Climate Nearing “Point of No Return”

[Eacaraxe]

There are serious questions about whether Australia's previous Prime Minister believes this, or whether he is just impressively incompetent and malicious.

Wouldn't surprise me. The actual number of people among the major religions who buy into death cult shit is pretty staggering, especially among politicos. They're smart enough to keep their traps shut to appear moderate and preserve influence, because they know if they were vocal in public they'd be unceremoniously shepherded out of public service and (preferably) into padded rooms. Worse is they tend to draw strong, quiet, support from the non-crazies in the Sam Harris "no, moderation doesn't really exist in religion" sense.

Look at Mike Pence, he's practically the Aristotelian ideal of masked Christo-fascism in contemporary US politics. To the point of being floated as the sane alternative to bog-standard, blowhard, empty-suit, corporate bobblehead conservatives like DeSantis, Abbot, and Christie. The churches he attends/attended in Indiana preach some terrifying shit -- like "Charles Manson-adjacent" shit. There's good fucking reason he stopped attending them in 2013 when he started entertaining his presidential bid, while those churches scrubbed online presence and heavily laundered their reputation.

I live about two hours' drive south of Indy, and since high school I've only been peripherally aware of what goes on in Christian Hoosier Land, getting my info second- and third-hand from friends and family who still attend church. Even the fundies down here think those churches in Carmel and Indy are scary, and I'm not talking about the "northern and southern Baptists glaring at each other from across the liquor store" way people of different denominations just talk shit. I'm talking about evangelical, ultra-conservative, Christians who double-fist that fucking Kool-aid in almost every other circumstance, yet openly speculate if Pence might be the Antichrist.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I live about two hours' drive south of Indy, and since high school I've only been peripherally aware of what goes on in Christian Hoosier Land, getting my info second- and third-hand from friends and family who still attend church. Even the fundies down here think those churches in Carmel and Indy are scary, and I'm not talking about the "northern and southern Baptists glaring at each other from across the liquor store" way people of different denominations just talk shit. I'm talking about evangelical, ultra-conservative, Christians who double-fist that fucking Kool-aid in almost every other circumstance, yet openly speculate if Pence might be the Antichrist.

Pence did not install Christ Trump as Emperor for Life of America in accordance with God's will, and therefore must be evil.

Also, speaking of religion and climate: I once saw someone look directly into a news camera and say, out loud, "I don't believe in climate change because God wouldn't let us ruin the Earth". How do you combat delusions that powerful?

 

[Gordon_4]

There are serious questions about whether Australia's previous Prime Minister believes this, or whether he is just impressively incompetent and malicious.

Oh I’d say there’s reason enough to believe that both are true.

 

[Kwak]

Also, speaking of religion and climate: I once saw someone look directly into a news camera and say, out loud, "I don't believe in climate change because God wouldn't let us ruin the Earth". How do you combat delusions that powerful?

It comes from the same rhetorical place as "How ego-centric to think humans are powerful enough to outdo the natural cycles of the earth", of which the first post in the thread is an example of.

 

[Satinavian]

Well, the Catholics, the Anglicans, and the Seven-Day-Adventists specifically support and call for action against Climate Change. The current Pope is speaking nearly monthly about it, has made it the topic of his most influential encyclica and Vatican pressure has been partly credided with getting the Paris accord signed. The Lutherans, Presbytherians and some others demand environmental support but don't call out climate change specifically. They still support climate policy in most cases, Technically most Orthodox churches has a similar position, but that does not seem to translate into practice as often. They don't really regard it as religious issue.
The idea that the whole "stewardship of the earth" thing comes with obligations as well and humanity could fail here is actually quite popular in Christianity as a whole.

Basically the only kind of Christians involved with climate-denialism are Evangelicals. Again.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Pence did not install Christ Trump as Emperor for Life of America in accordance with God's will, and therefore must be evil.

You joke, but there were some fundies who (again, not vocally outside "safe spaces") only got on the Trump train because he nominated Pence. They were hoping he'd either croak on his own, get assassinated, coup'ed, or have the 25th Amendment invoked, and Pence would become President. But, those weren't the bog-standard fundie/evangelical nutcases. Those were the aforementioned, hardliner, Christian Dominionists/Christo-fascists.

