Cui bono from the truth?
— Olivier5
Is that a rhetorical question? — Yohan

Yes, it is. A less rhetorical question would be: cui bono from climate change denial?

Not being an existential problem is a very low bar. I know there's people focusing especially on existential risk — ChatteringMonkey

And that's alarmism. Call something existential when it's really existential, then you don't fall into alarmism: of making unwarranted claims. The Sun poses an existential threat to life on Earth as current theory on the sun's stages in the future holds, but that is in the billion year time scale. This isn't just a rhetorical question, it really drives the discussion. Because pointing this out, I am categorized as being non-alarmed about climate change, as simply giving a "meh" about it. When doubting the most severe predictions is labeled as being a denier of the whole problem, that is a real problem for honest discussion. We have to avoid the lures of tribalism and making making issues to be like religious movements with their proper liturgy and other views considered blasphemy.

I had this same issue come out on the Xi Jinping and the CCP has no clothes thread where, yes, China is facing real difficulties and no, China isn't going to collapse. Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking.

Or it's similar when talking about the financial system. I believe that sooner or later our international monetary system will have a huge crisis and something new will replace this present system. Yes, it's also a big issue, even if climate change is a fa larger issue. But that collapse doesn't mean a societal collapse. The last time when the monetary system collapsed, many didn't even notice what had happened.

The question is: How many? Already scores of youth are opting for not having kids because of CC. — Olivier5

With more prosperity, people have less kids. That's what historically has happened. This is a trend that didn't start yesterday. And just look Japan: their stock market hasn't ever reached the highs in the late 1980's, they have a lot more old people than young people and are they on a verge of collapse? I don't think so.

The real problems are in the places that are already in dire straits before the largest impact of climate change.

Yes, it is. A less rhetorical question would be: cui bono from climate change denial? — Olivier5

Not the globalists, which are the bigger threat.

The real problems are in the places that are already in dire straits before the largest impact of climate change. — ssu

No doubt the poor will suffer sooner than the rich. But climate change is evidently happening faster than we can adapt, and it's probably not going to stop before a few thousand years, so ultimately, every single nation will suffer gravely. And mind you, the poles are warming twice faster than the rest.

Some change is in store, yes.

The biggest threat to what exactly?

Not sure who you call the globalists. It seems to me that naïve, enthusiastic globalisation was killed by COVID.

Yes.

We can always just hope for the Yellowstone supervolcano to erupt. Then we'll have those nice cold winters and beautiful sunsets for a long time.

Yeah, I know. It isn't a solution. Most recent volcanic activity was 70 000 years ago and major eruption some 700 000 years ago.

The one circa 70,000 yr ago almost whipped out our species by the way...

And that's alarmism. Call something existential when it's really existential, then you don't fall into alarmism: of making unwarranted claims. The Sun poses an existential threat to life on Earth as current theory on the sun's stages in the future holds, but that is in the billion year time scale. This isn't just a rhetorical question, it really drives the discussion. Because pointing this out, I am categorized as being non-alarmed about climate change, as simply giving a "meh" about it. When doubting the most severe predictions is labeled as being a denier of the whole problem, that is a real problem for honest discussion. We have to avoid the lures of tribalism and making making issues to be like religious movements with their proper liturgy and other views considered blasphemy. — ssu

I actually made more or less the same point a while back in a discussion with Xtrix in the climate change thread, so I do sort of agree, existential threat is a technical term with a specific meaning and therefor shouldn't be used to describe the threat:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11305/climate-change-general-discussion/p6

But my point this time was that it doesn't really matter that it isn't an existential threat, it is still or should be very alarming nevertheless.

I had this same issue come out on the Xi Jinping and the CCP has no clothes thread where, yes, China is facing real difficulties and no, China isn't going to collapse. Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking. — ssu

Peter Zeihan seems a bit too much of a demographic determinist and he also constantly over-dramatizes things, probably because it increases his value as a geo-political pundit in times where extreme positions are rewarded by algorithms... So I would take everything he says with a grain of salt, but I do agree to some extend that China has an enormous challenges purely based on demographics and water/food security. You cannot really replace all those aging people, and if climate change causes more droughts and famines it could go fast... every regime-collapse in China's history has been about food at base.

Or it's similar when talking about the financial system. I believe that sooner or later our international monetary system will have a huge crisis and something new will replace this present system. Yes, it's also a big issue, even if climate change is a fa larger issue. But that collapse doesn't mean a societal collapse. The last time when the monetary system collapsed, many didn't even notice what had happened. — ssu

But we did avoid a far bigger crash back then, right? And even if avoided, it still caused a lot of issues for a lot of people.

