Climate change/oblivion: breaking point or slow death spiral?

Hi all,

I wonder this a lot lately. As I cycle to work and am passed by an endless procession of luxury 2-ton SUVs, it does rather seem that we’ll collectively fail at mitigating perhaps nothing but the worst effects of global heating. Given the coverage in the more reputable papers, I can’t quite fathom the juxtaposition of it against day-to-day life.

So assuming nothing is achieved, and we continue to double down on our insatiable consumption habits, will things breakdown suddenly or bit by bit? Would looking into the future, say in forty years time, be rather like looking today but a much more actue ‘version’ or will it be something nearing widespread collapse?

Slowly, then suddenly

I had a french visitor the other day, he lives in Bordeaux but is moving to Brittany, He said it was happening a lot as people from the south of france were starting to feel it was too hot to live there now.

I’m no expert, although I work in oil & gas – I’m an environmental chemist, trying to mitigate/minimise what emissions I can – and I think it’s definitely more likely to be a breaking point than a “boiling the frog” situation. The thought of it occupies a lot of my spare thinking time and I’m pretty terrified about what the future holds for my kids. We’re basically living it up now while we can because I don’t think life is going to be much fun in 20-25 years time. And I don’t mean jetting off to all 4 corners of the earth to do 4×4 road trips, more choosing to buy the kids new mountain bikes instead of putting money away in case the roof blows off. L

I will find one of these people and buy their French chateau on the cheap, install aircon, then plant some trees to shade the pool and vines if needed.

Sure the French will pull off fusion at peak panic and my aircon will run at net zero.

I do wonder how the population of Africa or The Middle East survived all these years.

Personally I blame the ebikers.

They probably import a lot of food from places that aren’t deserts but are about to be

And your two tonne SUV will soon be replaced by a three tonne EV SUV using loads more electrons than we really need to get to work. Me, I’ll stick to my mainly traffic free route into the city.

I do wonder how the population of Africa or The Middle East survived all these years.

Appreciate that you’re joking slightly, but population density of northern Africa away from the coasts is just 3.16% of the world population or 2.5 million people. Where I usually live in Spain, Andalucia has 8 million and is a fraction of the size of the Saharan region. By 2100, I read that soutern Spain will basically be the Sahara, so you do think where are all those people going to live, but also, where are the current 260 million residents of North Africa as a whole going to go if they are suddenly living in a desert. Regarding the middle-east, which formally supported only tiny populations of semi-nomadic tribes, the reality today is totally distorted by endless petrodollars. Not sure city states such as Dubai would last long without imported food.

It genuinely makes me feel sick. I feel like the same message has been repeated over and over and over my entire life and there has been, essentially, no meaningful change.

It will be IMO a boiling the frog type scenario but thats still horrific.  Billions will die – water and food shortages

If I was them I would get in early on Siberian real estate and plant some vines. Too many English driving SUV’s in Spain and England.

I’m in the slowly then suddenly camp. It seems that we as a species perceive an urgent need for everyone else to do what they can to ameliorate climate change.

I can’t see how “boiling the frog” works though TJ. Pretty much the entirety of the natural world is based on biological process that operate within fairly specific chemical parameters, e.g. certainly chemicals being soluble at this pH or certain proteins becoming denatured at that temperature, etc. Everything works fine until you reach the edge of the parameter, there’s no gradual decrease in activity it’s just a case of yes @ 38°C, no @ 40°C (for example).

You cross one of those points and entire ecosystems die. I honestly think we’ll get to a point in the near future where fish stocks just aren’t there. We’ll be having battered cod & chips by the Ingoldmells seafront one year, it’ll be double the price the following year due to shortage, then it just won’t be a thing after that.

We are there. Tipping point is now. Brace. Brace.

Honestly!

