People like to forget that fighting climate change is about _saving human lives_ and not about saving Earth.
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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116346848141590494
People like to forget that fighting climate change is about _saving human lives_ and not about saving Earth.
Even if it's 20 degrees higher or 20 degrees lower on average, Earth will do fine, life will do fine, nature will be fine—but humans won't be fine.
@thomasfuchs Yup, the rock is likely to be just fine, whether we are riding on it or not.
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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116346848141590494
People like to forget that fighting climate change is about _saving human lives_ and not about saving Earth.
Even if it's 20 degrees higher or 20 degrees lower on average, Earth will do fine, life will do fine, nature will be fine—but humans won't be fine.
Didn't George Carlin say something like "The planet is fine, the people are fucked"?
Climate change is gonna cause a lot of needless suffering among human and non-human living things. Up to and including extinction events. But I think we'll end up reducing our own population faster than we can render the planet literally inhospitable to life.
Life, uh, finds a way.
But, yes, this is no excuse to do whatever we can to fight climate change.
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@LaChasseuse there were multiple points in the last 500 million years alone when the global temperature was >20ºC than today
before that fluctuations were even more extreme (but life wasn't as highly evolved yet)
(Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705)
@thomasfuchs Well yeah. Not saying it would be the first die-off ever. After all, we lost both the megafauna and the dinos.
I hope I won't be alive to see the birds falling out of the trees and small dead mammals on the forest paths. -
@LaChasseuse there were multiple points in the last 500 million years alone when the global temperature was >20ºC than today
before that fluctuations were even more extreme (but life wasn't as highly evolved yet)
(Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705)
@thomasfuchs @LaChasseuse this is true but the absolute temperature isn’t the issue with anthropogenic warming, it’s the rate of change, which is exceeding the ability of species to adapt, leading to the 6th mass extinction. The rate of change is similar to other mass extinction events, e.g. super volcano eruptions, meteor impacts. Earth will still be “fine” on geological timescales, sure, but idk, I just always find this line of reasoning deeply sad. Like I really don’t want to believe that people can only be compelled to care if the human species specifically doesn’t go extinct, and couldn’t give a fuck if 99% of species ever observed by a human’s naked eyes do
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@can Of course they will, but my point is this stuff also happens "naturally"—it's a self-regulating system and will find a new equilibrium with new species, but definitely without us.
Note that any species goes extinct eventually—even if there is no change to the environment.
@thomasfuchs Sure. But your initial point was that fighting climate change is about saving humanity. I disagree insofar that my motivation for fighting climate change is to try and avoid unnecessary suffering for all species, humans included. Especially because that suffering is caused by a little handful of stupid humans who don’t need to deal with the consequences.
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T tokeriis@helvede.net shared this topic
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@thomasfuchs @LaChasseuse this is true but the absolute temperature isn’t the issue with anthropogenic warming, it’s the rate of change, which is exceeding the ability of species to adapt, leading to the 6th mass extinction. The rate of change is similar to other mass extinction events, e.g. super volcano eruptions, meteor impacts. Earth will still be “fine” on geological timescales, sure, but idk, I just always find this line of reasoning deeply sad. Like I really don’t want to believe that people can only be compelled to care if the human species specifically doesn’t go extinct, and couldn’t give a fuck if 99% of species ever observed by a human’s naked eyes do
@thomasfuchs @LaChasseuse reflecting more I think I just mostly find the anthropocentrism of this line of reasoning really stark. Like if someone said in response to a city being carpet bombed “humans have lived there before and they’ll live there again”, everyone would find that callous and cruel and beyond the point. But that’s the terms we’re talking in about other species, increasingly many of which have things we recognise as culture, societies, etc. I guess I just fundamentally disagree with your original point: fighting climate change is not _just_ about saving human lives, and that’s not a feasible framing on a systems level (humans need biodiversity and the services it offers) but on a moral level. Sorry this is possibly the most reply-guy I’ve ever been on masto but this is my sandbox
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@thomasfuchs @LaChasseuse this is true but the absolute temperature isn’t the issue with anthropogenic warming, it’s the rate of change, which is exceeding the ability of species to adapt, leading to the 6th mass extinction. The rate of change is similar to other mass extinction events, e.g. super volcano eruptions, meteor impacts. Earth will still be “fine” on geological timescales, sure, but idk, I just always find this line of reasoning deeply sad. Like I really don’t want to believe that people can only be compelled to care if the human species specifically doesn’t go extinct, and couldn’t give a fuck if 99% of species ever observed by a human’s naked eyes do
@joenash @LaChasseuse people care about neither
many don’t even care when it affects at them personally and directly, like the people whose children are dying from measles and they say “I still wouldn’t have vaccinated my child”
crooked worldviews are a thing that needs to be destroyed, it cannot be argued away
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@LaChasseuse there were multiple points in the last 500 million years alone when the global temperature was >20ºC than today
before that fluctuations were even more extreme (but life wasn't as highly evolved yet)
(Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705)
@thomasfuchs Yeah, the *planet*, (ie, a hunk of rock in outer space) will be just fine, but most life as we know it won't be around.
