Just read it… “Noo haha our GDP will save us🤪”
Everything I’ve come to expect from Vox and so much more.
It’s not wrong, though. Climate change take a toll on the environment and humanity, but we’ve already diverted ourselves from the +4 C scenario where the planet becomes unlivable. The messaging around climate change should be clear and accurate: climate change is causing suffering, but there is a path forward to avoid the worst damage. Catastrophizing doesn’t solve any problems.
Climate change is already causing extreme suffering, and things don’t look like they will be getting better anytime soon. I’m asking this in good faith, I’ve just never heard the +4 C scenario thing before; where’d you find that? To my knowledge, shit hitting the existential fan is still very possible.
Catastrophizing is exactly what needs to happen right now. With this slow “things will be okay” and “green growth” attitude, we will run out of time before we can make significant changes.
Climate change is indeed causing extreme suffering, and it will get worse. But a decade ago one of the plausible scenarios was +4 C. Since then, the US has had a slow but steady decline in emissions both in absolute and per capita terms. Europe has had a similar trend. The current areas of growth are in China, India, and other middle income nations. My understanding is that China is committed to tackling the problem. Not so sure about India. Where the reductions are technology-based, that technology can fairly easily be used in non-wealthy countries without incurring the additional R & D expense.
The problem with catastrophizing is that it often leads to a mindset of “we’re screwed, there’s no use doing anything”. Instead, it’s important to tell people what they can do to provide a workable way forward. Definitely don’t lie and say it’s will be a piece of cake, but also don’t say that there is no hope short of a self-imposed collapse.
I don’t know that just because we’re taking incremental and slow approaches to defeating it that it means +4 C is out of the question. We’re still pumping mass amounts of methane into the atmosphere, permafrost is melting, oceans are rising and will continue to do so, and ecosystems will still fail. That, though, I could be wrong about. Regardless, things become extremely awful far before 4 degrees. It is also my understanding that China takes it seriously, and as many good things China has done/is doing/will do, they’re only a portion of the human race. What about the rest of the world? Wouldn’t you say it takes us all? I understand that capitalism is in decline and will perish, it’s just about how much damage it’s going to do/continue to do on the way out.
Definitely. There is a difference between absolutist-defeatism and a realistic understanding of the world around us. The former, to me, representing a more “doomer”, lazy approach to the situation and giving up before its over, while the latter holds a still based in reality but potentially revolutionary alternative. As vehemently as I believe that TEOTWAWKI is here, I do agree that, yes, we still need to put effort in. Yes, there is a possible alternative to complete and total destruction and an unlivable earth. It is, indeed, better to die standing than to live on your knees. No sense in giving up.
The +4 C scenario was based on certain trends in emissions continuing without end. The past decade has shown that emissions really can be tackled. The most recent projects show below +4 C given current trends, and that can always be bent further.
Hopefully India will start planning a little more vigorously after this current heat wave. While its citizens have a low per capita emission rate currently, their large population could spell trouble as living standards rise.
And of course for Europe, the US, Australia, etc. there needs to be much more work. I’m particularly worried about the political situation in my own country of the US. While there is some progress on the local/stage level, the whole country is designed around car-centric urban sprawl. It feels like 95% of the country runs on car brain.
