You often hear that so-and-so much #GlobalWarming is "baked in", that is, the world keeps on warming on the #GreenhouseGases already emitted.
"The best available evidence shows that, on the contrary, warming is likely to more or less stop once #CarbonDioxide (CO2) #emissions reach zero, meaning humans have the power to choose their #climate future."
"The significant increase in #tomato prices in #India, surpassing 400 per cent, can be linked to crop failure induced by extremely high temperatures and heavy #rainfall.
As an avid #Dystopian fiction reader (and writer), the scenarios closest to I thought what we might experience is (IMHO) the novel "Dies The Fire", as well as "The Hunger Games". "Dies The Fires" / #Emberverse has an interesting fictional scenario -- guns don't work, and nuclear radiation is lessened. But even that "ideal" scenario is wrought with death, disease, discord, dictators -- the usual stuff that happens when societies break down. DTF does offer a glimmer of hope, but with #ClimateChange, I think even that bit of hope has been dashed. So yeah. #HungerGames, #Elites pitting us against each other for entertainment. That seems way more likely.
Too many people, even here on Mastodon, seem to be in denial about how bad things are likely to get on our current path. I suppose I can understand how they might wish the situation was different, and perhaps some of them aren't psychologically or emotionally ready to handle an honest look at the dire future we face, so they simply avoid it.
But I worry that almost everyone will be unprepared for the collapse of our fragile modern society when it comes.
Over a decade working with @DoctorsWithoutBorders before that I was freelance journalist and photographer.
Long list of past lives includes but not limited to: logistician, first responder, journalist, wilderness guide, survival instructor and hostile environment trainer.
Posts vary but are often related to humanitarian aid, gardening, resilience, #climatechange or wilderness type stuff.
They don’t need to have a majority, or anything even close to a plurality. All it takes is a few thousand sociopathic billionaires — the population of a village — to take full control of everything and then completely ruin our livable biosphere while further enriching themselves.
The scale on the image below is NOT exaggerated. In less than two centuries, and especially just within the last 30 years, capitalist oligarchs have burned so much coal, oil, and gas that our climate system simply can’t handle it.
It’s almost out of control now. But the people who are to blame have names and addresses.
Media Lens takes a look at the different ways people may respond to all of the potentially frightening signals about climate breakdown we've been seeing lately...
There are two key responses to news of the latest climate disasters:
‘It’s bad, but not that bad. It’s manageable and we can carry on pretty much as normal.’
An alternative take:
‘No, it is that bad. This is just the ball starting to roll – it will gather more and more and more momentum, and it won’t stop. We need drastic change now!‘
The second of these is inarguably correct. The first is the underlying message delivered by state-corporate media that have a vested interest in the status quo, in discouraging us from seeking serious change. Despite a mountain of evidence, we are assured that the crisis is under the management of fundamentally decent, rational leaders. And this is exactly why the level of public alarm does not yet reflect the terrifying, rollercoaster reality depicted in the soaring and crashing graphs measuring temperatures and ice coverage.
Professor Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London, tweeted last month:
"I hope to God I am wrong, but to me it is looking increasingly as if we have reached some sort of tipping point, with the global temperature, sea-surface temperature, ice loss, and other parameters, all going through the roof."
McGuire was responding to reports headlined by CNN: "Four alarming charts that show just how extreme the climate is right now"
The report noted:
>> We’re only halfway through 2023 and so many climate records are being broken, some scientists are sounding the alarm, fearing it could be a sign of a planet warming much more rapidly than expected. <<
The ‘four alarming charts’ showed that global air temperatures have risen to record levels in 2023. Oceans are also heating up to record levels and show no sign of stopping. Antarctic sea ice is at record lows. And atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit a new record high in 2023. But many of these records are not merely being broken, they are being obliterated.
Brian McNoldy, an expert in hurricanes and sea level rise at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, captured it exactly:
"I know there are a million people sharing temperature anomaly charts and maps lately, but there’s a good reason for that. This is totally bonkers, and people who look at this stuff routinely can’t believe their eyes. Something very weird is happening."
