No wonder many young people have such poor mental health with unscientific propaganda like this
There are fewer people dying from climate-related causes now than there were 100 years ago and the Earth is 15% greener
Yeah because it’s totally about how many people are dying from it
And not overall global change like the icecaps melting, sea levels rising, etc
Stuff that’s irreversible
I’m not a climate change denier. Climate change is real, it is being in (large) part driven by human activity, and it is a serious issue to human survival and our species. Probably anyway.
Is it “too late?” Yes? No? I mean- wether you believe in man made climate change or not, earths climate naturally changes unless you’re one of these donkeys that believes the earth has existed for 600 years or whatever crap. We know as dead nuts as you possibly can that the planets climate and ecosystems have changed over time. It has been observed within a human lifetime and lasted for generations. You won’t stop changes that have already happened, man made or otherwise. Some maybe can be reversed or diminished. You won’t stop natural climate change most likely or reverse it.
So maybe it is too late to stop some change, but there is most likely other changes that can be prevented, and it isn’t likely too late for the human race to survive or anything like that.
Well- almost certainly the human race ends at some point. If you believe in science the earths magnetic field could conk out in as little as 1,000 years or less and then we most likely all die. Before or after that any number of things could cause mass extinction. If you aren’t big on science, numerous holy books speak of end of days events such as ragnarok, rapture, Armageddon in which human life generally is said to cease on this earth. So like most all thing presumed and observed in the material universe- the ride stops someday kids. Everyone dies and species tend to evolve to be unrecognizable or go extinct given enough time.
Change is an inevitable part of life. And here’s the flip side of the coin- who says climate change is a “bad” thing? Oh sure, the predicted changes would not be fun for a lot of people. Mass deaths, starvations, changes to the face of the globe. Well- that’s never happened on human history. Or- well- it has. The prevailing theory is the “ice age” brought about cultural shifts and migrations and created many new groups and cultures around the globe which subsequently led to the world we have today.
The Black Death, covid 19, wars and famines and floods and earth quakes and volcanic eruptions- new land masses are and have historically been created, lakes appear and dry up, rivers change course. Animals and plants and ecosystems and climates change.
The message there isn’t that climate change is “no big deal,” hardly. We are talking about a world that we may not recognize and if it survives, a human civilization we won’t recognize and either one we probably wouldn’t especially like if we were alive to experience it or a transition to it, even more so compared to how we live today. We may see a reversion to a primal age of survival and brutality or we may see a world where a few hundred thousand or million humans or less live technologically advanced lives in small area made habitable only through technology and adaptation.
Or who knows. Who knows what that would look like? Like so many things, the scariest thing about climate change is no one really knows. That’s a point many like to use to defuse the tension or discredit predictions. “They said this 20 years ago and it didn’t happen..” “they don’t know..” “they were wrong about XYZ so they could be wrong here..” I mean, yeah. Sort of. They’re guessing in part. Educated guesses but we don’t KNOW a lot of this stuff. That’s how science works. We make best guesses and refine them as we go. Sometimes you’re very wrong and sometimes you’re kinda wrong and sometimes you’re dead on. They don’t know and that means it could be not so bad or a fluke but it also means it could be much worse and more critical than we think. We don’t know the danger, we don’t know the exact steps to fix it, we don’t know if it can be “fixed” even and we don’t know what a world looks like if things go badly in the climate change game. We have educated guesses and theories.
That’s scary to most people. Not knowing. I have faith that we will figure it out and if we don’t that those left will figure it out. Human beings have survived some bad stuff as individuals and as a species. We find ways to live in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. It tends not to be super pleasant but those who live there- to them it’s just life. Just a regular day. You accept it or you reject reality. Same as always. Same as 1,000 or 10,000 years ago when we knew even less about the world and everything was scary and unknown and people died all the time of stupid and mysterious crap or lack of basic resources and knowledge. That sounds really sucky and I don’t want to live in that world or to force others to- but people lived in that world and thrived in it and even had good days and told jokes and fell in love and possibly enjoyed life despite it all.
So climate change is real. It is a big deal, it is something we believe we play a part in and have good evidence to support that as well as good evidence of how we can mitigate our impacts, but it’s nothing to get depressed or lose your head over. You’re gonna die. Good odds of you’re reading this you’ll be dead before the human race faced climate based extinction. With or without climate change your kids will likely die, they may or may not live 10-50 years longer on average before they die, but they’ll die too. And their kids. And at some point most likely every single human being will be dead, or might be 100 or 10000000+ years from now but guess what? By the time it happens you and likely everyone you’ve even known or will know will also be dead long before then. And if you aren’t dead by then? Well- you’d be dead after, which- everyone does tend to die, cause of death? Age? Does it matter if you are killed by climate change related preventable causes or hit by a drunk driver or..
