Are climate doomers right?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ค. 2024
- A growing number of people believe that humanity is doomed because of climate change, while some are even full-blown preparing for a world post-collapse. Like Ben Green, who calls himself a “happy doomer”. Join me as I visit the old army barracks he calls home, to figure out if he’s right to be preparing for such an eventuality.
Credits:
Author: Aditi Rajagopal
Camera: Henning Goll
Video Editors: Henning Goll, Aditi Rajagopal
Supervising Editor: Michael Trorbridge
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
#planeta #Doomer #Climatepsychology
With thanks for interviews (included and not)
Dr Inger Andersen: www.unep.org/people/inger-and...
Dr Susan Clayton: wooster.edu/bio/sclayton/
Marcy Franck: hsph.me/ClimateOptimist
Dr Joëlle Gergis: www.joellegergis.com/
Ben Green: thebarracks.substack.com/
Zeke Hausfather: / hausfath
Caroline Hickman: caroline-hickman.com/index.html
Ben Knight: benknight.de/
Dr Friederike Otto: / frediotto
Laura Schmidt: www.goodgriefnetwork.org/
Read more:
IPCC FAQs: www.ipcc.ch/sr15/faq/faq-chap...
Climate anxiety in young people: a global survey: www.thelancet.com/journals/la...
Climate anxiety, wellbeing and action: www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:26 The barracks
03:53 The Science
08:12 Inaction
12:31 Action
What do you make of climate dystopia? Are you with Ben or do you think we still have a chance for change?
with the current heatwave experienced, it feels pretty grim
probably
I think if more people thought about this issue with Ben's seriousness we would have a better chance to act in time to avoid doom.
"What do you make of climate dystopia?"
The situation looks really, really bad. Though at least a majority of the population here in Germany does not completely deny anymore that climate change is real, still most people have no idea of the scale of the catastrophy that is about to come. Reality always turned out far worse than even the most pessimistic scientific models predicted, and the process is happening much faster than anticipated.
"Are you with Ben or do you think we still have a chance for change?"
Though Ben may be right that "the" big catastrophy may be inevitable, he does not take into account that climate change is a gradual process. Sure, 1,5°C is an illusion, we already surpassed that, 2°C will be almost impossible to achieve even if we fully hit the brakes on emissions today. Catastrophy may be inevitable, but there is still a huge difference between 3, 4, 6 or 8°C of warming.
So my personal philosophy? The question if we are already doomed or not has no effect on how I act. To me, it is a moral obligation to try everything I can, period.
From my vantage point, the chance to change is reduced. Climate change is well on its way, and even stopping CO2 emissions right now, will not prevent ensuing increase in global temperature over the next century or more. So the next best thing would be a) reduction of emissions and b) planned adaptation to avoid the worst. Tipping points and positive feedback loops (arctic methane) have already started.
For any useful adaption to work, there needs to be near universal acceptance of the measures to take. For this to happen, there needs to be more true statespersons (vs statesmen) instead of politicians as we know them in the US. Further, universal buy in can only happen if wealth disparity is greatly reduced, and all humans and species are supported. Who is likely to buy in to a solution, if they are poorly treated, underpaid, and forced into poverty? Who will sacrifice and change, if the well off don't have to?
Good reporting by DW. But let me point out that I notice the journalist was using a MacBookPro if I am not mistaken. Isn't the source of these consumer electronics actually slave wage factories in a certain country reputed to do this? Is this inequality part of the problem? Is purchasing and using these devices, produced by essentially slaves, kind of complicit in the fundamental problems?
"its easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism'
The more people, the more capitalism, the more energy, manufacturing and pollution, the more people... Unlimited growth was always unsustainable. The planet has caught a fever to solve the problem that is too many of us. Meanwhile, one country, Russia, has started a war and in some ways derailed what little progress we were making (and helped in other ways), BECAUSE it is determined to raise the price of its oil (capitalism).
Everyone should see this video: it lays out many of the most salient arguments.
exactly
shhhhh you cant say that stuff, just say that the market will do everything itself (ignore the coal corporations that reach record profits yearly)
so true!!
@@mrcuttime22 Being capitalism the problem doesn't lead to "more capitalism, more people", this is definatly not what is happening, since the rich countries (and many of middle income contries) have low and declining fertility rates. Also, capitalism and consumerism being the problem, doesn't make the problem being superpopulation. There is a reason of why populous and poor countries contribute less to climate change than rich and smaller countires. So, looking at the data, there is no sigh of the amount of people or the birth rates being the problem. Logically, population decline or control isn't the solution either. The important thing is lifestyle and capitalism(or, at least, production). On the other side, raisng the price of oil doesn't equate to rising the price of capitalism. Althought, Russia raising the price(including the risk) of gas being the most important, oil prices are still going down and than shows an profund change: oil consumption isn't going to grow much further.
A true fatalist wouldn't care about making the environment worse. Burn coal to make your bunker, it doesn't matter anymore. What he's doing is preparing but not making things worse, so even if he's detached from society he's still helping us, relatively speaking.
And that is his own "call to action".
I'm surprised he's getting all the criticism. He is growing his own food, he doesn't drive, nor probably use much electricity. They're acting as if he isn't doing anything for the climate. He is doing more than what most of us are doing. We're at the mercy of energy companies. We ask them to build more solar & wind farms. Ben- he just stops his electricity usage.
@@rephaelreyes8552 he said it himself, what he's doing has a significant psychological effect on people who don't have the capacity to understand the science. If I dropped out of high school and heard my homie Ben had moved to the countryside to avoid climate doom, that's a lot more real than the government telling me solar panels are better than coal plants. He's not making the point that we have to live without electricity and modernity, he knows that it could work, he's just making the point that the way we've done it has screwed the pooch. So yea, he's wrong, but his message is perfectly valid.
There's a difference between criticism and disagreement.
no true scotsman, very convincing
Or what he really thinks is that the likelihood of full blown catastrophe is 99+%, but he's still holding out hope that we can beat the odds and salvage the future.
even if it turns out that we were not doomed and reverted anthropogenic climate change, this dude took part in it as well by drawing people's attention to the topic and leading the way with his very sustainable life style. Cheers to him! Truly, he's doing more than most of us.
@@kevinjensen2071 lul
I adopted Ben's lifestyle back in the 70's in a remote area of Montana. I've been growing my own ever since so I've been prepped for a long time. Still, I only know a very small percentage of people that really care enough to make a change. The vast majority of humans just want the status quo. Over the last 60 years I have seen things get vastly worse. I think for the most part human society is reactive and will wait until the crisis slaps them in the face before they are willing to make sacrifices to avert the disaster which is already looming here in slow motion.
If everyone changes to your life style best be prepared for LOTS of neighbours because there wont be enough land for everyone. glad you are doing what you are doing you are at least attempting to change things which as you say most of us are not.
How did you type this and how do you have internet if you live like Ben? How can you afford a computer? How did you access a place that sells computers? Do you have to be technically savvy as well as farm savvy? It would be nice to know how this works. Kudos for you for taking action!
@@hexatorus5452 I lived on the edge of a wilderness area in Montana in the 70s and 80s, but I moved to Tennessee in the 90s and I now have electricity and internet. I used the internet to make a living since then. Yes, once the internet was invented I taught myself how to build websites and program software to earn $ remotely. I have electricity and running water at my current location because it is very convenient, but I know how to live without it. And I still grow 90% of my food all organic. I am close to self-sufficient but I live close to a city now. The city has crept out around me.
@@rickmoore52 Very cool
“Doomers” actually make the most changes to their lifestyles that minimize harm. Optimism leads to Business as Usual and inaction because of the feeling that someone else will take care of it.
This!
Bingo!🎉
Ding ding ding we have a winner! That's the point. Whoever is really aware of the situation can't help becoming a doomer. And doomer doesn't mean raise hands and do nothing because the actual people doing nothing are the ones that actively think we can save ourselves.
you are SO Right. Im 62 and been prepping since the crazy half of the country elected a treasonous traitor to POTUS in 2016. I'm the doomer in my family and my 2 grown Boys are the Optimist. Needless to say I have to prepare for them.
Be proud to be a climate doomer
His views aren't "extreme". Everyone else is just oblivious.
"I'm not wrong, everyone else is." - You
@@MostlyPonies1um literally all climate scientists agree buddy
You realize that as some places on the planet become "uninhabitable" others will become better suited for human habitation.
@@6thface That's not true actually. The soil will be wrong and there will be bacteria and viruses hiding there that human biology have never encountered before leading massive human die off. Also we already drank the water dry.
Climate change is a GLOBAL catastrophe. The whole planet. There is nowhere to run from it.
How the hell is he a climate doomer he's literally a climate optimist I mean if he's trying (key word trying) to ensure humanity and the best of it's culture survives it's self imposed extinction then he's an optimist who believes some parts of our culture is even worth saving !!
WE LIVE IN THE USA. Our country has been pummeled by wave after wave of bizarre, damaging weather in the last year. Storms have rampaged across the country from West coast to East coast - leaving floods, landslides, wildfires, and other destruction in their wake. THIS IS NOT NORMAL ! People are stunned by these disasters, but fail to understand the "after-effects" : crop losses, death of livestock, and disruption of the distribution system. It's just GETTING WORSE by the year - with no improvement in sight.
