#261
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#262

Also, I know the bigger picture just goes way beyond this but every time I see those photos of the fluffy polar bears with nowhere to live I just want to bawl my eyes out

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#263

i think about how if i have a kid, she’ll most likely grow up in a world without snow leopards. this has a visceral impact on me that abstract stats and graphs often don’t, which i think is a good way of prompting me to do my bit.

#264

It’s their own silly fault for living on a surface that only exists at certain temperatures really, isn’t it?

#266

You can say that about any species/surface tbf

#267

We’ll really have to do a lot more short haul flying if we’re going to prove you right about the earth leopards to be fair.

#268

Rock isn’t quite as susceptible to temperature as ice though.

Idiot polar bears.

#269

i’ve lost all ability to care about brexit atm tbh

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#270

might seem like a weird reply but you sound like an awesome parent. whatever the future holds, all we have is the present and it sounds like both of you appreciate and cherish it!

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#271

That’s very kind, thank you. I guess that’s all anyone can do, is to hold on to the good in their everyday lives.

#272

Practical-ish article from The Graun:

Interesting point about meat consumption. Basically, if you’re eating beef you don’t really care about climate change…

#273

That led me onto this article, which contains the worst infographic I can ever recall seeing.

#274

when i read somewhere (might not be the article i’m linking to) about how different meats cause massively different amount of carbon emissions i did actually change my habits a bit, i try to eat more chicken and less beef basically

from here http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-top-10-foods-with-the-biggest-environmental-footprint-2015-9

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#275

25 degrees in mid October! Not all bad is it?!

(cries into cornetto ice cream)

#276

posted this in another thread but it belongs here really. this is another reason to feel gloomy, pernicious influence of fossil fuel industry on the “free” press

#278

This is a nice graph:

6 degrees above present present-day (roughly) was during the Miocene, about 20-50 million years BP (not 250 million), a period when things were pretty good for mammals. Extinctions around 250m years ago (when temperature was higher still) were thought to be caused by Siberian volcanic eruptions that resulted in climate change. The latter didn’t cause the extinctions.

That shortlist article isn’t helpful in my view. It’s 2012 / Day After Tomorrow doomsaying which is the worst sort of scaremongering. Yes, we should minimise our environmental impact, yes, we should try and ensure that happens by voting for parties who take the environment seriously, but no, we shouldn’t drag ourselves into helpless panic by reading this sort of stuff. What is it achieving? The author normally writes fluff about social media and the Apprentice, so he’s not exactly a reliable source. There’s no real evidence in his piece and there’s no referencing.

All this sort of stuff needs to be tempered by an understanding of i) how short the measured record is of climate change, and ii) how poor models are at predicting even small aspects of physical geography or climate. The global climate is immensely complex and there is significant overconfidence (in my view) in the models that are used to predict temperatures to within a half degree of accuracy over very specific timeframes. The reality of what will happen in the future is probably a warming earth, but I think the shortlist article is overstating things.

#279

that last paragraph sounds a bit too much like people who claim climate change is a myth for my liking

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#280

i wouldn’t say scaremongering is unhelpful in this context, and i generally don’t like scaremongering. it feels necessary. i do think it’s somewhat unhelpful to single out an aspect of one individual’s existence and tell them that it means they don’t care about the environment or are a nihilist. there’s plenty of people out there who don’t give a shit about anything other than their selfish interests but there’s also plenty of gray areas in life.
i’ve long beaten the drum on here that change HAS to come from the top down, even if i’ve probably got more conscientous about my own waste/footprint

#281

Do you see catastrophic climate change happening then?

#282

No, but incremental climate change yes, probably with sufficient time for some adaptation (though I’m sure water shortages and refugee issues will continue and worsen, boiling oceans, no). There’s also a lot of unknown about feedback effects and how these will play out (for example, there’s significant and generally acknowledged ‘greening’ going on with increases in CO2, and these are positive from the point of view of absorption of greenhouse gases - see this Nasa view: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth). It is very difficult to be sure, hence the precautionary principle should apply.

In terms of @no-class’s comment above on skepticism, many people just don’t bother posting in threads like these if they even intimate anything outside the mainstream view (or even question it) because they fear being widely ostracized. The result is the bias of views (in a thread like these) is overwhelmingly doomladen. If that makes people feel very depressed, that’s a serious thing (hence me sticking my head above the parapet to be shot off).

In terms of background, I’m a physical geographer working in the environment, largely on renewables projects and frequently on habitat restoration projects, but still think it’s wise to try and grapple with all sides of the arguments. I used to be an academic and it was absolutely the case (even 20 years ago) that the easiest way to get funding for future work was to add a ‘things will be worse under climate change, so can we have some money to see how much worse they will be’. I left academia and decided to be something more practical instead (applying knowledge). Definitely keep appraised of what’s going on, but don’t let it get you down. Do what you can, and stay well.

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