We're just bombarded with fear every day, even more so since COVID. More often than not it's BS (example in the 70's they feared that we would freeze to death by year 2000).
At one point the brain (at least mine) just lets go and tries to focus on something less draining.
We (humans) are just slightly evolved monkeys. We can rationalize all we want, our decisions are taken based on emotions.
We have built a much more complex world than we can really handle.
Why is it that those who want to fear monger about the current inflation and how long it will last are so resistant to the fears about sea level rise?
Wait until its determined how high the loss in real estate (especially as a tax base) will be with the sea a foot higher by 2050. Think of areas, especially Miami, that are in for serious impact without any mitigation plans.
People who hate to fear monger sure tend to horde guns, it's almost like they're afraid of something, so they have all these guns for protection... if there wasn't anything to fear, there wouldn't be a need for guns other than maybe sport/hunting related.
If they're not afraid, then maybe we can also start spending less on military and police because the world is safe-enough that we don't need to waste so much $$ on police force, etc... which often are the ones creating or escalating problems in society.
People love to blame BLM for destruction of property but guess how many riots there'd be if cops weren't allowed to murder people and get away with it, a hell of a lot less or if schools taught about things like the bombing of Black Wallstreet...
It's definitely a double standard... don't fear monger unless it involved a bigger police state for our protection, more guns - also for our protection, or bigotry (who to be afraid of and why...)...
Another commenter claimed science is often off about climate but lately I've been hearing how they're only wrong in that they under-predicted because to actually tell the truth is to scare the shit out of people and start panics or piss off business interests that pay money to the universities where they work, etc...
Based on the track record of historical climate predictions, it is rational to be surprised if one turns out to be accurate. Predictions are not facts, and they have been screaming them for decades. They have consistently been inaccurate, and tainted by political influences. There is good science on climate change, but there is also a lot of bad science on it, specifically in terms of future projections.
There's an undescribable absurdism of this era. People have data, history, sociology, models, medias. You make conferences, reports, warnings, yet the sad prophecy still lands just as remembered.
It's like Hofstadter's law applied to catastrophe.
I'm always reminded of Kubrick's comments on the risk of nuclear weapons:
"People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction. The longer the bomb is around without anything happening, the better the job that people do in psychologically denying its existence. It has become as abstract as the fact that we are all going to die someday, which we usually do an excellent job of denying." [0]
That last bit invokes some of the research behind Terror Management Theory: first and foremost, we are wired to avoid risks to our survival. But that drive is mediated by subjective qualia: avoiding mortal fear. The best way to do that is to prevent circumstances of immediate danger: don't poke the bear, don't play near the edge of a cliff. But when it comes to dangers of limited individual agency (systemic risk, black swans), it makes complete sense that evolution would select for "try not to think about it".
Maybe the scope limit of our deep brains is only a "thing" in large groups. Being short sighted is nothing if you're alone, you trip, you choke, you get whacked by a rock. In a semi organized society, the sudden too-late-bound reflex triggers an avalanche of failure.
I would generally agree, which is why I think the discourse around "misinformation" (IMO, both a legitimate concern, and a moral panic) is missing the forest for the trees.
Our failures to respond reasonably and proportionally to threats, be they ecological, medical, economic, military, even political, are all downstream of a crisis of trust, not only in institutions, but in each other. And as with broken trust in personal relationships, rebuilding that trust is non-trivial.
One observation I've made time and again throughout my life: a large chunk people live their life using a very simple, greedy algorithm (not as in greed, but greedy in the sense algo theory): deal with problems when they appear, and don't think about them until they do.
This is why people build houses in the path of lava erupting from a volcano: it's never an issue until it becomes one.
The smaller portion of folks who do plan ahead (because they are capable of it) and anticipate problems before they occur is the portion that gets ahead.
I don't think this is something that is specific to this era.
Sure, it's happened since the dawn of humanity. What is different is that we have tools and structures that are leagues ahead of any previous era. Stats, math, communication, everything is up to 11, and yet it doesn't affect much of the social response.
It's not like people don't know, it's more like there's not much we can do about it (other than voting).
It's up to governments to come up with and enforce laws that prevent corporations from releasing millions of metric tons of greenhouse gasses. Without strict laws in place, there's too little incentive from being moral or being long-term oriented, also your competition who don't will run you out of business with the extra profits.
There's also very few consumers willing to investigate/research the pollution generated from all companies related to making/delivering the products they buy. So being "greener" isn't really much of an advantage.
Nah, Covid showed that even with epidemic projections people would still under react at first, causing the exponential rise, then over reacting too late.
