Australian Atheists Forum

My take on a climate created apocalyptic scenario has been for awhile based around it being a slow motion affair involving a series of catastrophic weather events one after the other. Betwixt all this Australians will develop local systems of support and survival that will vary in nature enormously. Some cooperative, some violent and everything in between but ultimately some will stabilise and survive, not all but some and probably they'll be rural based. Government support will decrease with every disaster and its last act will be protecting the property of the wealthy.

Being forced to consider the possibility of a sudden collapse, a fast motion apocalypse, i'd maintain the above response but temper it with how short lived our adaptive social creations will be and with absolutely no certainty that any one will survive. A runaway climate with exponential increase to say...2.5C...3C, 4C and everything will just die.

Still, all that's changed is the conception of time. As individuals we are all going to die and as a mammalian species we too have a limited time span, so nothing has really changed except the nearness of the horizon.

We try to survive and hang on for as long as possible and with as much dignity and care for each other as can be mustered. Bring your best to the apocalypse, because there's no second show, and if there's no apocalypse we might be better off for having seriously considered the possibility anyway.

Ah...another morning, another disastrous climate report.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ts-confirm

So July, the hottest month on record, averaged 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. It doesn't count though because it was only a month and not a full year. However, we have an El Nino about to begin, so it's highly likely 2024 will exceed 1.5C.

The third IPCC report (TAR) from 2001, to choose one at random, says:

The TAR estimate for the climate sensitivity is 1.5 to 4.5 °C; and the average surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius degrees over the period 1990 to 2100...

Lol! So best case scenario was only out by 75 years or so.

pipbarber wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 8:11 amLol! So best case scenario was only out by 75 years or so.

It makes one think that the worst case scenario is now more likely, or maybe it needs to be adjusted to be even worse again, i.e. higher than 5.8 by 2100. 5.8! Yikes!

The eyebrows I might have raised at some of the more dire predictions (human extinction?) might need to come down a little bit.

Actually, the IPCC report from last year is still crapping on about staying under 1.5C.

In all the represented Shared Socioeconomic Pathways the temperature reaches the 1.5 °C warming limit, at least for some period of time in the middle of the 21st century. However, Joeri Rogelj, director of the Grantham Institute and a lead IPCC author, said that it is possible to completely avoid warming of 1.5 °C, but to achieve that the world would need to cut emissions by 50% by the year 2030 and by 100% by the year 2050.

From Wiki.

What on earth will the next report say if we go over 1.5C next year? 'Oh...yes...we were wildly wrong...yep we're all fucked...'?

It's very hard to see any positives in climate change news of late, and by positive I mean any hope for future generations (of humans anyway)..

Clearly we are shit out of luck and things are turning out towards worst case scenarios, yet at the same time so many are either still denying it is happening at all or are just far too apathetic.

While the heatwaves, wildfires and floods are the most dramatic examples of the way burning fossil fuels is altering our climate, there are less obvious dangers. Research into the number of mosquito species resident in Finland has just added number 44: Culex modestus. This is a surprise because this is a tropical species and a known carrier of the West Nile virus, which causes an illness that used to associated mainly with central Africa.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/a ... mate-heats

joele wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 10:49 am It's very hard to see any positives in climate change news of late, and by positive I mean any hope for future generations (of humans anyway)..

Clearly we are shit out of luck and things are turning out towards worst case scenarios, yet at the same time so many are either still denying it is happening at all or are just far too apathetic.

Pip's wry laugh at the "extinction" article has me thinking about black humour is its many forms. Anger at deniers or the apathetic hordes or the deluded optimists is understandable, but perhaps a LOL in some form is a more satisfying position to take.

stylofone wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 2:10 pm(El Snippo rides again!)

Pip's wry laugh at the "extinction" article has me thinking about black humour is its many forms. Anger at deniers or the apathetic hordes or the deluded optimists is understandable, but perhaps a LOL in some form is a more satisfying position to take.

And First Dog On The Moon informs us the Oz GovCo are cutting funds for research into Antarctic sea ice.

"Because there's less of it"? Tell me that's a cruel cartoonist joke, sir.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... antarctica

Just to underscore the general point that media, politics, society generally aren't taking this seriously enough - NY Times puts the Iran prisoner exchange above the Hawaii disaster.