520
submitted 1 year ago by Haus@kbin.social to c/news@lemmy.world

A new study has confirmed that the Gulf Stream, a crucial ocean current that helps regulate climate and sea levels, is weakening. The flow of warm water through the Florida Straits has slowed by 4% over the past four decades. This slowdown has significant implications for the world's climate, and scientists are concerned that it may be a sign of further weakening to come.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] xhieron@lemmy.world 134 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] sailingbythelee@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Lath@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Maui is the truth of what will happen to the rest of us.

this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
520 points (98.1% liked)

News

23376 readers
1764 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS