all things are trivial compared to climate change...

[Javaman]

I have been slowly been digesting this article: The Uninhabitable Earth that was recently published in New York Magazine.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

Each part is a torturous description of what is ahead of us all.

The article first qualifies itself by stating, " What follows is not a series of predictions of what will happen — that will be determined in large part by the much-less-certain science of human response. Instead, it is a portrait of our best understanding of where the planet is heading absent aggressive action."

this what happens if we do nothing.

Currently, as reported by The Guardian, "Planet has just 5% chance of reaching Paris climate goal, study says"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/31/paris-climate-deal-2c-warming-study

And that is just to avoid hitting 2 degree C.

some tidbits from "The Uninhabitable Earth" article that make my cry deep inside:

"For every half-degree of warming, they say, societies will see between a 10 and 20 percent increase in the likelihood of armed conflict. In climate science, nothing is simple, but the arithmetic is harrowing: A planet five degrees warmer would have at least half again as many wars as we do today. Overall, social conflict could more than double this century."


"Our lungs need oxygen, but that is only a fraction of what we breathe. The fraction of carbon dioxide is growing: It just crossed 400 parts per million, and high-end estimates extrapolating from current trends suggest it will hit 1,000 ppm by 2100."
>snip<
"The Chinese “airpocalypse” of 2013 peaked at what would have been an Air Quality Index of over 800. That year, smog was responsible for a third of all deaths in the country."


"The droughts in the American plains and Southwest would not just be worse than in the 1930s, a 2015 NASA study predicted, but worse than any droughts in a thousand years — and that includes those that struck between 1100 and 1300, which “dried up all the rivers East of the Sierra Nevada mountains”
>snip<
"Most estimates put the number of undernourished at 800 million globally. "


"Even if we meet the Paris goals of two degrees warming, cities like Karachi and Kolkata will become close to uninhabitable, annually encountering deadly heat waves like those that crippled them in 2015. At four degrees, the deadly European heat wave of 2003, which killed as many as 2,000 people a day, will be a normal summer."


I'm only a little halfway through the article.


what are we doing?

[Blue_Adept]

1. It's one reason I've checked out of certain aspects of politics

It's all burning down around us and little is going to change it to keep it "normal" for most people within out lifetimes. So I'm not going to overstress myself with the outrages of the day anymore.

[dalton99a]

2. Great article.

[Ezior]

3. A poll asking about what I think is the most important issue for the upcoming German election...

... had a few options, like economic justice, education, immigration...

Of course, climate change was not listed, so I chose "none of the above".

Apparently, the most pressing issue right now for Germans is economic justice (which is called "social justice" in Germany), closely followed by immigration. Only 4.2% think that "None of the above" (maybe climate change?) is the most important issue.

I don't know if humans are at all prepared for this or how we can handle this. Maybe things will simply go downhill for humans because we are unable to get our priorities straight.

[Javaman]

5. even the most prepared are not prepared. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. "what are we doing?"

Living in denial, for the most part.
Sadly, insight and awareness also has a bell curve.

[Canoe52]

6. KnR

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. I've been thinking that for quite some time.

[Binkie The Clown]

8. I agree. People sometimes get annoyed with me when...

... I see a pointless debate over some trivial issue and point out to them that their debate is meaningless since global warming is going to kill us all if we don't take drastic action right now. That's such a buzz kill! They'd rather turn a blind eye to impending doom so they can concentrate on who is doing what to whom on some absurd reality TV show.

Or closer to home, people who are so focused on one issue (e.g. animal rights, access to abortion, economic policy, ending the war, globalization, health insurance, etc. etc.) to realize that even though those issues are important, they won't matter once the planet is dead. So if people really want to care passionately about only one single issue, it damn well better be the right single issue, and there is only one right single issue, and that is climate change.

Your pet cause won't even exist on a dead planet.

[crosinski]

9. Food prices will rise dramatically, probably before the next decade.

We've lost a huge percentage of the US wheat crop to drought this year. We've lost thousands of acres of grassland to wildfire, so grazing for beef cattle is at a premium this year too. There have been droughts worldwide also, so we'll start to feel the loss and prices will rise eventually. This isn't just a odd year, it's climate change now, not 'in the next decade' as climate reports always say as if they're required to put those four words at the end of every paragraph.

I hate the sense of non-urgency that saying severe climate change is coming in the next 10 or 20 years gives to people. It's like they're implying that those fractions of degrees of warming on our way there are nothing to worry about.

[Doodley]

10. Most people don't care about their own bodies, other than for reasons of vanity.

Their bodies are vessels that allow them to exist, as is the planet. So why would most people care about the planet?

[oxbow]

11. Floods and poisons don't care if you're a racist

The just and the unjust alike will suffer because of unchecked industry. From that perspective, I've had little free energy to put towards punching nazis,

I have refocused on using education and technology to prepare us for the future. You need to have blinders on in some sense in order to keep working for solutions that will have real impact down the line.