Are we totally screwed?

[Space Voyager]

If this is accurate...

 

 

we ARE.

 

Seriously, prepare for the worst, most of all how to survive with energy shortages.

[Thorondor]

It's true. There's not that much hope of averting it.

 

I'm not being ironic.

 

The main reason is a coupling of sorts: of natural human inertia, and motivation for action today being driven only by capital, or panic.

 

Regrettably, it will come down to panic. Only when people feel the fear for themselves, in their homes, in their family, will the heat be turned upon their governments in a way that can't be set aside.

 

Some point will be reached when it's not possible to pretend anymore: a drought comes and you see dams go empty, you have to face water rationing. Heat waves cause forest fires, your house risks burning down, soils erode paving the way for floods, trees take decades to grow back.

 

Nature has its own timings. We've bent them far and wide. But biology has its limits and there's no arguing with those. You have to wait for regeneration, you have to wait for growth and healing. And when there is a waiting that must be endured (say, stomachs will hunger) then some changes start to have to happen.

 

So, until you're the animal again, so to speak, and we discover ourselves strangely an integral part of that basic, seemingly abstract reality, of what we call 'nature', chances are the treadmill of daily life will not halt and we won't be stopped in our tracks, which, extrapolated, means that, as societies, we will not take action - until very strongly motivated.

 

Only when we're forced to acknowledge things have broken down in a continued, life-threatening way, will there be effective action.

 

While we're on the subject of general human psychology and touching on that inertia business, have you ever heard of The Bystander Effect or Diffusion of Responsibility? It's a weird thing that mostly boils down to a standard sort of behavior: the greater the number of people observing an emergency the less likely they are to help.

 

Check out this article if you want to gain some further insight.

 

Overall, we delegate on the powers that be, in a given context or environment. They're supposed to be minding these things for us after all. Only they aren't. They have other (often selfish) priorities to be put first, and so do we. So, little me, what can I do? I can't afford to buy an electric car, or solar panels, which would likely be the most impactful thing to individually do and have replicated. As mentioned in your video, strive for more but your efforts by yourself still won't suffice to turn things around. Collective push is needed.

 

And here we are back to what I posited above - it's the slow roast. Until you confront imminent panic.

 

Not to be gloomy or anything. This is how it is however.

 

It's possible to resort to science but unless we have a considerable breakthrough that speeds things up to deliver a solution, namely in the nanotechnology field (example article), chances are some hardships are indeed headed our way.

 

We'll have no other choice than to deal with them.

[Space Voyager]

Not to be gloomy or anything. This is how it is however.

 

I agree completely. I only fear we have no idea whatsoever how far-reaching the changes will be.

 

We both dodged the end result in previous posts but if we are to tell the whole story... Lack of drinkable water, energy and plain living space can only lead to one thing and that is war. The only hope for humanity may be that there will be no nuclear option or even the liveable leftovers will be contaminated for centuries, more or less killing us off.

 

IMO there is VERY LITTLE leeway to prevent global war. Look at the current state - when all countries should be giving whatever green technologies they have for free, in hope anyone uses them, and a huge influx into developing new techs that might have saved us should be flowing... we have Trump bidding for Greenland.

 

We're royally screwed.

[Thorondor]

The outcomes you touch upon, SV, are very much the ones that are bound to be on the table. Unfortunately.

 

Priorities will be shifted, yet, possibly not beneficially. Abundance breeds complacency, scarcity begets ruthlessness.

 

 

In the animal kingdom that's what is observed. The one thing that should separate humans from the rest - foresight - is being negated by (when we get right down to it) greediness and the unwillingness to even slow relentless growth of capital.

 

Capital is and will continue to be the undisputed power, until that very extreme nobody wants to contemplate somehow at last enters the realm of the possible: the unthinkable stage when the remaining few finally no longer accept to exchange food they grow or their water for slips of paper or round pieces of metal.

 

Then, regression, survival of the fittest - as long as I can take I shall not lack.

 

 

What will we come to indeed. Some glimpsed it already in the 70's...

 

 

Meanwhile, those making today's decisions, upon gleaming towers of glass, find it's better to let someone else fall behind in the rat race. Let others spend the resources and lose the time to try and find solutions to silly problems (that don't align with exponential wealth increase). When exits present themselves it's a matter of buying the fruits of others' labours.

 

The Information Age, once bearing great promise, is now really the Disinformation Age (example) and they're getting better at it all the time. It suffices not that our bodies are poisoned piecemeal alongside the planet, now too the minds of older and younger alike are ripe for polluting.

