The Guardian: We are watching the brutal reality of what climate scientists told us would happen. ...

[OKIsItJustMe]

We are watching the brutal reality of what climate scientists told us would happen. How will we respond?

Adam Morton
Amid the despair and doomism is a real climate emergency. We must act accordingly

Wed 26 Jul 2023 23.05 EDT

How to respond to the avalanche of record-breaking extreme weather and temperatures terrorising the planet? For many scientists it is a moment of genuine despair, but also a time to resist climate doomism.

For British tourists still flying to Greece while it is on fire, and a few holdout news organisations, the answer seems to be to look away or deflect. We shouldn’t join them. Equally, as Michael Mann and Susan Joy Hassol have argued, there is no need to inflate the magnitude of what is happening. The reality is confronting enough.

Here’s some of what we know. Mediterranean Europe and northern Africa are burning. Wildfires in at least nine countries, particularly Greece, Algeria and Italy, are killing people and wrecking lives, livelihoods and nature. They follow historic blazes in Canada a few weeks ago.

There have been bad fires before, of course, but these have been exacerbated by what is almost certainly the hottest month on record due to the extreme northern summer. Across the globe, the average temperature for most days in July has been hotter than any previous day that we know of. The list of records broken is itself unprecedented. A heat dome in the US south-west has pushed the temperature in Phoenix, Arizona, beyond 43C for 27 days straight. Beijing usually has 11 days a year hotter than 35C, but has already had 27 scorchers. If these trends continue this may be the hottest year on record.

…

“Wildfires in at least nine countries” (not counting Canada 🇨🇦 of course.)

[vlyons]

1. Just wait until the Atlantic ocean conveyor belt shuts down

https://interestingengineering.com/science/atlantic-oceans-conveyor-collapse-2025

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. See also...

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=164809

[Omnipresent]

2. I believe it's too late to stop or reverse climate change.

China and other countries won’t stop burning fossil fuels, even if the U.S. does.

A few countries attempting to make these changes won’t be enough.

[Quakerfriend]

3. Me too.

- The dominoes are falling too fast now.

Today’s report on wheat production down 60% in Europe & lowest since 1957 in Kansas…

Food shortages seem to be looming…

[2naSalit]

5. Food shortages...

Are coming and soon. Most of the food producing regions are in extreme situations which means the yield this harvest season is going to be low everywhere. Famine will begin in around 10 to 18 months and probably not abate until a large population decline occurs.

[Quakerfriend]

9. Where have you heard that famine will

begin in 10-18 months? I hope not but, there
are too many living on the edge all over the world.

[2naSalit]

18. Merely...

Speculation on my part because that's right about when I expect that to start. I'm not talking localized famine, I'm talking widespread and worsening.

[Quakerfriend]

19. I read recently that China produces only

7% of it’s food- all of the rest is imported.

[2naSalit]

20. It's true of many countries.

One of the reasons there are so many migrants coming here from Central America is that they cannot grow food there anymore. It;s the thing that started the war in Syria several years ago. It will cause more disruption, extreme weather and lack of food and shelter causes people to move to someplace else.

It's only going to get uglier for the near future.

[GenXer47]

6. doomerism is just as bad as denialism

We don't have the luxury to be doomers.
And of course it's reversible, just maybe not in our lifetimes.
Please stay focused on the future. Thanks.

[Quakerfriend]

11. Yes, you are right.

It’s just that the gravity of it all can overwhelm.
But, we must be solution oriented.

I loved the speech by Al Gore last week.

[Omnipresent]

13. Al Gore's 'An inconvenient truth' was made in 2006.

People like Al Gore, Neil Degrasse Tyson and many others have all brought it out into the open.
Since then, Global warming has just gotten worse.
The nations that pollute aren’t solution conscious, they are profit conscious.
That is why, i’m not optimistic about anything changing.
The Earth will live on, but most life here, will go the way of the dinosaurs.

[Omnipresent]

14. I remember Lawrence O'Donnell doing a segment on the vast majority of migrants at the Border..

Many of those people showing up, to enter the US, complain of drought where they left.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. OK, so, here's the fallacy in that reasoning

Let’s say that all nations must cooperate in order to fight climate change.
We cannot control what “China and other countries” do (although we are trying to persuade them.)
So, we cannot guarantee success.

The only country we can control is our own.
If we fail to act we guarantee failure.

[Omnipresent]

12. Of course

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. Continuing on...

If we do not act, promising others that we will act if they will first agree to act as well, we are less likely to succeed than if we act unilaterally and then ask other to “follow suit.”

[Omnipresent]

16. Being the first to cut emissions or the last to enact them...

Won’t reign in other countries.
We only can do what we can in the US.

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. See "Prisoner's Dilemma"

Wikipedia: Prisoner's dilemma

[Think. Again.]

4. k&r

[appalachiablue]

8. K/R