I applaud Ben. I don’t have it in me to live like that, and also not the money to buy a farm or land, nor knowledge of what to do with it. I have however given up hope on the future. I realized 10 years ago after reading the climate reports then that children was no option ever, and it absolutely _baffles_ me that people are still having children. What futures do they imagine their kids will have? My retirement plan is suicide. I’m just over 30, and I fully except society to start collapsing before I become a senior. I hope for 10-20 normal years ahead still, before it gets too bad. I really hope for that. I’ll try to make the most of those years, and when quality in life is no longer an option, there is no point in living anymore. The only thing I really worry about is how I will die. I don’t want to be killed by others in some battle for food, starve or thirst to death, or die slowly or painfully. I feel tremendous sadness that humanity couldn’t be better than this, despite all our potential. I feel extreme anxiety for all the innocent individuals suffering the consequences of this: animals, and people in developing countries who didn’t contribute to this, but who suffers before developed countries do. I try to live my life and be happy, but there is a deep dread within, and this hollow feeling of pointlessness. We’re doomed. There is no future. I have this innate desire to build, but there is no future to build for. No reason to create anything for a world that will not be around for it. I just hope that something better will come after us through evolution, thousands of years from now. And I hope that in this infinite universe, there are other worlds hosting life, where life is represented by beings better than we could be. That is a nice thought I try to hold on to.
I feel you, Josephine. I'm 56, and I have had a deep sense for a long time that it's all meaningless, we're all screwed anyway so why bother? The people with the power to avert this have chosen to deny it, at least publicly, and pursue the feeding frenzy as business as usual. I've never been motivated to do the things I was supposed to, you know, date, find someone to marry, raise a family, etc.
Truthfully, a lot of us might not make it to the end of this year. Just in the U.S., the devastation to the harvest in California's Central Valley due to the extreme heat, along with reductions in other places due to flooding, is likely to lead to severe food shortages by fall. People suffering from food insecurity will likely be pushed over the edge. Next year, and every subsequent year, will be worse. Ironically, reducing fossil fuel burning will make things worse in the short term by removing the aerosol masking effect.
99.99% of humanity's existence on Earth was absolute shit compared to modern standards. People still had children, the world still kept moving. You just deluded yourself and can't live up to whatever expectations you had about what life should be. This is not "the world's" fault, just your ineptitude to adapt to reality. Death will come eventually, and of course everything is meaningless. If this is a given you might as well just live your life and not worry about doomsday. Life is good and you're gonna miss out with that mentality
@@davidandre3719 You are right that whatever shit happens with the climate, most of human history people were living far worse lives. However, not having children is a great idea. Really, it is the best thing to reduce emissions. Whatever shit may or may not happen, it certainly is going to be a tiny bit easier to deal with the effects of climate change because Josephine's kids are not around as well.
This is verbatim how I feel.
imo, way too much in the existential nihilism direction.
yes it will be bad, but positive change will come as well.
we/industries are looking for solutions to these gigantic issues.
and the battle to change, which will decide just how bad it'll be, isn't done yet, its happening now.
negative psychology about the situation will only make things worse.
dig deeper, be happy, reduce your consumption habits, then encourage others to follow
the more people do it, the more likely your outlook about our future will improve.
also, if you can, look to God for meaning. its a vast cosmos, and we're veritable toddlers.
this may all be part of the bigger plan for our species.
I had a friend once who had cancer, her other friends thought she would pull through and so didn't really go visit her. She died. At the wake, they all said they didn't realize that she was in that bad of shape but wished that they had stopped by to visit. They were the people so wrapped up in making money that they let their so-called friend go without even a goodbye.
Eat two bulbs of organic garlic a day.
@@UKtoUSABrit the earths temperatures aren't enhanced by man, is that what your saying? when gases gather in the atmosphere that prevent heat from escaping, the temp rises, you dont agree?
Andrew we are supposed to be in a cooling period and we aren't. Earths avg global temperature have increased or changed in the last few hundred years not thousands. That should freak you out. Add methane from melting permafrost to the mix and humans will lose habitat for 3-6 billion people when AGT hit 3.5 degrees c above preindustrial levels. It's already started. Co2 is a heat trapping gas. Too much alcohol is not a good thing even though it makes you happy.
@@UKtoUSABrit Smoking is harmless too according to the nut jobs you are linking to.
A bunch of libertarian right wing whack jobs.
Profits before anything else.
It’s not only about making money as such it’s just about surviving my days are full up. My evenings are exhausted and that not because I’m trying to get rich but I’m trying to get by.
I have pasta so many social engagement because I was just tired from the rat race we live in
It’s a no way, because my friends are less valuable than the money I make
But the money I make it feed me and it put a roof over my head
🤷♀️
I love the default position of most media (include this one) of optimism. "People are going to look back and say the 2020's was when everything turned around" is utter fantasy. People have been anticipating big dramatic action since the 80's. Instead we got 40 years of nothing, or worse than nothing. Where these optimists get their faith in governments I have no idea, because it's certainly not from any past behaviour. I understand the human need to feel comfort, but keep that false hope and fantasy to yourself, because it's poison.
@@glennjgroves no disrespect intended, but anyone who's telling you that capitalism will solve a problem that capitalism created, then hid, then lied about, then obstructed, all while worsening... that person is trying to take your money from you.
@@glennjgroves 40 years ago, we had the same percentage of clean energy, none of which can be built or maintained without fossil fuel. The other thing is, this added energy is just that, addition to keep the economy afloat, to keep extracting resources.
Dude they said since the 80's the world is about to end. Just silly to continue this path when all this hysteria is worse than if they would have shut up.
@@glennjgroves It's not new information. We can't build or maintain any renewables without fossil fuel. You ignored that as well as the total energy needed, smart person.
@@borealphoto what part of the process that make renewable generation cannot be done with renewables?
Then what is worse, using a little fossil fuel to make a renewable energy generator, then not needing any more input for decades, while generating energy, or continuously using fossil fuels to extract more fossil fuels to light on fire?
The methane bubbling out of the arctic has me believing we are heading for extreme hardship if not extinction. But I will do everything within my power to reverse the situation. Biochar, home gardening, solar (wind) power, increasing biomass, building humus, increasing local diversity and so on.
You greatly underestimate our ability to survive. We may have a population loss but we aren’t going extinct
I will say that after talking to a therapist and being reminded about what I was taught in communication classes, I felt better about myself and wanting to take more actions. I boughts plants for my apt and looking into climate action orgs. It's still not much, but I'm being more militaristic about how to approach our climate issue.
And yet here you are using the internet 😂the irony! So you pick and choose do you?
@@MrThedonheadyou must be a real fun person to interact with
Very Wholesome 🤗
Sound urban so community garden/private allotment is next step
The day they criminalize fossil fuel I’ll stop being a doomer.
I would almost agree. But if they do that in 2050 the damage has already been done completely
The day they criminalize fossil fuels, aka 85% of global energy, is doomsday - no modern fertilizer and agricultural crash (famine), not enough energy to keep our hospitals, schools, and factories going, no transportation and eventually no medicine (plague) or essential resources. If we didn't all kill each other (war) the 9 billion people on the planet would slowly starve.
I wish people would spend less time shouting and more time understanding how the world actually works.
If we are going to get rid of fossil fuels we need a replacement first. We are not even close now.
Ahhh so we either continue killing the biosphere and jeaporadize all life on this planet, or, we cut the fuel tap and let global civilization unravel taking billions of people with it.
It's no wonder then that we're so indecisive.
I stop the day we Germans stop to eat more meat than is possible to "produce" with what we can grow in the country to feed the animals (and I am not thinking of a szenario where we grow nothing else but animal feed in the country!). This excessive consumption has such destructive consequences in so many ways.
If the average person in my country made that change it would give me hope back.
@@Never_again_against_anyoneapperantly we Germans already reduced our meat consumption, because the first slaughter houses started to close
The great irony is Ben has already done more to help the environment by overhauling his lifestyle than anybody else trying to gaslight his beliefs
One man taking acres and acres to himself to not actually sustain himself......... sure dude.
Not sure about the land use part, but in terms of reduced personal emissions (significantly reduced consumer behavior, a vegan diet, extremely low energy use), he's spot on.
Not really, since there's a little thing called aerosol masking effect.
To be honest I don't think he cares what people think, he's the smart one for being prepared. Jokes on everyone else.
Everyone who has been paying attention agrees that it is going to be bad.
We are only debating how bad. History suggests Ben's appraisal is the likely one.
If we do avoid some of the worse case scenario it will be due to technology we have and will invent and adopt. Not because enough of us get serious about climate but just because it is better and less expensive.
What an amazing man. Love that his aim is to walk the talk
The truth is that we are so reliant on the present fossil-fuel economy that we literally cannot break free of it, and even if it were possible to do so, just what would the alternative way of living be for the approximately 8 billion people on this planet? The present fossil-fuel based society took quite some time to evolve into its present form. It simply won't be possible to dismantle it in a short period of time.
When I observe the apathy of politicians, shareholders, CEO's and the general population I feel inclined to agree with the dooms day theorists. I am old enough to remember when we discussed climate issues (acid rain, forest defoliation, river pollution etc.) in the 70's and had heated debates with politicians about the costs of climate protection and the cost of no action. 50 years later we are still doing more or less the same thing (hollow and useless climate talk fest conferences). We are already experiencing serious climate consequences but apathy prevails. I wonder what has to happen before we get serious about ourselves and the world that feeds us. The house is already on fire and we are still discussing who is paying for the fire hose and the water. Einstein was right: Human stupidity is boundless.
It’s as if “Idiocracy” and “Dont look up” were actually based on real people.
You probably live in a so-called 'liberal democracy'. Your nation has 2-5 'main-parties' all crowding the centre and debating performative, lively but ultimately unimportant issues and all heavily reliant on corporate funding for their campaign finance and board seats upon retirement and successful completion of corporate goals.
Vote red, blue, orange or green corporate party. Vote harder!!!!
Think globally, organize locally.
@@Scepticalasfuk honestly, I think the young generation, who don’t want to work as hard as their predecessors, simply see that the game is rigged against them, and they don’t want to play.
