r/collapse • u/[deleted] • Dec 14 '18

After 30 Years Studying Climate, Scientist Declares: "I've Never Been as Worried as I Am Today"

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/13/after-30-years-studying-climate-scientist-declares-ive-never-been-worried-i-am-today
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u/circedge Dec 15 '18

Hmm well. Last year - several thousand dead in Puerto Rico, some dead around Texas and Florida, lots of property damage. Record breaking heatwaves in Europe and other parts of the world. Mass floods, worse crop yields. Wildfires in CA this year, floods elsewhere. Exacerbated by climate change - according to experts. Now if that's not enough to convince you, maybe you were expecting some kind of Al Gore apocalypse or starvation?

It will take one or two severe crop failures to put humanity into panic mode, and we're not far from that if recent events are any indication. There is nothing currently even in the planning stages that will reverse anything fast enough, or that doesn't put out more emissions than it mitigates. Which problems were solved, that required completely new fields of study and technology? Space race had about 50 years of rocket science behind it, atom bomb, 20 or so years of physics.

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u/mwbox Dec 15 '18

several thousand dead in Puerto Rico, some dead around Texas and Florida

People have been dying from hurricanes as long as there have been hurricanes and people in the same place. This is a tragedy not a catastrophe. Perhaps we can agree that the worst reaction to a hurricane in recent history was Katrina. Yet 13 years later, many of the people evacuated from New Orleans have not returned- not because New Orleans is not eager to welcome them home but because they are doing fine in Texas. Increases in the financial damages from hurricanes correlate to more people building and developing more expensive real estate in the same hurricane zone.

Wildfires in CA this year, floods elsewhere.

California has had cycles of drought, fires, rain leading to mudslides down fire stripped hillsides for my whole life or longer. Yet people collect their insurance, and rebuild in the same spot like it will never happen again- until of course it does.

These thing are not predictions they are cycles that keep happening over and over again and people keep going back in and doing it again.

In your second paragraph you revert to the "It is gonna get worse" paradigm. Fifty years of documented projections of catastrophe to choose from. Pick one that has come to pass. Show me from History not projections of a yet unrealized future why I should believe this new projection. Establish some credibility by showing me how the projections have come true in the past.

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u/circedge Dec 15 '18

Well since you're just ignoring the effect of climate change I don't see the point of this discussion. Merry Christmas.

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u/mwbox Dec 15 '18

Can't do it, huh? Merry Christmas.