Climate Doomsters. Are you one? I am.

[Yuwipi Woman]

Please reread my posts. It was me who said we need a matriarchy. I've felt that way since I first met radical feminists at university in the 80s. Everything they said about the patriarchy was right. You want to lump me in with some people and movements I've never heard of. I wish you wouldn't. I've never been a survivalist. I live in a small flat in London which is not full of beans and crossbows. And as I said before, I think the UK will be fine. If there is a large scale cull of humans and societal collapse I would love a matriarchy to emerge. But it won't. People will crowd around the loud, aggressive men with the most weapons, as per usual.

I'm sorry, I'm always a bit suspicious of people posting about doomerism because its a loaded term.

 

[Ming]

I'd say the climate terrorists are those who pretend that everything is just fine & that climate change is a hoax.

The type who ignores the effects that its already having on low lying land, islands and developing nations. The type who thinks that crops won't fail, soil won't be washed away, there won't be conflict over resources, or that millions of migrants won't be on the move.

Wait until their own ivory towers come under siege, then. Maybe they might just want to do something about it. If it's not too late, of course.

The real problem they’ll have is how to pay their close protection teams when money becomes meaningless. What do you pay Blokey McBloke from Academi (or whatever they’re called these days) for his (publicly payed for) SF expertise when you’ve got 3000 desperate climate change refugees outside the walls of your compound/home and you’ve run out of bullets?

 

[Ming]

i've only got a magnesium firestarter

To be honest round here a Bic lighter, dry wood and an accelerant is usually used to start a fire (why make life difficult?).

 

[Pickman's model]

The real problem they’ll have is how to pay their close protection teams when money becomes meaningless. What do you pay Blokey McBloke from Academi (or whatever they’re called these days) for his (publicly payed for) SF expertise when you’ve got 3000 desperate climate change refugees outside the walls of your compound/home and you’ve run out of bullets?

If 3000 dccr have found your compound you're doing something wrong

 

[Ming]

If 3000 dccr have found your compound you're doing something wrong

Space.
ETA: Outer Space. Kirk, Spock, Jones and those other cunts.

 

[smmudge]

Thing is, those in power (not just govts) have a pathological obsession with oil. They happily kill for it, send their own to die for it, have shown they've got no problem with destabilising entire civilisations to make sure they retain control of it. Climate change isn't going to stop or slow down while they make sure we continue to depend on it. They've got no reason to give that up, even the worst outcomes of climate change is a fair price to pay for their precious precious oil. It will have to be prised from their cold, dead hands. That is really our only chance.

 

[David Clapson]

In the face of everything you mention in your OP, if you think for one minute that the UK will be fine then you are seriously fucking deluded...

The desertification is predicted for hotter latitudes than ours. See maps. Rises in sea level are not expected to be calamitous for much of the UK. I doubt we have enough forest to make parts of the UK uninhabitable because of smoke particles in the air, as has happened already in parts of California. And only a trickle of refugees could get here by boat. We would cope, there wouldn't be societal collapse, nobody would die of hunger or thirst. That's what I mean by "fine".

If we can't grow food for some reason, obviously we wouldn't be fine. I don't know what would happen if insects and birds stop pollinating crops. I've read that, broadly speaking, vegetables and cereal crops don't need insects for pollination but fruits do. Maybe someone will develop self-pollinating varieties of fruit.

I don't know anything about these maps. Make of them what you will.

 

[David Clapson]

Thing is, those in power (not just govts) have a pathological obsession with oil.

That's just the usual short-termism. Governments tend to fall when petrol prices jump or there are queues at petrol stations.

 

[Sprocket.]

We live around the corner from Fishlake. Drowning not waving.
We need to move into Mrs S. parents house and laugh.

 

[David Clapson]

I'm sorry, I'm always a bit suspicious of people posting about doomerism because its a loaded term.

