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Earth reaches hottest day ever recorded 4 days in a row

Dragonfly

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Fletch said:
Since we are decades away from any appreciable drop in global carbon emissions, not sure what good complaining about it does.
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Maybe pointing out that we need to drop emissions now?

Fletch said:
The damage is done. Its too late. learn to adapt to a warmer planet.
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Yes, lots of damage already done. So your solution is **** it, let's do more damage.
 
I love the conservative response.

Climate change is bullshit - show me the evidence.

<record heat and other anomalies>

Oh well, **** it...nothing we can do now. Drill baby drill
 
trixare4kids said:
You offer no solutions.
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We need a de-growth economy and we need to de-populate. We need to transform from a pro-growth economy to an economy that is basically cooperative rather than competitive.

Radical, too much for most of us raised on capitalism to process - I get it. Won't even criticize you for it. But that's the solution, and yes, obviously very easy for me to write about it and probably hard as hell to implement without significant social, economic, and political friction. What I'm proposing goes against our instincts, which is why it seems 'crazy'. But that's the prescription. As I've said before, humanity has created a massive physics problem that it must now solve, and that is going to be incredibly difficult.
 
I lost count of the dead bodies I had to step over walking down the street today.
 
multivita-man said:
Maybe pointing out that we need to drop emissions now?



Yes, lots of damage already done. So your solution is **** it, let's do more damage.
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If the majority of the globe is going to be increasing emissions, any cuts you and I make will make no difference. If the activities of 8 billion humans is going to warm the planet then get ready for it.
 
And even if you accomplish all that, and destroy America in the process, any reductions in emissions will more than be offset by increases in China and India. So you will have destroyed our country, our prosperity and our freedom all for nothing as the globe will just keep getting warmer
 
Hari Seldon said:
Same answer you get on gun violence. Nothing can be done.
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This country has already done quite a bit. We have actually reduced our emissions. But the truth is, nothing can be done in the worlds main polluter, China, is not doing its part.
 
Fletch said:
If the majority of the globe is going to be increasing emissions, any cuts you and I make will make no difference. If the activities of 8 billion humans is going to warm the planet then get ready for it.
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I'm not dismissing your call for adaptation - that's going to be a thing. But adaptation is the short-term strategy. What we're debating now - continue to pump more GHGs into the atmosphere or not - is a matter of whether this alters civilization as we know it or becomes certain mass extinction. We're going to miss the 1.5C and 2C targets almost certainly and that by itself is going to be an unmitigated disaster. We're now talking about whether we can somehow find it within ourselves not only as nations but as a species to keep the absolute worst from happening - to keep us from going to 5C, 6C, 10C...an outcome in which most multicellular life below the Arctic and Antarctic circles is not viable in the 22nd Century.
 
 
Fletch said:
And even if you accomplish all that, and destroy America in the process, any reductions in emissions will more than be offset by increases in China and India.
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Agreed, which is why this is a global problem and a global solution. We have to find some way to stop being competitors. I'm admitting now that my ideas sound/seem ****ing loony. They would have seemed loony to me even 2 or 3 years ago, but that's because I didn't understand the full severity of the problem.

Fletch said:
So you will have destroyed our country, our prosperity and our freedom all for nothing as the globe will just keep getting warmer
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I've got bad news my friend. Something is going to give. I'm not sure what that something is, whether it's preserving our nation-state at the expense of our freedom or what, I have no clue. All I know is, this is not going to last much longer. Big changes are coming. I don't know what they are. My only advice is, get some bottled water and food that lasts a long time, and yeah, get a pistol or two to defend your shit if need be.
 
IMO, much as I dislike agreeing with @Fletch , we’ve already passed the tipping point. You need not even look at climate or global weather, look at how we trash the planet, deforest, pollute the air and water. This isn’t sustainable.
 
Fletch said:
Since we are decades away from any appreciable drop in global carbon emissions, not sure what good complaining about it does. The damage is done. Its too late. learn to adapt to a warmer planet.
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"Won't affect me, so fk it."

That's how we got here in the first place.
 
trouble13 said:
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Yes, capitalism is absolutely best -- when we have abundant resources. Capitalism reflects natural human desire to consume, and it's the ultimate form of crowd-sourcing. What I'm telling you is that the conditions that support capitalism have changed. Capitalism is now the disease.

And I get your skepticism: A few years ago I would have thought I was insane, too.
 
Rexedgar said:
IMO, much as I dislike agreeing with @Fletch , we’ve already passed the tipping point. You need not even look at climate or global weather, look at how we trash the planet, deforest, pollute the air and water. This isn’t sustainable.
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Sure, we've past some tipping points, but we're the only species that's aware of its own destructive tendencies and has the proactive capability to stop more of it. I, too, am cynical, but we've achieved great things a time or two as a species. When we figured out that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer at a terrifying rate, we signed global agreements to stop CFC production -- and it worked. The ozone hole gradually recovered. We've also signed nuclear non-proliferation treaties. Not perfect, but they've shown us what's possible.

We cannot undo the damage that is already done but we can still find ways to stop from pushing us into a certain extinction zone -- that is what is at stake here.
 
I don't think your insane. I think warts and all capitalism is still the best economic vehicle we have to improve our standard of living.
 
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