It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

[Huntn]

Who imagined we would actually arrive in this place? 40 years of warnings, hard core denial, today the artic melts, forests burn, oceans simmer, and we respond with yap yap, maneuvering for our individual advantage, killing each other, while seemingly oblivious, ignoring impending calamity, unable to change, basically helpless to to do anything but watch with fascination at the approaching apocalypse. Are we worthy?

Note, I don’t consider myself superior, I’m just one of the sheep who lived my life, open to making sacrifices, sending letters and writing emails to my representative, but just rolled along, allowing someone else to rally the sheep, waited for something to happen. And it never did happen, at least not enough. From a group perspective we are exactly where we should be as a species based on our inability to move out of our comfort zones and be proactive in the face of clear warnings being given.

Post apocalyptic stories have taken on new gravity, moving from fiction to something much closer to fact. A favorite is the Book of Ely, yet I am not a religious person. I favor the imagery, the environment, the search for a book so the sheep can be controlled. Never mind that an imaginary deity would give a human special powers on a quest to resurrect a book of fantasy stories in the post apocalyptic world.

​

 

[Citysnaps]

They're taking reservations and holding practice events for the upcoming rapture. Don't wait.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I’m sure there is no shortage of people who think they’ll just have to suck it up and deal with some relatively short periods of extreme weather. Wait until we’re dealing with food and water shortages. Then they’ll just blame whoever is currently running the country for everything. That’ll fix it. “All I know is when President Bedwetter was in office meat was a lot cheaper.” Fucking morons.

 

[Citysnaps]

I’m sure there is no shortage of people who think they’ll just have to suck it up and deal with some relatively short periods of extreme weather. Wait until we’re dealing with food and water shortages. Then they’ll just blame whoever is currently running the country for everything. That’ll fix it. “All I know is when President Bedwetter was in office meat was a lot cheaper.” Fucking morons.

What's sad is they're kicking the can letting their children/grandchildren pay the price when it gets really bad. So selfish.

 

[rdrr]

What's said is they're kicking the can letting their children/grandchildren pay the price when it gets really bad. So selfish.

The reality is that I am not so sure it's that far in the future. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I have got a feeling that scientist are a bit shocked at this summer's climate.

 

[Yoused]

I have noticed a huge decline in insect activity this summer. Extremely non-trivial quietness in the skies around here. It does not bode well. That, combined with widespread crop failures due to drought, floods and fires means we will probably be paying a lot more for food. I expect we will be in a serious near-crisis situation next year.

One thing to consider: many years ago, I read a short Sci-Am piece that said a study showed that US elections turn on mood. If people are optimistic about what lies ahead, the party in power will stay in power; if they are pessimistic, the government changes hands. It is not about how things are right now but how our prospects look.

So, next year, things are going to look pretty damn fucked up. And the Democrats are in control of the WH and Senate. It will be seen that they must be doing something wrong, so we should replace them.

That is even more worrying than what is happening. In 2025, as we head into deeper crisis, the Republiopaths will be "running" the country. But, at least they can get at the real question of what is going on with those strange unidentified aerial phenomena.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

The reality is that I am not so sure it's that far in the future. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I have got a feeling that scientist are a bit shocked at this summer's climate.

That’s just going to make some say “See, we didn’t have time to do anything about it anyway.”

Don’t recall if I posted this in another thread, but the insurance companies pulling out of CA and FL because of climate disasters are also heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry. This is like sponsoring a pyromaniac symposium and then refusing to pay for the convention center they burned down as the closer.

 

[Yoused]

are also heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry

The fossil fuel industry is like mycelium, embedded deeply in the economy. Everyone as some degree of investment in it.

 

[Nycturne]

The reality is that I am not so sure it's that far in the future. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I have got a feeling that scientist are a bit shocked at this summer's climate.

"It will start slow and then happen all at once" someone said. There's definitely some tipping points on the warming path that will send shocks through the system.

