Comment on Evidence that we have been living in an increasingly risk-averse culture
Redfox8@feddit.uk 5 months agoI think that depends on how you define ‘civilisation’. My inclination is that most people would say civilisation has ended if life is drastically different to how they perceive their life/world they live in. Think ‘civilisation as we know it’ rather than a dictionary definition.
However, I disagree that it’s not an existentisl threat, if only on the basis of possible crop failiures on a massive scale (reduced crop yields are a global issue already). Don’t underestimate the impact of food shortages on everything else, we in the west have become accustomed to easy access to food.
Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 5 months ago
An asteroid impact or super volcano eruption has the potential to kill every single human on earth and end the human race. That’s what I mean by existential threat. I feel like many people think of climate change as something that’s on the same scale but it really isn’t. Saying stuff like “climate change will ruin us all” just isn’t true. There are degrees of bad and while climate change definitely is up there in the bad end of the spectrum there’s still events that are orders of magnitude worse.
Nudding@lemmy.world 5 months ago
If we trigger tipping point after tipping point, we can turn earth into venus. You’re just wrong.
Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 5 months ago
What am I wrong about? What happened to Venus was caused by the eruption of super volcanoes. That’s the exact example I used above of an actual existential threat.
qevlarr@lemmy.world 5 months ago
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I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure greenhouse effect has something to do with it.
But it doesn’t matter, it’s beside the point. This person was saying we could make the planet much hotter than we want, inhabitably hot like Venus. Not that we are literally Venus
hypna@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Doomerism is a vibe. You’re gonna have a hard time talking people down around these parts.
Redfox8@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Indeed, in terms of sudden impact and method of impact, no they are very different, and climate change probably won’t go so far as to make the human race extinct, at least not for a very long time. However, whether or not it will be catastrophic for the human race within the next 100-200 years no-one can accurately predict, given we do not know how much we’ll do to stop it before it’s too late (bare in mind that some scientists already believe the tipping point beyond which we can no longer stop it is well upon us).
As mentioned, the collapse of farming may well undermine any efforts to stop climate change given the big knock on negative impact on the world economy. Though that could also save us as there’d be a sudden massive drop in fossil fuel use and carbon emissions in such a scenario. There’s a lot of variables, but a catastrophic collapse is definitely a possibility. I think the human race is capable of saving itself from this, but capitalism and the corporate economy I fear stand in its way.