On my drive into work today, the CBC news reported that there were some news outlets that changed from “Climate Change” to Climate Crisis", in order to be more accurate to the seriousness of the situation we’re in. Don’t expect anything other than more conspiracy theories from the deniers, when discussing this change.
There really is no way to motivate those who deny science. Like Sam Harris said, “If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” [The only answer I can think of is ‘personal experience’, which is pretty useless in the climate crisis debate.]
It is so frustrating talking to friends who refuse to try to understand anything you say on the topic, that I find myself literally excusing myself from the room and the conversation, to avoid seeing how morally bankrupt and ignorant my otherwise moral and smart friends are.
We might not be doomed, the next generation or two (or twenty) will. How unfair that the ignorant of today are paying it forward to those not born yet.
You cannot address climate change with capitalism still in place
"You cannot address climate change with capitalism still in place"That is a string of ten words and no punctuation. Is there meaning in it somewhere?
Yes. Capitalism is an environmental disaster
Sorry Player. I didn’t mean so sound so testy. It’s just that you post things like that with no basis or justification or anything, waiting for someone to ask what you mean.
Just tell us your reasoning at the outset so we don’t have to ask every time. You might have a good reason for saying what you said, but unless we know what your reasoning is, how can we respond?
You cant link the drive exponential economic growth to climate change? You cant link laissez faire capitalism to pollution? You cant see the link between the those that have power, monopoly capitalism and climate change inaction?
Of course laissez faire capitalism is to blame. But the world needs socially controlled capitalism. That is a simple truism and is not worth arguing about.
Anyway, if human civilization is to fall apart by 2050, I think there would be, at least some, incremental indicators of disintegration over the coming 30 years. I mean it could theoretically happen rather suddenly anytime with a massive enough global thermonuclear war, but failing that, wouldn’t we be seeing some leading and growing happenings in world wide social upheavals and chaos? Things like more and more areas in the world where there are wars influenced by cataclysms of drought and related massive displacement of populations of refugees? Things like increasingly intense and contentious social divisions? Things like growing nationalist tendencies and populist despair leading to the ascendance of more and more autocratic leaders around the world?
Oh… We are already seeing such indicators.
But surely our leaders will recognize the urgency of action now, and bring us back from the edge of this impending end.
Oh… Our POTUS most recently spouted hare-brained position on climate change is that it is nothing more than “extreme weather events” which naturally occur periodically, thus there is really nothing to bother about.
@Tim
Don’t know about your circumstances re family.
I’m divorced, no kids. I have 3 younger siblings and three nephews. Don’t care a whole lot what happens after I’m dead.
It has long been my perception that human civilisation is in diabolicals. As a species were /are too stupidly greedy do anything to reverse the situation–and it COULD have been done. Based on my readings in the 1980’s, I think it’s been too late for some time. Melting ice caps alone is a HUGE warning.
I’m pretty much past caring about who is to blame. Capitalists? Yeah, Ok. So what? That knowledge changes what exactly? Am I going to say;“We fracking told you!” To the climate change deniers, or perhaps help lynch them? No, what good what that do?
I’m grateful I’m an old fart and have lived an interesting life. I think I’d be royally pissed off if I was say in my late teens. THEN I 'd probably want to kill some one, as I stamped my foot and bayed at the moon: “IT"S NOT FAIR!!!”
I am in a similar position with regards to relatives who will survive me. But I still hold the ideal of humanity being something that I want to become better and to survive into the future.
“But I still hold the ideal of humanity being something that I want to become better and to survive into the future.”
A very pleasant and perhaps a romantic attitude.
In some ways I wish I could share your view.
Afraid I’m more misanthropic. It is my firm belief that earth and most of its species will be far better off without humans crapping in their own nests.
According to the fascinating doco ‘Life After People’, it would only take the earth a million years to remove all traces of humans. A blink in the life of the planet.
I attach a link to the full doco, in case you haven’t seen it.
Not as good as the one from a couple months ago.
Armageddon predictions are fun to talk about but useless. The people who come up with them seem to have missed their true calling as sci-fi writers. I think the most interesting thing about them is how they often take on a life of their own – no matter how far from reality they diverge.