Another one in the slowly boiling until it suddenly erupts camp. It’ll take just one thing to tip everything over but the warning signs will be plentiful (a lot are now) and then nature will just go “**** it, you’ve had warnings and I can’t wait any longer!” then we’ll be screwed. There’s no supership like in Wall:E to take us away while the planet recovers, no major scientific cure that will let us continue somehow. It’ll be gradually getting worse then we will find out life unsustainable.

It genuinely makes me feel sick. I feel like the same message has been repeated over and over and over my entire life and there has been, essentially, no meaningful change.

I feel the same. I may be a petrolhead (prefer gearhead as I don’t care what provides the energy) but I always try to use the most appropriate transport for my journey. I really hate that my current commute is too far to cycle (cycled every day in my old job, in all weathers) and decided when I was young that I didn’t want kids (due to various reasons but the environmental impact and future was a big consideration). I’m not perfect by by means but I do try and limit my impact where I have the option to.

People forget that the world existed long before we arrived and will long after we have gone. The human species in a geological scale is little more than a blip.

I cycle to work and am passed by an endless procession of luxury 2-ton SUVs

You started well. Two things:

1) A VW Up! is about a ton. A supposedly tree-hugging electric Tesla is two and a half, you don’t need a “luxury SUV” to have a heavy motor.

2) Where this all falls down is in expecting people to make sacrifices. It’s NIMBY syndrome, everyone wants to do the right thing until it affects them directly. Wind farms, brilliant idea, so long as I can’t see the bloody eyesores myself. Etc etc. That’s precisely the thing with ‘boiling a frog,’ there won’t be a tipping point, we’ll just boil.

It will be IMO a boiling the frog type scenario but thats still horrific. Billions will die – water and food shortages

And people won’t starve and dehydrate quietly and conveniently. They’ll be on the move en masse towards bearable areas of the planet.

And people won’t starve and dehydrate quietly and conveniently. They’ll be on the move en masse towards bearable areas of the planet.

Stop the boats!

CBA

Slow or quick death makes no difference coz the end result will the same.   Not bother at all.

Sobering tweet below, I think we’ve really **** this thing up by acting 50 years too late

https://twitter.com/edgarrmcgregor/status/1678877083093848064?s=46&t=qvPR6lBfBXtAWZ-6beFWyA

It’s not really the climate change or warming you have to worry about, it’s what humans do in the face of crop failure and flooding. Like, just look at India, with only a moderate rise in sea levels they’ll be suffering crop failure and extensive loss of fresh water, the flooding of some of their critical cities and infrastructure… Oh and Bangladesh getting it even worse right next door.

We could adapt to even disruptive climate change, though at a terrible cost. But we can’t necessarily adapt to the inevitable humans losing their shit. Especially as it’ll inevitably be so unequal,

I think we’re at breaking point already and the spiral had started.

I’m glad that the GF and I decided not to have kids….. If we did the impending feeling of doom would worry me sick.

I feel sorry for the next generation. They’re the ones who are going to have to deal with the NMFP* attitude of their parents and grand parents generations. It’s incredible to think how quickly humans have f***es things up. Micro plastics everywhere.

Welcome to the Anthropocene.

The world will keep spinning, but humans have made this planet uninhabitable for themselves.

*not my f*in problem

It has been pointed out for years that the biggest issue will be mass migration for millions and those can’t/don’t have the means will have to live or die with it.  Where are those millions going to go, places like the UK seem pretty good don’t they as our weather is moderate and will just get a bit less moderate (bit windier, bit wetter, bit hotter, bit colder etc,.) and nothing to cause UK people to migrate.

And some people think immigration is a problem now.

Mass migration will be billions not millions and even places like the UK are in trouble – we import much of our food.  Where are we going to be importing it from and what are we going to be paying for it with?

places like the UK seem pretty good don’t they as our weather is moderate

As long the Gulf Stream doesn’t weaken.

The climate part will be relatively slow to reach a mass disaster.

The wars from mass food/water migration will be more sudden.

As a species and planet we will evolve and adapt, temperate zones will move north, inhospitable tundra in the north will be replaced by desert in the south.

