Australian Atheists Forum

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... tists-warn

Nothing really new here for those who try to keep track of these things, but i appreciated the article for highlighting what a wild gamble the world is making. 'Tipping points' is a concept that has waned in fashion recently. Possibly because it is suggestive of a distant future, like the 'by 2100' meme of climate analysis that puts everyone alive today perfectly at ease with the world.

Anyway, the article points out that any of the tipping points mentioned are likely to produce a significant and unpredictable climactic outcome, which in turn could trigger all the other tipping points and from which there would be no return for tens of thousands of years. Obviously, civilisation won't survive any of it and we really have no certain way of knowing how close we are to any of this. So capitalism as usual. That's the gamble that capitalists are making on behalf of you and me and billions of youthful and unborn people, mammals generally, birds, forests...just most of life as it currently exists.

I have started wondering which summer will do for me; this, next, the one after?

A small town in Australia has topped the charts to be named the hottest place on Earth as heatwave conditions left most of the country sweltering.

Marree, a small service town in the north of South Australia, is fairly unassuming most days.

With a population of fewer than 100 people, the town acts as a service centre for the large sheep and cattle stations in northeast SA.

Watch the latest news and stream for free on 7plus >>

But on Wednesday it became the hottest place on Earth when temperatures in the town reached a scorching 46.4C.

According to online world temperatures site El Dorado Weather, Australia took out not just the No.1 spot, but was also home to the top 15 hottest places in the world, including locations in Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales.

In fact five states on Wednesday reached extreme temperatures of over 44C, with the Bureau of Meteorology saying high temperatures are expected to continue until the end of the week.

https://7news.com.au/news/marree-in-sou ... c-12814200

Sydney - 40+ tomorrow, maybe even 44 out near Penrith.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nation ... 5eq1c.html

Inevitable COP failure approaching. It looks like the only thing which will convince the world to avert the disaster is the disaster itself. But it's already started, so it will have to be the disaster in a more advanced stage.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/clim ... 5eqqz.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... scientists

I barely followed this year's cop, but i note, despite the headlines, there was groundbreaking development. (Maybe not 'groundbreaking' perhaps, maybe more ground...touching, very gently, featherish).

Yes, for the first time in 30 years 'fossil fuels' are mentioned in negotiations! We're really making progress now. They'll be 'transitioned' from now on, or from now to some distant futuristic point in time, 'transitioning' will take place, or rather, it would be nice if we transitioned away from....fossil fuels....but it's entirely up to each country to decide how and when to do that and there's absolutely no enforcement mechanism so...yeah 'fossil fuels.'

The breakthrough was saying 'fossil fuels.' Wow. That's where we're at.

stylofone wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:50 am Inevitable COP failure approaching. It looks like the only thing which will convince the world to avert the disaster is the disaster itself. But it's already started, so it will have to be the disaster in a more advanced stage.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/clim ... 5eqqz.html

The thing with statements such as that, "we did not come to sign our death warrant," is that people, and corporations, never actually think they are signing their own death warrants when that is in fact exactly what they are doing. Nokia is a prime example of this of course, once one of the largest phone manufacturers in the world, they ignored change at their peril, smartphones at the time of the release of the very first iPhone were considered to be a fad, so they sat back and did nothing while the world changed around them!



You either embrace change or change passes you by, it never stops and waits for you, that's not how change works. Our only hope is that the change is fast enough to avert catastrophe, there are powers in the world, the US GOP with Trump at the helm as an example, that struggle against change with all their might, it's up to the people to embrace change so overwhelmingly that they are swept away. One day we will look back and say, well this was beginning of the end of them.

stevebrooks wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 2:08 amOur only hope is that the change is fast enough to avert catastrophe

It's got to the point where I don't believe we can avert catastrophe. There are two kinds of change going on, the one you refer to where the fantastic new renewable technology is going to overwhelm the fossil fuel dinosaurs, Nokia style.

The other one is the change to the climate itself, and the growing probability that it will wipe out a large part of the earth's human population and habitat and cause a collapse in large-scale industrial society, including the
energy transition industry.