“Not as good as the one from a couple months ago”
I believe it. "Life After people " is not about the end of days. It simply poses a hypothetical question; would would happen if all humans simply disappeared? It’s interesting but ultimately pointless; no people ,no one there to see it.,
There are some amazing films around the fantasies built on the incoherence of the Book of Revelation . They are far more dramatic than a more likely prosaic reality.
Little Kirky Cameron was involved with some films. One I think was 'Left Behind"with Nicholas Cage.It’s about the doomed souls left on earth after “The Rapture” apparently there’s a series of books. They sound like a laugh a minute.
It has always bemused me to see the glee with which some believers tell of the eternity of torture which awaits none believers
–Of course they are incapable of seeing the logical contradiction. IF we have free will that must include the freedom to reject god. The choice of obey or suffer eternal torture is ‘Hobson’s choice’(no choice at all)
“I’m pretty much past caring about who is to blame. Capitalists? Yeah, Ok. So what? That knowledge changes what exactly?”
Because you cant address the problem until you address the system that has perpetuated it.
“Don’t care a whole lot what happens after I’m dead”
Whats the difference bwn you and a denier?
You cant link the drive exponential economic growth to climate change? You cant link laissez faire capitalism to pollution? You cant see the link between the those that have power, monopoly capitalism and climate change inaction?Not to mention the little matter of exponential consumption and the untenable dependence on such growth on a finite planet.
Sustainability, nurturing nature in accord with natural systems and patterns - those are things people can’t even conceive. I mean think about it, America spends like a billion dollars every week at movies, playing around in motorized wheels probably twice as much, etc. etc. Yet we piss and scream like murder when it comes to simply paying taxes to keep public services and government running.
The notion that we owe something to this planet that has provided all we consume - be totally beyond comprehension.
We’ve KNOWN the physics and consequences of over-population, over-consumption, over-heating, ocean acidification, a good half century now. Humanity had two choices, slow down, stretch this out, face and focus on dealing with the changes as they come. Prepare, make less children, consume less stuff, destroy less and nurture more.
Or Party like it’s 1999 and never stop, and blow up the whole damned thing.
That scientific understanding of reality based limitations is rock solid sure, speed of consequences, that you can argue about, but put it on a graph and those arguments are chump change.
With the help of Reagan and Hollywood thinking, we said to hell with Down to Earth Tough Love Reality and leaning up a little. We got a party going on over here. Keep your reality crap to yourself.
31 years won’t be the end, life is just going to get weirder and tougher. This isn’t going to be like a movie, with an ending. It’s Climate Catastrophe Roulette time, it’s going to continue eating away in bits and pieces at everything that made all we love possible - while no one wants to know about it. So okay, 80s, gone,… 90s, gone,… '00s, gone, … 10s and who wants to start looking at reality now. We’ll continue spending our time fabricating enemies until this climate thing knocks the pins out from under us.
Player, you can be irritating.
But, then again, you can make sense sometimes. 
Hey, Player said something non-rhetorical. Just sayin’
I used “end is near” and the title of thing used “doom”, but there just isn’t a phrase that really fits. “End of civilization” kind of does, but what is “civilized”? It could be we return to a hunter/gatherer culture, but with more awareness of where we came from and the size of the world. It could be better than what we have now. Maybe we’ll figure out how to support enough people in advancing technology, without needing to have this economic engine of fast food and household convenience products along side it. I’m not suggesting a utopia, but if enough of the capitalist system collapses, it could make it easier to avoid being exploited by the capitalists.
“Not as good as the one from a couple months ago” I believe it. “Life After people ” is not about the end of days. It simply poses a hypothetical question; would would happen if all humans simply disappeared? It’s interesting but ultimately pointless; no people ,no one there to see it.,I wasn't referring to the documentary, but another end-of-the-world paper that was discussed here several months ago.
My fault, I should have searched for it last night, but here it is: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vbwpdb/the-climate-change-paper-so-depressing-its-sending-people-to-therapy
It’s more creative IMO.
Those wild eyed hippies.
Will they ever stop it with the scaremongering: In Maryland Sea Level Rise Is Happening Now - YouTube
CC: have u seen “Ice and Fire”, the movie, yet? What’s your take on it?