Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity
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I wouldn't say so. I'm not religious and 'believe' that there's no inherent point to life - no matter what we do, we will eventually die and rot. So will the universe one day with heat death.
This probably clashes with the idea of existentialism but I have bad anxiety and depression which push me to judge myself very harshly (a lot of the time to my benefit as I'll work much harder).
I would consider myself a selfish person
Probably? But we are so early in the process that it's practically unfathomable for a human. We're talking something like 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 years from now.
Human mortality is easy to get anxious over, but the Universe is pretty resilient. And if you want to look at it like that, the stuff you're made of will still be around for all of it.
Oh, I know what is existensialism and nihilism. But in my opinion has nothing to do with "feck it, we are fecked anyway" . But anyway, is a matter of philosophy and I am not great in this topic and in english even less
He(president) is lying. Brazil is not rich but have close to 400 billion dollars in external reserves. He is expending $500 millions per day to manipulate the currency and dozens of millions with the presential cred card(he and his family live like sheiks), he could afford to stop the fire for sure.
Let's face it, we know full well Bolsonaro is lying through his teeth because he wants the forest gone.
He's just going to come up with any old excuse because he can do, he's in charge after all.
He's just going to come up with any old excuse because he can do, he's in charge after all.
To quote American rock band Live "even scientists say everything is just light, not created, destroyed but eternally bright"... or something like that.
Basically were just a speck of dust in the whole time thing.
Humanity only acts when the worst has already happened and millions have died.
What do you mean - will the universe one day with heat death.
As in, you could argue that because no matter what you do, everything will ultimately end up the same way anyway, that life is pointless/meaningless. It's the nihilist point of view
Risky point of view.
As in fate?
Long term I probably agree with you.
You as an engineer will understand the second law of thermodynamics. The arrow of time always results in order becoming chaos.
But. And it is a very big but, we should never discount human ingenuity.
Old saying but still true:
Need (or necessity) is the mother of invention.
I am not daft enough to believe that we will resolve climate change. No. Humans are far too greedy and far too selfish.
However, I do believe that we will be able to prevent the very worst effects holding temperature rise to below 2C.
I honestly don't think we'll manage that. That would most likely require negative economic growth for the next 80 years.
Not sure where you got that information from. But absolutely. It will be a massive challenge.
When people are really up against it, ingenuity comes to the fore.
I forsee a programme of massive tree planting combined with new technologies which will reduce CO2 output.
It would also not surprise me to see beef consumption reduce significantly.
It's from historical data. To stay below 2 degrees Celsius of heating while having a negative growth of 1 %, we need to better our emission factor by 1.8 % per year until 2100. Since 1970 we have improved our emission factor by 1.6 % per year. If we want to keep our economic growth from the 20th century we need to improve our emission factor by 5.9 % per year. No way are we doing that. But we might still want economic growth.
You're optimistic. I hope you're right
Thank you for this update which is most interesting.
As I have mentioned it is going to be almost impossible to achieve the figures you quoted.
That is why our primary tool of a programme of massive tree planting is absolutely vital. Yes it will take time for the trees to uptake CO2 but unless we start now it will be too late.
Again, trees are not the biggest of the problems. Worldwide, the tree surface had been growing for years and we are at a highest point in hundreds of years. The only choice is stop emissions from the energy source and meat/dairy consumption
I quite agree. But that is not going to happen globally for some time.
There is always going to be a need for a range of activities to tackle this global problem.
Some will work and some will not. Trees will and are a low cost low risk option.
Remember. Tree planting is not only good for our atmosphere. They will benefit the wider ecosystem which is absolutely vital for all our wellbeing.
The rate our fuel and meat consumption is growing, there is not enough trees that you can plan. Tax meat, control origin, promote vegan option and you will reduce meat consumption therefore emissions and less trees that will be cut (more trees as you want).
Obviously the effort of planting trees is welcomed but it should not be at all a priority. For me it sounds like an old slogan from the 80s
Is it selfish to have children, what with how fecked the world seems to be going?
It is not selfish. But it is increasingly important for parents to consider what the world could be like as their children grow into adulthood.
It is also vital that parents teach and mentor their children to live responsibly and to treat our increasingly fragile planet with the utmost respect.
I do however strongly believe that we should only award child benefit to the first two as a maximum. Anything else is sending completely the wrong message.
Well who the feck else is going to sort it out if we don't have kids?
Keep having kids. Cull the old.
What age do you class as old?
That is not good news as I am going to be 69 soon..30?
Were governments easily persuaded to help fix the hole in the o-zone layer, in comparison to dealing with climate change?
Yes, its a discussion I have with my partner regularly. Its terrifying actually, thinking of a world were more extreme weather events occur, animal species have declined and competition for resources.
Competition for resources could well become a major cause of conflict.
One being fresh water. I cannot remember the actual figure. But the amount of fresh water available at any time compared with all of the water in the world is well under 1%. The overwhelming majority is salt water.
