'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math'

[prdctvsm]

[brian trageskin]

24 minutes ago, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

population scaremongering is just eco-fascism in disguise.  first world people need to be transferred to third world carbon output standards of living

i don't see how saying that world population growth is very likely gonna stop in the not so distant future can be qualified as scaremongering. yes, the population's gonna grow in the next decades, which is gonna make the task of slowing down climate change extra challenging, but that's just a fact.

[ignatius]

population growth is fine. we can produce enough beans and rice and grains to feed people.

if anyone should stop fuckn it's evangelicals. 

[Nebraska]

Quote

Antarctica's so-called Doomsday Glacier is losing ice at its fastest rate in 5,500 years, raising concerns about the ice sheet's future and the possibility of catastrophic sea level rise caused by the frozen continent's melting ice.

"Although these vulnerable glaciers were relatively stable during the past few millennia, their current rate of retreat is accelerating and already raising global sea levels"

https://www.livescience.com/penguin-bones-reveal-secrets-of-ddomsday-glacier

[may be rude]

6 hours ago, milkface said:

Social democracy (capitalism funded "progressive" social program based society) but not socialism lol. The state is a tool for one class to opress the other. Saying that socialism can exist under capitalism even though socialism requires the class antagonism to be flipped on it's head is simply wrong. Socialism isn't just social, it's economic too.

 

 

we should really stop giving the actual shill ilqx a win by letting him derail the climate thread.

Edited July 26, 2022 by trying to be less rude

[zero]

1 hour ago, brian trageskin said:

i don't see how saying that world population growth is very likely gonna stop in the not so distant future can be qualified as scaremongering. yes, the population's gonna grow in the next decades, which is gonna make the task of slowing down climate change extra challenging, but that's just a fact.

lol at your serious reply. thought I saw you throw up the Seinfeld hands in here...remember Zeffo made a snarky comment based off of auxien's clearly sarcastic post about people stopping fucking...that's how we go down these rabbit holes of insanity on here. replying to Zeff, who misinterprets sarcasm, decides to fight against it, and on and on we go.  

[zlemflolia]

37 minutes ago, trying to be less rude said:

 

 

we should really stop giving the actual shill ilqx a win by letting him derail the climate thread.

you are derailing it posting "investopedia" definitions, I'm not shilling anything, I'm talking about climate change whereas you are all shilling for capitalism which results in me needing to refute your bullshit

[auxien]

26 minutes ago, zero said:

auxien's clearly sarcastic post about people stopping fucking

for the record i was quite serious about the implication, not necessarily the means. fuckin' is fine until there's babies. stop having babies is my point.

seriously. i believe that the population of humans on this planet is the problem at the root of nearly all the major issues we're seeing...problems heavily exacerbated by the last 50-100 years of population growth, and which will get much, much worse as the population continues to balloon over the next hundred years. the long term effects of the current/coming population boom is unimaginable to us right now. nothing is going to be long term okay until the population gets back down to sustainable levels. period.

[ignatius]

i think climate change is driven by consumption of resources in places like USA, EU etc. developed countries. i think capitalism and how resources are used are more impactful than population growth. i guess sometimes it seems to go hand in hand.. like if everyone wants palm oil in their peanut butter so they don't have to stir what's in the jar so rain forests get ripped up to plant palm trees then yeah..that sucks for the climate and all the critters that live in the rain forest.. but what if everyone was willing to stir their jar of peanut butter and didn't eat mcdonald's beef which comes from vast ranches owned by the cargill group...  it's not like a bunch of governments and industries are going to lead the way though.. not w/o a general strike, some guillotines and torches. 

anyway.. 3ft of sea level rise when one glacier goes poof.

 

[zero]

1 hour ago, auxien said:

seriously. i believe that the population of humans on this planet is the problem at the root of nearly all the major issues we're seeing...problems heavily exacerbated by the last 50-100 years of population growth, and which will get much, much worse as the population continues to balloon over the next hundred years. the long term effects of the current/coming population boom is unimaginable to us right now. nothing is going to be long term okay until the population gets back down to sustainable levels. period.