The stakes are a lot higher for you guys...looks like most of the US will be barren. If you add in the usual American doses of religion, prejudice and conspiracy theories...it's just terrifying. I'm sure there are lots of people who want to frame it as some sort of purification process.

The UK is looking more and more like one of the best bolt holes. Not really fair, given that the root of it all is in the Industrial Revolution.

 

[Argonia]

Is it time for geo-engineering? Can we suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere?

 

[Artaxerxes]

Is it time for geo-engineering? Can we suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere?

Not efficiently enough yet.

Geo-engineering brings its own problems. It solves a few symptoms but doesn't treat the underlying root cause of binging on to much carbon getting spewed out..

The other geo-engineering solutions are liable to cause issues with climate patterns that are liable to cause droughts and floods in various areas at best.

 

[Poot]

The desertification is predicted for hotter latitudes than ours. See maps. Rises in sea level are not expected to be calamitous for much of the UK. I doubt we have enough forest to make parts of the UK uninhabitable because of smoke particles in the air, as has happened already in parts of California. And only a trickle of refugees could get here by boat. We would cope, there wouldn't be societal collapse, nobody would die of hunger or thirst. That's what I mean by "fine".

If we can't grow food for some reason, obviously we wouldn't be fine. I don't know what would happen if insects and birds stop pollinating crops. I've read that, broadly speaking, vegetables and cereal crops don't need insects for pollination but fruits do. Maybe someone will develop self-pollinating varieties of fruit.

I don't know anything about these maps. Make of them what you will.

The current problem we have in the uk is that our water is too 'fast'. We need to slow it down or we will be dealing with more flooding and more drought.

 

[Nylock]

The desertification is predicted for hotter latitudes than ours. See maps.

The overwhelming majority of the world's population live in that big orange desert belt. Upon reading the accompanying notes on the first map I have to ask: where exactly did you source that? Because it looks like something from a science-fiction book, or at least some publication divorced from the realities of the banal factoids it presents.

For example, the passages on Asia and Southern China are but two (of the many!) that leap immediately out from that map... This covers the two most populous regions on earth comprising of over 2.7 billion people (and we're not even counting the additional half a billion from 'peripheral' populations such as Japan, Indonesia, The Phillipines, South-East Asia). Where do you think these people are going to go? What do you think is going to happen to them? THREE of the world's Major nuclear powers live in the directly affected areas (China, India, Pakistan) and these three nuclear powers also comprise the largest conventional land-based forces on the planet.

Do you think these countries are just going to roll over and 'depopulate'? If so, WHERE do you think they are going to go to?

What happens if the environmental stresses become so intense that there ends up being an actual shooting war between those three nuclear powers that ends up going nuclear? Where are the vast areas of uninhabitable irradiated wilderness on that fantasy-league map of yours? Because, lets face it, a significant chunk of central Asia being turned into a radioactive dust-bowl is just as likely as vast tracts of the world being given over to solar farms and geothermal energy with zero push-back from the local population of those zones...

What about the 'desert USA' in that map? Well... That's a whole other bowl of crazy that for brevity's sake is best to avoid right now...

Rises in sea level are not expected to be calamitous for much of the UK.

Bullshit. A significant proportion of our most productive arable land sits squarely in areas that will be inundated (or in some cases partially inundated) due to sea-level rises.

I doubt we have enough forest to make parts of the UK uninhabitable because of smoke particles in the air, as has happened already in parts of California.

Were you in the north of England when the moors were on fire? That was not a forest fire; ask anyone who was there what the air quality was like -the answer may astound you...

And only a trickle of refugees could get here by boat. We would cope, there wouldn't be societal collapse, nobody would die of hunger or thirst. That's what I mean by "fine".

...and this, THIS^ right here is why I say you're fucking deluded mate.

In the face of that catastrophe porn map you've provided, the only way that societal collapse could possibly be averted whilst reducing the flow of refugees to a trickle is by the adoption of some incredibly extreme measures -in which case there would be societal collapse as those measures are the sorts of ones that our current society would never wear.

