Posted by u/pnewell 14 hours ago
John Kerry says Earth has 9 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crisis: There's no faking it on this one
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We are already too late because we haven’t even started fixing the biggest problem, people’s attitudes. It’s our human right to not care about the planet in most people’s eyes.
There’s another Reddit post I saw today debunking the idea that snow in Texas could be fake, and part of a government conspiracy.
So yeah, we’re pretty much in the deep end already.
Even if it were true, we'd spend all 9 years debating whether climate change is actually anthropogenic or a result of "God." When my home is under water in Florida, and others like it along the coast of the country, there will be no one to blame but the Republicans. Who sold us out for fossil fuel money.
The people who claim it's all part of God's plan sicken me. Because you know what? If you believe in God, he created this planet. In the infinite vastness of the universe, this is the only place we can live. And this precious gift of life? We're shitting all over it. The planet their God lovingly made for us. We're trashing the very thing he made for us to sustain their petty, selfish little lives.
I can't think of a greater way to honor our creator than to respect his creation and be good stewards of it.
Have you noticed the language has shifted from just avert to avert the worst consequences? Will shift again to prevent the most number of deaths and weather related migration. This is is the steam roller coming towards you and we standing there going no but not moving.
Realistically, right now millions of people will die. It's going to happen. All we can do is try to prevent complete collapse of the biosphere.
Environmental/climate scientist here. It's bad. I really can't overstate it. My background is in geology, so I'm pretty familiar with mass extinctions. We're beginning one right now. We're not at dinosaur levels yet, but the "worst case" scenarios in our models have that as the end result. Right now, we're going to see millions of people die and tens to hundreds of millions of climate refugees. If you're a millennial or gen Z, this will be in your lifetime. It's inevitable. The atmospheric residence time of greenhouse gases is such that we're pretty much fucked unless we do MAJOR carbon sequestration. We're not just seeing famine in developing nations...we're already seeing effects in first world countries. Think of all the hurricanes we see every year...you're not supposed to get hundred year storms multiple times a year. It will get worse. It's not too late to stave off the worst of it, though. Humanity has banded together and accomplished gargantuan tasks in short periods of time before, like the Space Race. It's merely a matter of priorities. It's not too late...if we get our shit together ASAP. But considering we have assholes who want to roll coal and choke sea turtles with plastic straws to trigger the libs, I am not hopeful. But, it's not too late. Think about the ecological recovery we saw during Covid lockdowns. Individuals can still make a difference. How? Here are some things you can do as an individual: * Eat local. Shipping of produce creates massive emissions. * Less red meat. Cattle ranching is incredibly inefficient, and results in habitat destruction and loss of biodiversity. * Public transportation. Vehicle emissions aren't the biggest contributing factor to CO2 in the atmosphere, but it's something. * Nuclear power. This is THE BEST zero emissions stop gap we have while transitioning to renewables. Literally the only thing stopping us is squeamishness. If they're planning on building one near you, don't worry. Unless you're in a tectonically unstable area or late 80s Ukraine, there is literally nothing to worry about. You can do something! It's bad, but it's not too late. Edit: I know not everyone has the privilege of doing the suggestions I made. But *if you can*, it's worth it. It won't fix it, but it might buy a little time for us to figure out large scale changes.
3/4 of those things are within my power, but how do I have a hand in nuclear power? The only thing I can think of is to call my reps about it.
I’m so fucking over hearing this. Why? As a working class citizen there is *literally* nothing I can do about this. The governments rich corporate friends can. No amount of straws I refuse will make a fucking difference until the real perpetrators are held accountable. But they won’t. Because no matter who we vote in nothing changes.
You absolutely can still do stuff as a working class person! I left a super wordy comment on here with a list of suggestions for the average Joe on here. It won't be enough to solve the problem, but everyone can still make a difference, even if it's a small one.
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That is a valid concern, esp. since the trajectory for climate change is pretty smooth, and the global policies pick a curve from a bunch with given uncertainties. It's sort reasonable to have "deadlines" to try and force meaningful action, since giving impactful statements in the form of "reducing X% of CO2 emissions by Y will limit warming to Z degrees with W certainty". In short, we're screwed.