Again the love affair we have with "end-is-nigh" thinking. — ssu

Sure this is definitely a thing, and we should try to avoid it... but at the same time we shouldn't disregard serious issues either because some people are prone to doom.

Too often 'free speech' is confused with a right to be taken seriously. The right to be taken seriously is earnt, it's not a birthright. — Isaac

:100:

Too often 'free speech' is confused with a right to be taken seriously. The right to be taken seriously is earnt, it's not a birthright.
— Isaac — _db

How precisely does a person earn the right to be taken seriously?

The biggest threat to what exactly?

Not sure who you call the globalists. It seems to me that naïve, enthusiastic globalisation was killed by COVID. — Olivier5

I have to do more research on it.

On another note, the UN's Sustainability Development Agenda I assume includes handling human generated global warming. But I worry their smart cities will be hell cities. And did we the people get a say in whether or not we want to be part of this agenda?

By not being a fucking idiot, lol

the UN's Sustainability Development Agenda I assume includes handling human generated global warming. But I worry their smart cities will be hell cities. And did we the people get a say in whether or not we want to be part of this agenda? — Yohan

Actually, yes. There was a massive crowd sourcing of people's concerns prior to defining the sustainable development agenda. See for instance:

https://www.kff.org/news-summary/u-n-releases-results-from-myworld2015-survey/

I don't see where they asked if the people are ok with the agenda. Rather, they just surveyed which goals in the agenda the people are most concerned about. This is implied consent.

I get a sense they plan to radically alter life as we know it. After all, that's the only way to tackle global warming, or at least that is what they want us to believe.

See, "The Great Reset initiative"
And 8 predictions by WEF https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153920524981479 , includes "You'll own nothing and be happy"

Again I ask, who benefits from global warming alarmism. The answer is the UN and the WEF

Problem, Reaction, Solution.

Cognitive dissonance is so high, that even while the Agenda is plainly stated publically, most people will still deny there is a collusion of power with the intention of changing the world without our explicit consent.

Seriously, I don't get this type of reasoning, it's like saying to someone you will lose most of your limbs, your eyes, your stomach etc, but don't be alarmed we can keep you alive just fine by hooking you up to this machine for the rest of your life. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes indeed. :100:

We need to be alarmed. — Olivier5

Very alarmed.

How precisely does a person earn the right to be taken seriously? — yebiga

As I said in my earlier response to you...

They could educate themselves, do their due diligence with regards to sources, do the work required to join the discussion in question. — Isaac

I am afraid that the UN is unable to deal with climate change, or any other really serious problem. For a while now they have behaved like a headless duck, still running around aimlessly in the global courtyard. The sustainable development agenda is a case in point: there's absolutely everything in there. But if everything is a priority, nothing is.

Sharing a wrong opinion is an abuse of free speech? — Yohan

It's not.

I don't know. There is so much information, its hard to make heads or tails of things. How are any of us supposed to stop global warming, if even the UN (with who knows how much money, connections, and media access) can't get anything done?
Am I a defeatist to think trying to stop global warming, at least as average working class folk, is a pipe dream?
I feel like you guys that want to do something are just reacting emotionally. "Global warming!!"
Offer a feasible plan. Not just "Cut back on this or that". A plan that involves actually getting big corporations to comply. Something that has worked in history where average folk made difference like Ghandi's non-violent resistance.

Am I a defeatist to think trying to stop global warming, at least as average working class folk, is a pipe dream? — Yohan

It doesn't look like our generation has the ability to work together. Future generations might, though.

if your response is to attack the speaker - "this person is a moron" - you have changed the subject from global warming to the person saying it
— yebiga

Yes.

this is the death of discourse.
— yebiga

Why?

The person being told they are a moron has nowhere to go - even if they were to suddenly flip their view - they would only confirm the moronic title.
— yebiga

They could educate themselves, do their due diligence with regards to sources, do the work required to join the discussion in question.

This form of ad hominem is all too common and all too unproductive.
— yebiga

That's an empirical claim. Is it unproductive? Do you have some reason to think so? — Isaac

This year, we had a drought like we haven't had in decades. At a time well into the drought, I was talking to two ladies with whom I otherwise chit chat about the weather, gardening, and such. Of course we all complained about the drought. Both of them said, on two separate occasions, "Well, it's not like there's anything we can do about it." It struck me that on the same day, in two conversations with two people, I got the same reply.

Now to think how your attitude that you outline above would fare in such real world situations. Both of them are middle class ladies in their fifties. You think calling them morons would somehow be helpful?