Our data don't take mob psychology enough in account, the curve is not really a quantitative map it's a psychology fractal. It means 'even with this curve in front of you, you will still follow the pattern causing it to happen'
And people like Leonardo DiCaprio fly their private jet to a conference, to tell Johnny average not to drive his car to work but instead use a bike. The same issues are apearing in many other future catastrophies, where a few big actors cause most of the damage, and the governments want to "do something", and then ban straws and make fuel a bit more expensive for average people, while not touching the main polluters.
I thought Leo was mostly calling out huge companies and industry for polluting? They are after all the majority of polluters by far compared to any individuals - rich or poor.
Then again just by living in most western societies on an individual level, even if we do try our best, we are essentially guaranteed to have a massively higher footprint than someone living in most third world countries.
Of course people forget he brough hummers to civilians,... And being a rich guy, caring for the environment, he could be driving a tesla (or something smaller, to use even less energy), but nope... he drives a monostrosity of a SUV (GMC Yukon - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10440521/Arnol... )
When the water and resource wars start (the final battles/world wars), I hope people realize who created this. I hope we don't just fight each other over water, and actually cannibalize the wealthy oligarchs, for all they've done to accerbate and accelerate things.
We may all die, but at least if they die first there'll be some justice... and maybe we get a few extra years without one of them polluting as much as 50 million people in a single year...
i'm really saddened that I have boys under 4, and they have to really live through some of the worst of this. It's going to be a much harsher world, and it already isn't very amicable to anyone who isn't already wealthy.
Nothing? We’re well on the way to making gas-powered vehicles obsolete and nuclear power widespread.
I think some level of saying “the sky is falling” is okay but you’re only going to be able to inspire voters with progress - negativity doesn’t win elections.
Source? Nuclear power is highly unpopular and hanging on by a thread in the United States. Our reactors are in disrepair and do not make a profit without subsidies.
Nuclear power is shrinking with no new plants being built and old ones being decommisioned. So spreading is definitely not the word I would have used either.
Micro nuclear reactors are being built not far from me. I expect nuclear to grow substantially in the US at least in the midwest. My state is already green with many windmills, solar farms, hydro plants. The only thing they have not explored very far yet is geothermal and there is plenty of opportunities for that here too.
I'm skeptical that micro nuclear reactors will ever be economically viable (without subsidies) for grid scale power production. There are huge economies of scale in fission power once you account for labor costs, site security, and thermodynamic efficiency. Bigger is better.
Micro reactors are more suited to isolated areas disconnected from the grid.
Nuclear power is unpopular but sometimes leaders need to lead by doing the unpopular thing, every now and again we get good ones.
For all their flaws (and there are many, don't trust a Tory) our government in the UK has done a good-ish job with environmental policy. Not great, but not like the early Trump admin going full retard over fossil fuels, science etc.
> Nuclear power is unpopular but sometimes leaders need to lead by doing the unpopular thing
The biggest flaw of democracy is that politicians need votes, for them and their party, and getting them is their main objective. They do unpopular things, but make immense efforts to spin it as desirable.
Climate change will be properly addressed until the general population suffers from it, and threatens to vote for someone who actually does something. At that point, an emergency state could be declared and the votes won't be as valuable.
Was Trump's policy towards nuclear bad? I seem to recall that his admin green-lit in-country efforts that were effectively on ice for quite a while - TREAT, ARDP, the VTR, micro/small reactors, Vogtle approval.
And an opening statement from Forbes article in Dec 2020: "By most accounts, President-elect Joe Biden will continue President Trump’s nuclear energy legacy — to aggressively develop U.S. technology for export to the international market within five to seven years." https://www.forbes.com/sites/dipkabhambhani/2020/12/01/biden...
The negativity is needed because too many people think the sky is not falling. The can has been sufficiently kicked and the problem has become a fact of life. There hasn't been mass mobilizations for climate policy in 30 years. The oil barons won.
Yet people still rail against an EV company because "tweets" and continue to suck on big auto that held us back on purpose because their factories were built for ICE engines, and ya'know, cheated on emission tests.
But no, getting angry and emotional is not the answer. We're reducing our emissions, mostly thanks to natural gas (fracking) displacing coal, but part due to alternatives like wind and solar. Some states like Texas run on wind for the full day at times, only tapping into non-renewables during peak loads.
We've made great progress and some people need to calm down or they look crazy (some are), diminishing their cause.
Some people seem to treat "green" as a religion. The sin you're born with is your carbon footprint. You can do everything and it's still not enough. You have to flagellate yourself, you need to convert everyone else to live your lifestyle, you need to give this and that up. You need to live without electricity, without transportation, without meat, etc. Some positions are counter productive to the cause or are simply useless (banning straws instead of sanctioning foreign countries/companies for dumping plastic waste that they buy from us)
Be a conservationist, not an environmentalist. Clean the Earth, make it better, but stop with the doomsday speeches and flagellation.