The planet has been through worse and much more sudden changes. The impact will be on the people, there will be billions who find their homes uninhabitable but to some extent it’s always been the case, famines and droughts in Africa, floods in Bangladesh etc. I think us in the UK are very sheltered from the worst of the weather, hence the lethargy, but it is getting more extreme and we see more of it reported now along with the narrative of global warming rather than it being a one off act of nature.

Looking at it a comparing to paleo climates:

The CO2 levels recorded at Hawaii, 420ppm correspond to the Eocène climate. However we’re cooler. We’re hotter than the post-glacial climatic optimum and about the same as in the Riss-Wurm interglacial. We’re cooler than the Eocène because the ice and oceans are buffering. As the ice goes things are accelerating and even with current CO2 we  can expect things to be much hotter. As the CO2 goes even higher we’ll heat toward Cretaceous conditions or even Permian. Then we’re properly ****.

Methane, an even stronger greenhouse gas is leaking all over the planet, it’s not talked about as much as CO2 but it’s getting worse faster because of leak. At production sites it used to be flared to CO2 but that was banned so many wells just release it. When drilling methane is released, in operation it leaks (and is deliberately vented) from pipelines, combustion in appliances is incomplete. The idea gas is clean is false, given the level of leaks you may as well burn coal in term of greenhouse gasses.

So we’re going crescendo, more methane, more CO2, less ice, warmer oceans. And less sinks: Forest fires, deforestation, replacement of Calcium skeleton algae with silica skeletons in the oceans. The perfect storm.

There was another gas central heating thread on STW yesterday, a van thread the day before, a petrolhead thread before that, STW editorials are about flying to the US etc and so are holiday threads.

I reckon there are about 10 of us on this forum who’ve done the minimum, in my case:

No more flying – 20hrs and 4 busses rather than fly on my most recent holiday, only 12hrs on the return.

Energy positive house – no gas, insulation, PV and solar thermal

Electric car if needs must a car

Low meat diet

I’m a geologist and know where we’re going, and have done since about 1987.

+1 on water and food being the very pressing issue very shortly. Food crop failure is a big worry.

I feel very much like we’ve been gaslit (no pun intended) over climate change, constantly told about individual responsibility and how we can make “personal choices” that affect our contributions to the problems, while at the same time the presented choices are often made expensive and inconvenient.

I don’t feel like all of those personal choices have been matched or really facilitated by governments and/or business.

This whole thing is going to shake out over the next hundred years or so with wars over resources and mass migration. Those of us dwelling in the global north are already seeing our governments ‘pulling up the ladders’ (see Rishi’s migration bill). I think it’s fair to say the people who led the drive to this situation are already planning on how they and their buddies survive the ensuing calamities…

The fundamental problem we face is still capitalism in all of this, the prevailing narrative still seems to be that humanity can invent and consume it’s way out of problems created by invention and consumption. There’s still not enough talk about “doing more with less”…

We’re doomed. People are flocking to Death Valley in their cars to get selfies with the record temperature in the background. WTAF !

The Earth will recover but we won’t be part of the recovery.

By the way for every comment about older generations not caring… how about the younger people with Amazon Prime next day delivery, Deliveroo crap processed food a click away, streaming content day and night, throw away fashion from Primark etc etc

It’s not as simple as young Vs old but people want to blame others and not address their own behaviour

And your two tonne SUV will soon be replaced by a three tonne EV SUV using loads more electrons than we really need to get to work. Me, I’ll stick to my mainly traffic free route into the city.

Or a 2 tonne brick van to carry a pedal bike to hill where they then get in to a knackered land rover (spewing out loads of emissions as its in 1st/2nd gear all the time to drive them to the top of the hill) Then they drive home again in their 2 tonne brick van with a bike in the back.

