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    Fallen13Brian Kahn
    11/01/21 12:54pm

    The most depressing part isn’t even the amount of suffering incoming. It’s how little so many people care about that suffering because they feel it won’t happen to them.

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      pixelpusher220Fallen13
      11/01/21 1:46pm

      I hear ya. I’m the poster child for not caring. DINK 50s, a furnace running on natural gas and 2 ICE cars (tho one is hybrid).

      I still advocate for and hope we can move to better renewable sources. Tried to put up solar a few years ago and literally couldn’t get contractors to call me back. My county in VA is apparently the *worst* in the state. And I have the perfect south facing roof for it too.

      Hopefully Biden’s plan gets through with still significant subsidies for changes intact. I’d be happy to switch to EVs, a heat pump and (if I can get a friggin installer to call me!) solar plus batteries, but just eating the costs myself on a 10 yr old furnace isn’t in the cards.

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      CruzeHatchpixelpusher220
      11/01/21 2:17pm

      We tried to do solar and after having them come take measurements and everything they said out house isn’t eligible. Which is like like other 1800's farm houses around here that already have solar...

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    DVDDVDDVD - search ACLU Mobile Justice AppBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 12:07pm

    Momentary thread hijack: there’s another popular climate article today, by Dharna Noor, that is illustrating the new limits that our broken Kinja comment system is placing on discussion.

    I’ve got grey replies to my comments that I can not reply to effectively. If I “show pending”, the system reduces all reply threads to only allow greys to appear if they are within the first 4 replies to a base post.

    Some grey replies are quite good and it would be quite constructive to have the poster ungreyed anyway. Some aren’t, but that’s par for our course.

    Brian Kahn’s informative article here is also likely to bring a lot of discussion. But shutting new people out of the discussion via system breakage is not a great way to keep readership around.

    Ok, back to our originally scheduled thread, now in progress!

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      AnimaniacSpiritsDVDDVDDVD - search ACLU Mobile Justice App
      11/01/21 12:42pm

      I don’t even get notifications anymore. The comment system is terrible.

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      SocietyFailedUsDVDDVDDVD - search ACLU Mobile Justice App
      11/01/21 2:03pm

      I’ve been posting on Kinja sites for well over ten years under 3 different usernames and have never been ungreyed on anything. I’ve had some posts which have been starred and replied to massively, which tells me the so called process is entirely arbitrary.

      Reply
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    ArtistAtLargeBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 1:26pm

    We’re boned, the trick now is just HOW badly we are boned.

    The way things are (not) going, it’s going to be pretty badly boned.

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      pixelpusher220ArtistAtLarge
      11/01/21 5:14pm

      girthy cactus dick level of boned really

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      Times up, time to leave!ArtistAtLarge
      11/01/21 7:59pm

      Yeah, it’s really not been hard to read between the lines of the science. Simply due to the way peer review works there is a need to keep things as low key as possible (to be accepted and published) so the language just hasn’t been had the impact. Anyone who has been looking carefully knows this is how many/most climate scientist have been feeling for years.

      What’s nailed it for me is that the last two years of covid have shown how little people care about a deadly, existential crisis, even when the threat is immediate. For a big proportion, if fixing this means altering their lifestyle even one bit they simply won’t do it.

      We really are boned big time. 

      Reply
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    hashish16Brian Kahn
    11/01/21 1:58pm

    We need to start putting all of our eggs in the solid state battery basket, and we need cheap conversion kits for popular cars, i.e. Camry’s, Civics, Accords, Corolla’s, etc.

    If we can develop COVID vaccines in less than a year, we can create sustainable solid state batteries in the same amount of time if we devote to the cause. 

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      BIMming Ithashish16
      11/01/21 4:45pm

      The difference being, of course, that COVID wasn’t dumping billions and billions of dollars into lobbyists trying to make sure the vaccine was never created.

      Don’t get me wrong, the disease had strong representation in congress about vaccine acceptance, just not anything to prevent it’s creation.

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      burner'downhashish16
      11/02/21 9:53am

      Unfortunately that sub-one year vaccine timeline was underpinned by 20+ years of bench research aimed at developing a totally different vaccine. We just got lucky that that science was applicable to the new problem.

      Reply
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    wellgruntledBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 3:46pm

    Paola Arias, a climate scientist at Colombia’s University of Antioquia, told Nature that the climate crisis made her decide not to have children.