It's as if there aren't multiple issues at play. There can be securities fraud, China level spying on your driving, terrible quality issues (the Model S), and all sorts of other negative things that contrast the good that is Tesla.
Spending 30k on a car is a huge financial decision and some people just can't afford to take that decision lightly no matter how much they believe in climate change.
For context I own a fair bit of Tesla stock and am a big fan. But I am hesitant to buy one myself, as much as I'd love to.
The reason people go overboard worrying about their carbon footprint is because fossil fuel companies have a strategy of making global warming 'our' fault, and a consequence of individual action instead of recognizing it's too large of a problem for us to tackle individually. We need government regulation in the form of a carbon tax. Want to drive a dodge viper to work? Knock yourself out. Your carbon taxes will help fund a few KW clean nuclear power.
Ah yes, more taxes to pay for the taxes and over regulation on nuclear.
The fossil fuel companies that you think are out to get you are the only ones actually reducing emissions. Fracking gave access to so much natural gas it displaced coal, reducing emissions year over year.
Those energy companies also invest in wind farms, solar, everything. The gov gives out taxpayer money like hotcakes for "green" solutions, why not take advantage?
the drop in emissions we need to not pass 1.5C of warming is not within the time frame of construction/operation of full nuclear power (for the entire world, not just the US).
Electric cars exist to (temporarily?) save the auto industry. The decrease we get in purely tailpipe emissions does not offset the supporting infrastructure, their construction, and the sprawl that they demand.
Even Exxon is not putting 1.5C targets (where even then a lot of real people die) in their "sustainability" reports anymore. Everything needs to stop at 2030 at the latest, and I personally have no hope that that is possible.
Not even hitting the brakes. We're over the cliff and people are still arguing over whether we should ease on the accelerator a bit and if so, how much.
No one knew about climate change in 1957. It was a theoretical possibility that required decades of research, development, and infrastructure to prove. You're talking about literal terraforming - no one was sure that such a thing was actually possible. And even today we are still discovering novel mechanisms which obscure, regulate, or amplify temperature fluctuations. The case against 195X oil companies is overstated - though it makes for a convenient scapegoat.
In response to: >"No one knew about climate change in 1957."
Climate change due to industrial emissions of CO2 has been known and published in mainstream news articles since at least 110 years ago.[0][1]
It's been known and discussed in public by professional scientists for over 140 years[2].
The great inaugural Nobel Prize winner, Arrhenius, wrote a paper on the topic in 1896[3] which cited Fourier's publication from 1827[4].
More generally, global greenhouse effect of CO2 has been known for at least 185 years[4], a decade before the last founding father of the United States died.
4: M ́emoire sur les Temp ́eratures du Globe Terrestre et des Espaces Plan ́etaires, M ́emoires d l’Acad ́emie Royale des Sciences de l’Institute de France VII 570-604 (1827): https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/Fourier1827Trans.pd... (English Translation)
[0] >the effect may be considerable in a few centuries
[1] >and whether there any important ways in which it [CO2] is being removed from the atmosphere
[2] Even more interesting, the doomsday predictions are more than a hundred years old as well:
>THERE was a letter in NATURE some time since, calling attention to the pollution of the atmosphere by the burning of coal; and it was calculated that in the year 1900, all animal life would cease, from the amount of carbonic dioxide
Hindsight is 20/20. Yes, now, after decades of study and billions of dollars in measurement and modeling infrastructure, this particular theory appears to be panning out. But to pretend that we knew with any certainty 100 or even 60 years ago that this was a likely outcome drastically oversimplifies the complex and chaotic global climate system. It is effectively revisionist history and even more importantly the warming necessary to confirm such theories did not really take off until the last few decades, ignoring that 60 years ago we did not have the spatial coverage to measure it with sufficient density and precision to verify a phenomenon on the scale of global climate change.
And on top of all that, we are measuring a chaotic, periodic, oscillating system, and it is impractical to draw any conclusions
about differences in future trends about without at an absolute minimum decades of quality sampling.
So, again, people who claim that the petroleum industry knew about climate change and irresponsibly and continued to put the future of the planet in peril in the name of profits are dramatically underestimating the scope and scale of the theory and the degree of infrastructure and analysis necessary to prove it with any certainty.
my own particular PDF copy of Big Oil research showing climate change from carbon burning, is dated in the 1970s. It is a clear research result at the time. They even predict a two percent rise in temps, around now.. there is no question at all. I read it from time to time.
"How are you so great at resolving questions about comets, when you know nothing about astronomy or orbital mechanics? Presumably because you have the right heuristics, the ones about which authorities to trust and which ones not to. But what are those right heuristics? The writers of Don’t Look Up spend 2 hours 18 minutes demonstrating that they have no idea and can’t even keep their answer consistent from one moment to the next."
