I fucking hate this. Its all for literally nothing. For fucking money. Money. Imaginary pieces of paper. Even worse, imaginary numbers on a fucking screen. Data. It's all for fucking nothing. We won't avoid the 1.5 C mark, and it might come in 5 years. 2 C would mean basically the end of any semblance of normal, at all, and the collapse of the global south. Forget even 3 degrees, I'd probably already be dead. They won. They fucking won. No revolution in the Imperial Core is possible. Everyone is a chud, or a lib, or a left anticommunist. We can't fucking win. It's over. The world is over.
Lol it really is so much worse than my younger self imagined and somehow continues to get worse with each passing day
You have to believe in a better world even if it's impossible
I hope you don't think I'm suggesting otherwise
Well if you're saying we should believe something even if (we know) it's impossible, aren't you?
There are always a lot of good reasons to despair and doubt that change is possible, and not just as it regards climate change. Many of our predecessors fought their whole lives against great odds for a revolution that never came. Would it have been better if they had never tried? Some, after all, succeeded despite everything.
Revolutionary optimism isn't delusion. It's a precondition for making any change at all in the face of immense odds
I wasn't arguing against revolutionairy optimism, I was saying that if you think things aren't possible, then acting as if they are would be not accepting your material conditions.
I guess I would say that we just don't always know what is possible. Obviously we work with the material conditions as we find them, but interpreting those conditions to predict the future and thus know what possibilities they present is difficult.
There's a quote I wish I could remember the source of that talks about how, if you were a person surveying the political landscape of Europe in, say, 1750, you would be perfectly reasonable if you assumed that the status quo of hereditary monarchy would endure forever. Yet in hindsight, we know that was not true.
Are you thinking of the Ursula K Le Guin quote? "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words". I think the difference here is that I don't think capitalism is inescapable, but I think catastrophic climate change is, and pretending like it isn't won't help your mental health as you then cannot deal with it, nor will it help with organising.
I'm not disputing revolutionairy optimism. I think it's just this statement to climate I guess
That's not the quote I'm thinking of, unfortunately, although that one is in much the same spirit.
I don't think capitalism is inescapable, but I think catastrophic climate change is, and pretending like it isn't won't help your mental health as you then cannot deal with it, nor will it help with organising.
That's an understandable perspective. If you can take all that on board and still fight then I applaud you. I often think, though, about my coworkers, who are normal, well-intentioned people who have largely concluded that nothing will ever change and the only thing an individual can do is try and secure their own financial well-being.
The way to create compliant, apolitical people like that is to first convince them that a better world is not possible. That's why I emphasize the importance of believing in a better world even in the face of what seems like impossible odds
Yeah, I relate to all of this so I appreciate you posting this. Sometimes it feels like the more I'm out touching grass, the more I'm thinking about all this.
Everything that makes me happy has this expiration date hanging overhead and it keeps making me think about how long it'll last, what things will be like ten years from now, if I'll even remember or look back fondly on any of this.
I don't even have a conclusion to my thoughts or this post, just that you're not the only one.
The world isn't ending.
It's just getting worse.
You are going to die someday, and now you're a bit more likely to die because of climate change instead of old age, but the rest of the human race isn't all going to die with you at the same time.
You don't get the narcissistic satisfaction of an apocalypse.
Life will continue after you are gone, even if it's on a ruined planet.
yes obviously some peopke will survive but unless we deal with climate change immediately within 30 or so years the world will literally end. i am not narcissistic, you just don't understand the gravity of climate change.
do you even know how bad 2 degrees higher than pre industrial levels will be?
As someone who works in this, life is nowhere near as invincible as one may think. We have survived by pure chance or accident.
Life won't continue in any semblance of anything recognisable and even if it did the fact is little comfort when I am worrying for my friends and family. I don't really give a shit about the human race as a concept. I give a shit about all the people I love and I give a shit about all the people everyone else loves and will miss.
I don't really give a shit about the human race as a concept
Neither do the people who brought this upon us
Also, there won’t be an apocalypse, but things will steadily get worse as the contradictions of capitalism become increasingly apparent
That’s why our leaders are pushing for war with nuclear countries. The nuclear fallout will negate climate change. They don’t call it a nuclear winter for nothing!
How do these people look at themselves in the mirror, believe in God, and NOT think they will go to hell?