I totally agree with this in theory. but reality is a separate beast. I thought on shit like this before I actually had a kid. I was always worried about bringing a kid into all this mess. and then all it changes eventually after you have one. I mean your mentality on this subject. the realization that humans will never be able to stop populating this place with other humans. you can try and control it, like China, but it can't be stopped. animal behavior can't be ignored. so then you have to design around this fact. the fact that multitudes of humans are going to keep coming. what does that look like down the road? fuck if I know.

[prdctvsm]

[auxien]

22 minutes ago, ignatius said:

i think climate change is driven by consumption of resources in places like USA, EU etc. developed countries.

definitely. but if there'd been less people in these countries over the last 100 years, there'd be less consumption of resources, relatively proportionally. 

28 minutes ago, ignatius said:

i think capitalism and how resources are used are more impactful than population growth. i guess sometimes it seems to go hand in hand..

i don't think that. capitalism isn't good, but the systems of government that 10billion humans have isn't going to matter much. idealized utopian societies still need arable land. 10billion humans, especially as they become more middle class as is the trend, 'Americanized' in their consumption, will need much, much more land for farming/livestock/whatever. (see here for reading) and this is a finite resource that is not only physically limited by space and reasonable use cases, but also temporally: soil gets depleted over time, and farms have to fertilize, move, etc.... (where does the fertilizer come from? possibly a byproduct from arable land elsewhere...). doing this at the scale of billions upon billions of humans just doesn't seem long-term (as in hundreds upon hundreds of years) sustainable. maybe there's science to prove me wrong, but i've not seen it.

39 minutes ago, ignatius said:

that sucks for the climate and all the critters that live in the rain forest.. but what if everyone was willing to stir their jar of peanut butter and didn't eat mcdonald's beef which comes from vast ranches owned by the cargill group...

the critters suffer in the rain forests, yeah. some go extinct. but also the critters that live outside your house suffer. their environment has been altered in ways we're only beginning to comprehend....maybe the damage isn't permanent, maybe it is. we don't know, but we're sure going to fucking find out. and it's 100% because of the population and sprawl of America, and the middle class way of life that's so great...that is, at least in part, what is about to happen to Africa and India, has been happening in China, etc. so yeah...if we all had little local farms that Jimbobs in every neighborhood ran, that would be great. but you can't do that in the cities that already exist, at least not naturally. it's literally impossible to feed Hong Kong in the landspace that Hong Kong occupies. there are hundreds if not thousands of cities like HK (maybe not in full scale, but to varying degrees, the problem is the same). they're not going to just disappear tomorrow...so we end up needing to sustain massive amounts of transportation, infrastructure, etc., all built by ores and resources carved from the planet, almost all of which destroys natural habitats of those environments to sustain these little created cities elsewhere. it's amazing, and it's destructive, and it's getting worse and worse as we grow and grow. it only gets worse because there are more people. population is the root cause. capitalism doing what it does, capitalizing on a thing, is only a symptom that makes the inherent problem (feeding 7.9 billion people) worse by feeding us McDonalds instead of Bessieburgers from Jimbob twice a year. no matter how you cut it, feeding billions of humans is going to destroying massive swathes of natural environments, everywhere. less people = less environmental destruction. it's really that simple.

30 minutes ago, zero said:

the realization that humans will never be able to stop populating this place with other humans. you can try and control it, like China, but it can't be stopped. animal behavior can't be ignored. so then you have to design around this fact. the fact that multitudes of humans are going to keep coming.

that's what life does, of course. but it can very much be stopped...it will be at some point...not 'stopped' but hindered, perhaps severely. climate 'disasters' are only just getting going really...and the threat of pandemics are always looming as we all know. even the estimates from the researchers like that video linked last page that got this topic going all see a plateau ahead in about 50-100 years. 

animal behavior is what got us here, that's exactly my point. we're rats on an island fucking and eating everything on the island until the pineapples are all gone and we start devouring each other. we've gotta learn not to be animals all the time. people having kids is not itself the problem, of course. it's not even close to that simple. lots of people having lots of kids for generations has been and continues to be the problem in many parts of the world. no solution sounds good because the situation right now is bad, but some sound better than others.