If we can't grow food for some reason, obviously we wouldn't be fine.

The current available land area of the UK is insufficient to properly feed the existing population and that's leaving aside:

(a) The reduced amount of arable land post-warming.
(b) The increase in UK population -especially since you think we'll be 'fine'...

I don't know what would happen if insects and birds stop pollinating crops. I've read that, broadly speaking, vegetables and cereal crops don't need insects for pollination but fruits do. Maybe someone will develop self-pollinating varieties of fruit.

Where did you read that???

I don't know anything about these maps. Make of them what you will.

Map 1: Where did you get that from? Genuinely curious about that one

Map 2: Even the author states that "the science, however, is far from certain on the benefits of carbon fertilisation". So that in itself is an admission that it's a thought experiment with no definitive proof of it being the case in practice.

...If this represents your vision of the future and how we, the UK, will be "fine" then I say again: you are fucking deluded.

 

[steveo87]

Just.

Can't.

Stop.

Burning.

Tires.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Were you in the north of England when the moors were on fire? That was not a forest fire; ask anyone who was there what the air quality was like -the answer may astound you...

Yeah - the air quality in central Manchester was awful. Really hazy and left me coughing for a week.

 

[David Clapson]

childish questions

The first map is from the New Scientist. You could have discovered that for yourself in about 5 seconds, but you'd prefer to write an obnoxious simple-minded post. So I won't bother to answer your points. Why should I? If this matter concerns you, how about doing some more reading? You could start with this The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work

 

[Nylock]

The first map is from the New Scientist. You could have discovered that for yourself in about 5 seconds, but you'd prefer to write an obnoxious simple-minded post.

...and?
Firstly, you provide a context-free map from the New Scientist without linking the related article. I'm sure that, as an avid reader of the NS, you are aware that the publication is not above speculative flights of fancy. Your lack of providing any contextual background to the image is, at best, shoddy work.

Secondly, you have the neck to accuse me of writing "an obnoxious simple minded post" in the wake of your myopic nonsense? I fully understand what your tagline entails now...

So I won't bother to answer your points.

Frankly, this is because you have nothing by way of response.

Why should I? If this matter concerns you, how about doing some more reading?

Even though I have been somewhat 'robust' in my response, I have attempted to engage with what passes for 'substance' in your post -and I have done some reading on the subject. If you are unwilling or, more likely, unable to state your case beyond sticking your fingers in your ears and stamping your feet then that's your decision. I couldn't give a shit one way or the other tbf.

You could start with this The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work

From the very guardian article you suggested that I read:

The good news is that humans won’t become extinct – the species can survive with just a few hundred individuals; the bad news is, we risk great loss of life and perhaps the end of our civilisations.

The underlines are added by me. The first to point out the dire extremity of what we face if things keep going the way they are -so no, we will not be 'fine'. The second to refers back to your breezy assertion that 'society will not collapse'. From the very article you suggested I read.

Indeed, the consequences of a 4C warmer world are so terrifying that most scientists would rather not contemplate them, let alone work out a survival strategy.

Again, from the article you suggested I read. Again, the underlining to highlight the paucity of your analysis concerning the forthcoming disaster.

I called you deluded and I will not apologise for that. You have failed to prove otherwise and your resorting to playground insults and jibes goes a significant way towards proving that you have little to no idea of what you are talking about and a poor grasp of just how bad things are likely to get for everyone -including the UK- in the scenario you have outlined.

The obnoxiousness here is your astonishing level of myopia regarding how 'fine' you perceive the UK to be in any forthcoming climate disaster scenario.

The simple-mindedness here is your breezy assertion that we will be 'fine' in the face of the world described by the very maps and article that you used to try and make your point!

 

[campanula]

Chalara, Xylella, ash borers, longhorn beetles, bees (vanishing). I have land...but it will be underwater - have been using pontoons and an odd medieval building technique using inosculated alder...but the Norfolk and fenland dustbowl proceeds apace. It isn't possible to avoid climate change prognostications if you have even the most fleeting relationship with the soil and it's inhabitants... so yeah- despair.
I have a growing collection of tender South African geophytes and my alstroemerias and salvias are still blooming...but even so.