Far too often in the corporate media, we’ll see stories about heat waves and climate change headlined with a picture of kids playing in a sprinkler, or of a romantic couple strolling on the beach. As if a few warmer days every year is nothing to be alarmed about.
That’s because billionaire elites and the media they own have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The longer they can keep everyone believing that Business As Usual is just fine, the more money they will make.
But in reality, climate breakdown triggers a whole range of devastating impacts…
The companies listed below are killers. And that’s not a metaphor, it’s literally true.
They are guilty of ecocide, as are the banks and investment firms which fund them, along with the governments that permit this ecocide — actually encouraging it, in fact, with 💵 trillions 💵 of dollars in subsidies.
MANY humans have died, directly as a result of this treachery. Many MORE animals and plants have died, including whole species being wiped out.
Don't ever let anyone tell you we don't have enough money to fight climate change, or to reduce income inequality, or to begin the shift toward degrowth.
The money is there. It's just being spent in all the wrong ways and all the wrong places...
Trillions of dollars of subsidies for fossil fuels, farming, and fishing are causing “environmental havoc,” according to the World Bank, severely harming people and the planet.
Many countries spend more on harmful subsidies than they do on health, education, or poverty reduction, the bank says, and the subsidies are entrenched and hard to reform as the greatest beneficiaries tend to be rich and powerful.
In 2021, UN agencies reported that almost 90% of agricultural subsidies harmed people’s health and the climate, and drove inequality, while the IMF found that trillions of dollars of fossil fuel subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis at a time when rapid cuts in carbon emissions were needed.
Fossil fuels are “vastly underpriced,” the report says, while subsidy reforms “save lives.” Pollution from fossil fuels causes 8.7 million deaths a year, according to a 2021 study, one in five of all deaths globally.
Subsidies for agriculture are “unequal and unwise,” the report says. “Not only do these subsidies promote inefficiencies, but they also cause much environmental havoc.” The report found that subsidized fertilizer caused so much overuse in some regions that it reduced crop yields, while also causing huge nitrogen pollution.
It also found farm subsidies were responsible for the destruction of 5.4 million acres of forest a year, about 14% of global deforestation, which leads to almost 4 million extra cases of malaria a year. Fishing subsidies amount to about $118 billion a year and are a key factor in the over-exploitation of marine life, which has sent the oceans into “a collective state of crisis,” according to the report.
The report says government subsidies today make up an “enormous share of public budgets worldwide, perhaps larger than at any point in human history.”
It's a vicious cycle between Big Oil, Big Ag, and Big Government, with money going round and round and round. That cycle must be broken.
Capitalism got us into this mess. Capitalism cannot get us out of this mess. We need system change NOW.
Here's an article explaining "Why Only Degrowth Will Save The World."
From the introduction...
Let’s be clear. It isn’t ‘climate change’ that’s the problem. It’s a multitude of crises stemming from the fact that our current capitalist economy, predicated on endless accumulation and extraction, has tipped nature out of balance. And if we don’t change this system, we are screwed.
They suggest following these basic principles:
✦ Never extract more than ecosystems can regenerate.
✦ Never waste or pollute more than ecosystems can safely absorb.
And then they propose a plan of action...
End planned obsolescence — Guzzling materials and energy only for them to be useless in a few years, all in the name of the growth imperative, is madness. Policy options include extended warranties on products and the right to repair products. Take the Fairphone, for example.
Cut advertising — Advertising, especially when tied to social media giants like Google and Facebook, is mass manipulation on an unprecedented scale. Hickel calls it an “assault on our consciousness — the colonisation of not only our public spaces but our minds, to make us desire things we don’t need”. Policy options include quotas on ad expenditure, legislation, banning ads in public spaces, and social policies to reduce inequality.
Move from ownership to usership — especially for equipment that is necessary but rarely used. Take lawnmowers, for example, or cars. Common Asset trusts, anyone?