[ignatius]

30 minutes ago, auxien said:

definitely. but if there'd been less people in these countries over the last 100 years, there'd be less consumption of resources, relatively proportionally. 

yeah.. it's quite a nut to crack isn't it? interestingly that fritz haber chemical weapons guy who invented haber-bosch process to extract amonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas or whatever which lead to a massive boost in fertilizer production essentially created food for a few billion people to exist. 

anyway... if all land being used to raise cattle was turned over to crops it'd throw a nice positive monkey wrench into the doom scenarios. at least if we had irrigation and everything isn't burning. 

regardless, unintended consequences are par for the course. it'll be interesting to see how the forces at work pull things one way or another and lead us to different places based on their agendas which usually fail to have humanity's best interests in mind. 

and all the critters.. "human exceptionalism" is kind of a drag. 

[Satans Little Helper]

15 hours ago, milkface said:

I feel that people align to ideologies without even knowing about it though, of course things aren't all black and white but political views tend to come in rigid varieties, like how conspiracy theorists always call people sheep, despite the fact they are all a community that believe the same thing. Your average joe in a western country will be a neoliberal, sometimes by accident if they don't care for politics, the general consensus is that (watered down): right wing economics with left wing social views is just normal. Even in left wing spaces in real life and online that I have seen, people can so easily be categorised into like 7 different groups. I see your point in the bit I have quoted but in the same way I feel like atheism or apatheism is still a religion/ world view as athiests I know almost all treat their atheism or lack of care for religion as a community in itself.

Ideologies remain rigid because they're like recipies, although you may not like the meal at the end they all kind of make sense because you will tend to align with a set of political views that you feel will benefit you and mixing and matching different views that aren't in an already existing ideology will probably end up in some kind of mess of contradictions.

I'm not good at explaining shit but what I mean is that saying you don't have an ideology is such an individualist thing to say. Anyone who believes anything believes the same thing as millions of others. Political views are a spectrum but the vast majority of people congregate together on points of this spectrum. Democracy wouldn't work if every single person disagreed. I feel a lack of something is still something.

To the extent I think I understand you, I can see where you're coming from. My main point of criticism however is that notions like ideology, identity, narratives, religion, political and philosophical preferences and bias seem to be mixed in an unhelpful way.

And I know I'm adding a bunch of things you didn't (explicitly) mention. But I would argue you implicitly did.

We all have a personal identity (or narratives if you will) and biases. And those influence how we view the world obviously. But, to me, when you're saying ideologies are like recipes, it looks like you're crossing over from - lets say - philosophy to psychology. Or rather, it looks like you're mixing them up. And in a way I feel is not helpful. For the current discussion it'd be helpful to draw shap(er) distinctions between the two.

In my case, I'd argue it should be perfectly possible to say someone doesn't have a strong ideology on the one hand, but strong personal biases on the other. Having a strong ideology, to me, is like being part of a club. Wearing a T-shirt which says "Go Marx!". Or "I love Ayn Rand!", or something. Although wearing such a T-shirt doesn't necessarily imply having strong biases, because a person could be a fan - or an ideologist - but still open to other ideas. Point being: philosophies and psychologies are different things.

Most people, I'd argue, are mostly unaware of various ideologies. Even though they might have personal preferences which could be mapped onto one or more ideologies, if you will. (there's going to lots of contradictory beliefs in many regular people, I belief - which is not necessarily a bad thing btw) But that isn't the same as having an ideology, imo. If someone has a specific ideology, I'd argue they would have invested time in learning about the various ideologies and chosen a specific one as their favourite. In such a way that it informs them on what to think on other issues as well (like a recipe). To me, this is definitely not something I would say is the norm. And I also disagree that it would be an individualist thing to say. The norm is that most people are driven by psychology rather than philosophy.

Personally, I simply don't believe there's a single ideology as "the one with the best answers". And I don't think that's "individualist" to think either. When you'd map my political stance on various issues I imagine it wouldn't be consistent with a single ideology. And I personally feel that's fine. As I'm simply not interested in wearing a T-shirt supporting "the best" ideology.