Tardigrades are nice and all, but I would hate to see the starlings, the sea gulls, the deer, the spiders and butterflies, our food crops, daisies, pine trees, trout, hamsters, beluga - all those things - disappear forever. -
@joenash @LaChasseuse people care about neither
many don’t even care when it affects at them personally and directly, like the people whose children are dying from measles and they say “I still wouldn’t have vaccinated my child”
crooked worldviews are a thing that needs to be destroyed, it cannot be argued away
@thomasfuchs I once asked a man who said he wasn't going to make any lifestyle changes due to runaway climate change how he could think about leaving such a world for his children and he said "Well, that will be their problem to solve, not mine."
His own kids, his own grandchildren.
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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116346848141590494
People like to forget that fighting climate change is about _saving human lives_ and not about saving Earth.
Even if it's 20 degrees higher or 20 degrees lower on average, Earth will do fine, life will do fine, nature will be fine—but humans won't be fine.
@thomasfuchs Yep, I mean also in the scale of things humans will probably be fine as a species (aside from nuclear shenanigans I suppose) but also millions of people+ will die and that can definitely include each of our families.
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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116346848141590494
People like to forget that fighting climate change is about _saving human lives_ and not about saving Earth.
Even if it's 20 degrees higher or 20 degrees lower on average, Earth will do fine, life will do fine, nature will be fine—but humans won't be fine.
@{thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io} Yeah, this annoys me so often, people shouting “save the Earth!”.
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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116346848141590494
People like to forget that fighting climate change is about _saving human lives_ and not about saving Earth.
Even if it's 20 degrees higher or 20 degrees lower on average, Earth will do fine, life will do fine, nature will be fine—but humans won't be fine.
@thomasfuchs The rich humans will be fine. The poor ones will suffer, die or both.
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@thomasfuchs yeah, sounds amazing for the environment
Speaking for one small American man, I'm so sorry for what this president is doing.
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@thomasfuchs Well yeah. Not saying it would be the first die-off ever. After all, we lost both the megafauna and the dinos.
I hope I won't be alive to see the birds falling out of the trees and small dead mammals on the forest paths.@LaChasseuse we lost some dinosaurs, birds are still with us.
they’re likely to be the ones which can adapt the easiest by migration; presumably that’s why they’re the only surviving dinosaur theropods
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@thomasfuchs Yeah, the *planet*, (ie, a hunk of rock in outer space) will be just fine, but most life as we know it won't be around.
Tardigrades are nice and all, but I would hate to see the starlings, the sea gulls, the deer, the spiders and butterflies, our food crops, daisies, pine trees, trout, hamsters, beluga - all those things - disappear forever.@LaChasseuse @thomasfuchs Hell, I even kind of like some of the humans, but they are a lot less appealing in the absence of civilization, which is even more delicate than life.
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Didn't George Carlin say something like "The planet is fine, the people are fucked"?
Climate change is gonna cause a lot of needless suffering among human and non-human living things. Up to and including extinction events. But I think we'll end up reducing our own population faster than we can render the planet literally inhospitable to life.
Life, uh, finds a way.
But, yes, this is no excuse to do whatever we can to fight climate change.
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@thomasfuchs @can True, it would be a lot cooler if we were not committing suicide so quickly. What's the hurry y'all?
@thestrangelet @thomasfuchs @can Maybe because we really can’t do a long-run death march on fossil fuels at this point. Slowing it down would involve getting off of those fossil fuels, and if we do that, we might need nuclear bombs to do suicide. That likely isn’t going to be slow.
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@thomasfuchs The rich humans will be fine. The poor ones will suffer, die or both.
@bit @thomasfuchs Maybe the rich will be fine, maybe they won’t. Either way, the rest of us will suffer first.
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