Do you think we may be doomed, like Rolling Stone does?

Question

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bill-mckibben-falter-climate-change-817310/

Answer 1

First good article I've read about the effects of climate change.

Maybe not in our lifetime but soon it will be like that.

Kind of like society in Soylent Green.

Answer 2

Boy, I guess it's been a long time since I read a "Rolling Stone" magazine or article but that was a good one.

I've always been kind of on the fence about climate changes being man made but this author has finally convinced me that it will come and badly. When? Hard to tell but one of the next generations is going to really suffer if this all comes true.

Answer 3

I hope humans eill change their behavior.

Answer 4

Tink, i do think some of the climate change is human-caused, and I also think we passed a "point of no return" some time ago...yes in a technical sense, the Earth is doomed.

However, that is not the end of the story because, you know how sometimes a hopeless cancer patient just proceeds to get well anyway, for some unexplainable reason?

I think that will happen, is happening for the Earth. Although technically doomed, the Earth will not die because so many people now are doing all they can to help. And somehow that is stronger than cause and effect...it's a different kind of power.

So the question remaining is, how much will the Earth recover? I think that is what we are working on now.

*** You come up with some fascinating articles, and I saved this one for reference also.

Comments

Hi, Virginia,

I went to a lecture last year by the climatologist Michael Mann, who coined the expression "hockey stick" regarding Earth global temperature. I found his talk quite unconvincing.

So apparently did the court in British Columbia which dismissed his long-standing libel suit against another scientist who disagreed with him.

https://www.quora.com/Has-Michael-Manns-hockey-stick-graph-been-debunked

Though I'm willing to grant that human activity must have some effect on the climate, I doubt that it is the main cause.

And of course Mann did not mention the real hockey stick, namely human population growth, which probably has already exceeded the Earth's ability to sustain.

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Tink i had not even heard of the 'hockey stick,' something else to discover...you are a fine researcher, and I will prolly just keep an open mind there....

But truthfully, I don't see the squabble over the cause of climate change as even very meaningful. I think that we humankind should have started long ago to live in accordance with Earth cycles, not waiting until we are pushed by impending catastrophe...and then argue over it...

Did you read about that island of trash, twice the size of Texas, floating in the Pacific Ocean? Actually you are so well read I feel sure you know about it...imo, that should never have happened in the first place. And we need now to start from where we are, doing our best to reverse things like that and get our act in order...irregardless of any Damocles sword of anthropogenic climate change (or not). 

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Yes, I heard about the trash island in the Pacific, although I didn't know it was that  big.

But I think we will muddle through somehow. I look at the 20th century, when hundreds of millions died cruelly and needlessly, and doubt that this century will be worse.

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Amen to that, Sister O'Tink!