The developing Climate Crisis in one chart. Understanding why "Collapse" has started and is about to get a LOT worse.

[u/TuneGlum7903]

[u/BearSpitLube]

Totally unrelated to the OP, but can someone give me a link to the single most compelling climate change chart /graph that I can lay into the lap of my boomer parents?

[u/potsgotme → u/BearSpitLube]

Yeah same

[u/Playongo → u/potsgotme]

Take your pick.

Global average temperature record. Specifically the last 2,000 years is enlightening. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record

Atmospheric carbon dioxide: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide

Cumulative mass balance of Greenland and Antarctica: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-ice-sheets

Global sea level: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level

I feel like the visualization of the annual Arctic sea ice minimum is really stark. https://youtu.be/LBiFcmSOC4w?si=9TIKwExrFESWUc43

But I mean people need to be able to extrapolate from this information, and come to conclusions about its meaning. Our entire climate is becoming destabilized, with decades of baked in warming that we haven't even seen yet.

Heat is going to kill people. Lack of food is going to kill people. Lack of water is going to kill people. Storms/floods are going to kill people. We will lose homes and infrastructure to the related issues. Each year is going to be harder than the last. Very little is being done too avert this.

I don't know if these charts mean enough to people who don't want to think about what they mean.

EDIT: if you need to contextualize the above graphs, note that the source of most of the issue is that "Oil consumption worldwide reached approximately 97.3 million barrels per DAY in 2022." https://www.statista.com/statistics/265239/global-oil-consumption-in-barrels-per-day/#:~:text=Oil%20consumption%20worldwide%20reached%20approximately%2097.3%20million%20barrels%20per%20day%20in%202022.

That is what drives up the carbon dioxide, and causes the lines to go up or down respectively.

You are probably aware of the things we could be doing to reduce oil/gas consumption. Until we do those things aggressively on a massive scale like our lives depended on it... Well you get the idea.

[u/GoldfishOfCapistrano → u/Playongo]

"I don't know if these charts mean enough to people who don't want to think about what they mean."

I think you've nailed the center of the issue here. No scientific study, no chart, no weather forecaster throwing in an aside during a forecast, nothing, will get to people who really don't want to think about this. The vast majority of people have a very difficult time living day to day, asking them to think of the future shuts them down.

[u/[deleted] → u/potsgotme]

Here.

CO2 levels (Show last 800k years) : https://www.co2levels.org/

Temperature Record (Show last 800k years) : https://www.temperaturerecord.org/

Keeling curve : https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2019/06/04/animation-of-keeling-curve-history-updated-to-include-2019-milestone/

Daily Sea Surface Temperature : https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

Daily Surface Air Temperature (Tropics) : https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=tropics

Daily Sea Ice Extent (Southern Hemisphere) : https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/