With evidence mounting on the failure to limit global warming to 1.5C, do you think global carbon emissions will be low enough by 2050 to at least avoid the most catastrophic climate change doomsday scenarios forecast by the turn of the century?
I am somewhat hopeful most developed countries will get there but I wonder if developing countries will have the ability and inclination to buy into it as well.
As long as conservatives have any say in the matter, we can expect the most destructive, deadly outcome possible.
We should expect no reasonable progress when conservatives (including neo-liberals) are able to intervene.
I think we are heading headlong into worst case scenario territory.
And I think we’re going to see a lot of terrible effects by 2050 if not earlier.
I feel that places like the Marshall Islands will be uninhabitable by 2050.
I feel we’ll see wars break out in developed nations over water rights by 2100.
The world is on fire and those with the power to enact change are unable or unwilling to do so.
And with the rise of the far right all over the world it’s only going to get worse.
The world will be unrecognizable in 2100 to the people alive today provided we live that long.
I still hold onto some hope that we may be able to pull off a turn around and actually save humanity. But the longer everything goes on the more that hope feels like a delusional fantasy.
Hug your loved ones, try to push for a better world, be kind to others, and enjoy the time we have. For tomorrow is not guaranteed, but the least you can do is allow love to enter your heart.
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I don’t think humanity is doomed. What I do see happening is a lot of areas that are landlocked becoming wayyyyyyy too expensive for normies to live in. You’ll see the coasts become stupid expensive to live as domestic climate refugees roll in. You’ll see tensions between locals and newcomers. And you’ll see it on the macroscopic scale with wars and tensions over resources like water rights, jobs, immigration, and racial tensions. You’ll see the rise of idiotic nationalism and people waving their country flag as justification for the “good old days”.
We’ll make it halfway, but we will still see devastating climate events often. Big floods, big drought, big hurricanes, skyrocketing insurance, weird stock issues on certain things like some medications, olive oil, cotton, etc. Humanity will be distracted by some of the dumbest shit imaginable while the grownups (scientists) try to focus on drawing down carbon to stay on target.
Luckily humans are very adaptable. History will judge companies like BP and standard oil harshly though, for basically fucking up the planet for centuries.
I agree with everything you’ve said and I know big oil has used the “individual responsibility” as a way of dodging their responsibility.
Big oil has a lot to answer for.
But so do we. In almost every country there’s been a “Green” party and choices for electors to make in regards to what regulation we’ve desired.
And the fact is we all have a lot of answer for.
We’ll not meet the goal limit, climate will change, the poor will suffer all the consequences, the rich will be mildly inconvenienced. Habitats will be destroyed, species will go extinct, life will go on.
I think we’ve fucked it. Without some drastic measures being taken we are on track for a minimum of a 2-2.5C rise and that is itself bad but will likely see certain feedback loops (defrosting permafrost, melting deep sea methane deposits, etc) ramp up hard to the point climate change will spiral out of control.
The remnants of human civilisation will be any billionaires with a sufficiently advanced escape plan in place, looking back on a boiling world in their rear view mirrors as they head off to eke out a pitiful existence on a barren rock somewhere out there.
Yeah, I doubt industrial society is going to survive for another 100 years. I’d be surprised if things don’t go to shit in the next 20, and that’s not even accounting for some sort of “black swan” event triggered by a feedback loop or something like that, that suddenly kicks off a speedrun to turn Earth into Venus.
We’re fucked, and we’d be fucked even if humanity went carbon negative starting right now. While the human race will likely be fine, this current lifestyle and economic system we’ve got in most of the developed world will go tits up and billions will end up dying, if not from the direct effects of climate change then eg. social instability, war, disease, famine. While we could still make the future slightly less bad for ourselves, it’s simply not profitable and there’s so much inertia in global capitalism that things won’t change without fantastic amounts of violence and social upheaval, and I doubt the next change will be for the better considering how popular far right and conservative parties are in many places around the world right now. They’re gleefully making things worse and then blaming leftists / black people / atheists / science / The Gays / etc
I think some humans might be able to survive on the tropical Antarctic archipelago…
If capitalism is still the dominant economic system and wealth inequality is even higher then it is now, then there is no chance at all of meeting climate goals, there never was.