Breadbaskets that are no longer temperate enough to produce crops in the scale we need after breeding and modifying them to be so specialized. Refugee crisis after refugee crisis as we see regions start becoming more hostile to human life during the summer. Outright fights over water rights getting uglier as folks try to profit on it, just look at what's happening with the Colorado River the last few years. The Sword of Damocles that is the risk of collapse of the food chain due to just one species too many going extinct.

But yes, scientists are partly being conservative in the models to try to avoid being seen as prophets of doom and overreacting. If anything, we are still learning the various mechanisms at play that help accelerate these feedback loops.

 

[Edd]

So if the water temps off the FLA coast are 100 degrees, I suppose that means you’re barely cooling down? And that’s only because the air would be >100 degrees. Keep voting GOP, Florida!

 

[Huntn]

The reality is that I am not so sure it's that far in the future. Maybe it's the pessimist in me, but I have got a feeling that scientist are a bit shocked at this summer's climate.

One possibility, not a certsinty.
Typical human: As long as the power stays on comfortable in your home, you have affordable food to eat water to drink, and can pay your bills, no problem. Nothing really will change until a large number of people are kicked in the head, a breakdown, millions die, the economy implodes then all hell will break lose.
And even then, there is no guarantee that humans will discover the right thing to do. Their selfishness will really kick in and people will becone the enemy of your survival, until we can be reduced to a small manageable numbers where cooperation on a small scale is possible, I’ll predict the rise of War Lords, large scale slaughter and/or perishing Is a definite possibility. And ironically all this will do is set us back 1000 years if not more, and we’ll still be doing the same as before scraping along just trying to survive in an environment that is more hostile than ever. Reaching for the stars, a pipe dream.

 

[rdrr]

One possibility, not a certsinty.
Typical human: As long as the power stays on comfortable in your home, you have affordable food to eat water to drink, and can pay your bills, no problem. Nothing really will change until a large number of people are kicked in the head, a breakdown, millions die, the economy implodes then all hell will break lose.
And even then, there is no guarantee that humans will discover the right thing to do. Their selfishness will really kick in and people will becone the enemy of your survival, until we can be reduced to a small manageable numbers where cooperation on a small scale is possible, I’ll predict the rise of War Lords, large scale slaughter and/or perishing Is a definite possibility. And ironically all this will do is set us back 1000 years if not more, and we’ll still be doing the same as before scraping along just trying to survive in an environment that is more hostile than ever. Reaching for the stars, a pipe dream.

Its ironic, because the people who the Right are fighting with and are essentially starting a culture war with, are the folks they will need if (my optimist muscle being exercised) your version of the world comes true. Those with a science education (not computer) will be coveted by these small communities.

 

[Nycturne]

Its ironic, because the people who the Right are fighting with and are essentially starting a culture war with, are the folks they will need if (my optimist muscle being exercised) your version of the world comes true. Those with a science education (not computer) will be coveted by these small communities.

I would argue that ME and EE will be coveted as well. Those communities will want to grow, and the ability to say, design and build the machines that keep the communities running will have value. The ones that can help provide power, automation, and so on. Software engineers that help with monitoring/controlling those machines will have value, depending on what tech from the computer age can be scavenged.

Web 3.0 folks would rot on the vine in this environment.

 

[Eric]

IMO the earth will right itself as soon as it gets rid of humans, we're like a virus giving it a fever and it will have to go through its course of killing us off. We asked for it, we knew we have been causing it and did nothing but exacerbate it all along. But hey, the rich made a lot of money so they can at least take solace in that as they're frying or drowning to death.

 

[Huntn]

Its ironic, because the people who the Right are fighting with and are essentially starting a culture war with, are the folks they will need if (my optimist muscle being exercised) your version of the world comes true. Those with a science education (not computer) will be coveted by these small communities.