What do you suppose would happen if we all stop playing, and taking “sides”? How long would it take?
Sadly true. A lot of polticans and CEO's are sociopaths and pyschopaths, climate change could have been prevented decades ago but profits are more important than the planet in their minds - or worse they don't care. They're planning on business as usual (ie making money) and then blasting off to the moon base with Elon, Bezos and friends: "Thanks for working to increase our profits and voting for us.... good luck!"
Sometimes the eradication of nature is a necessity to make changes
"The idea we would act when we traditionally haven't is to me pure hokum." This what it really boils down to indeed. I don't believe we are going to do what is necessary. The entire thing has even gotten politicized to the point where it's way too little too late in my opinion.
Texas is the fastest growing renewables market in the US. Chew on that for a few. We are doing the things even when we speak out against said actions.
We have traditionally acted though. We fixed the DDT problem, the biodiversity issues in North America, and even have taken steps to solve this climate issue. Climate doomerism isn't realistic-its just a self fulfilling prophecy.
@@seto_kaiba_ That was all way before this hardcore division and the disinformation age. There are large percentages of the population that don't believe in reality and are blocking and reversing things just to "trigger" the other side.
Pretending like things are normal is naive. Remember covid just 2 years ago? Remember Trump going all out on anti environmental laws just to "stick it to the libs"?
This isn't doomerism. It's called reality.
@@seto_kaiba_We’ve acted but we’ve also made things worse. One step forward, three steps back
@@RosesAndIvy Yes because the world is still in the dirty industrial period. We were always going to dump more fossil fuels into the atmosphere. Its a step forward because we are taking steps to reduce the fossil fuel footprint.
My doomerism comes from the experience of living in a tent in rural Ohio with no running water but two cars parked beside it, and the realization that even what most all of my family and friends thought was EXTREMISM was not nearly enough to combat the climate catastrophe at our door. I still drove a car, had solar panels and batteries, ate industrialized food, wore sweatshop manufactured clothes, etc. Maybe humans will figure out carbon capture and make it scalable in time to advert the worst parts of the impending catastrophe, but my hunch is that we won't. Governments around the world aren't doing enough, and if they did, we'd all fucking revolt against them because what is needed is beyond what we'd call sanity and we don't tolerate the slightest inconvenience, let alone the monumental changes necessary. It is not sanity to be optimistic, as this program aims to do. It's all down hill from here and the more we roll, the faster it all gets.
Waiting on the government to do anything is a huge mistake.
We need to change our expectations so governments have the bandwidth to do what needs to be done. You're right though. The populace is not ready. ^^^
@SequoiaMakes The total percentage of carbon dioxide in earths' atmosphere is a mere 0.04%. If it drops below 0.02%, plants DIE, WE DIE !!!!!
Stop buying into this doomsday climate cult. They’re trying to manipulate you guys, fear is the greatest tool. The world has been way warmer than it is now, everything is going to be okay.
You really nailed it on the part where the government finally tries to do something, and the real entitled babies in this country throw a fit over it. I have neighbors who moved out of California because the state government is at least trying, more than anywhere in the US, to tackle this problem.
Beautiful; and truthful. I’m looking forward to this series.
This is why my wife and I moved to Puerto Rico and are planting food trees and food forest plants of immense diversity on multiple acres. We produce or own water and electricity, and the plan is that if things collapse in the next 5-10 years, hopefully the work we've put in will help our community not starve.
That hurricane risk tho 😟
That's cool.
It gets depressing again when you randomly see IPO's about green hydrogen magically being in place to move desalinated water full tankers about like your average crude.
@@magesalmanac6424 Yes, Puerto Rico is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, especially with warmer sea surface and air temperatures, coupled with the high humidity which contributes to higher wet bulb temperatures.
@@magesalmanac6424 that's why we've built our homes with Earthbag construction. We're also situated in the mountains, and that helps
@@magesalmanac6424 Trees grow back.
It's hard to be optimistic when you see that the more evidence of global warming accumulates, the more climate deniers there are. It's probably because the more urgent it becomes to act, the more people are afraid of what it means for them: drastically changing their way of life.
But I think Ben's got the right attitude: he hasn't given up on action, and he's doing what he can to try and make the world a better place. He's probably not as fatalistic as he thinks himself.
Where is everyone getting this "fatalist" perception of Ben? He literally stated that he's writing the manifesto so that humanity can survive the collapse. That's hope, not fatalism.
They are deniers because it is all bullshit.
Ben might be changing but others must be made to act like him
No. Climate deniers are a shrinking minority. People are starting to act and demand their governments act. We just need to ramp this up big time.
Denial is a hell of a drug
Ben's effort is basically a microcosmos of what needs to be done. It starts with the money he was lucky to get from selling his house. This reflects into the willingness of humanity to make vast investments in a sustainable society. Next, Ben didn't build anything: he bought an existing complex, meaning that humanity should focus on recycling instead of building more and more new stuff, including real estate. The construction industry is responsible for vast emissions. To reduce those, either production has to move to other, sustainable, fuels, which is very expensive or move to other materials and techniques. Thirdly, Ben is vegan, meaning that the world population has to steer away from meat and dairy big time. Governments have to invest in policies to support plant based meat and dairy alternatives and take care that they are grown in sufficient amounts to feed all people. Meanwhile, meat and dairy should be limited in availability, not necessarily taxed. Because plant based nutrition requires much less room for crops, land comes free for rewinding and planting trees to capture carbon. It's a three-edged win.
If these three targets are met, I think we have solved 70% of the issue.
I agree, it does seem a little late to try and stop the change, tipping points have already been reached. Focusing on how to adapt and survive the coming change would be more productive at this point in the game. I suppose if you live in a bubble of incredible privilege you have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse but in many parts of the world it's already here.
Absolutely. We need to not call them "tipping points". We're already flopped over. Stop polluting the atmosphere, still lose the icecaps, and the world will fry. In "doing the right thing" we will destroy civilization as we know it. There's no magic "carbon capture", because the materials to build enough of them will be depleted/be unobtainable long before we build enough.
That's where people like Ben come in, teaching us how to continue to survive. We need more volunteers with the money and the time to build the sustainable structures of the future.
He’s definitely setting a very good example thinking about the lengths we’ll need to go to and hopefully make us happier about getting on and doing it .
The Green New Deal including Biden's actions have completely failed by shutting down fossil fuels. We need cheap fuel to make the transition to more efficient and eco-friendly energy.
I find it funny that he thinks his way of life is something special and people don't do that anymore. He is so used to his occidental confortable life that he doesn't realize that most of the people in poorer countries live like that and they have lived like this since forever. Here, in eastern Europe most of the people in the countryside have a life similar to the one he thinks is going to save the world . He and other doomsayers are so out of touch with the reality in this world that it hurts.
The solutions they propose are stupid.
Climate change exists, life on planet earth won't end because of it, it will only affect some species and our current way of life. Maybe there will be fewer people because of it but life always finds a way
It's not going to help. The land he's growing on will desertify and the trees are liable to be caught in a forest fire caused by a heatwave. He needs an underground "vertical farm" that's large enough for subsistence farming. And it needs to be designed with several layers of redundancies and failsafes and he needs to know how everything can be rebuilt and maintained. That's a multi-million euro project.
I tend to agree with that guy. Even if it’s theoretically possible that we could limit the damage, just based on how governments around the world are acting, it’s simply not going to happen fast enough. Doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t try to limit the damage but it’s not going to be pretty.
Absolutely. We can fix climate change, but even the governments that are doing something about it, are not doing anywhere near enough.
yep, I do agree to let the world burn with this kind of 10% rich people pollute more than rest of humans. Even if we somehow can reverse climate change, until how much should we extract natural resources to fulfill our capitalism need (especially to fill the pocket of the ultra mega hyper super legendary riches who contribute most of destruction), when and how much will be enough? and those riches have better education and must have been know the negative sides of their life style but they choose to ignore it (even if the have the ignorance then the system is broken), so it's really no use and just let the world burn might be a better choice to release the humans out of suffers.
There is no way humans are going to survive abrupt exponential climate change. It's not possible. Especially now. If the politicians would have acted responsibly when they were warned by Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Carl Sagan in 1987, we might have a chance. But sadly, it is far too late now. Technology cannot save us. The politicians are narcissists and that's why they are politicians. They are basically useless and lack integrity. They failed the entire human race.
I'm thinking it might be better at this stage to let the collapse happen. The sooner things collapse, the sooner we can rebuild. There will be a lot of suffering yes, but there is more suffering by prolonging the collapse. The quicker we pull off the band-aid, the more arable land, drinkable water that'll still be there instead of this slow death.
government is nothing more than a tool in hands of ruling class. A tool to promote interests of the ruling class. So nothing will change until capitalists are the ones who are holding governments in their grip. Because the only interest capitalists have is profit, so doesn't matter how many elected figurehead we change, things will continue as they are until the whole system won't change.
Ben is my new hero! I too think we've gone beyond the tipping point. I'm poor, old, and disabled. l live in Montana, next to constant coal trains, and I don't have the space to grow my own food. I'm glad I'm old so I will die before the worst. Humans may survive, but it doesn't look good. Go Ben.
Farm dude just tells it how it is to their faces and they aren’t used to that. Reporters are SO used to showing up and getting an optimistic story they are dumbfounded when someone is like “yea they have your number, they know what stories you’ll run”
I think it’s not a matter of it being physically impossible to defeat climate change, it’s a lack of the will to make the changes. With all the warnings, agreements, and global weather events, we still see all around us a deluge of oil based waste. A simple example. No one has to use plastic bags, other, natural materials can be used but we’re too lazy and that’s why, sadly, I think Ben has got it right. Not to scare but just accepting the truth. We can’t be bothered to save ourselves.
