Since last July, Earth’s average temperature has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

As global temperatures spiked to their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, ambulances were screaming through the streets of Tokyo, carrying scores of people who had  collapsed amid an unrelenting heat wave. A monster typhoonwas emerging from the scorching waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were several degrees warmer than normal. Thousands of vacationers fled the idyllic mountain town of Jasper, Canada ahead of a fast-moving wall of wildfire flames.

By the end of the week — which saw the four hottest days ever observed by scientists — dozens had been killed in the raging floodwaters and massive mudslides triggered by Typhoon Gaemi. Half of Jasper was reduced to ash. And about 3.6 billion people around the planet had endured temperatures that would have been exceedingly rare in a world without burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to an analysis by scientists at the group Climate Central.

These extraordinary global temperatures marked the culmination of an unprecedented global hot streak that has stunned even researchers who spent their whole careers studying climate change.

    • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      5 months ago

      We may not have reached a tipping point scientifically, but sociologically we’re long past it. No one seems to be concerned. I see all my friends still pumping out kids and I’m like “you’ll be lucky if this child makes it to adulthood”. The climate in the last 5 years is just changing at an unbelievable pace. Large portions of the world will be completely uninhabitable in like 10-20 years. Resources will be scarce. Mad Max is coming.

      • ThinkBeforeYouPost@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        People simply can’t/won’t hear it. Society is clinging to any doubt or contrary viewpoint (and oil companies and their paid shills provide plenty) because it is difficult to envision the delicate and finite nature of our situation. Triggered methane releases are currently ratcheting up the warming, you can’t refreeze the permafrost, it rapidly cooks the planet.

        No one wants to believe it, but this is the end unless dramatic changes are made. Having children, at this juncture, with what we know, is profoundly selfish. And folks cannot accept this, let alone, the changes that must be made, systemically, for society to survive.

        • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          Having children, at this juncture, with what we know, is profoundly selfish

          Not just having children, but raising them to continue the same “driving huge SUV everywhere” costco lifestyle that got us into this mess

          • some_designer_dude@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            This is all a red herring. Our SUV’s, stupid as they may be, are statistically barely relevant compared to effects of corporate greed and pollution on the rest of us. Point the blame where it belongs: at the ruling class for having the knowledge and means to have avoided all of this, but chose not to.

            • Mycroft@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              You always see this opinion on reddit and lemmy that corporate greed is the root of all evil in a vacuum.

              It feels good cause it removes any guilt from the individual, but at the end of the day corporation provides good and service to the society. If people stopped using AI, eating meat, wanting SUV etc, corporation would turn to others products.

              • ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                5 months ago

                If people stopped using AI, eating meat, wanting SUV etc, corporation would turn to others products.

                The corporations would probably bribe the government to subsidize AI, meat (more than they already are), and SUV manufacturers.

              • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                That is only the illusion of choice. If tomorrow I went full off the grid and before I left I told everyone to do the same, nothing would happen. Nothing would change. The lever pullers have the power to force change and they refuse to. One person can be conscious enough to speak out and they have (see Greta) but with individuals who have no choice but to participate for survival they are not the problem.

                • Mycroft@lemm.ee
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                  5 months ago

                  In case of politicians, they represent the interest of the people, as the people elects them. If suddenly everyone went off grid to force change they would feel more inclined to make changes in this direction.

                  Of course they would lag a bit behind so you would see it immediately but they notice the trends.

                  If suddenly the issue that would sway swing state was climate change (because everyone suddenly show they care in their consumption habits), every politician would promise greener policies.

                  I agree that this choice implies that one is free to take the greener products, while in reality only the richest are free to choose.

      • P1nkman@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Danish right-wingers calls childless people “unpatriotic” because we will not have anyone to take care of us when we’re old. Hahaha, I’ll have the last laugh when people realise the world has gone to shit.

        • MiltownClowns@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          In the US, heat waves and hurricanes are hitting the south worse every year. The west is on fire and out of water. New York City is flooding more every year.

          Move to Minnesota.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            One of the things that’s happened in models is forest fires so extensive we essentially burn away the entirety of our large forests. And now we’re having large out of control forest fires every year instead of every 5-10 years. I’m just going to get in a time machine at this point.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          The low areas around the equator are experiencing more days every year with periods of temperature above human survivability. This means temperatures are too high for our natural evaporative cooling to work. Countries in the area do have some work arounds which is why we haven’t seen large scale deaths from these heat waves yet. Also AFAIK, these temperatures have only lasted a few hours at a time so far and over heating takes time.

          As we go on like this though these periods will happen more often and last for longer, likely overwhelming the ability to compensate. It will also spread outside regions with such cooling infrastructure if we keep pushing it.