Since COVID and the frightening climate effects of 2023, I'm expecting the latter. I used to be all "rah rah rah, renewables, solar, energy transition". I still love all that technology, I just don't think it's going to work and it just ends up being a distraction, therefore part of the problem. Even the climate protesters out on the street holding up placards saying "Renewables Now" don't get it. They need new slogans, some way of selling the idea of energy austerity, a concept which is antithetical to our system of economic growth, competition, personal wealth, consumerism, prosperity. "Energy Austerity". "Live SImply". "Degrowth". "Consume Less". Something like that.

It would also be good to have a new manufacturing standard which would create products which last 100 years or more, so you buy a washing machine or whatever, and you pass it on to your children and grandchildren. I don't know of any manufacturers with that philosophy. It will have to be done by someone outside the capitalist system. Even the government won't do it because governments are now chained to capitalism and growth.

stylofone wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 7:10 am

stevebrooks wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 2:08 amOur only hope is that the change is fast enough to avert catastrophe

...It would also be good to have a new manufacturing standard which would create products which last 100 years or more, so you buy a washing machine or whatever, and you pass it on to your children and grandchildren. I don't know of any manufacturers with that philosophy. It will have to be done by someone outside the capitalist system. Even the government won't do it because governments are now chained to capitalism and growth.

That's the pointy end of the dilemma. The push for renewable energy has become a strategy to prolong capitalism, which requires infinite growth, increased consumption and unlimited wealth accumulation. Our gov.co, along with various economists, openly depict renewables as an 'opportunity,' as in, there's shit loads of money to be made from it. Factor in capitalism's tendency toward enshitification and it's not hard to imagine cheap and nasty small scale renewable technology swamping the market - such as solar panels and batteries that cost next to nothing but only last a year or two. Good profits to be made there. What's more, 'renewable' is a little misleading in so far as these technologies require 'non-renewable' materials - metals, minerals, plastics and so on. They require mining, and it's various ecologically disastrous infrastructure, and manufacturing - and there's the question of what to do with all this 'renewable' junk when it doesn't work anymore. And all this set to the rhythm of a ticking clock which is counting down to a major tipping point like a widespread permafrost melt or the collapse of an antarctic ice shelf.

That quote about it being easier to imagine the world ending than capitalism ending is basically a truism at this point. Capitalism will consume industrial civilisation until it doesn't exist anymore, it will consume its own context, which means it is ultimately an invisible nihilistic illness. Invisible because it has no leaders, no strategists, no theorists, no promoters, no marketers and no discernible presence and yet it is everywhere and all pervasive to the point where everyone is it's leader, strategist, theorist, promoter, marketer and living testament to its complete domination of collective reality.

The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to abandoned 'hope,' which in this context translates to maintaining a global civilisation. To surrender that hope is to imagine a world without capitalism and that is what the world needs. And in the imagining of post-capitalist life we might come up with some truly sustainable ways of being in the world. So i guess i have no hope in global society continuing but i do have hope for life itself, including our species.

pipbarber wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:14 am The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to abandoned 'hope,' which in this context translates to maintaining a global civilisation. To surrender that hope is to imagine a world without capitalism and that is what the world needs. And in the imagining of post-capitalist life we might come up with some truly sustainable ways of being in the world. So i guess i have no hope in global society continuing but i do have hope for life itself, including our species.

Yes indeed. I very much doubt our current societal makeup is actually sustainable even in the short term, in the long term it is indeed doomed.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... one-jasper

Cyclone Jasper’s slow-moving progress across the Coral Sea exposed as much as 20% of the Great Barrier Reef to waves high enough to break apart corals, according to modelling from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims).

Scientists are also concerned flood waters from ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper that drained out into the reef’s lagoon waters could affect corals and seagrass meadows close to shore.

I usually think of feedback loops in a big picture sense, as in, what happens if the permafrost melts and billions of tons of methane is released into the atmosphere, but the little feedback loops that come from isolated disasters like floods and fires are cumulatively just as bad. The GBR is under pressure from bleaching, as we all know, but chuck in giant waves and toxic run off from floods and the future of the reef starts looking far from viable.