It’s not so much that we can’t be bothered to save ourselves it’s that our brains are literally not evolved to deal with the sort of enormous, abstract and complex problem that is climate change. We aren’t able to see the damage our individual consumption makes so it feels like a waste of energy to bother to change. We don’t think on a planetary scale.
Most people don't get worked up and fight fairy tail monsters either.
Climate change is a natural phenomenon that has been going on since the planet has had an atmosphere! There is nothing humans can do to stop it! Trying to stop it is as useless as trying to slow down the rotation of the planet!
don't worry about saving the planet, you are not responsible for it. You cannot force people to not use plastic bags, that makes 0 sense
@@bassmanjr100 You’re one of the people Ben is talking about, and ironically, you aren’t a fairy tale monster. You’re a real human being. Which is the worst monster of all.
My father owns a farm in the US where he has cultivated his own crops for decades.
When I moved to the city, it blew my mind that people don't even bother to grow even simple herbs.
We could really benefit from every single window in residential buildings hosting lettuce, tomatoes, and other veggies. It really humbles anyone who gardens that they understand the lengths to which food is created.
But again, the rich and politically connected are so disconnected to where their food comes from that they can't even comprehend the lengths at which change must happen to accommodate positive ecological change.
Lol aight, where's the profit in any of that? Nowhere. So how are you going to get everybody to do that? How do you propose to enact that sweeping, systemic change? Lmao.
The issue is capitalism, the solution must therefore be a solution for/to capitalism. The result is obvious and inevitable, as it has been for the past 160 years; no amount of "individual action" can or will have any consequence. History is collective, dialectical, and materialist.
@@RosscoAW Oh yeah a political revolution will do wonders for the environment. back in reality capitalism is what there is so we have to work in its frame work. You people are dreaming.
@@raclark2730 after all the "American Dream" will be nothing mote than that. A dream lasting 2(?) centuries until reality floods the garden, the garage and the mall
@@aldoconciso Yeah thanks edge lord. You are confusing one country with something even the hard line commies like the CCP now embrace. Good luck with your revolution you are going to need it. Or you could support the quiet but growing revolution of people working to do things differently. Up to you comrade. 😉
Isn't more polluting and wasting to grown your own food? And how will you manage the time when you have a full time job?
There are lots of things we *could* be doing, but when it comes to what we *will* do about it, I expect the people with the power to make a large impact are going to avoid doing any of those things because doing so would involve reducing their own power.
So Ben has the right idea. I just think he needs to get others around him involved in what he's doing, instead of aiming to do it all himself.
Well I think Ben is right. Not because it is too late already, I believe the IPCC in that. However, it will require a huge change worldwide, far more significant that the corona lockdowns, to reduce emissions fast enough to achieve a
I’m very much like Ben, I live out in a rural community in a couple of acres doing the learning curve on how to live a less grid dependent lifestyle and develop the skills and systems needed to survive while supplies are still available before a bottleneck
If he really thinks humans are going to destroy the earth, why doesn’t he remove himself and stop breathing out greenhouse gases?
The answer is, he knows everything is going to be okay, he just prefers that lifestyle.
@@lpslancelot05It's not that humans are going to destroy the earth, it's like you deliberately didn't hear, it's droughts and starvation, and unstable institutions ensuingly over the next 100 years
I live in Washington DC and for my entire life our government has always fallen short in one way or another. Our nation had the opportunity to get out infront of CC in 1991 but our own people torpedoed the talks. We will never make meaningful progress without the devotion of either China or US. Unfortunately both seem to be more worried about prestige and domination. With no meaningful action it’s simply a race to rule the rubble.
100% agree
Ever considered voting and change who are in charge? Running yourself for office?
hey china made solar panels affordable via mass production, something the idiotic usa couldnt be bothered with - even tho they invented the tech decades earlier
@@emaarredondo-librariannot everyone is rich
@@emaarredondo-librarianWhen I look at the US I always wonder if there is a real choice you can make in the elections.
I mean, a better analogy than cancer would be "You've been shot sixteen times in the chest. You're not dead yet, but there are sixteen more bullets in the chamber ready to fire. Would you like to call the ambulance to treat your injuries (climate adaptation) or the police to stop the shooter (fossil fuel abolitionists)?"
And the answer of course is that the question is trivial, because at the end of the day you've been shot sixteen times in the chest and you are going to die. Sure the extra sixteen bullets being fired would make it worse and further guarantee your death, but death is already basically certain.
This is a truth that folks cannot deal with. That they themselves are the shooter, the polluter, the hypocrite is the fact.
I thought this as well. Also, the primary ""treatment"" we have for cancer is radiation therapy, which is often more lethal than the actual cancer itself.
The first I heard of global warming was in the early 1980s with reports from Alaska about the headstones of the original settlers tipping over because the permafrost in which they had been anchored was melting. Also, the Inuits were having to travel further and further north over time to gather the berries they needed for sustenance.
At the time, I was living on my ranch along the border in South Texas. I was surrounded by a dry land farming agribiz operation, and I could see that when things got hotter that my marginal pasture and their yields would shrivel. Since I was was young enough to start over somewhere else, I sold out and moved north. Now, with ever increasing temperatures and greenhouse gas levels, I’m thinking that I didn’t move far enough.
Then how is everybody else along the border of South Texas surviving? How is everybody in Mexico still farming and ranching?
@@anthonymorris5084
I’m talking long range changes. The kind that our grandkids will have to deal with. For example, where I was, our average annual rainfall was 12 inches - fast forward to a 10% reduction and that’s a big difference. Couple that with a couple of degrees temperature increase and south Texas starts looking like La frontera of north Mexico. And that’s just for starters. Where I was, we had no irrigation and well water was not suitable for plants.
@@samlair3342 Your anecdotal evidence does not represent the historic record. Data clearly shows that droughts across the world are all within historical norms. The issue is people. 8 times more of them since 1850 placing a strain on every single resource. In 1850 the population of Texas was just barely over 200,000. There are 31 million today. Thats a 15,400% increase in humans.
Poverty kills vastly more people across the world than warming. Inexpensive reliable energy generates the wealth that lifts people out of poverty. Wealth creates irrigation and other technological advancements. Depriving the world of energy is going to cause millions of deaths.
@@samlair3342American desert might be untenable. Lot more to America though
Ah so just keep burning the coal until the atmosphere is screwed, got it.@anthonymorris5084
The thumb cracks me up. People actually think it's smoke that comes out of nuke plants
When I was a teenager in the late 80s I recall having a number of conversations about the "greenhouse effect" and being berated by my elders for my cynicism, since I maintained that we'd not act to solve it. Looking back i wonder if I was merely realistic or whether that pessimism was my complicity with the system
Yep, I’ve been an environmentalist since the ‘60s. I’m 82 now & see exactly what the scientists predicted. I tell my Gr.children to enjoy the present cuz the rich will destroy the world soon.
Watch the film “Soylent Green” made in 1973 based on a book written in 1968. They’ve been warning about global warming since 1950’s and it’s been ignored until now.
You were intelligent and realistic stopping climate change is impossible without the use of new technology’s to do it. It’s basically pissing in wind trying to cut CO2 lvs while countries are developing all the time. No point protesting saying cut this that it won’t make any difference they be better off raising money for carbon capture research projects and things like that.
I was in 4th grade around 2002 and read a Climate Change book from my local library and realized the implications then. My dad walked in my room since they knew I was concerned about it and did something like turning on the light and saying "this uses energy and creates CO2. There's nothing we can do, why worry about it?"
@@cmath6454 That is sad, displaying shear ignorance and indifference to others really. Part of that generation I suspect.
Im graduating high school in a few days, and I have spent nearly all of my teenage years thinking about climate change. I've determined that if we are going to suffer anyways, I am going to make it as bearable as possible.
Good for you. That's a good attitude to have.
Don't worry about it. It is all bullshit. This same BS has been preached about for at least 30 years. Nothing is happening.
Can’t you see a child was destroyed here with mindless bull hit? And you encourage it
Keep on keeping on!
Im graduating next year from 9th grade if all goes well, and i just want to die, why would i want to live in this cancerous hell
I agree with him completely. Hell live has taught me to prepare for the worst but hope for the best. I have hope that we will change. But I don't expect or suspect that we will in time. I think massive droves of people will die off before we ever change anything. And you and I know who will be most affected by it... Thats right. The poor.
I've been following along and researching climate change and I myself am unsure about what will be of the future, But when people call of the end of the world, as someone who learned a lot of history, I think "End of the World" is always the "End of the World we Know".
The World changes, and I think the climiate crisis might not wipe out humanity, it will certainly shake and reshape the future into a world that will be unfamiliar and scary to us.
Perhaps to people who were raised on zombie movies, a Post-Apocalyptic world is more easier to digest than a actual future where governments, communities and lifestyle will be completely different from what we are used to.
There most likely won't be a collapse everywhere all at once and there won't be a specific moment where someone will say "it has happened". It really depends on where you are located as to how bad things will get. Ultimately the planet will be fine, it's just humans (and countless animals) that won't be. In a million years the planet will have forgotten about us.
In a million years, the Earth will likely get hit by multiple asteroids owing to Gliese 710 fly-by. A species like ours could've been the one capable of preserving life & preventing apocalypse. However, if we die, the life on planet will loose it's most optimal chance of survival that was afforded by the presence of this specie of neurally evolved apes. That's the significance of humanity which is overlooked when talking about a doomsday climate change scenario where our civilisation is extinguished slowly & painfully. The fact that we brought it upon ourselves makes it even more of a testament of our incredible greed & selfishness bordering stupidity. Earth won't get another chance to evolve complex beings like ourselves in the next billion years as the sun swallows the Earth whole. It'd be the end of all life as we know & understand it. Sad & incredibly under-utilized potential as a space-faring civilisation.