Final point is about the hyper-partisan atmosphere in the US (mainly). That phenomenon in my eyes is in no way proof that everyone has an ideology. The hyper partisan atmosphere has different causes. People having ideologies is not one of them. People having (a strong sense of) ideologies would be a symptom rather than a cause, in my estimation.

[zero]

6 hours ago, auxien said:

we've gotta learn not to be animals all the time. people having kids is not itself the problem, of course. it's not even close to that simple. lots of people having lots of kids for generations has been and continues to be the problem in many parts of the world. no solution sounds good because the situation right now is bad, but some sound better than others.

learning to not act like animals of course takes people changing their core beliefs. this is what will be the biggest hurdle in the population control discussion. who is the force enforcing people to stop having as many kids? each country's government, of which there are tons of them out there that are corrupt as hell? how does this government, run by humans, successfully convince other humans to change their core beliefs? this will be a massive undertaking, which I do agree should occur, but am not convinced we are anywhere close to this realistically happening.

but as you mentioned, the natural forces out there - like climate change, pandemics (eh, sorta natural), etc. are what it will take to show people how dire this fuckin thing is right now, and hopefully(!) change some minds. if enough humans realize life on this planet is not sustainable long term, and the next generations are going to be fucked, then yeah, that a-ha moment needs to happen, and people start thinking long term consequences before they boink out 6 mouths to feed...and I hate to come off as a total negative downer, but this a-ha moment happening requires a lot of faith in other humans, and I'm just not sure on that part. look at the US for example, where 2 sides constantly go at it, no one trusts any one thanks to con men running the show, fueling the distrust out there among its citizens.

[auxien]

1 hour ago, zero said:

who is the force enforcing people to stop having as many kids?

none ever, hopefully. 

1 hour ago, zero said:

each country's government, of which there are tons of them out there that are corrupt as hell? how does this government, run by humans, successfully convince other humans to change their core beliefs?

science, gov, media, dumb internet forums, religions, etc., all need to simply present the evidence and let each person come to their own conclusions. a subset of the population will never listen/outright reject/whatever, and do what they're going to do. as long as that isn't incentivized (tax breaks for families, etc.) then it's fair, reasonable, and honest. 

1 hour ago, zero said:

but as you mentioned, the natural forces out there - like climate change, pandemics (eh, sorta natural), etc. are what it will take to show people how dire this fuckin thing is right now, and hopefully(!) change some minds.

yeah, this. i imagine the next 50 years is going to really do a lot of work towards this cause. 

1 hour ago, zero said:

and I hate to come off as a total negative downer, but this a-ha moment happening requires a lot of faith in other humans, and I'm just not sure on that part.

individual humans are stupid. large groups of humans tend towards making intelligent/obvious decisions (most of the time). where the real problems will arise is when the food and water starts to become scarce and we get wars based partly or solely on resource acquisition (Russia invading Ukraine is falls in this camp i believe)....and those decisions will negate some positive trends, but who knows how things will balance out over the next 100-200 years? it will balance out eventually tho. maybe in part by innovation, hopefully by some self-control....but if not, by famines, wars, and diseases. one of those paths is obviously better than the other, and population expansion makes the latter more likely than the former.

[brian trageskin]

11 hours ago, zero said:

remember Zeffo made a snarky comment based off of auxien's clearly sarcastic post about people stopping fucking...

oops, i thought zeff was commenting on nebraska's video. shit, i'm getting slow these days 

[milkface]

4 hours ago, Satans Little Helper said:

I'd argue they would have invested time in learning about the various ideologies and chosen a specific one as their favourite. In such a way that it informs them on what to think on other issues as well (like a recipe).

I could be misinterpreting you here but you're making it out that only people who dont agree with the status quo in their country have an ideology - like people that use the word propaganda to label ideas that go against their own ideas. (If two people are accusing each other of being propagandists then who is and who isn't?) The political ideology of each and every country is forced upon children in schools and by society in general, (as most states with a homogenous language and religion tend to be united), until the point that child disagrees or carries on agreeing with until the age of usually 15/16, just because you're not aware of it because it's simply normal in your country doesn't mean it's not there. Whether you're told something or you read it yourself you end up at the same conclusion.