 

How will we be able to tell what's true or not as it marches across the glare of screens everywhere? When everything can be twisted where can your trust reside? Will the newer generations know better, or know no better?

 

As you mention yourself, leadership in key countries today, like the USA, UK, Brazil, is woefully unsuited to the task at hand. Almost the exact opposite of what is needed in effect. Good leadership, regardless of ideological leaning, seems quite scarce around the globe.

 

Even then, this too speaks poorly of the rest of us, seeing as majorities among us, in the supposedly developed world, had the questionable judgement of placing those who are now in the seats of power up there, choosing the very fates our children will have to endure.

 

 

Movie wisdom. How about that?

 

Maybe we'll get lucky and things get worse sooner, paradoxically for our benefit, before the point of no return.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

 

Yes.

[Thorondor]

Here's a blog post by Mr. Cliff Harris (of Positech Games, developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, etc.) that shows similar awareness of the serious issues we are bound to be facing before long.

[Space Voyager]

Well written.

[Thorondor]

And the "good prospects" keep rolling in...

[Space Voyager]

Oh goodie.

 

Unless we do something about our numbers... we'll do it the hard way.

[magic9mushroom]

Even then, this too speaks poorly of the rest of us, seeing as majorities among us, in the supposedly developed world, had the questionable judgement of placing those who are now in the seats of power up there, choosing the very fates our children will have to endure.

 

Some of that is due to democratic backsliding. I wouldn't say all of it; Tony Abbott ran on a platform of undoing a carbon tax, so that one's on the Aussie public. But in a lot of the modern West, democracy is choosing which head of the hydra eats your leg; in the US, for instance, there are only two major parties (no hope of starting a challenger because of spoilers) and both are bought out by roughly the same interests on most issues, so unless an issue is one of the few on which the parties choose to distance themselves, the public has no power to decide it.

[Thorondor]

2014:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9_Xc9wxByM

 

::

 

2021:

 

"Nations have delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so long that they can no longer stop global warming from intensifying over the next 30 years, though there is still a short window to prevent the most harrowing future, a major new United Nations scientific report has concluded." - The New York Times, yesterday

 

Is this the growth we want? Because this is the "growth" we're getting.

 

I'm not going to harp on this needlessly but I'd very much like there to be some sort of life left beyond stockholder satisfaction and unthinking adherence to a figure called GDP at the expense of all else.

 

On a characteristic sidenote:

 

"Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG are joining rivals in bumping pay for junior bankers, following uproar earlier in the year over the work-till-you-drop culture exposed by the pandemic.

 

(...)

 

The uproar was sparked by a group of 13 first-year analysts in Goldman Sachs' investment-banking division who laid bare the rigors of Wall Street life in a presentation detailing one hundred-hour work weeks and strains on health." - Business Standard, August 2nd 2021

 

Better wages - the universal solution to any problem. Even burnout.

 

And what exactly is being produced in this activity? Gained? Created? Solved?

 

Maybe I should ask Google, they seem to have an answer for everything.

 

"Country-by-country reporting is designed to shine a light on how some of the world's biggest companies – such as Apple, Facebook and Google – avoid paying an estimated $500bn (£358bn) a year in taxes by shifting their profits from higher-tax countries such as the UK, France and Germany to zero-tax or low-tax jurisdictions including Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta." - The Guardian, February 26th 2021

 

Oh. Wrong search terms. No actual guidance on the department of life pursuits here.

 

How about breathing less at some point? I guess that might help conserve oxygen.

 

For all our heralded capability of forethought, we're not much better off than little blind mice. And their offspring might actually have a better chance at survival than - watch out, recurring theme in this thread - our own children in the long run.

 

What wealth greater than our lives - and, why not, maybe lives still worth living while we're at it - can we aspire to?

 

It does seem we rather have a whole lot of _real_ work to do if we're going to get anywhere at all...

[Space Voyager]

No man, the REAL issue is... who will take the lead at 5G network!

 

What wealth greater than our lives - and, why not, maybe lives still worth living while we're at it - can we aspire to?

 

How can humanity be blind to such an essential truth? How can everything not be adjusted to staying alive - as a species?

 

The coming change will be a real test of the resilience of our species. Not because of the changes, but because our true nature will come out when resources dwindle. Humanity simply does not posses the wisdom and cooperation that would be necessary to evercome the steep worsening. We are screwed.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Well they keep telling us the end of the world is going to end every other year so, who knows.

 

-n0x

[Thorondor]

Part of the problem is indeed noise. People get sick of hearing about the next impending doom time and again.