Water wars will star in some years if we are going down this path
At no point did he even bring up religion. Stop being in denial about the reality of the ongoing climate crisis and wake up.
@@rmac3217 so angry lol
And in a couple million years after that the suns rays will have sterilized this planet.
I'm over 80 years old and I agree with the young people, government is beholden to the money interests so does nothing.
Here in the USA, the Congress just passed another MILITARY funding bill - $900 BILLION$ for the year ! Yet, we are supposedly NOT "at war", and already have the world's largest & most expensive military. Can you imagine the amount of GOOD that we could do with $900 BILLION$ - instead of offering our $$$ to the "god of war" ?
The fact of the matter isn't that there is nothing we can do, it's the will. It's not that we can't, it's that we won't
As a seasteader, I would prepare shelter in the warm parts of the ocean (also, no hurricanes, if we'll build close to the equator). The base will be made out of decommissioned oil platforms and containers, plus DIY floating platforms from various floating waste and garbage, like old tires, rubber, plastic, etc. You can grow veggies and fruits in hydroponics\aeroponics systems or simply in a greenhouse. Poultry does not require much space. You can even try animal husbandry, like sheep or goats. You can grow fish and sea products right nearby the platforms. Energy could be produced by solar panels, wind turbines, diesel engines, working on algae oil and gas turbines, working on methane - a product of the decomposition of biodegradable waste. Water can be produced by desalinization.
It needs to be said that the IPCC is always on the more cautious site. In the last report, they did not even account for the global warming due to methane, because they could not agree on the heating factor it should be accounted with. So they just left it out of the calculation
And here we are past 1900 ppb of methane which is nuts and we already know it's 80x more potent than co2 over 20 years. it's just if you tell thos politicians that methane is actually worse than coal imagine the issues.
I want to clarify. Methane is better than coal ONLY if runaway emissions and leakage is under 8-10%. Studies revealed that most infrastructures actually leak about 15-16% of the methane. So in the end, the total impact of methane is worse than coal.
There's great uncertainty over CH4 (methane) as its entire frequency contribution to the greenhouse effect is encompassed by water vapour (unlike CO2).
Water vapour and water in all its its forms is a big question mark when it comes to climate change and so the effect of adding a tiny amount of something that does exactly the same thing as something that is already up there but in much, much higher quantities is very hard to know. Might be that CH4 does next to nothing at all.
When they say "the science is settled" this is the sort of uncertainty they are still wrestling with.
@@cnrspiller3549
However, every single bit of methane will turn into CO2 eventually, so methane has to be counted as AT LEAST one CO2 equivalent.
Being spectrally co-incident with water doesn't give methane a free ticket. Consider a tank of water, with some dye. Now add another dye that absorbs at least some of the same colours. Light passing through will get stopped somewhat sooner than otherwise, yes? Similar for infrared.
Methane scattering is not diminished because it occurs in the same range as water vapour.
When you consider the mean path length for scattered infrared to escape the atmosphere, adding more absorption in saturated bands is probably exponentially *worse* than in unsaturated bands.
@@aaroncosier735 this is my point though. The mechanics of CH4 and CO2 contributions to the greenhouse effect are well understood, but the complex interplay with water in all its many forms is unknown and quite possibly unknowable.
Water is one of the biggest missing pieces in this whole puzzle.
I am guessing (but we all are tbh) but I am strongly inclined to venture that water is the thermostat in our atmosphere. That water dampens out all the other changes in the various climate temperature forcings, from sun cycles to orbit variations through man-made aerosols and random volcanoes etc.
The world's temperature is remarkably stable despite reports of boiling seas and the planet being on fire. I think that's water acting as a big old negative feedback mechanism.
Call me an optimist, but I reckon I could easily be just as right as the so-called settled science.
Trouble is, there's no bloody money in my rather boring prediction.
@@cnrspiller3549
You might be disappointed.
The contributions of water are also well understood.
As vapour, it is a greenhouse gas, night and day, just like CO2, except that some condenses out. And of course, more CO2 means more heat night and day to keep more of it as vapour.
As clouds, the impact is almost neutral, near as. Papers over the last few years have reported this near-neutrality.
Clouds trap heat as well as reflecting, and they trap heat at night as well as day. whereas they only reflect light during day.
Misrepresenting the facts as "reports of boiling seas" is not helpful. Ocean temperatures have increased, especially near the surface. Given the huge mass of material involved, this is genuinely cause for concern. Those same seas will not cool down quickly, even if we ceased emissions tomorrow.
The "stability" you mention has to keep in mind the very narrow range of average temperatures and conditions where humans and our major crops can thrive.
The last time time there was this much carbon in the air temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees warmer and sea levels were around 20 meters higher. A recent study on global dimming made the authors remark “the 2 degrees target is dead”. It’s not a question of hope. It’s a question of realism. We have entered a new climate state, and the outcome isn’t clear. But it won’t be good.
Where is your resources?
@@iraqi2015 if you look online you’ll find them.
CO2 follows temperature, not (so much) the other way around.
When the planet warms, CO2 is released from the sea.
Today CO2 levels are elevated for a unique reason - man got sequestered carbon out of the ground and re-introduced it to the atmosphere.
You have your arrow of causation (largely) the wrong way around.
Sleep easy tonight my friend.
@cnrspiller3549 in most historical climate change events, co2 has followed temperature and caused a positive feedback. The temperature would rise from some event which caused co2 to evaporate from the oceans which caused further warming. Man made climate change is a bit different because we have released co2 without a serious climate event happening first so in this case co2 is happening first and the more it warms the more co2 the ocean releases or the more methane the permafrost releases.
There's many different causes of climate change. Sometimes it was volcanoes, sometimes it was the metabolism of a new species but the case today is man made emissions. This is novel and the first time man made emissions were the cause of climate change in all of earth's history.
@@BM1982.V2 all very interesting, but it doesn't change my main observation that the original posting compared present day CO2 levels with the last time we were at around 400ppm, and because it was way warmer back then he concluded (in error) that it will therefore, be as hot this time. His prediction relies entirely on the assumption that CO2 drives warming, without considering the reverse effect, ie. Warming increases CO2.
They could be right. However as an ecologist and just lover of life in general, every bit of progress we do make and fight for means lives are saved both human and non human, and that’s enough to keep me going.
Things definitely seem to be on track for many of our worst case scenarios... as they say, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. He's not crazy, but he is depressed, and really struggling to maintain his sense of self. Those pigs are important for his mental health at this point, because he's needed.
If I take anything from this video it will be the words of the psychologist - you need to feel anxiety and doom but don't get stuck there, remember the creativity, joy, connection, then take action on a personal, social and political level. Then I am reminded of the German police raiding the homes of environmental activists because they disturbed someone's comfort with their message and DW not even posing the question - how is this a crime to get police involved?! And then we are back to where we started.
Exactly that. How can this action prevail, if you get actively resisted by society?
Our indivual contribution matters little to none. Capitalism has to go if we want to end or minimize climate change
Top notch journalism! Thanks
Humanity is currently like me aged 17.
I passed my driving test as soon as legally possible, passed 1st time, was a naturally good driver, and it went to my head and i started being careless.
Every now and then i'd have a near miss. Every time I almost crashed my naive young boy testosterone-fuelled mentality said "i almost crashed, but not quite, i evaded it as always because i'm just that good". Every time I almost crashed, it just boosted my young dumb ego into thinking i was invulnerable, that i was skilled and sharp enough to avoid accidents so i could drive as recklessly as I liked.
But guess what, eventually of course I did crash.
This is what humanity is doing right now - every time we ALMOST have an apocalyptic event - nuclear, climate change, political breakdown, economic breakdown, etc; we say to ourselves "almost but not quite, humanity once again prevailed". And we have films that exacerbate that view. - humanity is always almost getting wiped out in the films yet somehow we always find a way to evade it. Every time we talk about things that almost wipe out our civilisation, it boosts our humanity-ego thinking that humanity is invulnerable and that it'll never happen to us.
But it will. The dinosaurs lasted far longer than humanity has, they might've thought "it'll never happen to us", and they did have all the self-imposed problems that we do.
Every major civilisation in history probably thought their civilisation would never collapse, but it did.
Humanity is living on a knife edge, and while you can't say it'll 100% definitely come crashing down, the chances of not having an apocalyptic disaster soon, is very unlikely.
The collapse is not a sudden event but an ongoing process, it is already happening, and it will take at least another half century, probably a lot more, perhaps as much as two centuries. There will be times when catastrophes happen more often, and when things go worse quickly, and there will be times when things even get a little better for a while or at least stagnate.
IF it was just the climate, I would say there's still hope for this civilisation to change for the better. But it is not just the climate - we have destabilised not just the global carbon cycle but also the phosphorus and the nitrogen cycle, we have triggered the global biodiversity crrisis aka the Sixth Extinction, we are running out of fossil resources fast, we are using renewable resources at an unsustainable rate (i.e., faster than they renew). Capitalism is the cancer eating the planet, we need our global economy to shrink instead of growing, and the only way we can still make things a little better for the poorer parts of the planet is for the rich parts of the planet to become just as poor.
Either we have some kind of global revolution and create a sustainable global eco-socialist economy, or we just collapse. Either way, THIS civilisation is over--either we get a radically different one or none at all, just primitive tribes of survivors and perhaps a few feudal states. But the downfall will still take a long time. There will be times and places where it looks apocalyptic for a while, like heatwaves killing tens of millions in a few days, but for most of the time, it will just slowly get worse. At some time, people will notice that the old world is gone, but nobody will be able to pinpoint an exact point in time when it ended.
