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Thread: We're all gonna die (The climate change thread)

  1. #361
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    Yup - that resonates with me.

    Things could be bad, life expectancy could drop, total population could drop (is that a bad thing) and the standard of living could drop (well for western societies). These are not good, but its not "end of world".

    I still think the biggest issue will be migration. As some countries struggle people will want to move to better places. We have already seen this for many years, often caused by war, but this could massively multiply if places like Bangladesh become unable to support their population.

    The USA... well if sea rise wipes out Florida and gulf states there is plenty of room to move people. It would be expensive but doable. Many lives might be lost on the way. But its not like most people will be wiped out.
    LA runs out of water... its just $$$s to build desalination.
    Again for western countries its mostly about how much money you need to throw to overcome the issues. The problem will be if it combines with war or political instability, money to spend on these issues will be harder to justify. Basically the rich and powerful clinging on and leaving everyone else to suffer.
    Heck maybe even most westerners will need to accept a drop in living standard to support more of the worlds population living at the same level.

    End of the world - no.
    Big change in how we live - yes.

  2. #362
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    We frankly don’t know how or when world will end. Similarly we don’t know how and when we’ll die.

    I think the main point is that we ought not to lose hope for ourselves and rob hope from our children. Regardless of peoples religious beliefs, it’s important to keep hope alive. Or else we’ll likely end ourselves before the world ends.

  3. #363
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dicknose View Post
    Heck maybe even most westerners will need to accept a drop in living standard to support more of the worlds population living at the same level.
    Won’t happen as long as there are rich people around.

    I’ll take my steak medium rare please.

  4. #364
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    Nature will find a way.

    In this case, markets might crash and stagflation will help make rich people less rich and consequently lowers the standard of living for all. Our population will likely crash too considering birth rates for most nations are dwindling.

    However, no matter what happens, there will always be rich people. I don’t have any problems with rich people, it’s what they do with their money that might make things problematic.

    Anyway, humans are problem solvers. Humans will find a Way or die off.

  5. #365
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rare White Ape View Post
    Won’t happen as long as there are rich people around.
    and lots of people who aspire to being in that club

    Thats were I see maybe the biggest changes could come if things get towards catastrophic - we could end up with a societal change.
    This could be a more equal society, resources shared more evenly and sustainably.
    Or it could be a more divided split between have and have nots. History tends to favour this path. But we could end up with some "let them eat cake" scenario.

    Climate change would wipe out the rich end of town (and that probably includes most of us). Certainly wont kill the super rich. But other people who are struggling could be their downfall.

  6. #366
    Senior Member G'day Mate's Avatar
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  7. #367
    Relaxing and enjoying life MR2 Fan's Avatar
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  8. #368
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    Just saw the video... pretty fun to watch!

    That is almost like a short cartoonish version of LOTR, fossil fuel industry is like Sauron... earth appears doomed... lots of losing battles, but don't ever lose hope! We can beat this!

  9. #369
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MR2 Fan View Post
    Good article about what we're telling our kids about doomsday...
    I try not to say much about pending global disasters to my kids, but I personally am pretty messed up in the head about it all, to be frank. I wish I could share the optimism some of you have. I hope you guys keep posting good news or at least wishful thinking.

    I understand the risk of getting most of one's news from one source, with Fox News in the USA being a commonly cited example of "can you believe people watch this crap?!" That said, I discovered Reddit a couple years ago and subscribed to a whole bunch of subreddits about various interests - bicycling, guitars, local stuff, car stuff, cooking, and many others. Most of what I see is fun stuff and some of it, like https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/, is optimistic about what lies ahead.

    But, there's one sub that haunts me every time I look at that site: https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/. Posts from there appear in my feed just often enough to wreck any sense of well-being I might have had while surfing the web and those same thoughts haunt me at night sometimes when I try to sleep.

    Sure, there are memes and dumb stuff there, and some of it is "I'm scared" talk with any news content, but many of the posts contain links to what seem to be credible websites with articles that are downright terrifying. I have thought of unsubscribing, but I think that would be burying my head in the sand and pretending everything is okay. I've already done that with national TV news for the most part but I just can't look away from r/collapse.

    Reading posts from that site and seeing other news sources also makes it hard for me to believe some of what I talk to my kids about - things like going to college in a few more years and then having a career, a house, a family, or whatever they wish if not those things. I try to "play the game" but I'm not sure I believe they (or we) have a long and pleasant future ahead.

    I feel like we all live in Belgium and France it's about 1911 or maybe even 1912 already.

    I want to be very wrong about this, but that's how I see it.

  10. #370
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    I think humanity thrives when we live under certain tensions… between good and evil, left and right, order and chaos…

    Too much of one sidedness will either be too boring or turn us into extremists.

    With regard to the future of our world, we can definitely expect the worst so we don’t become too complacent and ignore our problems, but we also need to remind ourselves to hope for the best too.

    Resisting doomsday, or our eventual death, is indeed futile. We know with certainty that those things will happen to all of us eventually. However, even for atheists, life didn’t just happen to us so that we can prepare for our funerals!

    Love that quote from Braveheart: ‘Everyone dies, but not everyone really lived!’

    Until the day humanity becomes extincted, there’s always hope. We all have one life to live. Live it to the fullest and don’t forget to teach your children to do likewise. Expect that we’ll run into troubles, but hopefully we can also troubleshoot them away!

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