.. texter? Stabbed or shot? Blown up by terrorists? Die from preventable health issues which are the most common cause of death? Die in a preventable war or terrorist action? Have a heart attack or aneurysm? Tomorrow isn’t promised to you wether you are 8 or 80 years old. I don’t know how you die- well, I don’t know how all of you die- but I know you die, except.. you know who you are. Everyone else though- will die. Don’t get your panties in a twist. If WW3 kicks off tomorrow you could die in an air raid or nuke strike at any moment- is that going to be the overshadowing thing that prevents you from living life and doing what you can with the time you have? I do not understand How people allow their fear or aprehensión of their own mortality take away what life they have.
If you tell a child they have 8 hours at Disney World what do you think they are better off doing, sitting on a bench crying or stressing out all day about how they only have a few hours left to have fun- to the point they ruin their entire time there or waste much of it worrying about how it ends; or to go enjoy it and be so absorbed in the experience that they don’t even realize when it is tule to go? Surely they can be mindful of their limited time and use it wisely- maybe not stand in line for 4 hours for one ride unless they absolutely feel they can’t miss it- but maybe pick the things that they want to accomplish most or the plan that allows them to accomplish the maximum amount of things while they have time, then when it is time to go, well- wether your parents drag you away or the park closes or is destroyed by the 10,000 degree heat- when the time is up it is up.
So live your life. Perhaps be mindful of your time here and prudent about your choices and their impacts or potential impacts on others and the future, but certainly don’t let the fact that you, effectively everyone you know or ever meet, and ultimately the human species and the planet earth will someday not be here or be totally unrecognizable to you- don’t let that stop you from being alive and enjoying the time you have here and being productive. Human civilization changes. The human species changes. The planet and creatures and ecosystems change. Neanderthals went extinct too. Guess who “replaced them”? Dinosaurs are believed to be the dominant organisms for millions of years. Giant bugs and giant mushroom forests and all manner of things once existed that don’t because they couldn’t survive as they were and went extinct or became very different. Bad for them but often good for the new life and new worlds that set the way for.
Climate change almost certainly won’t be good for you if you are alive today. Probably won’t be good for your kids and the next generation or two at least. Maybe won’t be good for the next 10 or 100 generations. But- will it be bad for the human race or the planet on the whole in the long run? We don’t know. Mass climate based extinction of humans and cultural and other shifts may end up being the thing that propels us to a utopian society without violence or blah blah- or closer to it. It might be that it resets us back to primitive living and ultimately benefits the other species of earth and maybe us too. Or maybe it is the start to humanity across many worlds and potentially our species being able to survive the colapse of the magnetic field or the sun going nova one day. Who knows? We are taking about lengths of time and systems so complex and unpredictable that they are almost unfathomable to the human mind.
Do something about climate change or don’t. If you don’t, don’t whine about other people taking it seriously. If you take it seriously just remember that you can do so much and after that you’re just wasting your life bearing a dead horse. No sense in getting depressed over it. Do what you can handle and then let the rest sort itself out. That’s all you can do. Be aware of your own and your species mortality and use that as a reason to live; then live as long as you’re gonna and take the long nap and anything after that isn’t your problem. If you did your best you have to put the rest to faith. You can leave a legacy but you don’t get to control what happens to it after a certain point.
There are fewer people dying from climate-related causes now than there were 100 years ago and the Earth is 15% greener
And not overall global change like the icecaps melting, sea levels rising, etc
Stuff that’s irreversible
Is it “too late?” Yes? No? I mean- wether you believe in man made climate change or not, earths climate naturally changes unless you’re one of these donkeys that believes the earth has existed for 600 years or whatever crap. We know as dead nuts as you possibly can that the planets climate and ecosystems have changed over time. It has been observed within a human lifetime and lasted for generations. You won’t stop changes that have already happened, man made or otherwise. Some maybe can be reversed or diminished. You won’t stop natural climate change most likely or reverse it.
Well- almost certainly the human race ends at some point. If you believe in science the earths magnetic field could conk out in as little as 1,000 years or less and then we most likely all die. Before or after that any number of things could cause mass extinction. If you aren’t big on science, numerous holy books speak of end of days events such as ragnarok, rapture, Armageddon in which human life generally is said to cease on this earth. So like most all thing presumed and observed in the material universe- the ride stops someday kids. Everyone dies and species tend to evolve to be unrecognizable or go extinct given enough time.
The Black Death, covid 19, wars and famines and floods and earth quakes and volcanic eruptions- new land masses are and have historically been created, lakes appear and dry up, rivers change course. Animals and plants and ecosystems and climates change.