Climate timeline

65 comments

No, this timeline started with “Shit, our calculations show that we might ruin the world in just a few decades at this rate. Oh, well. Probably best not to mention this to anyone.”
- Do you think they're thinking "we'll be dead before things get really bad and fuck our kids" or "if we make our families super wealthy they'll be feudal lords after civilization collapses"?
  
  Philosophically speaking, there's a certain nihilistic philosophy out there where nothing matters after you die, so technically, the only thing that matters is the here and now.
  So there's definitely a cohort of people out there who intentionally went "fuck the future, my present is good and then I'll be dead."
  It's like the "I've got mine" but on an existentialist level.
  Having personally experienced the afterlife, and being one of the few who has the foresight - there is a specific and highly ordered way to make sure they reincarnate in the best possible location to live through the shit they've caused.
  No just-world fallacy, only just-desserts, because two can play at being really petty on an existential level.
  :)

This xkcd is what finally resolved the "is it us or natural variation" question for me: https://xkcd.com/1732/
- It's always the rate of change.
  I remember a few years ago people arguing the temperatures have changed before and that theres billions spent on climate change and it's all propaganda.
  They wouldn't listen to the rate of change argument then or acknowledge the trillions spent in industries causing climate change. I'm not sure they've changed their minds still ( I refused to engage them any further) but this is the challenge - so many people believe what they want to believe and don't want the hard truth.
  
  The Inconvenient Truth. That was so aptly named. Humans will do anything for the sake of convenience and climate change is quite inconvenient. Maybe if we make burning up the planet MORE inconvenient then it will change. Ridiculous taxes for carbon output sounds nice. Those tax dollars then spent on cloud seeding for the short term and carbon capture for the long term.
  
  A lot of people love rationalising their own beliefs but hate reasoning out what's right and wrong. It makes me lose faith in humanity.
- God bless Randall Munroe

There's no oops or fuck about it. They are gleefully driving us off the cliff like Thelma and Louise with conservatives cheering the whole way down.
The best we can hope for is to exact some form of harsh justice before nature has its way with them. We are already dead either way. Will they die in luxury or will they die in the streets with the rest of us?
- Oops was in the 90s and fuck hit about 2005. Climate scientists knew it.
  Though in the 90's, which is when I got my biology degree, they assumed they'd be dead before it got really bad. Consider that oops 2.0
- The "oops" and "fuck" are the public who are successfully reached by oil giant marketing and propaganda, the majority of people who think the first two statements are true and won't enjoy the final results.

We've entered the 'this is the new normal now, get used to it' phase.
- "climate change is real, but it's too late so why change anything now?"
  
  Maybe we should do something about it but there's nothing we can do.
  I notice more and more people trying to push us into stage 4 - "Maybe there was something we could have done but it's too late now" - just so we can put all of the uncomfortable guilt behind us.

This meme forgot to include when BP started pushing the 'Carbon Footprint' propaganda, to offset blame from corporations onto regular folk.

Don't disagree with this at all, just noting that the start of that line could be stretched much further back, we have known that human consumption of coal was having/would have a detrimental impact on climate for well over 100 years 1856, 1902, 1912
source
Sadly in that timeline, profit has always mattered more than humanity (or the planet).
- Still does.

Stage 1: "Climate change is my responsibility to fix as an average citizen!"
Stage 2: "Actually, fixing climate change is the responsibility of the megacorporations causing it."
Stage 3: "Climate change is my responsibility to fix as an average citizen!" (said while researching sabotage and mutual aid)

You're missing an important step.
There's denial, then acceptance but brushing off blame, and then accepting blame but with apathy.
"OK fine, climate change is real, and it is caused by humans, but there's nothing we can do about it, so by bother?"

Except instead of oops it's 'the world is going to end anyway, so why not burn more oil?'

The mastermind behind all this must be building fallout vault-like structures to allow people to survive the planet when all is said and done. They will rule the world in the end, perform experiments, whatever they want.
- The timeline for the earth to cool back off is a hundred thousand years. A bit too long to wait out in a bunker.
  
  Not with that attitude
- I actually got a long ad on YouTube recently for luxury bunkers equipped with everything to go on for decades no matter what's going on outside. So yeah, that's a business now.
  
  What the hell is a luxury bunker?
  Gold plated vault doors? Red carpet? Fancy mini bar soaps?

There should definitely be a BP stage in there too
- "Oops" is already there.
  
  Lol.. As if Exxon didn't have their own GIANT "oops"
- Deepwater horizon side plot

What really sucks is that we are penalizing newer, greener technologies in order to prop up older non-profitable technologies.
There is a huge subsidy in the US for coal power plants. That needs to wind down, preferably in the next 4 years.
A few states charge higher registration fees for hybrid and electric vehicles, while at the same time suppressing or almost eliminating the gas tax during post-pandemic inflation.
Certain groups are dead set on boiling the the frog here, without even realizing that they are a lobster in the same pot of water.
- The worst part is that renewables and EVs are generally just better in every way.
  Just because they don't go vroom vroom, a majority of the population don't like them.
  
  Inb4 some idiot goes "but it takes metal mined from places and shipped across the ocean to make Teslas!!!"
  Like your Ford Raptor is sustainably grown and harvested in small-plot ecologically friendly mom and pop truck farms....

I think we're currently in the "oops" phase heading towards "fuck"

Where are we now?
- Right at the beginning of Oops...
- Missing section: "OK its real and man made, but the fix is too inconvenient"
  
  “This is because you didn’t recycle enough!”
  
  Won't someone please just once consider the profits
- Stuck in traffic huffing Exxon's fumes.
- psfu
  
  It took me a while to get this

My personal human timeline:
End of dark ages up to industrial revolution: Wow, people are getting pretty dang smart, things are looking good for humanity.
Industrial revolution up to present: Well, on second thought...

I don't care if it is caused by humans or natural causes ( and it's likely both). The issue is that it's a problem, because we've evolved to live in a cool environment (relative to wherever this is going). Part of responsibly using this planet we find ourselves on is terraforming it to sustainably and efficiently suit our needs. I support decarbonization because it helps. But due to other natural factors effecting our environment for the worse (as far as we as a species are concerned), we will need to take more artificial measures to cool the planet in the future.
But the first step is decarbonization. We have two choices - accept natural inefficiencies and extreme conditions, and slowly lose our intelligence in exchange for resilience (evolutionary "crabification"), or terraform the planet to a constant, efficient environment to continue developing as an intelligence.
We are caught, environmentally, in a neutral zone between extreme fluctuations that will continue until the earth cools entirely from its formation. We did not exist during the last extreme. And if we do not prevent the next, our species will not survive.

I don’t doubt climate change exists I just hate stupid talking points and dumb cultists agreeing with one another blindly

65 comments