"The best we can accomplish, is 1.5°C with overshoot. The reason for this is that we have already loaded so much energy/heat into the Earth system, that even if we stopped all emissions today, we are already committed to warming exceeding 1.5°C"—Prof Johan Rockström
This is where we’re heading. If anyone tells you fairytales about “keeping 1.5 in reach” or “keeping 1.5C alive” refer them to the Production Gap Report and this graph in particular, and if you want show them the latest statements of fossil psychopaths like the Saudi energy minister or Exxon’s CEO, all hooked up and ready to go for all the hydrocarbon molecules.
Let's talk a little more about collapse. We know it's coming, and in fact may already be underway, but how soon will it truly be noticeable not only to those of us who are 'collapse-aware' but to everyone else?
A few excerpts from an essay titled: "How Can We Tell When the Fall of Civilization Has Begun?"
It won’t be a dramatic overnight thing. It will be gradual. Like climate change, there will be periods of intensity followed by lulls where you can almost pretend things are normal. But they’re not.
Increasingly, political strife and climate change will twine themselves inextricably together like a vine crawling up the walls of our fragile social and logistical constructs, exploiting cracks and crevices until what we know as civilization fails.
Who could imagine the world wasn’t big enough to hold all eight billion and more of us? Who could imagine exponential growth was not possible in a finite world? Who could imagine we would run out of oil someday without having something else ready to take its place? Who could imagine the failure of a sophisticated technological civilization?
A few people. Just not the right ones and not nearly enough of them.
@breadandcircuses imho an indicator of collapse could be when we start feeling that the world we leave our children is much worse than the one we inherited.
In my personal case I have this feeling for quite some years now but only recently have come to identify it as a possible symptom of collapse
Of course this is subjective. But how can one today objectively argue (without #magicalthinking ) that the world young generations get is better than before?
More than 50 scientists and academics from Scientist Rebellion are facing prosecution for having participated in acts of non-violent civil disobedience. Their charges range from vandalism to sabotage, and they risk being sentenced to prison or paying heavy fines.
At the same time, fossil fuel executives – who are the most responsible for the climate emergency – rake in record profits from the destruction of our environment, yet they are allowed to walk free.
Who are the real criminals? Is it the governments and companies who are actively complicit in the planetary crisis, or is it the messengers, the scientists and activists raising their voices to fight for a liveable future?
Part of me can see how much nicer our world might be without any humans in it. Ecosystems could find their own equilibrium, unhindered by industrial pollution. Species could expand again and diversify, free of competition from the endless growth of factory farms, freeways, and parking lots.
It would take much time, centuries or even millennia, for the sky to regain its natural clarity, the forests to regrow, and the rivers to run clean. Even longer than that, probably, for all of the plastic eventually to degrade and disappear.
But someday, someday… the Earth would once again be a beautiful place.
It’s a lovely vision, and yet I’m torn. Because to get there means the suffering and death of billions of people. I wish there was a way to prevent that.
Love both of these insights and I think It would be great if we could fix it. I just don't think that, for various psychological reasons, we will.
Which is why I have to go with the argument that the sooner we go extinct the better. Perhaps we will create and consume something that will that will make us infertile and that will be the cause.
This book was written in 1982 but, even so, outlines the psychology of #collapse really well: 'Overshoot, The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change' by William R. Catton, Jr.
Love all of this and agree with all of it, except 'the peak of the Industrial Age is near'.
I believe we are already past it, or what I call #PeakCivilisation and are already on the downward slope.
I put the peak at either the 2008 financial crash or the 1973 oil crisis. The current rising food prices and increase in general inflation are not going down as the #ClimateCrisis increasingly makes agriculture more difficult and #ExtremeWeather events cause increasingly serious financial loses worldwide. We are on the downward slope and not going back.
The 2023 Production Gap Report: “Phasing down or phasing up? Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises” finds that governments plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 69% more than would be consistent with 2°C.
I would definitely say #mastodon has been the biggest wake-up call for me in appreciating the existential threat of #climateChange and #overshoot and nudging me to begin incremental steps in changing my lifestyle PRN ( medical term indicating ‘as necessary).
Capitalism triumphs again. It’s another big win for Business As Usual. When there are potential profits to be made, that always will override any concerns about the environment or pollution or other species.
Norway has taken a step closer to becoming the first country in the world to open up its seabed for commercial deep-sea mining after giving the go-ahead in a parliamentary vote on Tuesday.
The decision comes despite warnings from scientists that it could have a devastating impact on marine life, and despite opposition from the EU and the UK, which have called for a temporary ban on deep-sea mining because of environmental concerns.
The proposal, voted in 80-20 by Norway’s parliament, is expected to speed up exploration of minerals – including precious metals – that are in high demand for 'green' technologies.
While the decision will initially apply to Norwegian waters, it will expose an area larger than Britain – 280,000 sq km (108,000 sq miles) – to potential mining by companies, which will be able to apply for licences to mine minerals including lithium, scandium, and cobalt.
This is why we can't have nice things. Nice things like a healthy environment, or a future for our children. We can't have them because capitalism says they don't matter.