And again, the overwhelming majority of fresh water is either in the clouds or in the rivers and streams.
With climate change, even a tiny increase in temperature has a very significant effect on the availability of fresh water. Not just for drinking of course but also for agriculture.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ireland-440-million-trees_n_5d6c7b42e4b0cdfe057221e1
Ireland Will Plant 440 Million Trees By 2040 To Combat Climate Change
The initiative is part of Ireland’s climate action plan, which proposed investments in renewable energy, a new carbon tax and a mass tree-planting effort.
Well done.
Ireland Will Plant 440 Million Trees By 2040 To Combat Climate Change
The initiative is part of Ireland’s climate action plan, which proposed investments in renewable energy, a new carbon tax and a mass tree-planting effort.
Well done.
Re the carbon tax: I’m quite skeptical when statements like that are made.
Who’s going to pay it?
Also, 350m trees in one day in Ethiopia?. That’s some going!
Who’s going to pay it?
Also, 350m trees in one day in Ethiopia?. That’s some going!
What type of trees though? native I suppose?
Because if it is fast growing trees like Pines and Eucalyptus, those feckers drank all the water out, instead of keeping the humidity in the soil.
It depends on whether the trees are for short term harvesting, in which case it’ll be spruce trees or if they’re to be more long term, then deciduous.
There’s already reports that they’re planting too many spruce so hopefully they’ll right the ship.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...trees-irelands-afforestation-meets-resistance
In New England for example, leaf peeping creates big tourism $, not sure why they can’t do something like that in Ireland.
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I wouldn't bet on us doing much of that climate change plan really. Load of waffle for the most part. We are already useless at trying to reach our targets.
The trees should definitely be possible but one off housing is a severe problem in Ireland, considering how sparsely populated the island is we've cut down a shocking amount of trees.
We have about 1.2% coverage of native trees. Its all Pine atm and nothing else. Currently planning on cutting down about 10,000 native trees near me to build 250 houses, pretty gutted about it.
As Massive Spanner says its all talk anyway, I'll believe it when i see it.
Exporting all that coal, we're fecked.
I think we’re already past the point of no return. We’ve really managed to feck it right up. After a placcy bag was found in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench there is now no part of the earth we haven’t polluted. The only way is to drastically cut the population meaning a drastic cut in the demand for resources but that’s never going to happen- if anything that’s just going to get worse. It’s completely and utterly depressing. Makes you wonder what the point in washing a feckin yoghurt pot out for recycling when you see rivers just flowing thousands of tonnes of rubbish into the sea.
I think that we all sometimes ask the same question - what is the point of me doing x or y.
But the corollary to the population issue is that there are some 6 billion individuals who can make a difference. If and it is a very big if they can be motivated and mobilised to do something.
I do agree with you about overpopulation. It is THE key issue. Humans are incredibly resource greedy. But we are where we are and so rather than see overpopulation as a problem, it has to be used as the solution.
And I see our younger people as the energy behind a step change in attitude toward our fragile planet.
This is simply far too important to fail.
very powerful piece of conceptual art making the point:
Austrian football stadium hosts forest as dystopian vision comes to life
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49640345
Austrian football stadium hosts forest as dystopian vision comes to life
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49640345
What a disgusting ego project that Austrian stadium is.
How much energy was spent to create this pointless narcissistic display of opulence? I wonder what the carbon footprint for that project was. Definitely wasn't carbon neutral.
Then we have the ridiculous idea of temporarily transplanting 300 six tonne trees to a urban stadium not meant to house a forest. What's the maintenance cost of that? As someone who has actually transplanted a small tree, its an extremely difficult task and many times the trees don't survive the shock of the replant. To treat what appears to be old growth trees in this commercialized, cartoon manner is offensive, arrogant and counter productive.
It also has a huge opportunity cost, that time, money and carbon footprint would have been much better spent on long term educational projects that might actually create some long term education.
Littmann clearly isn't a lover of trees or he wouldn't have embarked on such a selfish project.
He should have just read Richard Powers' new novel The Overstory, a far more powerful and respectable project to raise awareness of climate change.
How much energy was spent to create this pointless narcissistic display of opulence? I wonder what the carbon footprint for that project was. Definitely wasn't carbon neutral.
Then we have the ridiculous idea of temporarily transplanting 300 six tonne trees to a urban stadium not meant to house a forest. What's the maintenance cost of that? As someone who has actually transplanted a small tree, its an extremely difficult task and many times the trees don't survive the shock of the replant. To treat what appears to be old growth trees in this commercialized, cartoon manner is offensive, arrogant and counter productive.
It also has a huge opportunity cost, that time, money and carbon footprint would have been much better spent on long term educational projects that might actually create some long term education.
Littmann clearly isn't a lover of trees or he wouldn't have embarked on such a selfish project.
He should have just read Richard Powers' new novel The Overstory, a far more powerful and respectable project to raise awareness of climate change.