qman said:

It's not a problem, so what if the climate and environment changes?  I'm not going to stop using energy because of it, either is any other human.

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saythatagain said:

You see what happens, humanity? Do you see what happens when you fuck mother nature in the ass?

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Fleabag Friend said:

It's fucking bullshit.

Why are you believing anything the government tells you?

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Tripsurfer said:

Who cares man? Mass extinction is part of nature. Just happens to be us doing all the killing this time around.

Your view of nature is one of static balance, which is actually not the way nature works.

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LogicaL Chaos said:

So mass extinction of humanity is totally OK?

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Freakofnature said:

I personally think climate change is being used as a scapegoat to ignore the elephants in the room. Overpopulation, consumerism, clearing of native areas, huge and ever increasing levels of plastic pollution, over fishing depleting fish stocks in the oceans etc etc the list goes on and on.

They tend to overstate the impacts of what they expect to get peoples attention in these reports and as the last 40 years has shown the majority of their predictions simply haven't come true other than a little warming of the atmosphere (fun fact: humans prosper in warmer climates thanks to increased agricultural production, even a 2 degree drop in temperatures would be devastating and cause massive famines at this point in time).

In reality, the only aspect of severe weather that is increasing are heavy rainfall events, the ocean hasn't seen any dramatic acceleration in sea level rises to a meaningful level yet (coral atolls are still easily outgrowing the current sea level rises, the rest is on humanity, building on beach dune barriers reducing natures ability to regulate a natural coastline with slowly increasing sea-levels), droughts aren't any worse than they used to be (rainfall records show this clearly), tropical cyclones aren't increasing in frequency or strength, tornado and severe thunderstorm events are actually showing slight decreases. It's even dubious to claim fire weather is increasing, we are encroaching further into native areas with housing, we put out all the little fires on less severe fire weather days increasing fuel loads for when the big fire weather days occur meaning there are vastly greater fuel loads over greater areas than would be present in an unmodified ecosystem.  This is all verifiable in data available from the big agencies.

Without any sort of plan for over population the world will be fucked long before any sort of climate catastrophe can do anything significant. Governments know this and so keep flogging the myth that climate change is the biggest threat (notice how all of the funding goes towards proving climate change is happening, trying to fit what we are seeing around an ever more failing hypothesis, you CANNOT get funding for anything that questions the consensus, and they actively try to bury from the media any evidence that challenges the consensus). It means they can give the public the perception that they are trying to help the planet by reducing the carbon footprint while continuing to encourage corporations (which is who most governments work for now) to rape and plunder the resources, clearing and polluting ever more land to access these resources.

Seriously think about it, plastic pollution is getting out of control yet almost nothing is being done to prevent it. Most developed nations have already cleared enormous areas of native ecosystems and what's left are either under threat, or exist because they are pretty or too hard to access. Developing countries are clearing their native areas more and more every day. What's being done to stop this? Nothing.

Coal and fuels have brought our species into a time of unprecedented prosperity and whilst many people say they care about reducing their carbon footprint, the reality says very much otherwise...we are simply unwilling and perhaps even incapable of transitioning to clean fuels to make any real difference in the next 50 years. Many Asian and African countries want to pull themselves into first world status and they aren't going to do this with renewables alone, it simply isn't feasible. Global production of CO2 continues to rise and will continue to rise for decades to come, it's inevitable.

Does this mean I think we shouldn't do anything to address it? No, of course we should be trying to reduce CO2 emissions..but first world countries prosperity came about as a direct result of burning fossil fuels and 100 years later we are still burning billions of tonnes of the stuff, try telling poor countries like India they should burn less coal, from their perspective it probably comes across as hypocritical. The biggest reason the residents of these sorts of places want coal consumption reduced is their population density and climate is causing horrible smog, choking out the residents. I'd bet my bottom dollar if that wasn't such a major issue the majority wouldn't care as long as burning coal brought them prosperity.

We can blame corporations all we want but they are only providing what we are demanding. Until we stop this blatant consumerism and governmental obsession of increasing population to keep the economy bubble growing it will only get worse.

Take France right now, they are trying to introduce a large tax on fuel to slow down consumption..riots are resulting because at the end of the day nearly everyone cares more about their bottom line aka money and when it comes down to it aren't interested in sacrificing any luxuries in life to slow down CO2 production.

Billions of people are poor, do you think they truly care about the toll on the planet enough to demand change if it means they are taxed ever increasingly/directly costs them more money. They care more about not being poor. One may argue we should make the corporations pay for it but they'll just find new ways of charging this on to the masses. (although I do agree with carbon taxes, corporations need to pay more tax!)

I'll probably cop loads of criticism for this post but I urge people to consider the arguments I've presented. I fear we are focusing too much on this specific issue and ignoring greater issues that are coming at us faster than anyone wants to admit. What happens when the oceans and rivers run out of fish and a large percentage of the world lose their protein source. All the signs are there and yet we still continue to drive fish populations ever lower. What happens when we no longer have any viable antibiotics and potential new sources of antibiotics have been sent extinct from ecosystem clearing. These are just a couple of examples from the many dozens of issues humanity faces.

Honestly, given how selfish a large subset of humans are and the sheer greed of humanity, I have ZERO faith of things turning around before it's too late, already probably is too late. I think it will take a disaster of biblical proportions where hundreds of millions, if not billions of humans die before any real change will occur in the mindset of the masses. Too many people are obsessed with their own little worlds and do not care about the big picture, it's just human nature. Even by existing I am part of of the problem, I can only hope the shit really hits the fan after I'm dead.

PS: in the time it took me to write this (I've really wanted to write these thoughts down for a while hence the huge wall of text) 1.5 million barrels of oil, 400,000 tonnes of Coal and 150,000,000 cubic meters of gas has been extracted. Let that sink in. It can't and won't be stopped. Not for a long time.

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Tripsurfer said:

Where am I saying we are going extinct?

I think we are doing pretty good as a species. If we make it off this planet and spread our fuckery throughout the universe life is succesful. If we leave this planet a sterile sphere in the proces so be it

There will be more planets. Or maybe we can terraform this one back to its former glory just for the fun of it. You environmentalist are always so fatalistic in your opinions. Maybe see it as a period of transition in stead of annihilation.

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saythatagain said:

Tripsurfer said:

Where am I saying we are going extinct?

I think we are doing pretty good as a species. If we make it off this planet and spread our fuckery throughout the universe life is succesful. If we leave this planet a sterile sphere in the proces so be it

There will be more planets. Or maybe we can terraform this one back to its former glory just for the fun of it. You environmentalist are always so fatalistic in your opinions. Maybe see it as a period of transition in stead of annihilation.

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Nature is one of the few things that makes me happy. I don't want it taken from me.

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