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Gulf Stream weakening now 99% certain, and ramifications will be global
(www.livescience.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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At this point, I don't think anything short of losing coastal cities will whip apathetic people into climate action.
Very optimistic of you.
Joking aside, apathy isn't the problem. That is, the issue isn't that people don't care. Ordinary people care a great deal. The problem is that the cost of the action that would be sufficient to change things is too high personally for those ordinary people to take.
People just don't want to be gunned down by riot police or go to prison for assassinating oil executives. The solution to this problem isn't paper straws and recycling (and it never has been). Further, abandoning cars isn't feasible for stroad-bound Americans. Abandoning beef is, but your family switching to chicken and fish won't even twitch the needle.
Point is, the kind of change that's needed is societal--the kind of revolutionary change that's paid for in streets full of blood. In the "Well if enough people just ..." argument, the enough people is hundreds of millions. We have to become a fossil fuel eschewing society. Whole industries have to collapse.
The companies responsible for climate change can be counted on one person's fingers and toes, and they're names any adult can guess in a few tries.
We're not storming their doors because we don't want to be recipients of the state violence these companies will muster to stop us.
Flooding cities might change our minds, but probably only for the people who actually live there. The sad truth is the rest of us will sooner consign Miami to the depths than orphan our children for their grandchildren's sakes.
Things will change when we starve, but probably not a moment sooner.
Bang on. The Earth's population in 1950 was about 2.5 billion. We have more than tripled that number now, largely enabled by agricultural, medical, and transportation technology powered by stored energy in the form of fossil fuels. Global ecological footprint analysis shows that we "overshot" Earth's sustainable capacity limit in around 1970.
It is impractical (and probably impossible) with current technology to sustain >8 billion people on Earth without fossil fuels. And, it is impossible to keep burning fossil fuels without inducing devastating climate change. So, unless we can replace almost all fossil fuel burning with another incredibly powerful and non-harmful energy source (like fusion, I guess?), we are screwed. I agree with you that the ecological debt we have incurred will likely be paid in lives lost to starvation and conflict over food.
Maui is the truth of what will happen to the rest of us.