Do they think that if God was real, and an enlightened being, that he would be more patient with gay people (even if he has something against it) than he would with these nihilists who think it's a cute quirk they ruined the lives of millions and made rainwater undrinkable because of "muh shareholder value".
It’s all just a farce. I think they all subscribe to the foxhole theory. Deep down they don’t give a fuck about god or Christianity, but as long as they say a Hail Mary, donate to some christofascists, and push for war to save democracy, they’ll go to heaven if it exists.
@Mardoniush@hexbear.net ’s explanation is probably more accurate
Calvinism. They believed they are saved, are saved for literally no reason, since all mankind is corrupt, and that thus only the Elect matter and are the protagonists of reality
I once read an MSM article literally advocating this
Visited a city I grew up in yesterday. It's a very upper middle class, right wing & conservative place where all you see now is people having Ukraine flags propped up on their expensive house balconies.
What got me though was the big construction area that had been propped up in the city rivermouth, right on the seaside. These were being sold for the kind of euros nobody but the top 10% here has.
And all I could think about was how these people build these status houses and spend these fortunes on them, but because they are so attached to the status quo, nobody even mentions that this land will be in the sea, literally, in not so distant future. Probably before those mortages for those houses are paid.
This feeling of being just separated from the "reality" these folks choose to keep living in, it's everywhere now. They just go on with the, I don't even know what it is anymore. Denial isn't a strong enough word for it.
What really pisses me off is that these are the people who will insist that they are the realists and pragmatists, talking down to you like you're a spoiled child while claiming that everything will forever get better under liberalism
talking down to you like you're a spoiled child while claiming that everything will forever get better under liberalism
It's how it plays out in their Prestige TV treats. The most naive and bad people want to improve society somewhat. All the cool people with the quippiest quotes and the badass smirks are status quo warriors.
Society will take a century to do anything we call a "collapse" in hindsight. We'll limp along cannibalizing ourselves for generations, climate refugees flooding north as southern states shrivel up into Petro deserts.
But will the fundamental extractionary police state of the last 250 years change? I'm not holding my breath. We'll still be a plantation society posing as a liberal democracy, with the same idiots and asshats controlling the milling herds of oofs with racist dog whistles and paramilitary crackdowns.
I don't know if I agree with that. If we see mass simultaneous famines (and we're already seeing worrying impacts on crops this year), shit will hit the fan really, really fast, and I don't think there's any guessing what comes out of the other end of that process.
If we see mass simultaneous famines
We're a country that throws 40% of its agricultural production in the trash to keep prices up. We dedicate enormous amounts of arable land to ranch feed and grazing. We're running on antiquated and woefully inefficient infrastructure.
Any famine will be entirely engineered.
Any famine will be entirely engineered.
even if you're right (and I think you being glibly naive) that won't make it any less real
You're not thinking long term enough. What if, over the course of the year, all the biggest producers of staple foods see a 50% loss of crop yield? That there's just not enough to go around, full stop. Some countries who normally export their yields won't. Countries that depend on imports will not have enough food to go around, amd the richest will do their best to buy up whatever is available because the alternative is becoming a failed state. There will be failed states.
Some countries will have stored grain, corn, etc as a buffer against this. But then what happens when there's a 50% loss in global crop yield two years in a row?
China is already considering this scenario and is trying to make plans to prepare against it, but we're all running out of time and nitrogen fertilizer is both very energy (ie fossil fuels) dependent and necessary for the crop yields the global population needs to survive.
Our food production is very, very vulnerable and is going to be one of the biggest instigators to everything falling apart.
What if, over the course of the year, all the biggest producers of staple foods see a 50% loss of crop yield?
What if they see 100%? That would be real bad.
But is that happening? Not according to the USDA. We're talking about the worst years producing sub-single digit shortfalls. Absolutely nothing like a 50% shortfall is happening.
Some countries will have stored grain, corn, etc as a buffer against this.
Nobody is storing grain against a 50% reduction in domestic productivity. That would just mean a famine, full stop. But, again, nothing in the data is suggesting we're anywhere near that level of shortfall.
China is already considering this scenario and is trying to make plans to prepare against it, but we're all running out of time and nitrogen fertilizer is both very energy (ie fossil fuels) dependent and necessary for the crop yields the global population needs to survive.
You're going to have to show me where, in the current or subsequent Five Year Plan, the Chinese government is planning for a 50% shortfall in domestic agricultural production.