Read Lucifer’s Hammer, a SciFi story about a comet hitting the Earth. You are a refugee from the coasts where cities are destroyed by a thousand food tidle wave, you come across a walled settlement up in the Sierra Nevadas and before they allow you admittance, you have to show your value to them, though knowledge or skills or it’s move along…not only that but some men in the settlement maneuver to “claim” available females…

 

[Huntn]

I would argue that ME and EE will be coveted as well. Those communities will want to grow, and the ability to say, design and build the machines that keep the communities running will have value. The ones that can help provide power, automation, and so on. Software engineers that help with monitoring/controlling those machines will have value, depending on what tech from the computer age can be scavenged.

Web 3.0 folks would rot on the vine in this environment.

In the Lucifer’s Hammer story they are back to figuring out how they will just grow crops. Fortunately there is a nearby nuclear power plant still operating that will supply juice for some number of years. Think about the impact of no electricity.

In our global warming scenario a good third of the country could be deemed uninhabitable. It’s going to be tough without iallowing millions of refugees in. Then what will those Northern States do? It sounds like a genocide management plan to me.

 

[Huntn]

IMO the earth will right itself as soon as it gets rid of humans, we're like a virus giving it a fever and it will have to go through its course of killing us off. We asked for it, we knew we have been causing it and did nothing but exacerbate it all along. But hey, the rich made a lot of money so they can at least take solace in that as they're frying or drowning to death.

I am a pessimist. I have low confidence in our collective abilities, the idea of A Great Filter makes a lot of sense, I think we are screwed, and even with 40 years of warnings, mostly I am shocked at how quickly this has come upon us.

 

[Yoused]

Read Lucifer’s Hammer

I read that. It was basically garbage. Niven can be pretty imaginative, but that one was not much more than a boilerplate formula dystopian war story. No better than, say, The Postman or Waterworld. Perhaps we humans are inescapably hardwired for tribalism and conflict, in which case the universe is better off without us.

 

[Nycturne]

In the Lucifer’s Hammer story they are back to figuring out how they will just grow crops. Fortunately there is a nearby nuclear power plant still operating that will supply juice for some number of years. Think about the impact of no electricity.

I look at it more this way: There are many levels of survival for the human species that would let us survive the Holocene extinction event. Some are better than others. At the end of the day, a group that manages to leverage industrial age tech and simple electronics would slide back far less than groups that don’t. In an era of scarcity and a crater blasted into our racial memory to echo into the eons, I don’t expect much sharing to go on for a while as everyone’s still got a clear image of the horrors that led them there and how it was ”other people” that burned the world. So those groups who get the folks needed to at least bootstrap small power grids and small-scale industrialization will have the best shot at making it through. Modern materials are probably going to be the trickiest part. Stuff used for wind turbines, solar panels and battery storage are going to be scarce for a while.

I suppose I’m less pessimistic than some, but I fully expect humans at some level will survive and enter into a new Dark Ages. How long it takes us to crawl out of that will depend a lot on just how badly we burn it all to the ground on our way down. But unless we somehow get unlucky on the front of absolutely nobody left being able to restart a subsistence society from the agrarian age in the regions that are going to still be habitable, human extinction seems a rather remote (but not impossible) outcome.

In our global warming scenario a good third of the country could be deemed uninhabitable. It’s going to be tough without iallowing millions of refugees in. Then what will those Northern States do? It sounds like a genocide management plan to me.

This is the thing that really gets me. The untold suffering and death that will be unleashed over the course of decades. Preventable suffering.

 

[Herdfan]

I am a pessimist. I have low confidence in our collective abilities, the idea of A Great Filter makes a lot of sense, I think we are screwed, and even with 40 years of warnings, mostly I am shocked at how quickly this has come upon us.

I know most of you won’t agree, but I will say it anyway.

Tell me about those 40 years of warnings. Without listing them all because I don’t have time, but there have been some predictions (polar ice caps melted by 2014, coastal areas being underwater, crops being unable to grow) that didn’t even come close to being true.

So people simply tuned it out and stopped listening. But Al Gore got very wealthy.

As for the current heatwave, it is not as bad as it was in the 30’s. The 70’s were a rather cool period of time, so when you look at temps then and now, we look like we are rising. But look from the 30’s and they are both peaks like it is part of a cycle. I know that this is an inconvenient truth.