@@ThePirateBen A civilisation is an incredibly large and complex system, and things like that take a lot of time to collapse. As long as we can avoid something like a global thermonuclear war, the collapse will be spread out over at least another century. It will go significantly faster than civilisations in the past, but our rise was significantly faster as well, since it was all driven by enormous stores of fossil energy and the increasingly complex machines we built using that energy.
You’re spot on g.
Yep, so business as usual, the capitalists will whip their slaves to death rather than admit culpability .
@@goodwifeweaver They probably thought that Climate Change or more specifically "Net Zero" was the "easier problem to solve" at the time, governments liked it because it meant business as usual but this time they got to be perceived as proactive because they signed some pieces of paper and made some resolutions, and businesses liked it because they saw how much money they stood to make from the resurgence in demand for raw materials caused by decarbonization & electrification, financializing nature through natural asset corporations, carbon offsets, and the sale of "ecological services".
Wrong. Sudden collapse of ecosystems is the norm. Take the North Atlantic cod collapse or the recent Alaskan Snow crab collapse.
I absolutely believe there are things we *can* do. The real question is *will* we do them. I think most doomers have look at the last 40 years of inaction and concluded that the answer is no. I don't want to agree with them, but it gets harder everyday.
It's already too late. That's the thing
Shutting down everything when Covid happened caused dramatic reduction in air pollution for obvious reasons. But not global temperature averages. We may be able to prolong the time it takes to reach the tipping points, but we're not (including myself) willing to make the sacrifices required to reverse it. Reaching the tipping points, natural processes take over and everything is out of our control, and the effect far worse than "our" mere 2-3 degrees. If we listened to Carl Sagan and acted promptly then, we'd be better off temperature wise. But we wouldn't be living the "good life" we currently do (or are supposed to do).
@@EdWard-ie5wn there's only one way out now. people need to realize that.
Animal agriculture does have significant environmental impacts, and many argue that it contributes to environmental degradation and climate change. 1) Greenhouse gas emissions: Animal agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock production, particularly cattle, produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Additionally, clearing land for grazing or growing animal feed releases carbon dioxide, contributing to deforestation and climate change. 2) Land and water use: Animal agriculture requires vast amounts of land and water. Raising livestock necessitates large areas for grazing or cultivating animal feed crops. This leads to deforestation, habitat loss, and soil degradation. Furthermore, animal agriculture consumes substantial amounts of water for animal hydration and crop irrigation. 3) Water pollution: The concentration of livestock in factory farming operations generates significant amounts of waste. The runoff from these operations can pollute water bodies, contributing to water pollution and eutrophication. 4) Biodiversity loss: The expansion of animal agriculture encroaches on natural habitats, leading to the loss of biodiversity. Deforestation for grazing or feed crop cultivation reduces habitat availability for various plant and animal species, contributing to species extinction. 5) Antibiotic resistance: The routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture to promote growth and prevent diseases contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This poses risks to human health as well.
Hey there! You could be interested in our video on biodiversity loss. Check it out here 👉th-cam.com/video/-608IrAFiOM/w-d-xo.html
@@DWPlanetA oh yeah... The cruel reality is the majority are clueless and are basically surviving. From day to day.
People this is very much possible. It seems like things are happening much sooner than predicted. I don’t want nothing to happen, but we need a huge wake up call.
Data proves that humanity has never been safer, healthier or more prosperous than at any time in history, by any measurement you care to examine.
For Ben: you probably could just go on with that kind of living, even if that kind of apocalypse would not happen, because your kind of lifestyle is right.
The hopelessness comes from the total lack of real meaningfull action and ambition from those in power.
Even IF everyone meets their targets, we still get more than 2.5C and the window to do anything gets ever smaller and the neccesary measures just get harder and more urgent.
Dinosaurs did ok with a warm globe.
@@michaelcap9550Yeup, served as good manure for the future beings
@@michaelcap9550 Dinosaurs were cold blooded reptiles, they didn't need technology to survive, they didn't need internet, phones, cars, planes, roads and cities, they didn't need hospitals and schools, they didn't need to feed over 8 billion people through agriculture and they still went extinct. Do you know why they went extinct? It wasn't because of the asteroid impact, it was due to lack of food from a rapidly changing enviroment which caused 90% of plant life to die out, which in turn caused the herbivores to die out, which in turn caused the carnivores to die out. It's called a feedback loop.
2.5c that is less than the increase in temperature between 11am and noon. LOL, there is absolutely no correlelation between CO2 levels and climate, the greenhouse effect does not determine climate. water vvaper holds a shitload more heat than co2 and co2 only makes up .04% of the atmosphere how the hell woudl that have any effect on the globe. we will look back at this as one of the biggest cons that have ever existed, co2 the best fertilizer something that plants depend on to survive by burning co2 we are restoring a balence to our planet. co2 is not a pollutant! The wall of dishonesty is ABsolutely impenitrible!
@@mrschnider6521 Your comment is unfortunately shows how the education system has failed a lot of you. CO2 makes up only 4 of every 10,000 parts of our atmosphere, yet it’s quite obvious that its increasing prevalence in the atmosphere is having a negative effect on the climate. This has been observed by many studies and measurements.
As for the argument surrounding water vapor: while it is responsible for about half of the Greenhouse Effect, its trapping of heat is not a bad thing. You should have learned about the water cycle back in 6th grade and it explains how water vapor eventually gets turned back into water in the form of rain because of condensation.
Increased water vapor doesn’t _cause_ global warming. Instead, it’s a _consequence_ of it. Increased water vapor in the atmosphere amplifies the warming caused by other greenhouse gases.
In case you don’t understand it I’ll explain: There is a direct relationship between greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane and Earth’s temperature. As one increases, so does the other. This means that evaporation from both water and land areas increases.
Because warmer air holds more moisture, its concentration of water vapor increases. This happens because water vapor does not condense and precipitate out of the atmosphere as easily at higher temperatures. The water vapor then absorbs heat radiated from Earth and prevents it from escaping out to space.
This further warms the atmosphere, resulting in even more water vapor in the atmosphere. This is what scientists call a "positive feedback loop." Scientists estimate this effect more than doubles the warming that would happen due to increasing carbon dioxide alone. Therefore, we should limit carbon dioxide and methane emissions in order to lessen the amount of water vapor in
the atmosphere.
There are 5 non-condensable greenhouse gases; carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons. The increasing presence of these gases are solely due to human activities. Non-condensable gases can’t be changed into liquid at the very cold temperatures present at the top of Earth’s troposphere, where it meets the stratosphere. As atmospheric temperatures change, the concentration of non-condensable gases remains stable.
On the other hand, water vapor is the only one which is condensable, since it’s concentration depends on the temperature of the atmosphere. If the planet was not warming up due to the increased presence of non condensable greenhouse gases, then we would see the volume of water vapor in the atmosphere to be unchanged since pre-industrial revolution levels.
Carbon dioxide is responsible for a third of the total warming of Earth’s climate due to human-produced greenhouse gases. Even small increases in its concentration have major effects. A big reason for this because of the relatively long duration of time that carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere.
Methane, carbon dioxide, and chlorofluorocarbons don’t condense, and they aren’t particularly chemically reactive or easily broken down by light in the troposphere. For these reasons, they remain in the atmosphere for anywhere from years to centuries or even longer, depending on the gas.
Hopefully this helped you understand why this is a big problem and filled in some of the gaps in your scientific knowledge 😊
My 8th grade science teacher in 1985 told the class that either we will have controlled birth or uncontrolled death to deal with over population and climate catastrophe. So far he has been proved right.
no, this sentence is as stupid now as it was then
I live in Jeju Island, southern South Korea. Usually it comes fall season from September here and the air gets chilly. However this year the weather becomes so hot like scorching that my family still wear short sleeves. Now I really feel the climate change on the pulse and worry about my child's future.😭
Report in spring how winter was?
I work in the climate space. Every day there is the push and pull between doomerism and optimism. Between action and inaction. But I do believe we are at an incredibly profound moment in human history. One where actions count. Even the smallest one. I tell my colleagues that all we can do is our best within our control, but you damn well better believe we are going to do that. So no matter which corner of the world you call home, do your best and create local change!
❤🫂
Lmao literally what individual actions matter? This whole "even the smallest actions contribute to change" thing is literally absurd bullshit. You're a scientist, act it. Stop pretending in fairy tales. The problem is capitalism, and any solution short of international socialism will fail to ameliorate the profit incentive justifying exploitation, extraction, and free externalities (like pollution and emissions). As a climate scientist it is morally imperative that you advocate for the abrupt and immediate usurpation of capitalism, period, end discussion. Anything short of that is an utter absconding of the necessary ethics needed to even have a chance at surviving environmental catastrophe at this stage. Alas, that won't happen, hence why doomerism is entirely realistic: not because lamenting people "failing to take individual actions," but because the systemic structure of society is violent and classist and privileges only wealthy corporate shareholders, period.
Nobody achieved by giving up did they, still in and worth the fight for better balance on this world.
Example? Beside "Do your best"
And what have you done?
But this guy in the video, labeled a “doomer,” Is taking the MOST action. More action than the optimists, who tend toward BAU.
I am still stunned by how many people don’t believe the problems are real. Lots of these people have children and I guess they don’t care about their futures. Sad!
Their Ego is more important for them then their loved ones
All solutions to the climate crisis come with a very big downside: Humanity has to work together on this issue. And for me personally, that means that we are doomed. Humanity can't and will never work together. Not in a million years.
Ben's right. A reputable climatologist was asked, when is the absolute last minute for humanity. He said 1975. It's not about the way we feel, it's about everything spiraling out of control now.