          This is where we’re expecting at least a billion people to pick up and move, and we’re not entirely sure when that would happen. It depends on where the breakpoint is in the climate, and how tolerant the locals are of heat wave deaths.

        • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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          5 months ago

          I don’t. But look at all the people dying from heatstroke and the like at alarming rates all over the world. Look at historic high and low temperatures in the last few years. You just won’t be able to go outside for more than a few minutes. Certainly won’t be able to exercise outdoors.

          I’m trying to move somewhere colder. Colorado maybe.

    • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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      5 months ago

      It amazes me how long the messaging is muted. Permafrost started releasing methane in the twenty teens and folks still seem to think we will keep it below 1.5 or even 2 if we stop emitting.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Climate scientists straight up said they don’t want to talk about the higher temperature cases because they think people will just zone out.

        In other words the bulk of us are not expected to survive that scenario.

        So in true human fashion we’re going to work like we’re limiting it at 2 degrees “because it has to stop there.”

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    2027: Atmospheric Fireballs Incinerate Thousands, Scientists Warn Climate May Be Unstable

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    But have you considered corporation’s rights to use the equivalent of a small country of electricity on the latest money making boondoggle?

    Do you know just how much cheaper you can make things for in a third world factory that doesn’t have to obey our stringent environmental regulations, and then shipped halfway across the world on a big dirty old boat? Those are important savings that we could be passing onto our most valued customers - the shareholders!

  • thisNotMyName@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Who could have guessed??? Anyway it’s important to think about the economy now, but only short term of course! /s

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Obligatory reminder that mother nature has killed civilization before and can do it again whenever she wants.

    • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Humans looooove to play pretend we’re this world’s owners and masters 😂

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I will admit that we’re unlikely to care if civilization ends. Because it’s very likely we’ll die in the first wave.

        • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I know this labels me as a bad person, but I can’t really root for us anymore. We were handed dominion over paradise, but it was never enough, and even now, as the writing is on the wall, most of us lament our plight rather than the innumerable species, different but not inferior to homosapien, living in generational homeostasis that we’re going to take down with us while singing woe is us.

          I reject rooting for such a vile home team, merely because it is the home team.

          I take infinite solace knowing that while we will decimate surface and shallow water life, even our toolbox of horrors can’t sterilize our mother, and after she’s dealt with us, she will heal in just a couple million years, nothing to her 3.8 billion year old story of life, and paradise will be restored, until the next macro-cancer evolves at least. We weren’t even the first, though we were the first that we know of with a choice. The Carboniferous period gave way to an ice age mass extinction due to trees doing the opposite of what we’re doing, capturing too much carbon before the life that could decompose them efficiently had evolved. This is where much of our lovely coal comes from.

          Wasn’t their fault. They were trees. We can do better, we know better, our brightest have been begging us for a century to heed the data, we just won’t stop.

    • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I hate that I’m part of the problem. I’m a human, and humans are parasites. We burn through the resources and destroy the things we have. I cannot go somewhere else and be a “good” human because we’re all on the same destructive bus.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        We don’t even have the power to stop it. If we elected a radical green government in any one free democracy today, it wouldn’t slow down any other country or foreign corporation. For example we’re not stopping things like burning the Amazon without military intervention at this point and that would likely cost just as much climate damage as burning the Amazon.

        At this point I’ve unbuckled my seat belt and I’m hanging half way out of the car so I can at least have some fun when we go over the cliff.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    We can’t see or judge the tipping point anymore because we already passed it.

    It’s like looking for that highway road sign without realizing you drove past it half an hour ago.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Deniers will never see it and climate scientists will never admit it because people will just zone out.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Deniers are the people in the car who saw the sign and didn’t tell anyone

        Scientists are the people in the car who told everyone about the sign they saw 30 minutes ago but everyone ignored them and didn’t believe them.

  • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    I love how my boomer father complained for 15 minutes about how fucking hot it’s been of late, to then just add “… And for sure THEY will say this is all climate change” and then explained how golf courses were better for the environment than forests because they have more green surface per unit of land.

    I usually rebuke, this time I’ll let old age do it’s thing

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Somebody was trying to tell me how golf courses manage water better than nature. They absolutely could not understand that a golf course in the middle of the desert has obliterated nature and is diverting water from the larger ecosystem.

  • DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    I’m commuting by bike, consuming less, composting everything, recycling,and doing all sorts of other shit, but these rich assholes gotta make a huge profit so here we are. It’s infuriating and depressing but what can I do? Just fucking die from heat stroke I guess.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    And lots of fauna and flora of actual value will be lost, but neither humans nor their beloved piles of metal and plastic shite will be counted among them.