Our food production is very, very vulnerable
I don't know what "very, very" is supposed to mean here. What is the lynchpin of domestic agricultural production in the US or China that would result in a 50% fall in crop yields?
Again, I am not talking about what's going to happen tomorrow or next year. It might not be ten years from now either (at least I hope not). We are already seeing the impacts now, yes, but we're not at 1.5 C yet nor at 2 C yet.
These events do happen already, just not globally. Drought in the US in 2021 destroyed some states' grain harvests, some states saw an almost 50% drop compared to 2020. For now, other states pick up the slack, or other seasons' planting does, but as we get closer to 2 C, the extreme weather events become more frequent and more widespread.
I don't know what "very, very" is supposed to mean here. What is the lynchpin of domestic agricultural production in the US or China that would result in a 50% fall in crop yields?
Drought, heat killing plants, floods, soil erosion and disruption in fertilizer production and supply lines.
China is not currently preparing for 50% crop shortfall globally, but food security and independence is a major concern for China and Xi has talked about it repeatedly.
Drought in the US in 2021 destroyed some states' grain harvests, some states saw an almost 50% drop compared to 2020
Which state saw a 50% yield drop?
food security and independence is a major concern for China and Xi has talked about it repeatedly.
The country with a long and awful history of famine is going to have politicians fixated on preventing it from happening again.
If climate change weren't a thing, Xi would still be talking about it, because food security in a country of 1.4B people is vital.
The collapse is already here, it is just unevenly distributed
This is a good point, kinda hard for for a US collapse to happen all at once, especially with the way the country is spread out
I think the veneer of liberal democracy will absolutely collapse in our lifetime. And I'm not so sure that the would-be plantation societies in the imperial core will be able to successfully re subordinate the global south. The periphery just might pull off something special before the full collapse
I'm not so sure that the would-be plantation societies in the imperial core will be able to successfully re subordinate the global south.
One of the perks of living in the US North / Canada is that you've got tons of potable water and some of the last arable land suitable for commercial farming.
But a glut of desperate laborers combined with a rapacious commercial sector leadership means we'll be doing all our old tricks to these new people.
I dunno, the US seems really eager to kill all its arable soil with roundup as quickly as possible.
Somewhat. 1/10 Americans depend on the Colorado River for water and that shit is so mismanaged it's likely to go dry.
It'll go dry because we keep draining it. But California has had record rainfall this year thanks to that freak west-coast tropical storm.
Its not like we just don't have any water. Its that we've built a massive irrigation network that sucks it off before it reaches the ocean.
Look, I get why people say this, but 'There will be 100k or so humans living in a dead biosphere filled with plastic and unexploded ordinance with an increasingly out of control climate' isn't exactly a comforting thought when we are looking at the magnitude of unimaginable human suffering that everyone who lives that long will be witness to before humanity gets to that point.
Extinction? Yes, it's possible that humans avoid it. But that seems irrelevant to the whole seeing the apocalypse before we die thing.
Who gives a shit about society when everyone you know and love is starving?
Is it really that much of a difference or that much better that a few vampires, the ones that pushed the world over the brink in the first place, may linger on for an indefinite period with a dying biosphere around them?
Ive honestly just stopped caring about anything more than a year or two in the future, hawaii won't survive more than a few consecutive floodings or hurricanes. 95% of our food comes from the outside, since the bastards took our farms, and they've either poisoned or used their bombs to ruin our watertables. We're doomed.
But I'm not going out without making some of those bastards beg
Where do you live? We've been seeing some form of collapse in my country long before the climate shit the bed. Our region is actually doing better than most and is likely to make it while other parts of the country completely collapse. It's somewhat easier to be happy when you grow closer to those in you life and that's what all this has led to. The sense of community has never been stronger. We may still suffer and struggle more often than before, but knowing you have a community behind you really cushions the blow.
It's so empty-inside kiddie creepers with god complexes (CW: child murder)
spoiler
can have more islands to creep on kiddies and more yachts to dispose of the evidence in international waters.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That Glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deifie his power,
Who from the terrour of this Arm so late
Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since by Fate the strength of Gods And this Empyreal substance cannot fail,
Since through experience of this great event
In Arms not worse, in foresight much advanc't, We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal Warr
Irreconcileable, to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n.
