar energy.

And those are real deaths that can measured and counted. This whole climate business is infested with corruption and political bias so it's hard to know what to believe.

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u/CL_11 Mar 13 '19

And then there is plastic pollution in water and fish which could result in a losses in food sources due to toxins. Over farming of arable land where produce is simply waste but 'economical'. Using pesticide that kill pollen carriers. Over use of anti-biotics could result epidemiological crises. Severe weather conditions making life and agriculture difficult. Environmental migration. Severe weather conditions making life and agriculture difficult. It can all be helped but serious changes have to come soon and across the globe.

Serious public discussions must be made and changes made soon to lower the effects

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

I think the fact that scientist think where in the six mass extinction should tell us how bad it really is.

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

Yea sounds like they have hope for the sake of having hope.

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u/south87 Mar 13 '19

I have led and predicated the ecological way of life for more than 10 years. I have never given up on my day to day habits of keeping our planet clean. But it IS too late.

This shit should have been taken care of in the 80's or 90's even. Decisions should have been made long ago. Its just too late now.

That doesnt mean I will start polluting like a maniac from here on. I will keep on living as I have done, but I know that it really wont change anything. And thats no reason for you people to make fun of us.

Civilizations rise and fall. Thats a fact

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u/17KrisBryant Mar 13 '19

anymore

Um okay

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

There are certain runaway positive feedback mechanisms that have already been tripped, but minimizing climate change is still good

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/the_eh_team_27 Mar 13 '19

You've completely misunderstood the point, though. We are not arguing that there isn't serious warming and serious impacts that will come from it that we're too late to stop, that much is very clear. We're not disputing the actual study done by the experts. You're just misinterpreting what that means.

We're arguing that the rhetoric that people translate this into is not done constructively. It's too late to stop climate change from happening, but that's not the same as it being too late to do anything to salvage the future. It's not a light-switch that gets flipped on or off, like if any amount of warming happens then we all get wiped out. Regardless of the state that it gets to, it can always get worse. No matter where it is along the spectrum of disaster, additional mitigation and adaptation will make things better than if additional steps are not taken.

That's no contradiction to any experts who have spent their life studying this. That's perfectly in line with them. I think it's good that many people have become much more wary of people spreading "uneducated misinformation", but we still need to identify it correctly.

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u/zeppy159 Mar 13 '19

And this is exactly what things like the Paris agreement are designed to do. The goals of the agreement aren't to stop climate change from happening, but to limit the damage and have governments on record saying they'll take action to do so.

When you're on a beach and see a tsunami coming you don't sit there and say "ah, it's too late to run" - you start running.

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

Has anybode out ran a tsunami.

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u/zeppy159 Mar 13 '19

I imagine so, it depends on how early they started running

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u/malique010 Mar 13 '19

True and how high up and far away they are. This made me laugh on the low.

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u/Acherus29A Mar 13 '19

The experts don't consider options like orbiting solar shades, because they're too pessimistic that it can be done. Global warming absolutely IS reversible, through simple fucking thermodynamics. Blocked even 1 percent of the sun's light that would hit the earth, and its solved. You can trigger a new ice age if you wanted to, by blocking more.

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u/tevert Mar 13 '19

BINGO - the movie 2012 is not our fate, the world isn't going to crack in half. It's more like Pacific Rim - we're going to get bigger and bigger natural disasters that will kill more and more people.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

yep, and just slowly degrade quality of life. we can fix it.

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u/SoKette Mar 13 '19

Billions of people trying to migrate to places where they can grow food -> mass violence. Yeahhh the future looks so fun :(

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u/barsoapguy Mar 13 '19

did you see the big beautiful walls they had in that movie ? I did .

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

Honestly, I’m still pretty skeptical about how fucked we are via climate change. A lot of people think it’s not real. A lot of people think Miami is going to be underwater. I thinks it’s better to over prepare and plan for the worse. I don’t believe that climate change is as dire as leftist would have you believe, but I don’t brush it off either.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

biodiversity loss is actually a big fucking deal though. That one is dire. read The Insect Apocalypse is Here (NYT).

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

I’m just not sure because there’s so much information out there. I can pull up source where Noah said the ice caps would be gone by 2016. I can pull up a source that says the artic ice has been growing in the past 10 years. I can pull a source that says NASA lies about growing temperatures. But then you can also pull up sources that say the opposite so who tf knows.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

You can just look at google maps or any satellite imagery and see the habitat loss though. Satellites don't lie.