 

[weltweit]

I don't know enough about it but it does worry me. And I think some countries are doing less because they feel they themselves will be less affected by it.

It is staggering the change that is required, even only where transport is concerned but of course it goes much further than that.

 

[ska invita]

BUMP

Feeling deeply doomy...all the environmental news just gets worse and worse
We all know only a massive change in the system can resolve this, and its just not going to happen
Feel like only a massive disaster can change the course...Covid probably not a big enough one...or might it yet be? Thats about as optimistic as I can get

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I know what you mean. I'm almost relying on some magical scientific intervention such as reliable carbon capture, properly and effectively introduced worldwide with no unforeseen unintended consequences. Just how likely is that?

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Feel like only a massive disaster can change the course...Covid probably not a big enough one...or might it yet be? Thats about as optimistic as I can get

A huge cull of the human population would help, but probably it would just delay the inevitable as we're inherently stupidly short-term as a species.

But most long-term posters on here will be dead within 30-40 years so hopefully we'll escape the worst of it.

 

[lazythursday]

I generally feel very gloomy but there has been some good news recently - China setting a net zero target, and the Tories stealing the Green Industrial Revolution language and shouting about wind power is a step in the right direction (obviously nowhere near enough, but telling that they are starting to talk the talk)

 

[Sprocket.]

‘Humans weren’t always here. We could disappear’: meet the collapsologists

Deep in the French countryside, pockets of anti-capitalists and environmentalists are preparing for the end of civilisation – or even humanity itself

www.theguardian.com

I read this with some trepidation about people being too out there as though they were wishing for annihilation. But there are some good points being put forward too.

 

[lazythursday]

I know what you mean. I'm almost relying on some magical scientific intervention such as reliable carbon capture, properly and effectively introduced worldwide with no unforeseen unintended consequences. Just how likely is that?

I think carbon capture will happen but not at the scale to allow us to continue polluting at at anywhere near current levels. Emissions will still have to go way way way down at the same time as the technology develops. I have been to see the carbon capture pilot that is going on at the Drax power station - it's very interesting what they're doing, but it's on a teeny tiny scale compared to what will be needed for the whole output of the power station, we're still a long way from getting it to work at scale.

 

[NoXion]

From Google:

Drax power station is a large biomass and coal-fired power station

Fucking hell. Carbon capture is looking a lot to me like a scam dreamt up by the fossil fuels industry in an attempt to greenwash their inherently carbon-emissive activities.

I'm skeptical of biomass fuels in general, at least when used in large power plants as opposed to for heating in private homes.

 

[ska invita]

I generally feel very gloomy but there has been some good news recently - China setting a net zero target, and the Tories stealing the Green Industrial Revolution language and shouting about wind power is a step in the right direction (obviously nowhere near enough, but telling that they are starting to talk the talk)

there's a lot of things to potentially feel optimistic about in the mid-term, and as a default ive got an optimistic long-view take on historical progress....but the rate of destruction and the catastrophic climate change deadline is way earlier than that. Long view of history blurs out the coming disaster

 

[lazythursday]

From Google:





Fucking hell. Carbon capture is looking a lot to me like a scam dreamt up by the fossil fuels industry in an attempt to greenwash their inherently carbon-emissive activities.

I'm skeptical of biomass fuels in general, at least when used in large power plants as opposed to for heating in private homes.

I've been to Drax and had all the company spin. I'm sceptical too, but if they genuinely are sourcing sustainable biomass it's better than coal, and if they can scale up carbon capture they can be carbon negative. Clearly it has to be a limited part of the energy supply, we can't have lots of Draxes, it would put too much pressure on using land for commercial forestry for woodchip.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Large-scale water desalination, and the irrigation and greening of deserts.
When do we start?