 

The other issue often is - what's it to me and how does this translate to my actual "everyday life"?

 

As it happens, a blog post a few months ago by Mr. Cliff Harris (a sort of refresh on a previous one I linked to before) provides a simple and direct approach to the subject of why this poor outlook, to put it mildly, matters.

 

We clearly don't have our priorities straight and we're about to get an object lesson that will make us pay attention already.

 

TLDR: when your house is burning down understanding develops quickly. But too late. Your food and drinking water are on the line. Maybe take it seriously, like, right now.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

The Topic.

Are We Screwed?

 

Yes, when people teach that men are women and men can give birth. There is something seriously fucking wrong with you.

 

The Fin.

 

-n0x

[Thorondor]

*warning: NSFW*

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8

 

Refreshingly true for a change (on the CCS front at least). We're still very much in deep sh*t but at least you'll manage to laugh about it.

[Space Voyager]

AAAHAHAHAHA, CCUNTS! Lovely. We're screwed.

[Thorondor]

News: still well on track... for disaster great profit margins, guys!

 

[Space Voyager]

Politicians have no guts to cut energy needs because they would be crucified by the industry (read: great profit margins) and people alike. A lot of people are not ready to cut our energy usage.

 

This can only lead to the worst of scenarios where eventually humankind will be tested to the limits - or over.

[Thorondor]

I agree.

 

Business as usual is just not sustainable anymore, though pretenses will clearly persist to dire effect. We can't keep growing as if growth does not imply constant increase in resource consumption. Energy is one very important part of that equation, evidently.

 

Unfortunately, even there, the supposed path for salvation will reveal itself anything but - lithium, cobalt and nickel extraction (among others) - for battery production are quite harmful to the environment on their own as well.

 

A few examples:

- you have to spend 500.000 gallons of water per single ton of lithium carbonate produced!

- the process of refining lithium also uses toxic chemicals like hydrochloric acid which can contaminate local biomes in a large radius (that's air, water and soil pollution)

- less than 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. Left in landfills, EV batteries can leach chemicals into the ground and into water, or even cause toxic chemical fires

 

And let me remind that batteries are also necessary for storing power generated by wind and solar facilities because their output is inherently variable (wind gusts, solar coverage).

 

All power sources - including wind and solar - impose their own unique environmental harms (and they're not anywhere near negligible). But I won't get into that to remain somewhat on point here.

 

Stopping growth and spending less, is the only real way to bring us back from the brink. But, as you say, at a political level nobody can stomach that.

 

So things will need to get ugly. Truly ugly, for them to stop worrying about saving face, support levels, lobbying and vote counts.

 

Only, by then it will be far too late for everyone. Therefore, we are indeed FUBAR by all present indications.

[Thorondor]

 

::

 

[Space Voyager]

Not much, but there is... some... room.

[Thorondor]

 

A new generation of soil studies powered by modern microscopes and imaging technologies has revealed that whatever humus is, it is not the long-lasting substance scientists believed it to be.

 

Major climate models such as those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are based on this outdated understanding of soil.

 

::

 

This article is not great news for carbon sequestration strategies. Or our fictional breathing room at this stage.

 

Not that this should in any way be the focus of our concerns - far less emissions are the answer, not "sweeping" the poison under the rug to let others suffer its effects later.

[Space Voyager]

Not that this should in any way be the focus of our concerns - far less emissions are the answer, not "sweeping" the poison under the rug to let others suffer its effects later.

 

Definitely. But industry is trying very hard to find ways to continue business as usual... Sounds perfect - they continue to produce while governments clean up with public money.

 

We don't have much time, if scientists are anything to go by. No way to revert, naturally, but at least contain the consequences in survivable conditions. Then we can start thinking about pulling excess CO2 from the atmosphere and get back to normal.

 

I'm additionally worried by the German opposition to nuclear power. I'm no lover of nuclear, but it is the only way to do anything fast.

[magic9mushroom]

Definitely. But industry is trying very hard to find ways to continue business as usual... Sounds perfect - they continue to produce while governments clean up with public money.

 

We don't have much time, if scientists are anything to go by. No way to revert, naturally, but at least contain the consequences in survivable conditions. Then we can start thinking about pulling excess CO2 from the atmosphere and get back to normal.

 

I'm additionally worried by the German opposition to nuclear power. I'm no lover of nuclear, but it is the only way to do anything fast.

If you live in the First World, even A1FI probably won't literally kill you. It's bad, but not existentially bad; a runaway would be existentially bad, but most estimates say we'd literally run out of fossil fuels before we could trigger that.