Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity

[Bosnian_fan]

so what happens to the paris agreement now?

surely loads of other countries will bin it off too

crazy they got this through and the media barely talked about it

There is no way human race is going to save planet from climate change. I think everyone should be resigned to it by now.

Only hope is that somehow, the consequences are not as bad as everything is pointing out they will be.

 

[neverdie]

Only hope is that somehow, the consequences are not as bad as everything is pointing out they will be.

Sounds like a species that deserves to die. If it cannot sort out its primary problems, capitalism and war-economy (much the same)), to solve others, then should people even care? You'd only feel bad for the children who have to inherit this mess.

The consequences should be species ending if it keeps going in the direction it has been.

 

[Buster15]

so what happens to the paris agreement now?

surely loads of other countries will bin it off too

crazy they got this through and the media barely talked about it

Drill baby drill.....
Words fail me.

 

[Pexbo]

so what happens to the paris agreement now?

surely loads of other countries will bin it off too

crazy they got this through and the media barely talked about it

The media is not going to push back on anything this Trump government do. Partly because journalism is virtually dead with AI making it a difficult profession, partly because investigative journalism is just not funded anymore but mostly because unlike 2016 when there was an energised opposition to Trumpism, in 2025 despite everything he did, all his crime and corruption, he was just democratically elected once again and that’s given him a mandate. He’s already told us what he’s going to do, it’s no longer a scandal, it’s just policy off the back of his election promises.

 

[Bosnian_fan]

But it would be disingenous to put climate change mainly on Trump. The scope of problem is the whole mankind, not any single individual.

Will Trump contribute to faster falldown? Yes, certainly. Would it have been much better with anyone else, not Biden/Harris, but anyone? Probably not. The scope of issues is simply so big that nothing and nobody can change things so drastically. Whole economy is built on extreme consumption and cutting back on it means people will be left to starve. We are talking in hundreds of millions, possibly billions.

There are two possible pathways humanity can take willingly* (big asterisk that is). One is continuing business as usual, with green energy replacing oil, which is neither going to be fast enough, nor efficient enough. And green energy is not as green as green companie will make you believe.

Second is degrowth, which i just can't comprehend. I mean, I can, but i don't see it being anything other than extrremely painful and deadly for massive number of people.

Third option is the unwilling degrowth, forced upon us by Earth itself. No need to explain what this means.

Fourth, best case scenario, climate change is bullshit. Well, not bullshit, but humans are more resilient than we thought. We adapt and go on. Of course, highly unlikely. Because we are already seeing plethora of evidence just how real climate change is.

 

[Tarrou]

But it would be disingenous to put climate change mainly on Trump. The scope of problem is the whole mankind, not any single individual.

Will Trump contribute to faster falldown? Yes, certainly. Would it have been much better with anyone else, not Biden/Harris, but anyone? Probably not. The scope of issues is simply so big that nothing and nobody can change things so drastically. Whole economy is built on extreme consumption and cutting back on it means people will be left to starve. We are talking in hundreds of millions, possibly billions.

There are two possible pathways humanity can take willingly* (big asterisk that is). One is continuing business as usual, with green energy replacing oil, which is neither going to be fast enough, nor efficient enough. And green energy is not as green as green companie will make you believe.

Second is degrowth, which i just can't comprehend. I mean, I can, but i don't see it being anything other than extrremely painful and deadly for massive number of people.

Third option is the unwilling degrowth, forced upon us by Earth itself. No need to explain what this means.

Fourth, best case scenario, climate change is bullshit. Well, not bullshit, but humans are more resilient than we thought. We adapt and go on. Of course, highly unlikely. Because we are already seeing plethora of evidence just how real climate change is.

He just pulled out of the Paris Agreement which has set us back years, maybe decades.

We'd be better off with Harris clearly, but still fecked

I think any realistic pathway analysis has to include enormous technological advancements, though. Such as mankind solving energy in a clean way (realistic in 100 year timeframe probably) and mankind finding ways to rebalance the atmospheric carbon levels to something manageable. I know these things are far off, but with AI who knows right and we have to try and remain optimistic.

 

[Smores]

He just pulled out of the Paris Agreement which has set us back years, maybe decades.

We'd be better off with Harris clearly, but still fecked

I think any realistic pathway analysis has to include enormous technological advancements, though. Such as mankind solving energy in a clean way (realistic in 100 year timeframe probably) and mankind finding ways to rebalance the atmospheric carbon levels to something manageable. I know these things are far off, but with AI who knows right and we have to try and remain optimistic.