What would make some more sense-and there probably/hopefully is already one-would be a debt-ticker like rolling number showing estimated damages due to climate change with current CO2 production.
Also, to be fair, Californians amd Australians did have slight issues with their fires and air quality already... and in general, particulate matter from combustion engines is estimated to be responsible for millions of global deaths annually\[e.g. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754)\], so we actually might be better off using filters outside, even without COVID.
I never get the arguments. If we take the warnings seriously and slash pollution and fossil fuels, we will perhaps solve the problem of global warming. If we are wrong and global warming is not real, we will have a cleaner and healthier planet. The only mistake is doing nothing as Corporations want.
The world just needs to start addressing the Climate Crisis without America. We're just not going to get it together over here. The wheels are coming off. I just wish the rest of the world would start making the positive changes needed. If everyone waits for the USA to take the lead, it will be too late. We are a reactionary people, America will only take action once a third of the nation is underwater. I sometimes consider taking my child and fleeing this country, but the way we make war everywhere I doubt I could escape the imperial war machine and it's effects. No where to go to escape the cataclysmic effects of global warming, either.
you’re romanticizing other countries too much. a lot of them, like canada, literally never hit their paris accord defined climate goals, and probably won’t care enough to try and remedy that
the us is in a particularly bad position because of trump, but now that he’s gone, and the us can finally catch up to where other countries are now, we definitely cannot forget that they are also dragging their feet in regards to climate change as well
It's way too late. It's no longer about adapting to climate change, it's just a matter of trying to make it survivable for the human race.
There is no such thing as "Too late."
We are definitely too late to avoid 1C increase, we are likely too late to avoid 1.5C increase, I am optimistic that we can avoid 2C.
But the sad fact is, if we fail to avoid 2C, 3C is still worse, and 3.5C is even worse. There is no point where it we get to "as bad as it can be" it can ALWAYS get worse.
That means we have work to do no matter how hard the work is.
I hate that whenever I see news like this I look outside at a large yard on a hill from a home I am close to paying off the mortgage on and wonder how long we could survive on our own. Typing from a computer made in China. :-/
The Republican Party and their denial of facts has placed the planet in a deep hole when it comes to mitigating the effects of climate change. We will pay a dear price for their folly.
If I've learned anything from the COVID crisis, we will wait 9 years and then start thinking of a plan. In America, half of the population will never believe there's a problem, even if their their homes become uninhabitable.
We’re screwed. We couldn’t get people to care about a pandemic that was directly demonstrably killing Americans at a record pace. We’re not going to get people to put up with some minor inconveniences to save the planet.
Methane pouring out of the arctic tundra is going to do us in.
The methane problem terrifies me. I remember reading speculative papers in my first climatology class about it, and it seemed so improbable. Now it's probably a certainty.
The Paris accord is completely toothless, and the Obama administration expanded fracking, and we really trust this fucker to help meaningful action to be taken? Even if we actually had 9 years, instead of basically -30 years, Biden won’t do shit, he just approved like 30 oil drilling projects a month ago.
oh, no, it's waaay too late. We missed the deadline a while ago.
Kerry: "There's no faking it on this one." Abbot: "Wind and solar caused the outages in Texas."
Cool. That gives oil companies and big polluters... along with all the politicians they bankroll, eight and a half years before they have to get serious about this.
We need to stop framing it this way. We are in a climate crisis right now. We're now choosing how far we want to go with it. And it looks like because people are so obsessed with their resentments against developing countries like India and especially China over which we have no control (and just marginal influence, especially on the latter), we aren't going to do a damn thing. There is no integrity to refusing to abate climate change because of others' actions. The American voter as a whole has no integrity.
Looks like we have 9 years before the apocalypse! Let's Party like we're all gonna die in 2030!