We CAN change. We're not likely to but we can. We keep hearing "if we reach 1.5C..." and we're almost there but we're not actually doing anything. We needed to change 30 years ago to ensure our survival. Keep living and doing everything you can but just know humanity as a whole is not changing and shows no signs of doing so.
I see people acting as if it were 1971 again. At the time I was born, we were 2.5 billion people on this planet. Now we are more than 8 billion. We cannot continue to behave as if we were in the 1970's anymore. I live simply. I grow my own food to some extent. I don't buy anything except food and the occasional item of clothing. I don't travel. This is my contribution, but each person will make their own contribution. For me, it is about living within the carrying capacity of our planet. Every time I see an advertisement for fast fashion or a car that is so fun to drive, I feel for the person who made that advert, who is trying desperately to sell that fantasy - and succeeding in selling it to far too many of us. I feel for the young people who have fewer options now if they wish to live responsibly. When I was young in the 1960's and 70's, my parents regularly flew the whole family to vacation in warm places in the wintertime. At that time, there was no concern about it. If all of us were dedicated to living as simply as we can, to limiting travel, consumption of unnecessary consumer products and to eating no meat or much less meat, we could make a big difference. I like to use the 50% reduction idea. Can we reduce our driving by 50%? Reduce our meat consumption by 50%? And so on.
The other thing I will say about how to live with the idea of humanity's doom is to ask yourself how would you live if you knew for certain that you only had - say - three months to live. Would you offer more love to those you care for? Would you spend all your money on consumer goods and travel? Would you delve into the meaning of life, become a philosopher? I would try to love more every day and enjoy the beauty in the world around me. I wouldn't buy more things. I would be as kind and loving as possible to the people around me.
Wise words. Love from Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The big question about climate change is:
What can I do locally when globally every other single person in other countries don't act in the same maner as I do when a adopt an environmental friendly behaviour maner?
Fascinating.. I can really agree with a lot in this video, and have seen folk in both axis the reporter presents - the 'lets pretend its all ok and be happy' and the 'even if we could, we won't, because we aren't'. And can see how both are forms of escapism and dangerous in extremes. Though I'll point out the axis the reporter presents / highlights at the end is also an extreme and a form of escapism 'we can all do our part and together avert this disaster'. That's weirdly enough part of how we got here. A combination of 'human exceptionalism' taught to us by too many movies where the plucky heroes defeat the overwhelmingly powerful empire at the last minute by pressing a magic button. And the ad campaigns we got slammed with in the 80s, funded by fossil-fuel and related industries, convincing us that its ok to keep consuming consuming consuming because as long as we turn off a light bulb and put things in the blue bin (that still goes to the same city dump) everything will be ok.
I think, for me, the pragmatic 'truth' is somewhere in between the 'we should do our part' and 'we're screwed'. We should support what we can, because maybe, just Maybe (but unlikely) if enough of us do this then we'll accidentally trip over someone with actual power to change what's needed to change. 'cause even if the fight is lost you may as well go down fighting instead of hiding in a hole. But realistically we either won't do anything useful until its way too late (and by 'we' I mean the countries and corporations who do the majority of the damage, not the 'we' who need to remember to recycle straws and take less hot showers). And even if we did everything right tomorrow we've already passed some lines of no-return, so we're actually now just talking about degree and location of damage. So with that pragmatic outlook.. do what we can and do our part... but also gotta start planning for how to handle what's coming. Because the hurricanes are getting more intense today. The fires are ranging farther, stronger today. Climate migration from other countries, the first parts of it, has begun already. Cities and parts of states have run out of water and are struggling today. Species of edible fish are becoming sparse and giant dead-zones in the ocean are happening today. These aren't predictions, they're now occurrences, and the predictions are about scale vs points in time, not 'if'.
So... when we had a minor ecological disaster during the great depression or the irish potato famine? When those were starting up? Someone could say 'its all gonna be fine' and they'd have likely starved or at least lost everything. They could say 'we're all doomed, there's nothing to be done' and we'd have never started replanting trees and diversifying crops, and we'd have never gotten through those things. They could have said 'if we all get together and focus on planting trees everything will be ok!'. And a lot of those would've starved because it was too big to be stopped quickly enough for that to have a meaningful effect, and they hadn't prepared. Or... they could've acknowledged what was happening, tried to help mitigate the problem.. but also focus on making sure their families had enough resources to get through the worst of the disasters for as long as possible - just in case there was a sunrise on the other side worth trying to get survive toward.
4:47 dang that lady’s cancer argument really hit the nail on the head!
Yea climate change is happening and we can’t completely stop it. But we can still take plenty of actions which ensure that the effects won’t be as worse. As a result more people will survive and have less pain in their lives.
Sounds like worthy actions to take!
@@AllLogicIsDeadPastMidnight yup, in my video on a similar topic I use the comparison of driving a drain which is speeding towards a wall at 100 mph.
Slowing all the way to 0 mph and not hitting the wall may not be an option anymore, but slowing down to 40 mph and putting seatbelts on is. And that would still save a lot of lives so we might as well do it!
Cancer treatments are way more affective when used in the early stages and far less affective as time passes.
Except when you have cancer you don’t have a bunch of wealthy and powerful people telling you it doesn’t exist and actively trying to prevent you from treating it.
A popular candidate for US president refers to climate change as “politicization of the weather” and people believe him. It’s like the president of the hospital believing cancer doesn’t exist. How are we supposed to treat it if we fire all of oncologists?
A spectrum in fractions of degrees, it all matters.
Let's take 1988 when James Hansen gave his speech to the american congress as the moment we got our cancer diagnosis. So it's more than 3 decades ago that we got our cancer diagnosis and we did barely anything to combat the cancer. We only let the cancer get worse and worse. If we now would have another diagnosis, it might possibly be terminal or near terminal.
As long as we're immersed in this senseless competition against each other and neverending growth model, where governments work mostly to protect the interests of a few, I am afraid that we're just doomed to face several dystopias. It doesn't come down to personal lifestyle changes... As long as the capitalist model doesn't step down, and something better takes its place, there's no way of stopping the collapse. Heck! So stupid are those among the ruling elite that they'd rather go to a world war 3 and use nukes instead of working towards solutions to social and ecological problems.
Yeah thats why there must be a revolution,if that doesnt happen ill just off myself
@@justarandompersonininterne6583well you will be disappointed there is no global revolution
@@axel665 yes i agree
Not saying the job is perfect but ,life has never been so good .and the rest of the world still seems to be craving capitalism.they are queuing up to get in .what better system can you imagine ?
@@andrewtrip8617 I do imagine one where the state at least mediates between society and corporations in favor of workers, environment ,and society instead of corporate profits and interests, and where consumption and endless growth is not the main purpose of life.
As people and societies we are so incredibly passive and subdued by the institutions and the media/technology that we dont actually do anything to help the environment or situation.
So many young and old people even now do jack to help. I feel so frustrated because i try to nkt pollute too much and shop second hand.
Quite good & balanced- thought-provoking, worth watching!
5-27-23. I believe we've already reached tipping points in too many aspects of climate change. Greed, benefitting from the current economic way of life stands between humanity and the radical changes needed to prevent human extinction. Best case, many billions will die. Worse case, all of us. I'm 72 and have been concerned about this issue since the 1980.
I’m curious, having been concerned about this for more than 40 years, how do you even get out of bed in the morning? How do you fight off the overwhelming sense of dread? How do you even make life meaningful? I am still so young but it feels like I cannot move forward, like I am stuck
While life is here it still has beauty and is worthy of love and admiration. 95%+ of all living species has gone extinct so us leaving the scene is more probable than not. The earth will survive for a long time. Lots of wonderful moments still in its future. We don't know the outcome of our current ecoexperiment with the earth.
I used to work at equity trading floor. And this one of my manager said "Remember the optimist never wins, it's the pessimist that always wins" and it hit me hard.
True. Especially on climate change. I wouldn't mind if I'm wrong and everything would turn out just fine. I would call that a win, if my pessimism was wrong.
@@sebastianb5036 right
Pessimists lose their ass on Wall Street everyday..... otherwise, everyone would just short everything and there would be no economy.
Just to make this a bit more obvious, but the scientist in this documentary is saying: yes there are still credible pathways to avoid the worst outcomes, but these require immediate and severe changes in our behaviour. She's not saying anything about the geopolitical support for the action needed, because it's not there.
"Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous."
Admiral H.G. Rickover
Ben Green takes action in a very reasonable and dedicated way, respect. Hopefully he will share his experiences growing plants under severe climatic conditions. Permaculture is supposed to be one of the methods make a living to live according to rules of nature, as far as we can grab them. Yes please, I would like being introduced to more examples of people heading for sustainable ways of living...
The TH-cam channel Happen Films is really good for that
@@ThePirateBen or there’s maybe more knowledge out there than even exists on a packet of seeds. Plus TH-cam is a free resource. So chill.
How is one dude sustaining himself alone on a hundred acres fix anything? There is not enough land on this planet for said solution.
I'm a Doomalist, the science becomes more irrefutable with every hotter day.
The biggest problem isn't that there's nothing we can do to mitigate climate change.
The biggest problem is that there is nothing that we ARE DOING.
Climate collapse is not about "belief", but, rather, scientific study (aka the "truth").
I liek the analogy with cancer, there's a treatment with horrible sideffects called geoengineering now we are in a hothouse state, meanwhile our life styles would have to dramatically change beyond measure in order to prevent it coming back.
Sign that we would be going in the right direction? A less car orientated society focused on efficient transportation (shared transport or manually powered). Reduced meat consumption and processing of food that is more locally sourced. A realignemnt of priorities, an understanding that many of our actions we deem as 'private' effect others thus should not be solely our choice.