I actually doubt that there exist studies on this particular topic. But if I remember correctly, there are those studies where people were being insulted prior to taking an IQ test and the people did worse on those tests. This certainly speaks against your attitude.


Another anecdotal example: I know people who have been gardening for more than fifty years and who don't know that certain fruits and vegetables require pollinators, like bees and butterflies, or else they don't produce fruit. I know a lady, an avid gardener her whole life, who bought a new plastic greenhouse, planted tomatoes in it, and then kept it closed. When there were no tomatoes, she blamed the plants and the nursery where she bought them. Knowing her, she wouldn't take information from someone younger than herself. I know many people who are like that. It's not necessarily that they are closed off to new information, it's that they are closed off to it when it comes from sources they don't already respect.

The supremacist attitude that some environmental activists have certainly isn't getting through to such people, and if anything, it's only making them dig their heels in even more.

The right to be taken seriously is earnt, it's not a birthright. — Isaac

And it goes both ways. The environmental activists need to earn their right to be taken seriously as well.

There is so much information, its hard to make heads or tails of things. — Yohan

This is why a course of action that aims to be successful cannot afford to depend on information, it cannot afford to depend on taking someone's word for gold. It cannot afford to depend on trust.
It has to depend on what people know for themselves, what they can experience themselves. Everything else is too abstract to generate motivation to act constructively.

I think there should be kibbutz like mandatory education camps where every person would need to live for at least two consecutive years, producing all of their food by themselves, with manual work. I think the biggest problem nowadays is that most people are so far remote from food production that they fail to recognize it for the vital activity that it is and so don't appreciate it. Because of that, they act irresponsibly in regard to food and food production. And they won't change their ways simply by listening to a lecture or reading a book. They need to do it, they need to put in all the work that is necessary in order to grow food.

How are any of us supposed to stop global warming, if even the UN (with who knows how much money, connections, and media access) can't get anything done? — Yohan

Well, you could stop spreading disinformation.

Well, you could stop spreading disinformation. — Olivier5

He hasn't.

But my point this time was that it doesn't really matter that it isn't an existential threat, it is still or should be very alarming nevertheless. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree.

Just as in the Zeihan example, over dramatization still is not great when you are dealing with facts. It's far too easy to ask the question: Is China really to collapse now, immediately, and get the answer "Likely not". The same happens if we take the most dire forecast in the shortest time period. When that most dire forecast doesn't happen (in the few months or one year) it's supposed to happen, you can seriously question then the forecaster.

To think that the most dire forecast is just a way to "wake up" people and hence it's OK to be alarmist, then one should remember that to get most closest to what happens will be the best forecast.

Oh yeah? You think the UN will take over and make the revolution?

Well, you could stop spreading disinformation — Olivier5

I asked for a feasible plan to stop global warming. Of course I will spread better information if I have it.

I agree.

Just as in the Zeihan example, over dramatization still is not great when you are dealing with facts. It's far too easy to ask the question: Is China really to collapse now immediately and get the answer "Likely not". The same happens if we take the most dire forecast in the shortest time period. When that most dire forecast doesn't happen (in the few months or one year) it's supposed to happen, you can seriously question then the forecaster.

To think that the most dire forecast is just a way to "wake up" people and hence it's OK to be alarmist, then one should remember that to get most closest to what happens will be the best forecast. — ssu

Ok, maybe I agree that this kind of alarmism as a political strategy isn't all that helpful, in that it potentially alienates those that weren't already convinced even further. But I'm not sure really, maybe it did help to some extend, climate change certainly is high on the agenda now.

But I wasn't talking about political strategy. Aside from any political impact one may want to have, I just think the truth is that the problem is very very serious, and one is entirely justified in being alarmed, as a normal human reaction to something like this.

Like, we are leaving behind the only climate in history wherein human civilisation have developed and existed thus far, probably permanently for all our intents and purposes... that is quite something. Climate change at the very least will be a risk or stress multiplier on all or most of our vital system, energy, food, water, shelter... for centuries to come. And then we are one of the most adaptable species with our technology, a lot of the rest of the biosphere will have less of a chance to adapt to this unprecedent rate of change.

All of this is pretty bleak and depressing I think, and the mental tax from this on young and future generations is by itself already a tragedy it seems to me.

I asked for a feasible plan to stop global warming. Of course I will spread better information if I have it. — Yohan

Feasible in what sense? If every nation converts to nuclear power and we start building large scale scrubbers, we could at least reverse some of the changes we've already contributed.

Is that feasible for our generation? No.