After coming from a family that made its start in dairy and growing up in a household that ate meat and dairy every day, you know what the HARDEST part about going vegan was??? It wasn’t giving up eating meat or buying animal products. That was the EASY part. The hardest part is that every damn day I am hearing about the climate crisis and thinking “how the fuck are we going to make it through this? (In America) We can’t even get a shockingly large amount of people to wear masks a year into the pandemic and 500,000 DEATHS in. We STILL can’t make it past white supremacy let alone speciesism. In fact I’m willing to bet most people in the States have never even heard of “speciesism”, or even know what it is. Not nearly enough people here actually give a damn about their neighbor let alone the rest of the country, humanity, or life on this planet. I loved eating meat. There was a point not long before going vegan that I would answer that “if you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?” question with “seafood”. But I realized that I, as an intelligent life-form, have a responsibility to account for my effects on the planet and other living things. I have a responsibility to preserve our home so that others living now and others to come may be able to enjoy it safely. Im glad some of you are cutting some meat products, or maybe cutting how many times a week you eat it. Some of you even have gone vegetarian. While you should be proud of that small victory, it’s not enough. Im sorry. It sucks, I know as well as anyone. But this is where we are. Humans have made much bigger life altering changes before in the question of survival. If we do not do EVERYTHING we can in our individual power, we are fucked.
Its way too late already.
Mitigation and containment needs to be the name of the game. We will experience climate change even if we stopped all activity right now.
We can decide to cut our losses, accept that hundreds of millions will need to be relocated over the next 30’years, and start transitions like our lives depends on it.
Or we can argue and instead of evacuating cities, we start talking about if a 1,000 mile exclusion zone around the equator is reasonable or not, because it will be unliveable in our children’s lifetime if we don’t stop our addiction.
Keeping republicans out of power from now on is our greatest priority. If they gain power again, we will lose precious time in the fight against climate change. We cannot afford that. Our survival depends on keeping republicans out of power.
That's the one thing I hate about American politics. Both sides have to be absolute polar opposites.
I mean here in the UK we have two very different sides but both sides at least understand that climate change is real.
"BUT THE SCIENCE MEN WERE SAYING THAT 30 YRS AGO" Yes we blew past that checkpoint and several others now we're just trying to save the scraps. So we have 9 years to save the scraps. Deny 'till ya die I guess.
John Kerry is optimistic. It's already too late.
Oh Kerry, always trying to stoke hope with reasonable palatable ideas. I love you, Kerry, but it will be too little too late. Still gotta do it though.
Have you met humans? We’re so fucked.
If you thought 2020 was bad, prepare your anus for the sequel 2030
I believe we will fail, and that the best we can do is blunt the impact with our efforts. I believe that even if we were united in the cause of saving the world, we'll still fail. We'll survive it in some form or another, but we will fail.
No offense to the Democrat Establishment, but there is some criticism to be levied at it and the Democrats' leadership problem. The fact that John Kerry is our envoy on this issue shows the Democrat Party's lack of urgency and endemic favoritism among their elites, who also never retire! We keep electing centrists in an era that increasingly needs either leftists or pragmatic reformers. I hope for the best from Biden, and so far he has given some reason for hope, but major problems persist.
Unless situations like Texas start being more common place (happening every year or multiple times per year) - people aren't going to really care. And, even if they do care at this point (yearly or multiple times a year), it is far too late. I feel we've already gone over the tipping point. And, are now falling. So, it is no longer about preventing the fall, it's about bracing our selves for the fall and what to do afterwards. And, when we do hit the bottom, there will STILL be people opposed to us picking ourselves up.
Maybe our leaders could implement cost efficient solutions and reductions to carbon that don’t fall solely on the back of ordinary citizens.
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I'm one of those people.
We have been providing credible data for decades. Robustly tested models based on -- literally -- hundreds of millions of years of data. We've been spoon feeding people for decades, it's not our fault they keep spitting it back out.
It's almost like conservatives tried super hard and succeeded in making the general population disregard global warming by calling out al gore and his documentary. All they needed was that headline to convince the masses they wouldn't have to work harder (changing our grid). They blasted al gore into the dirt only to find out he was actually right, just UNDER predicted the impact. It's almost like conservatives haven't been having an honest conversation about the state of our planet. Am I surprised? No, conservatives reject education at every turn unless they stand to directly profit from it.