    In a similar vein, I would be lying if I said I didn’t experience feelings of guilt for bringing children into this world given what their climate future holds :(

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      BIMming Itwellgruntled
      11/01/21 4:43pm

      And I would be lying if climate change was the only reason I won’t have children (it’s also political instability and a dash of selfishness).

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      SGTalonwellgruntled
      11/04/21 12:28am

      Idiocracy was a documentary. You are proof of this.

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    ThirdAmendmentManBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 12:10pm

    expect the planet to warm at least 5.4 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit)

    Just a heads up for editing.

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      DVDDVDDVD - search ACLU Mobile Justice AppThirdAmendmentMan
      11/01/21 12:18pm

      I totally, catastrophically missed that error.  It could also be corrected to 3 degrees Kelvin (5.4 degrees Rankine).

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      ThirdAmendmentManDVDDVDDVD - search ACLU Mobile Justice App
      11/01/21 12:21pm

      Its happened to me so many times when typing up conversions. But just imagine if it WERE 5.4 degrees Celsius...

      Reply
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    dolshBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 8:44pm

    I’m not worried about the climate nearly as much as the oncoming wars that are pretty much guaranteed as us humans fight over the resources that increase in scarcity.

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      IAlwaysAskedForThisdolsh
      11/02/21 3:00am

      Well, I mean, that’s what the scientists are worried about too. There’s no situation we couldn’t work through if we were united as a species. We’re the most adaptable species in existence. We could survive anything.

      What we can’t survive is each other.

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      Newburner42020dolsh
      11/02/21 7:53am

      On the + side the wars will lead to the human virus being reduced which could lead to the planet experiencing some level of repair. That is unless we bring out the nukes.

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    M3000PBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 1:36pm

    We’re all laughing at Zuck’s metaverse...

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      ArtistAtLargeM3000P
      11/01/21 1:49pm

      That’s the point. A billionaire who is building fantasy worlds instead of working to save the real world should AT THE VERY LEAST be mocked.

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      pixelpusher220ArtistAtLarge
      11/01/21 5:13pm

      Once I learned his entire focus is on being in a virtual world, his detachment and the corporate den of evil makes a whole lot more sense.

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    Scott SatelliteBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 10:47pm

    We won’t see much progress until all the Mitch McConnells, Joe Manchins and Kristen Sinemas of the world all die off or lose office.

    I predict rapid, massive political shifts once the kids who’ve had to suffer the realities of school shootings and the isolation endured due to politicized and bungled pandemic handling come of voting age. It can’t come too soon.

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      CMAllenTooScott Satellite
      11/01/21 11:16pm

      It won’t matter.

      First, there’s a brand new generation of McConnells, Manchins, and Sinemas already moving up the political ladder, so even if these obstructionst assholes die *TOMORROW* there will be an army of them waiting to take their place the following day.

      Second, by the time a generation most directly and negatively impacted by our rapidly changing climate has any real political power WORLD WIDE, we’ll have long since past the point of no return. Because...

      We aren’t in control anymore. We don’t control our changing climate anymore. The magnitude and number of positive feedback loops at play now have taken over. Fifty years ago, climate change was a leisurely stroll down the street. 20 years ago, it was a dangerous tumble down a steep hill. Today, we’ve fallen off a cliff without any safety gear. Now whether the bottom is 100 feet down or 1/2 a mile down, the odds of our survival are pretty slim.

      And that’s not even taking into account how human nature reacts to the approaching state of our societies, when critical resources are stretched beyond the breaking point, and dwindle to almost nothing. The bloodiest wars in human history were fought over lesser issues.

      In summation, nothing we do now is likely to change the course of human history — what climate change doesn’t destroy, human nature will.

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      ArtistAtLargeScott Satellite
      11/02/21 10:01am

      Every single extreme right wing asshole has to die for there to be change.

      So, at least one more pandemic.

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    Citizen-KangBrian Kahn
    11/01/21 2:58pm

    We’re all screwed. The only question is if we’ll do what it takes to get some lube or if it’s going in dry. People, and I say this in all earnestness, there’s still time for lube. Let’s make it happen.

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      ArtistAtLargeCitizen-Kang
      11/02/21 10:03am

      Have you met people? Far too many are masochists. Most of the remainder are sadists.

      Lube? Well, one can dream.

      Reply