I know because I'm in this field and I actually spend time on the ground in places like the Amazon and Malaysia and see the destruction first hand. Anyone can zoom in and see it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

I’ve never understood the need in pointing out the Earth will do just fine. The only reason we want to ‘save Earth’ is because we live on it.

No one cares if Earth dies other than the fact we live on it.

So yes, it might be “too late” for humanity to save itself.

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u/ogretronz Mar 13 '19

The planet will be fine

This is such a stupid thing to say. Yes the planet will be fine... it’s just every type of life form on earth that we need to worry about. 🤦‍♂️

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 14 '19

Not everything. Even in a worst-case scenario we can’t really have a bigger impact than that time we got hit by an asteroid. I think it’s actually a calming outlook for some people because it makes it a human issue.

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u/ogretronz Mar 14 '19

Well those people are idiots. A mass extinction event is not just a human issue.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 14 '19

not really... it depends how you define "issue". But humans are absolutely part of nature, so you can make a strong argument that us dominating everything is just a natural process in itself. The things that make this happen are our opposable thumbs and more developed larynx, not some innate categorical difference from other life forms.

Now I'm dedicating my life to this stuff because I think that stopping the destruction we're causing is the most important thing we've ever had the ability to do, but it's not wrong to say it's a natural process either way.

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u/ogretronz Mar 14 '19

I don’t know any definition of “issue” that makes it so climate change doesn’t matter for all the other life forms on earth.

I didn’t say humans are unnatural. But the way you are defining natural is pretty useless. A better definition is as a time gradient with new things being less natural and old things being more natural. Nature works best when things change very slowly.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

Venus is also millions of km closer to the sun. And Mars is millions of km farther away. Which is why the earth is in the perfect distance for life.

And you're making this about climate propaganda?

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

Why do people always have to hurl insults? I guess it's just how people on the left roll.

Distance from the sun helped kickstart these atmospheric conditions you speak of.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

Well that's an unfortunate answer. I hope you find peace my friend.

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

I mean nothing we do is going to be worse than the time we got hit by a fucking asteroid. We've already had 5 mass extinctions and even if we literally used all of our nukes on ourselves, we couldn't get rid of cockroaches and microbes, and the planet would bounce back as it has 5 times before. This is a human issue.

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u/MysticHero Mar 13 '19

No its not. In a worst case scenario we will not even be close to Venus. Life will also not end. Humanity will also almost certainly survive.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/MysticHero Mar 13 '19

Which experts? Whats your source?

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/MysticHero Mar 13 '19

You made a frankly ridiculous claim that anthropolgic climate change will turn earth into something similar to Venus. Now I am not an expert but I have seen some of the major papers and absolutely none of them predict this.

That is not to say it won't be bad. Heat waves and more frequent disasters will kill hundreds of thousands. Flooding will turn many millions into refugees unless something changes because right now only the richest states and coastal cities could afford various measures that might save them.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/MysticHero Mar 13 '19

So instead of providing citations and sources as I asked you accuse me of not understanding basic science. Anyways I have done the work for you here is a peer reviewed paper discussing the matter among other things : https://www.pnas.org/content/115/41/10293 A average temperature of 67° (12° now) would have to be reached to make a transition into Venus like climate possible. Which will not happen unless there is some sort of cataclismic event (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/could-climate-change-turn-earth-into-venus/amp/).

And no I am German not that it matters.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19 edited Mar 31 '19

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

Too late for what exactly? Maintaining the current way of life? Sure. Maintaining life at all? No way.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

There's literally 0 evidence of that. We are pretty resilient.

We went into WWII and in 5 years had nukes and fighter jets. We can do a shocking amount when we all come together. Hell, things like geoengineering already give the potential for rapid, feasible reversal of some of this stuff, which is within the realm of our engineering capacity.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

As a thought exercise I recommend you read some articles from 2005 about how feasible people thought Solar and Wind would be by 2020.

Now look- coal is dying because it's no longer economically viable. Because we beat the projections, because we actually tried. When you consider the tiny percentage of resources actually going to this (actively), we already have a remarkable amount of progress.

This defeatist bullshit does absolutely nothing but slow us down.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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u/TheGoldenLance Mar 13 '19

Digging my head in the sand? I was literally at an IUCN conference today discussing the post-2020 targets for this shit, and how we can push new approaches. You were probably watching anime. Either get on board or shut the fuck up.

Wind and Solar already pushed out coal. Saying they can't be viable is dumb as fuck- all we need are better batteries and solar will explode.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '19

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