To all the people saying "we had 10 years 10 years ago!" They're always shifting the timeline! Yes. We had to act 30 years ago to avoid consequences. We are now locked in to losing basically all the world's coral reefs and the ecological and storm control services they provide. Large parts of low laying costsl areas are on borrowed time. Getting out of Florida and the Philippines while it's still possible is highly advisable. Also, huge parts of the west and Australia are going to continue burning to a worsening extent. And hurricane season is going to turn it up to 11. The net result of all this will be *at least* millions, but probably tens of millions dead and high tens to low hundreds of millions displaced and desperate. This will of course create major supply chain disruptions in addition to many simultaneous humanitarian crises that'll make COVID look easy by comparison. You know what we have 9 years to avoid? The *wost* consequences. By which they mean a complete collapse of the biosphere and thus agricultural system that would lead to *Billions* dead. So basically WWII times 1000. Maybe worse than that. If hummanity goes from 7 billion to 7 million, the ones who survive will realistically do it mostly through luck. You and your family wanna roll those dice? Also, expect some post-apocalyptic style tribal shenanigans. By which I mean warlords killing all the men, taking your food and or equipment, and raping any and all females in your group. That's what the survival side looks like.
The less-than-worst consequences of the climate crisis are going to make the 2030's completely miserable for everyone on this planet. Climate refugee crises alone are going to displace hundreds of millions in coastal areas. Your best bet at this point is to start growing your own food now because the climate disruptions to global supply chains will reduce the availability of the majority of fresh produce we currently have access to. Natural disasters will continue to inrease in frequency and intensity. You have 9 years to prepare to be self-sufficient so it would be best if everyone could stop being so fucking shallow and materialistic if they want to survive the next two decades.
"Really! For sure! This time, its for real!" ​ Sorry folks, it is too late. I'd say we maybe could have done something 20 years ago, but really, we never could. Absent incredibly cruel global authoritarian rule, there is simply no way humanity will come together enough to present a cohesive response. Sorry guys. Downvote if you want, but my username is relevant in this case. My advice for most reading this? Move north. Don't have kids. That's it. That's about the only thing you can really do. If you want to wallow in despair, come on over to the collapse subreddit. If you want to do the same thing, but laugh at the absurdity of it all, come over to the collapze subreddit.
Humans: You sure its not 10? let's try it and see
Giving time frames like that defeat the purpose.
I don't know what it is, but I can never remember if John Kerry is a republican or democrat. He's the Observer effect version of politics.
Bidens talking about not getting shit done till 2035. Bernie was telling him during the primary debate that his policies are too slow. Bidens doing exactly what Bernie said he'd do in that debate. Not Enough. Rejoining the Paris climate accord and waiting till 2035 to do anything about gas vehicles is just a big nothing burger for humanity. The first order of business in 2022 should be to get as much progressives in as possible. More progressives need to consider running in their districts.
There's only one thing fixing the crisis at this point. The crisis happening and the earth's population getting decimated until it reaches a point where the environment can recoup.
Well, that's today's sentiment. Tomorrow, it'll be another administration with a different view. Maybe...the world needs to choke down the realization that the USA with our revolving geopolitical stances WILL NOT be the saviors of this planet, however much our religious/political/media mindfucks desperately want 7.5 billion people to pretend it is. We've just WASTED another four years with inaction. The US Congress no longer legislates for the global long view, too many career members have sold out for some quick profits today. So no one knows what our official climate positions will be in another 4-8 years. Kerry's words mean the rest of the world cannot afford to squander any more hope on our flagrant political inconsistencies. They need to get on with whatever THEY can do. Maybe the US can help, if we're not too busy saving our own democracy from our own citizens.
Based on how this impending thing has been coming for pretty much my entire life, and for my entire life, profits have been prioritized over people, what I expect to happen is that the warning signs will continue to be ignored as those who are able to will continue to fund their futures at the cost of everyone elses. Humanitarianism is hard. Caring for the environment is hard. Thinking big and seeing the big picture is overwhelming. Greed is easy.
Yeah, but you're never going to muster a meaningful response that affects the entire globe positively in 9 years either. We should still try, but we've lost the first several rounds. We ARE going to see the sea level rise and lose coastal cities.