I cannot stress enough: all this whacked-out, crazy, stuff that's been said of Trump for the last eight years -- like the Handmaid's Tale and Nazi shit -- in Trump's case, that's partisan fearmongering. Trump's too egocentric and incompetent to do any of it, even had he been so inclined; we have six years' evidence to stand as proof of that, it's a pretty open-and-shut case. With Pence, not only is it all true, but there's serious denialism about it especially among the "orange man bad" crowd who'd have cheered him on simply for not being Trump.

Also, speaking of religion and climate: I once saw someone look directly into a news camera and say, out loud, "I don't believe in climate change because God wouldn't let us ruin the Earth". How do you combat delusions that powerful?

Eliminating tax-exemption for churches and tax-deductible contributions to churches would be the biggest, best start. Won't and can't happen given the current state of political affairs, but it would be the strongest-possible step one.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I'd be inclined to believe in "points of no return" if they didn't seem to happen so often.

 

[Hawki]

I'd be inclined to believe in "points of no return" if they didn't seem to happen so often.

Even if that's true in some cases, trends on climate have only headed in one direction.

For instance, even if tipping points aren't a thing, we're still in more danger the higher temperatures rise, not to mention every other ecological crisis we have to deal with.

 

[Baffle]

I'd be inclined to believe in "points of no return" if they didn't seem to happen so often.

Which ones have we managed to come back from?

 

[Chimpzy]

I'd be inclined to believe in "points of no return" if they didn't seem to happen so often.

Climate change is not a binary on/off thing. There are degrees to it, no pun intended. Some effects are no longer preventable i.e. past the point of no return, while other may yet be prevented, or at least mitigated, so still have a point of no return. Except climate change in general of course. That battle was like Cannae, and we were the Romans.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Which ones have we managed to come back from?

???

Climate change is not a binary on/off thing. There are degrees to it, no pun intended. Some effects are no longer preventable i.e. past the point of no return, while other may yet be prevented, or at least mitigated, so still have a point of no return. Except climate change in general of course. That battle was like Cannae, and we were the Romans.

If climate change is beyond whatever "point of no return" someone wants to make for themselves then it follows that all we can do is make extreme changes to our lives. Nothing that anyone talks about is an extreme change though.

I don't doubt that the climate is changing, I doubt that anyone actually wants to do anything but it would be too "inconvenient". If we're stuck on a trajectory towards a warmer climate then all the whining and moaning about using electric cars or reducing oil use and extraction are pointless and tiny.

Let me put it this way. If things are really that bad, then we're in a car that crashed through a barrier warning of a steep slope. It doesn't matter if we put on the breaks now, the momentum is carrying us down the hill, yet everyone is still yelling at each other over how we should have stopped before the barrier or put on the breaks. Like, ok, that's all fine and good, maybe we should talk about the slope we're barreling down instead since stopping before the barrier is over and done with. Everyone's still looking backwards and debating solutions that are too late to work now. If they actually care then maybe they should look forward.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Let me put it this way. If things are really that bad, then we're in a car that crashed through a barrier warning of a steep slope. It doesn't matter if we put on the breaks now, the momentum is carrying us down the hill,

To extend the metaphor, if we slam the breaks on now, we've still go some distance further down before we stop, but not as far as we would as if we put the brakes on later, or not at all.

Things are getting worse, and they aren't going to get better, but exactly how much worse is something we can influence if we want to.

 

[Baffle]

???

You said you don't believe in points of no return; I'm asking which points of no return have been stated that have turned out not be points of no return (this is, which points of no return have we passed but actually returned from?)

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

If climate change is beyond whatever "point of no return" someone wants to make for themselves then it follows that all we can do is make extreme changes to our lives. Nothing that anyone talks about is an extreme change though.

I don't doubt that the climate is changing, I doubt that anyone actually wants to do anything but it would be too "inconvenient". If we're stuck on a trajectory towards a warmer climate then all the whining and moaning about using electric cars or reducing oil use and extraction are pointless and tiny.

Two different groups of people: climate scientists saying we need to do a lot *now*, to the point of occasionally setting themselves on fire in protest; and the rich capitalist class who're slow-walking to secure their past and future investments.