I think the main optimism now is funnily enough China. They've transitioned to clean energy/EVs as a product so not only are they transitioning (a bit too slowly) to green energy they're flooding the market with it to reduce the cost.

It was always going to be economics and tech advancements that helped us solve this. We just have to hope the tech side dictates the economics and market conditions so green is a better investment.

Saying that I'm not optimistic, we're too myopic and progress is far too slow.

 

[Revan]

I think the main optimism now is funnily enough China. They've transitioned to clean energy/EVs as a product so not only are they transitioning (a bit too slowly) to green energy they're flooding the market with it to reduce the cost.

It was always going to be economics and tech advancements that helped us solve this. We just have to hope the tech side dictates the economics and market conditions so green is a better investment.

Saying that I'm not optimistic, we're too myopic and progress is far too slow.

I have long believed that the only solution to the problem will be a technological one (and was laughed at this thread years ago for saying that).

Even if the people in charge genuinely believed the climate change is real, threatening and will affect them personally, it would be hard to defy the forces of the market in this capitalist world. If CEO of some oil company decides to stop drilling oil, he would get ousted immediately. If the US president decides to do a ban/significant crash on oil, that would crash the economy, increase the inflation and likely get impeached and for sure lose the next election.

So, the only solution for this problem is for green energy to become financially viable, for it to be cheaper than the fossil energy (not sure how possible this is without fusion which is always 20 years away). For the electric cars to be cheaper than the ICE cars. And ideally, to find some solution / part of the solution to rebalance the atmospheric carbon levels, essentially drain carbon and methane from the atmosphere.

Do I have trust that this will happen? Not particularly. But I am almost sure that humanity voluntarily deciding to decrease their quality of life for a few decades and enter a period of degrowth will not happen. So, I think it is either technology saving us, or we are fecked. How much fecked debatable, but likely some parts of world becoming close to inhabitable, fires like that of LA become common, or Spanish floods become yearly occurrences too, migrant crisis become worse and eventually we enter non voluntarily the degrowth and lower quality of life.

I think that people in charge know this. But the complex system is not going to allow them to take the hard alternative, even if they really wanted to do so (which in most cases, they do not). So, unfortunately I am quite cynical about this thing.

 

[George Owen]

Green Energy is only one factor.

The heat produced by our (western) way of life is much bigger problem. Heat don't care if it comes from green or other type of energy.

 

[Revan]

Green Energy is only one factor.

The heat produced by our (western) way of life is much bigger problem. Heat don't care if it comes from green or other type of energy.

Always thought that the main problem is the greenhouse effect, not the heat coming from our way of life.

My understanding is that the heat we generate is far lower than for example the energy that comes from the sun. From googling, sun emits 173,000 terawatts (TW) of radiation to Earth each year while humanity produces around 18 TW, so 10000 times less. Trapping the sun energy, like it happens because of the emission of CO2 and methane, is what causing the global warming, not the 0.01% extra energy we create cause of heat. So fixing the greenhouse effect issue would solve the issue.

But not an expert on the topic and there is a high chance I got this completely wrong. Happy to get some links to get better educated on this.

 

[noodlehair]

Always thought that the main problem is the greenhouse effect, not the heat coming from our way of life.

My understanding is that the heat we generate is far lower than for example the energy that comes from the sun. From googling, sun emits 173,000 terawatts (TW) of radiation to Earth each year while humanity produces around 18 TW, so 10000 times less. Trapping the sun energy, like it happens because of the emission of CO2 and methane, is what causing the global warming, not the 0.01% extra energy we create cause of heat. So fixing the greenhouse effect issue would solve the issue.

But not an expert on the topic and there is a high chance I got this completely wrong. Happy to get some links to get better educated on this.

I think you are correct but George is also correct with the "only one factor" part.

The crux of the issue is that no one is educated enough on it to actually have a workable/realistic solution.

Even green energy isn't actually "green". It has a carbon footprint and an environmental impact. Its important because its renewable but it wouldn't save the planet on its own, just help us use it up in a sort of nicer, maybe slightly slower way.

Although I also could be completely wrong.

 

[Revan]

I think you are correct but George is also correct with the "only one factor" part.

The crux of the issue is that no one is educated enough on it to actually have a workable/realistic solution.

Even green energy isn't actually "green". It has a carbon footprint and an environmental impact. Its important because its renewable but it wouldn't save the planet on its own, just help us use it up in a sort of nicer, maybe slightly slower way.

