We’ll combat global warming with nuclear winter! 🙃
We don’t have room in the carbon budget for a world war.
Submitted 3 weeks ago by SGGeorwell@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Throw another hotdog on the uranium! It’s almost time for The President’s Daily Truthcast.
Klear@quokk.au 2 weeks ago
Almost makes me patrol the Mojave.
Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Oh boy, I get to post my doom call!
If you live for another 50 years, you WILL witness the collapse of civilization. We have blown past every single warming-limit goal, and are not only continuing to warm the planet but are doing it at an accelerating pace.
Its getting warmer, and its getting warmer FASTER.
Very soon the major breadbaskets of the world will no longer be able to grow crops. As soon as the grain agricultural industry collapses, billions, with a B, will starve.
We are witnessing the end of modern civilization, which will end just as fast as it arrived.
jpeps@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Doomerism like this is not healthy. Things are dire and will get worse for a long time, but the idea that civilisation is guaranteed to collapse is the kind of doom propaganda that fuels inaction. There is so much we can do, and the outcome for future generations better with every positive step we take. What we do does matter, and there’s a good chance our core societies will still be going strong in 50 years.
ashughes@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
I agree but would add that collapse isn’t an absolute end in itself and to frame it that way is boss-level doomerism. Collapse is an unavoidable part of a natural cycle that signals the beginning of a new cycle. It is an opportunity to plant the seeds of something better and watch it grow. That’s not to say collapse will be easy, comfortable or harmless but we open ourselves to far greater harm by fearing collapse.
0tan0d@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
A ray of hope: Oil being expensive makes solar more attractive. Having an EV and home solar insulated my family against the daily hike in the price of a gallon of gas.
BrioxorMorbide@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
the kind of doom propaganda that fuels inaction
And worse, the destructive “we have to exploit everything because it doesn’t matter anyway” attitude.
Tiresia@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
We are witnessing the end of modern civilization, which will end just as fast as it arrived.
So it’ll take 10,000 years?
Civilizations and cultures survive the loss of >30% of their population all the time. The black death, the columbian disease exchange, the mongol empire, the collapse of the western roman empire, etc… Losing billions of people will be terrible, of course, but the billions that survive will still exist and work to survive, and they will be people worth fighting for.
Current food production is over 10 times what is necessary to feed everyone on the planet, with the vast majority of it being wasted on the meat and dairy industry that we can just stop. Food forests require more labor per calorie but are far more resilient to climate change and require far less land area, allowing the remaining agricultural land to rewild and act as a carbon sink.
The AMOC (atlantic current) is “making Europe livable” by making it warmer. Helpfully, climate change will do the same. In pessimistic scenarios, Europe returns to the current average temperature after a decade or two. Again, yes, in this scenario >90% of current human habitation would probably have to be abandoned and human population may dip below one billion, but those hundreds of millions of people still deserve the best chance we can give them.
If our best efforts mean we can only keep a billion people alive, it would be worth it.
If our best efforts mean we can only keep a million people alive, it would be worth it.
If our best efforts mean we can only keep ten thousand people alive, it would be worth it.
Every kiloton of CO2 we stop the emission of is a life saved, and the vast majority are emitted in the US, Europe, and China. If you live in any of these regions, there is so much you can do.
Unbecredible@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
How come the crops won’t grow?
chaogomu@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The areas where most food grows will be rather hot and dry, but with lots of storms.
Some years will get things like atmospheric rivers that flood everything.
Extreme weather events will be the new normal basically everywhere.
Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Widespread drought, aridification caused by said droughts, and the average increase in temperatures will disproportionately affect those countries that are in sub tropical/super temperate zones. Those countries are where a vast majority of our grain staples are grown.
xep@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Loss of topsoil. Not many harvests left.
Damionsipher@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Maybe we can hope for a mini-nuclear winter!?
Honestly the replies of “if we can save a single life, our struggle will be worth it” are nothing if not funny in the face of the horrors to come, especially as their coming so we can collectively shove just one more burger in our faces.
Every passing day I get one step closer to just saying “fuck it” and becoming a hedonist while watching 90% of the world seemingly not give a single fuck about the future.
pennomi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Reducing population goes a long way towards helping though. It all depends on just how apocalyptic the world war is
Soulphite@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Eh, a few old demented psychopaths armed with nuclear warheads? I’d wager to say pretty apocalyptic.
Restaldt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Bethesda this IS NOT what I wanted for Fallout 5
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Presumably the impact would greatest if the population in areas with highest per capita usage were reduced first, right?
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We don’t have the room for AI either and that’s not stopping anyone.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Oh look we get both!
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Well, then it’s a good thing MAGA cancelled Climate Change.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Hear me out. Depending on how massive the war is it could actually help on the long term.
At the end of the day less people equals less pollution.
scroll_responsibly@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Sounds like an ecofash take
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
While we are at it: Don’t treat the personal in critical and low life expectancy (e.g. heavily mutilated but could live through until natural death) to save on pension funds and later medical infrastructure.