End food waste — Around 50% of all the food produced in the world, about 2 billion tonnes, is wasted every year. This is an insane ecological cost, in terms of energy, land, water, and emissions. Ending this could cut the scale of damage caused by the agricultural industry in half.
Scale down ecologically destructive industries — such as the fossil fuel industry (obviously), the beef industry, the arms industry, the commercial airline industry, etc.
This article is sickening to read. It perfectly encapsulates the disgusting horror of consumer capitalism at its very worst while presenting the stark difference in reality between the Global North and South.
‘It’s Like a Death Pit’
How Ghana became fast fashion’s dumping ground
Pro Tip: If you think someone's proposed solution to the climate crisis sounds too easy, too cheap, or simply too good to be true — that's because it is.
"Until last week western #Canada had been enduring a cold spring but the rapid onset of #unseasonably high temperatures, in places 10-15C above the average for early May, is causing #fires and #flooding."
Wonder what it takes for #Alberta and Albertans to connect the dots.
" #Postmedia [is] a media conglomerate that owns virtually all the newspapers of any size in Canada except the longstanding national newspaper, the Globe & Mail. And Postmedia is a very conservative, very corporate friendly, very oil and gas friendly corporation."
"The unusually early start to the #wildfire season in [#Canada] has put federal and provincial officials on high alert and raised fears about fire-fighting resources being exhausted before the summer even officially begins.
There have been 1000 fires so far this year, with about 200 currently active and 82 considered out of control."
Tell me again how #climate action is so "expensive".
"#Canada is on track to experience its most severe #wildfire season on record, national officials said this week. It’s part of a trend experts say will intensify as #ClimateChange makes hotter, drier weather and longer fire seasons more common."
"If there is a silver lining in the smoky clouds from #Canada this month, experts say, it’s that Michiganders and millions of #Americans have gained a greater awareness of how #AirPollution affects them, how the #AirQualityIndex works and the risks of #ClimateChange."
NOW is the time to talk about how the #smoke is connected to climate change: now that people are breathing it, or know someone who is breathing it.
"Human-caused #ClimateChange is turning high temperatures that would once have been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is intensifying the #heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic #wildfires, allowing them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke."
"The toll of [#ClimateChange] on the Canadian economy is only beginning to sink in.
The #wildfires have upended #oil and #gas operations, reduced available #timber harvests, dampened the #tourism industry and imposed uncounted costs on the national #health system."
"In #Florida, Farmers stopped offering new #auto, #home and umbrella policies and said coverage for existing policyholders would not be renewed upon expiration. Though the state has been mired in a property #insurance crisis that companies and Florida politicians blame on costly legal disputes and litigation, Farmers did not cite those issues in its decision. Instead, it blamed the growing costs of #NaturalDisasters and construction."
"Since most #US#insurance companies are backed by international #reinsurance companies that cover other parts of the world, #homeowners everywhere will pay the price for #ClimateChange’s global effects."
If you take all the energy buried deep in the earth and under the oceans via photosynthesis and animal metabolism, energy from the sun that was packed away over a span of 500 million years as coal, oil, and gas… and then burn through that fuel in the brief period of about 200 years, what will happen?
Think about it.
We’re igniting all of the stored energy from half a billion years of life activity in only two centuries. That’s a ratio of 2.5 million to one — which means we are using this energy two and half million times faster than it was created and stored.
Climate change reports from the UN's IPCC can be fairly alarming, stern warnings about the urgent need for our society to change direction — except it turns out they are NOT as alarming as scientists wanted them to be.
Fierce negotiations between countries working to protect their financial and political interests ultimately “watered down” a landmark climate report released last week by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to a series of recent reports and investigations.
The findings highlight what activists have long warned is hampering meaningful global action to curb rising temperatures — namely, that vested interests are preventing nations from cooperating when it comes to how, exactly, they plan to reduce their emissions and fund efforts to adapt.