Although I also could be completely wrong.

Of course it has a carbon footprint (as breathing does), but it is nowhere as much as that of the fossil energy.

With regards to the heat on its own being a problem, my understanding is that it can be a problem in a few centuries, essentially if the energy we use increases by hundreds/thousands of times or so. Addressing the greenhouse effect caused by fossil fuel is something that is affecting us now and will catastrophically affect us in the next few decades. So we need to address the urgent issue IMO.

 

[George Owen]

Always thought that the main problem is the greenhouse effect, not the heat coming from our way of life.

My understanding is that the heat we generate is far lower than for example the energy that comes from the sun. From googling, sun emits 173,000 terawatts (TW) of radiation to Earth each year while humanity produces around 18 TW, so 10000 times less. Trapping the sun energy, like it happens because of the emission of CO2 and methane, is what causing the global warming, not the 0.01% extra energy we create cause of heat. So fixing the greenhouse effect issue would solve the issue.

But not an expert on the topic and there is a high chance I got this completely wrong. Happy to get some links to get better educated on this.

As of now, greenhouse effect is the main problem, but waste heat will become the bigger issue quite soon.

Right now, only a tiny bit of the population is living on western standards. Imagine the whole world living like that. Its impossible to sustain.

As a human society, we need to reduce our consumption or to reduce our numbers.

This is the study I read about I think.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.06737

All the energy used by man is transformed into heat, the main portion of this energy being an additional source of heat as compared to the present radiation gain. Simple calculations show (Budyko 1961) that with the present rate of growth of using energy the heat produced by man in less than two hundred years will be comparable with the energy coming from the sun.

We may identify three classes of trajectories that seem consistent with our modeling in this work, as listed below.

1. Technological species that pursue relentless exponential growth of energy consumption beyond the planet’s safe operating thresholds render themselves extinct on short timescales of typically ≲ 1000 years.

2. Technological species transition from the phase of exponential growth in energy consumption to either an indefinite period of (near-)zero growth or even intervals of negative growth.

3. Technological species venture beyond their home planet(s), thereby utilizing space infrastructure for producing and dissipating energy, as well as for performing other technological activities.

 

[Revan]

As of now, greenhouse effect is the main problem, but waste heat will become the bigger issue quite soon.

Right now, only a tiny bit of the population is living on western standards. Imagine the whole world living like that. Its impossible to sustain.

As a human society, we need to reduce our consumption or to reduce our numbers.

This is the study I read about I think.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.06737

Thanks for the link.

Oh sure, in a few hundred years that might be a problem. If the hear increases a few hundred/thousands times, that would have the same affect as the greenhouse effect.

But, that is very far away. Furthermore, it depends where does that heat comes from, if it is from solar energy, that won't affect us, from nuclear, indeed it will.

Finally, it is probably unlikely that the energy consumption will increase exponentially. A lot of this exponential increase has been because of the numbers of humans increasing, and we are at a point when this will not continue for long. And well, if we make it for another few hundred years, most likely there will be some technological solutions, some of which she gives in the video.

 

[Bosnian_fan]

Another problem is that historically, energy deficit has been an ever-present trait going along with human civilization.

Coal was not replaced by oil, because energy needs for the sustainability of the way the world is/was running were too big to simply dish coal.

Instead, oil was added on top of the coal.

There is still an energy deficit present all around the world. Green energy is not here to replace oil, or coal. Green energy will simply be added on top of what we are already using.

Here:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/265261/global-oil-consumption-in-million-metric-tons/

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ak-and-remain-at-near-record-levels-for-years

Drastic, drastic lifestyle changes will most likely be coming our way, either willingly or unwillingly.

 

[Revan]

Another problem is that historically, energy deficit has been an ever-present trait going along with human civilization.

Coal was not replaced by oil, because energy needs for the sustainability of the way the world is/was running were too big to simply dish coal.

Instead, oil was added on top of the coal.

There is still an energy deficit present all around the world. Green energy is not here to replace oil, or coal. Green energy will simply be added on top of what we are already using.

Here:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/265261/global-oil-consumption-in-million-metric-tons/

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ak-and-remain-at-near-record-levels-for-years

Drastic, drastic lifestyle changes will most likely be coming our way, either willingly or unwillingly.

Won't oil run out? I think most estimates say that we have oil (that is economically viable to get from the veils) just for another 3 decades.