More for the young in need (a bit of /s and /j)
Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Yes but just very few people make up the majority of pollution.
e8CArkcAuLE@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
we are literally in so many ways, which is why i’m resorting to memeing
ImmersiveMatthew@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
100% agree, but the worst side of the human condition is in control and they want to burn baby burn it all down.
pedz@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Just for fun, look up how much the US army pollutes.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Blowing up oil production could be argued as carbon negative.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
No. Complete opposite. Not just full emissions from the buring oil, but replacement oil “needs” to be dug up.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I disagree. That oil you are seeing burning is just a few days of normal production. So it would have gotten burnt regardless. If you take the broader view, disrupting global oil production will give renewable energies a much needed push. If your petrol gets too expensive, the electric car maybe looks better now. Using solar and wind looks better when fossil fuel prices are more expensive. And heating your home with a heat pump is currently much, much cheaper than using gas or oil. So this will give a push, if done correctly.
Some countries might even wake up and realize that it’s better to produce their own energy from the sun shining on their own soil than being kind of a victim of whatever happens somewhere else in the world.
jaennaet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Wells burn for a long time
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Nature bats last. Climate change is the real winner in all these wars.
Aagje_D_Vogel@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
And great mother earth once the surface no longer supports human life.
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I have a feeling that the carbon budget is going to be the last of our concerns soon.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Yeah, these days I’m more worried about the potential of future radioactive fallout.
jaennaet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I’m worried that I live a bit too far from the closest likely nuke target and I might survive the first phase of the war
bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Unless… Thanos snapping
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
yeah but what about out cabron budget?
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There’s always room in the budget for one more cabrón
TronBronson@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Te Debo una cabrón
yermaw@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I think the red hot chili peppers blew through that in 2002
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
What room is there for anything with a negative budget?
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Well, you see, it works like money. You go over budget and plan to pay later. Then, when you go beyond what you expected to borrow, you change the debt ceiling and borrow more. And then when you are beyond your ability to pay off the debt, you change the rules such that you can take a few extra decades. Keep doing this until you have kicked the can down the road beyond your anticipated lifespan. And then your grandchildren can just get fucked for all you care.
scytale@piefed.zip 3 weeks ago
And just like carbon credits, they’ll just throw money at it to “offset” the carbon budget.
FaygoRedPop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
[deleted]Transform2942@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
The global empire of capital is trapped in two losing wars of attrition and keeps on desperately escalating in both cases?
Mika@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
USA is not with Ukraine, if you imply that. Trump is a russian asset and he did lift sanctions from russia just this week, alongside with ramping oil prices to the roof.
Unless you assume that russia is losing the attrition war (which is very unlikely with @lemmy.ml), your comment doesn’t make any sense.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
IMO WWIII started with the invasion of Ukraine.
Now we have both US and Russia participating in war.
If china takes Taiwan then you’ll have the big 3 which will effect pretty much all other countries one way or another.
theneverfox@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
That’s not a world war, it’s a handful of regional conflict level wars.
A world war is defined by the scale and involvement level. The world wars reshaped continents and put most of the world on wartime production footing… We’re very, very far from that
Taiwan had the ability to kick off a world war, because the whole world relies on TSMC. But the fabs being built in China, the US, and the EU seem to me to be a compromise between the power blocks - once they’re completed NATO will probably just let China invade Taiwan without lifting a finger
WWIII isn’t a big concern of mine… The conditions just aren’t unfolding that way
DarkMetatron@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
But do 3 Independent Wars do count as a single world war?
ChristerMLB@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Trump has taken the US as far out of the war in Ukraine as the American people will let him, it’s not great for peace, we should all have ramped up the aid a lot earlier, but to say that the US is participating in the war… that’s really stretching it.
then_three_more@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Multiple brush fire wars which are starting to interlink, both wars starting to pull in other countries through alliances, countries forming up new alliances to protect themselves.
This video explains well youtu.be/V--ZqMGjNVs
wewbull@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
…or AI.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Don’t worry, nobody will be able to afford to drive, so that will offset it.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Orrr, keep up with me on the optimism, it would be like post WWII in which the pendulum will swing the other way.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh god no…you’re suggesting ANOTHER round of boomers??? THATS the reward for all this suffering??? We haven’t even gotten rid of all the old boomers yet!
Paragone@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Priorities:
political-motivation ALWAYS outranks objectivity, among the political.
Welcome to Accelerationism’s grass-roots edition.
_ /\ _
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
No problem! Let’s craft a new Accord! They’re fun!
Hupf@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
as long as we lose it will be ok. we as in humanity.
RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We were never gonna get the carbon thing under control.
db2@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not while we still allow psychopaths to be in control.
MrKoyun@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not while we still allow them to be alive.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
as A physics channel person as said, countries have largely abandoned global climate change for a while now. they are mostly going YOLO with oil now.
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Correct. Oligarchs are responsible for the murder of billions of humans. Absurd, disgusting, shameful… yet, wholly predictable.
j_elgato@leminal.space 3 weeks ago
Sure we will!
Human-driven climate change will accelerate the Holocene mass extinction, ending Homo Sapiens - and with us will go all carbon-producing industry.
The carbon thing finds its equilibrium after some tens of thousands of years, and the climate stabilizes some hundreds of thousands or millions of years after that. And then, provided the biosphere wasn’t damaged beyond its ability to compensate or regulate for the increased solar luminosity that has occurred since the last “Hot-House Earth” climate, it will recover and heal.
And if not, then we’ve killed everything down to the tardigrades, and probably them too, and we end up with a runaway greenhouse Venus type situation some 0.3 - 0.6 billion years early.