None of this is happening, much of it is worsening. Furtermore, a gret deal of the solutions are over simplified. renewable energy will require energy storage that is in itself expensive and requiring resources with all its costs and geopolitical consequences.
Just as if we had cancer, we should do what we can while being realistic, and preparing for, the outcomes.
I work in statistical physics and have a decent understanding of the studies I ahve read. I have friends who are proffessors who are terribly depressed given the delusion of society generally not realising how far we are from being in touch with a stable way of life. I know climate scientists leaving the field because the more complex models that incorporate the interplay between variables is much more difficult and will delay publication (in the sciences we have the motto, publish or prish).
Things are much worse than the media is generally depicting. In democracies we must as members of society take some responsiblity because our governments can't go so far away from public opinion, this is even true in dictatorships. The media has in part failed us by portraying climate activists as extreme (a bit like calling this man a 'doomer').
Responsiblity is something best understood as shared.
And another comparison with cancer is our naive delusion of eternal growth which is necessary for an economic system based on debt and interest, but in reality, growth for the sake of growth is just like that cancer cell.
Yeah but Ben is actually doing the right & realistic actions. We can't change the car-centric infrastructure on a national/global scale within 20-30 years. It is more realistic for people to stop using AC/heaters and bike or commute to work.
Geoengineering is not a good ideia, it can be worse than the desease and we need to remmember that climate change is, in a certain way, a geoengenering experiment. Also, we are far from a hothouse state, that is a very expreme thing, closer to 10ºC hotter and Antartica having forests(yeah, an oversimplification, but it gives the ideia).
We aren't even remotely in a hothouse. The earth is nearly in the coldest it has ever been in 5 billion years, dangerously close to snowball earth.
@@gregorymalchuk272 that is the other extreme, and also completly wrong. We aren't even remotely close to snowball Earth, and things we are hotter than, maybe the last 3 million years.
1000% I'm ringing that same bell along the southwest shores of Michigami (meaning “big water” in Anishinaabemowin), where the Milwaukee River, Menomonee River and Kinnickinnic River meet. At 43° N latitude and near a huge source of fresh water, this place will be a refuge for people trying to escape the worst. I'm trying to get people, here and now, to wrap their minds around this reality. We need to live densely, grow locally, and focus on community far more than profits. We won't know if we avoid the worst until the middle of the 22nd century. Ben and I will be gone before the middle of this one
I've often thought the Great Lakes are going to get an influx of people, especially from the Southwest. I know this isn't your aim, but cynically speaking it might be worthwhile to talk about the economic potential of getting people back in.
Unfortunately, the only reason emissions were lower than expected in 2022 was the pandemic, not because of any actual progress on dealing with climate change.
I agree with him, this has no hope. 🌍❌☠️
I'm with Ben.
I'm not sure our species can survive in a biosphere that we've utterly ruined, the plant and animal life certainly won't.
Oh, it's extremely likely that some forms of plant, animal, and microbial life will survive. Larger mammals, birds, and reptiles probably won't. Amphibians are going extinct now at an alarming rate, as are insects of most species - and families. Out of whatever lives through this, new species taking whatever niches exist in the next era will evolve. Possibly even intelligent species.
The rats, mice and roaches will. and we will spring up & evolve from them again.
@@westho7314lol
That won't be the most immediate problem though. The problem will be climate fugitives, famine, lack of clean water, and societal collapse due to these problems.
@@bobrandom5545 It depends. If all of the nukes extant go off in a close succession, radiation levels will be high enough to kill anyone who's not in a shielded bomb shelter. Those who are will eventually run out of food, water, and air. As most of these have very long half lives, they will emerge into a radioactive wasteland in which they have a short life expectancy.
If there is not a great deal of radiation in the fallout, such as might theoretically happen with a "limited nuclear war" indeed there will be worldwide societal collapse, billions of refugees, famine, starvation, lack of clean water. With that will come water-borne disease on top of everything else.
I’ve followed this topic for over 30 years. Yrs back I went through a phase of false hope regarding new technologies that were never implemented. Then I realized it’s to late.
The 6th extinction is real.
Oh lord. There is plenty to be hopeful for, don’t fall for the doomsday propaganda which is meant to control you. Fear is a tool.
This was a good laugh, many thanks.
The issue is much larger then global warming in itself. What we also face is the dwindling finite resources we use to build and create this change. Do we have enough precious metals and minerals, etc. to produce the change needed? When we as a society value luxury, ease, comfortability, growth, and profit over sustainability this “change” is impossible to reach before our hypothetical tanks dry up and leave us stranded in the abyss.
It is important for us as individuals to make the necessary change we are in control of such as disconnecting from the systems and institutions we take part of that further bring upon our demise and do what we can to limit our impact; the sooner and more wide spread the better. People need to stop relying on government, politics and science to save us.
We are in need of social reform every aspect of our life’s need to change to combat the damages done from how we are educated, how we eat, sleep, entertain, live, consume, work, produce and how we socialize with one another. We can’t just vote these problems away and continue to blame the large corporations and governments that are the main perpetrators but except our own guilt and involvement in these ecological and humanitarian crimes as it’s us the masses that enable such actions through our labor, consumption, and overall participation that maintains their status quo.
The end of the world as we know it has already begun Rome didn’t fall in a day now did it. It’s just a matter of how you look at it it can be doom and gloom end of the world or it can be a chance for a new beginning. Our mindsets going into this pivotal point in history will be the determining factor. We can continue searching for our utopia or we can start living in reality as unpleasant as it is we can make it sustainable we just have to be willing to make the sacrifice and preparation now otherwise the worst of our human nature will continue to get the best of us.
I believe he's right. I was sparked in 2020 and believe we have come to a cataclysmic chain reaction. The tipping point has already been met.
What is your evidence for this tipping point?
Well, I believe sky fairies are going to save us. That doesn't make my belief real.
@@derekdube3708 where's your evidence? You seem to be ignoring the possibility of dampening effects, eg more heat produces more cloud which produces more reflection of incoming radiation (increased albedo).
This runaway, spiral hypothesis would seem to be contradicted by all of earth's climate history.
What evidence do you have that compounding effects will outweigh mitigating effects? I cannot see how you, or anyone can know at this stage.
@@derekdube3708 Exponential growth... you do realize that the temperature anomaly equation for CO2 is logarithmic, right? dT = A*ln(C/Co)
I think the only thing missing from this reporting is that the billionaire owners of most western news outlets are buying up land in NZ for their own climate and societal collapse escape bunkers. So bit hypocritical to give preferential treatment to news that reports anything other than "we are screwed."
We are a smoker who has been diagnosed with lung cancer. We aren't going to quit, even while our hair falls out from chemo.
Please post the full interview with Ben.
This civilization will be gone in less than 30 years. Just as Ben observes, the collapse has already begun. Exactly when we transition from some sense of a continuing order to chaos is impossible to pinpoint. But we can be 100% certain it's going to be awful.
"Every schoolchild knows that our recycling technologies will cure the environment..."
"Every schoolchild was lied to."
I am all for the environment, absolutely but we do not control the weather, two different things.
I actually kinda agree with him in a way and have been slowly working on something similar but a bit different in that I have a bit more hope and faith in people. Over the next 150yrs we have to completely reshape not just society's structure but the structure of our day to day lives as well. It's our job to get the next generation and the ones after that the solutions they need and a path to accomplish that. Thankfully we do know what to do and a good look at history and psychology can tell us how to get it done for the majority of the problems. The only thing I think this guy is doing wrong is he's doing this by himself. Teaching others to do what he's doing now, and building a society however small of people who value those things and value their relationships to each other equally would be a much better use of his time IMHO
I'm with, Ben on this. I think our governments will fail us, as they always do. When have we ever come to a quick solution or decision? How is this any different?
The problem is obvious, we see it in real-time, yet nothing much has been done because they all argue about money.
Money is what keeps everyone from starving to death and freezing to death.
Or do you live in a shelter you built, warm yourself with wood you cut, grow food that you planted, you built your own iPhone, you built the windmill to create your own energy to power the device you’re typing on?
I'm optimistic that we won't cause our own extinction. However I think it will take mass migration and millions of deaths before the majority of people will leave their comfort zone and take real action. I also think next year's El Nino could be what does it.
Lmao okay. And what is "real action"? Recycling? The solution must target the problem: capitalism. Fat chance we'll see that happen anytime soon.
Outright extinction is incredibly unlikely, at least a few of us will keep going even in the worst case scenario. The problem is, can we avoid societal collapse? Similarly to climate tipping points, societal collapse also cannot be stopped once it reaches a certain threshold. The more disasters strike cities the more infrastructure is damaged. The more infrastructure is damaged the less resources we all have. The less resources we all have the harder it is to fix the damage and prevent it from happening again. Add revolts and mass migration to the mix and you've got a deadly vicious cycle that is virtually impossible to stop once it starts moving
Accurately stolen words from my heart! we need to be optimistically about our human race learning a hard lesson soon or later! Yes, waiting for that El Nino!
Can we call it "optimism embedded in pessimism" ? My version is that humans go extinct without pain
the only omptimistic thing about this is, that we will burn through fossil fuels, which means that the next civilization, which comes after us, won't be able to pollute to the same extent. But our days are numbered sadly.
A degree of preparedness is sensible as it makes you more self-reliant. I make my own power for my house and EV, all my water comes from rainwater harvesting and I grow an increasing % of my food. Eating a diet with lots of home grown fruit and vegetables and free of processed foods is better for the planet and more healthy for your body. I have designed my house to stay as cool as possible as where I live in Thailand is increasing breaking heat records.
the scenario that plays out wont be the one "we" choose , it will be the one reality (or maybe even chance) imposes. Sure some may have chosen it , but most wont. At the macro/big scale level we are almost all impotent
Wonderful story. Where are we truly headed?