Of course, the reason we need to do a lot *now* is because we did fuck all for the last century. It only seems radical because we've been ignoring the check engine light for a few generations

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Of course, the reason we need to do a lot *now* is because we did fuck all for the last century. It only seems radical because we've been ignoring the check engine light for a few generations

Possibly a thousand dead in Maui and a Canadian city evacuating twenty thousand people because of wildfires. We didn't want to make drastic changes, so nature is making them for us. Of course, we still have people out there who think that electric cars are a worse fate than burning to death.

 

[Ag3ma]

I'd be inclined to believe in "points of no return" if they didn't seem to happen so often.

Points of no return happen literally all the time, and we'd be fools to not believe in them.

The trick is what the defined point is. After all, it we're saying that we're close to the point of no return for avoiding a 1.5oC temperature increase by 2050, for instance, chances are we've already missed the point of no return for 1.4oC, 1.3oC, 1.2oC (etc.) by 2050. We'll have a point of no return for various glaciers melting, and Greenland ice melting, and various Antarctic ice sheets, etc. Some of which we've probably already hit, it's just a case of the time it takes for the now inevitable to happen.

Of course, the consequences for a lot of these may vary. A lot of them are relatively arbitrary lines in the sand. If we're up 1.9oC rather than 2.0oC in 2100, it's not exactly that much of a win because it's going to be mightily shit for much of the world either way.

 

[meiam]

Let me put it this way. If things are really that bad, then we're in a car that crashed through a barrier warning of a steep slope. It doesn't matter if we put on the breaks now, the momentum is carrying us down the hill, yet everyone is still yelling at each other over how we should have stopped before the barrier or put on the breaks. Like, ok, that's all fine and good, maybe we should talk about the slope we're barreling down instead since stopping before the barrier is over and done with. Everyone's still looking backwards and debating solutions that are too late to work now. If they actually care then maybe they should look forward.

It's more complicated than that, the metaphor will get unwieldy, but its more like we're in a bus and there's a bunch of passenger and were going toward a bunch of obstacle in the way. Every obstacle we hit part of the bus break and some people fall off. The longer we wait, the more people fall, and if we wait to long we'll really fall down the cliff. But at the same time the bus is carrying life saving medication/food (and plenty of perishable luxury) if we brake too hard now, we'll deliver those too late and other people will die (almost certainly less than who will fall off the bus, but we'll also lose the luxury if we did that and people don't like that). On top of that, climate changes happens on a delay (about 10-15 years), the day we'll really go over the point of no return won't be different because it'll take a decade for it us to feel the full force of it.

And the solutions needed are truly brutal, no population would ever willingly accept them. So instead we're betting on a third way, where technological progress might save us, the problem is that progress is inherently unknowable, so we need to buy time by slowing down emission so that we maybe get lucky and have the necessary breakthrough. But we're not slowing fast enough and technological progress is slower than we'd like so soon we'll need to look at direct geoengineering, most likely spreading particle into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, this will have some serious downside, but we don't really have a choice...

But make no mistake, things are really that bad.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Possibly a thousand dead in Maui and a Canadian city evacuating twenty thousand people because of wildfires. We didn't want to make drastic changes, so nature is making them for us. Of course, we still have people out there who think that electric cars are a worse fate than burning to death.

As far as I know the fire in Maui wasn't a natural disaster. It was caused by power lines and exacerbated by high winds and Lahaina's old infrastructure. It's being called a "wildfire" but I wasn't a natural cause.

 

[Gergar12]

It doesn't matter what I or anyone else does at this point. I have personally stopped buying anything off of Amazon and cut back on physical purchases that aren't food and gas, or essentials not because I need to, but because I want a future for future generations. There are days that I go without meat. But because some jackass decides to fly a private jet from Austin Texas to San Francisco, I may as well not even try.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It doesn't matter what I or anyone else does at this point. I have personally stopped buying anything off of Amazon and cut back on physical purchases that aren't food and gas, or essentials not because I need to, but because I want a future for future generations. There are days that I go without meat. But because some jackass decides to fly a private jet from Austin Texas to San Francisco, I may as well not even try.

Well, every little bit helps. But yeah, the emphasis shouldn't be on guilting the little people, it's governments, corportions and the rich (but I repeat myself) we need to change.