For example, let's say a 22 year old guy in East Germany in 1977 just went with the flow and liked what was going on around him for the most part, I would argue that would make them a Marxist-Leninist, which is an ideology that requires time to be invested from someone who does not live in a Marxist-Leninist state, unlike the East German guy who will align with ML ideas through apathy and being content. Similarly, a person content with the UK's system is probably a neo-conservative, they will have become like this through the school and society, but someone in an ML country would have had to manually learn neo-conservatism.

Additionally I feel that ideologies themselves are a spectrum and aren't as rigid as people think, the most minor changes doesn't mean you're a different ideology, many are umbrellas for certain types of thought. People who align with the same ideology are allowed to disagree with each other on things.

[Satans Little Helper]

1 hour ago, milkface said:

I could be misinterpreting you here but you're making it out that only people who dont agree with the status quo in their country have an ideology - like people that use the word propaganda to label ideas that go against their own ideas.

I said nothing about a status quo. And to me, the status quo seems irrelevant. People who agree with a certain status quo might just as well have an ideology. I don't see why only people who don't agree with "the status quo" (whatever that means...) should have an ideology. And I also don't see the link with propaganda. Ideology and propaganda are two separate things. Propaganda is used to influence people on a larger scale.

Perhaps you're thinking from a perspective where the goal is to force the population into the mold of a certain ideology using propaganda? I'd use the term indoctrination, btw. But again, I consider that a completely separate subject. That belongs more in the totalitarian regimes (regardless of the ideology) context where a group of people need to be forced to think/do something.

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Satans Little Helper

[Nebraska]

 

[Nebraska]

Quote

MONTERREY, Mexico, July 29 (Reuters) - Mexico declared the water shortage in the northern state of Nuevo Leon a matter of "national security" on Friday as the region, home to Mexico's industrial capital, has been crippled by a worsening drought in recent months.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-declares-drought-northern-state-nuevo-leon-matter-national-security-2022-07-30/

also:

Quote

The city of Las Vegas has declared an emergency over its water supply after the Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak Fire, the largest wildfire in New Mexico history, contaminated the Gallinas River. The city relies solely on water from the river, which has been tainted with large amounts of fire-related debris and ash, according to city officials.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-declares-emergency-50-days-clean-water/story?id=87623219

this isn't looking too good is it?

[ignatius]

35 minutes ago, Nebraska said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-declares-drought-northern-state-nuevo-leon-matter-national-security-2022-07-30/

also:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-declares-emergency-50-days-clean-water/story?id=87623219

this isn't looking too good is it?

oof. mexico. gonna be tight. already sounds like they're up against it. 

in vegas.. meanwhile. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/monsoonal-rains-flood-streets-casinos-las-vegas-rcna40794

 

[iococoi]

long read..skip part 1..paragraphing is a bit excessive..otherwise

Quote

Dr. Dryden & The Missing Plankton: A (pre)cautionary tale of climate activism in 8 parts

https://seethroughnews.org/dr-dryden-the-missing-plankton-a-precautionary-tale-of-climate-activism-in-8-parts

Edited August 1, 2022 by iococoi

[Nebraska]

On 7/30/2022 at 4:27 PM, ignatius said:

oof. mexico. gonna be tight. already sounds like they're up against it. 

in vegas.. meanwhile. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/monsoonal-rains-flood-streets-casinos-las-vegas-rcna40794

 

that monsoon moisture is heading to california 

 

[ignatius]

5 hours ago, Nebraska said:

that monsoon moisture is heading to california 

 

raging fire in CA near the oregon border. all moisture is welcome i'm sure but would take lot's of sustained rain to make a difference in the drought. 

it drizzled for a split second today here. was unexpected. clouds and the sun went away a bit for a while. 

everything west of the mississippi needs gangbusters precipitation this fall/winter.

is this in this thread yet?