Doesnt make sense does it.

how about the younger people with Amazon Prime next day delivery

Thats nice that at 50 you thing I am young 🙂  Our nearest shops are 20 miles away, most decent ones 30 miles + we get stuff from Amazon regularly. My justification that it is better a van full of stuff being delivered in my area, rather than me driving my 2 tonne SUV 30miles with just me and a tiny parcel inside it?

Back on topic, I think unfortunately things will have to get much worse before humans start really making an effort on climate change. Then it will be a question of have we done it too late to reverse the trend. I do agree though that at some point humans will become extinct which will then allow the planet to start recovering.

One of the best things we can do now to stop climate change is to stop having babies.

Mrs FD said to me the other day do we need to get an aircon unit as its getting hotter 🙁  She genuinely thought it was a better investment to buy an aircon unit rather than insulate the house

There’s still not enough talk about “doing more with less”…

Nah, we need to be doing less with less. As a species we have to reduce our impact. Some of that will be done on our behalf by nature, but we have to change how society organises itself, and that right there is why it won’t.

My daughter has just done a module on climate change as part of her international politics degree – a significant portion of the module was about looking after your mental health as the out look wasn’t great 🙁

population growth for Africa is going to be a major issue in the coming years,

1950: 2.5bn world pop >>>  7.9bn in 2021

(Europe 50% growth over those years) versus Africa 228m >> 1.34bn

https://www.statista.com/statistics/997040/world-population-by-continent-1950-2020/

I see everyone’s given up. You all know this thing is fixable right? But it will require political will and nothing less than a war-like collective effort, and yes quite a bit of sacrifice. And yet here are we are, moaning about how we’re all f**** to excuse our foreign holidays and luxuries, and being outraged at the likes of Just Stop Oil disrupting our lives.

We all need to look at ourselves and direct the doom and gloom to the politicians to force them to do the things that are required to fix this.

@Couger,

Sorry to bring SUVs into it, but to my mind they’re the perfect reminder of inane conspicious consumption and sheer ludicrousy against the loudening background hum of societial and environmental collapse. In any case, I don’t think a a 1-ton Up can ever justify a 2.3 ton Range Rover. Agree with you that, for the most part, Telsa’s are **** stupid too.

@Edukator

Thanks for the summary. I always wished I’d studied Geology. Realistically, if you had to put a timeline on it, when will things really start to bite for Western Europe? I guess in another twenty years, we’ll see forced migration at unprecedented levels, more and more extreme weather, displacement, failing crops, and already ‘household’ crops like Olives start to become luxuries, so this will eventually bite into staples like wheat, rice, etc.

Will any of this be offset by:

1) technology: carbon capture, new farming methods, etc.

2) adapation: e.g., previously inarable areas of the world being able to be inhabited/farmed?

You all know this thing is fixable right?

OK, I’m listening.

But it will require political will and nothing more than a war-like collective effort, and yes quite a bit of sacrifice

Ah. Never gonna happen.

Bring on oblivion while all the billionaires move into their underground bunkers in New Zealand.

There does seem to be a collective head in the sand attitude to the whole thing. I find it depressing that when Just Stop Oil protesters are run over or assaulted there’s a collective cheer from society.

Let’s not point the finger entirely at SUV drivers though. They’re part of the problem but it’s a global attitude that needs to change. IMHO the person in a Prius who’s sitting in the supermarket car park with the engine running while they eat their lunch is far more culpable. The people who turn off stop/start on every journey because they’re too stupid to use it.

And the people who keep voting for incompetent populist governments who fail to invest in sustainable travel and green energy schemes. FFS, we STILL have VAT on home batteries. We still have a massive media campaign orchestrated by the right-wing press to discourage electric vehicles.

I kind of look at the USA who have a spectacularly backwards attitude to the environment basking in 55C and from a purely personal point of view don’t give a shit. It’s not like they weren’t warned.

You all know this thing is fixable right?

It isn’t.

I watched threads last week. This is much scarier, as in, it’s actually certain it’s going to happen. If it gets to the point of civil unrest with an economic collapse, I’ll just see myself off somewhere quiet.