But I also now think even the conversation is now becoming almost meaningless. Those percentages of believers and doubters will probably stay much the same for the next decade. Nothing meaningful is going to change because most people don'r want it to, not least because for most people, the gap between the 'academic' catastrophe-version of climate science, and the daily reality of a few hotter summer days, is too great.
Even worse, there are many, many people in northern countries that are thinking, "So we'll have a climate like the South of France? With vineyards and warm seas?? Bring it on!"
Even when we talk about 2 billion humans dying by 2050, once people realise that most of those will be old anyway, or in Africa or some other far away place, and mostly foreigners, they turn off and don't really care. Even I think to myself, 2 billion fewer people would help the planet, but 3 billion fewer people would be 'better'! (And even then, that would still be twice the human population on Earth than when I was born in the 1950's!)
For those of us that avidly follow your evidence, science and opinions, Richard, you are a treasured resource, but we are a small minority, and many of us know the depressing effects of this knowledge. It is challenging to deal with TEOTWAWKI and go on living an ordinary life amidst ordinary people, who often seem much happier for their lack of knowledge.
I suppose what I am saying is that I have reached the 'Acceptance' stage, and feel relatively comfortable with it. No more denial, no real anger anymore, even my negotiations seem to have faded away. Still periods of depression, but that's perhaps as much about my own age and my own imminent demise as about the planet's.
Which will come first? That now seems to be the biggest question for me. That, and which I'd prefer.
I'm 58. I've been a doomer since I was 20 and made decisions then that I have stuck to (no car, no kids, consuming the minimum, buying used, living in small spaces, etc.). Even as a young person way back in the 1980s, I could not relate in any way to the world around me -- the fast pace, the stuff, the inequality, the greed. I never saw it as permanent or lasting. The disconnection between humans and nature/the planet struck me as mentally ill.
The key graphs that you have presented previously are the correlations in the historical record between GHGs and the Earth’s global temperature. There are significant lag times between dialling up GHG levels and the stabilization of the Earth’s climate at those GHG levels.
What we have done is dialled the thermostat WAY WAY UP and what we are now experiencing is an oven that is in “pre-heat” mode. Stopping all fossil fuel use today won’t stop the pre-heat cycle.
I do understand why most people refuse to accept where we are at now, and it will remain the case until we start having massive crop failures. Those are coming, soon.
Ironic that it's crop failures that'll be the first thing to really hit when if we converted to a plant based economy we could have started sucking out some of the co2 from the atmosphere even without reducing emissions.
1. We've all seen Hollywood 'end of the world' versions. What we're facing is NOT going to be a one dramatic shot Armageddon.
2. For at least a decade we've been conditioned to think of this in terns of "by the end of the century",= not effecting us.
3. We are not at all good at comprehending events that are NOT linear. Climate crisis is anything but linear, with such a complex intermingling of sometimes very disparate factors that it is hard for even the best experts to untangle/factor in. Too bloody many unknowns.
4. No matter what evidence to the contrary, this is seen as different problems and degrees of severity between northern ("developed world") vs southern hemispheres.
She's not considering the structural incentives of the current socio-economic system nor that climate shift is "just" one of the major symptoms of the cancer which is ecological overshoot, being the results of the ways we collectively tell and believe each other stories of economic and human "progress". You're not the only one, they're even very professional economy-oriented people who documented a polycollapse in the 2030ies: https://www.arkh3.com/resources/leading-through-the-polycollapse-a-guide-to-systemic-foresight-for-vuca-native-strategy
Would you happen to own a digital copy of the book? It's been recently out so it's not on the book download sites and I have no money to spare. =( I've read its summary and the idea presentation seems sound and articulated.
I did buy a copy, which I am studying to re-evaluate my own assumptions and foresight. However I know the authors and they have put much of their work, minds and heart into the book that I would not give the pdf version away, sorry (nothing personal). It is also not a reading to put in everybody's hands, it does force you to face our long dark much sooner and much more real than anything I have studied so far.
I just returned from a car trip from NC to upstate NY. Not a single bug splatter on the windshield on the outward trip, one or two on the return trip. Many of the vast fields of the Shenandoah Valley in both VA and PA looked dry and underproductive. Corn 3 feet tall is already tasseling. Other plantings were 4-6" high. Worrying for sure.
There’s one aspect of human behavior I try to get into play that isn’t about what people do but how they think. If instead of thinking of ourselves as primordial sinful, if we see ourselves as divine creatures in a holy universe - look at the stars for some instant confirmation and then find out about Hubble showing that to us scientifically - we’d be one family taking care of each other. My focus is on shifting mass consciousness to give us the best chance to get the best results humanity could get now.
I fear the good doctor's words will age like a glass of milk left outside in this heat. hot, rotten, filled with a few dead bugs and a strange mold slime creeping up the rim.
In addition to the mainstreamers being arrogant condescending cunts, they are ignorant of much of what else is going down on this planet - if it was only climate change techno industrial civilization would still be toast. The thing is climate change is but one of many predicaments and thousands of serious problems that are under the Overshoot umbrella. Even without climate change biodiversity loss is a major crisis that would prove existential or at least result in the collapse of techno industrial civilization and a mass human die back. The there is ocean acidification and you can forget about using that "we fixed the hole in the ozone" narrative, cause we did not. And it goes on and on with the smörgåsbord of damages 8 billion plus humans and their ever expanding waste streams cause to the biosphere.
Idiots with degrees in 'communications" are just propagandists and none of them understand (nor care if they did), that life on this planet is governed by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology not their hopey think tank narratives or plans for their precious offspring. Make no mistake they are just as much a part of the US empire's propaganda team as is Hollywood and the MSM. Notice their silence on the US empires forever wars including feeding their 2 main proxies Ukraine and Israel? If humans were serious about stopping or slowing climate change global peace is essential - it can't happen as long as the US empire exists. Thing is that America would go bankrupt overnight if peace broke out. In addition to the millions employed, directly and indirectly, the US military is the single biggest institutional employer on the planet.
Any American that talks about "fighting climate change" and does not start with shutting down the US empire, can go fuck themselves. Twice.
~~~
*How the US became the biggest military emitter and stopped everyone finding out*
A.reza Sabri 4 weeks ago America, Europe, Middle East, Slider Leave a comment 461 Views
Academic Neta Crawford warns that if Donald Trump follows through on his threats of war, emissions will soar and the planet will pay the price
Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries
Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year
The climate impact of Donald Trump’s geopolitical ambitions could deepen planetary catastrophe, triggering a global military buildup that accelerates greenhouse gas emissions, a leading expert has warned.
The Pentagon – the US armed forces and Department of Defense (DoD) agencies – is the world’s largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for at least 1% of total US emissions annually, according to analysis by Neta Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War project at Brown University.
Over the past five decades, US military emissions have waxed and waned with its geopolitical fears and ambitions. In 2023, the Pentagon’s operations and installations generated about 48 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) – more planet-warming gases than emitted by entire
countries including Finland, Guatemala and Syria that year.
Now, once again, the US military carbon footprint is on the cusp of rising significantly as Trump upends the old geopolitical order in his second presidency. In the first 100 days of his second term, Trump threatened military action in Panama, Greenland, Mexico and Canada, dropped bombs on Yemen and increased military sales to Israel, which has intensified its military assault on Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen and Lebanon.
Trump has also aligned the US with former adversaries including Russia, while hurling direct or thinly veiled threats at former allies including Ukraine and the entire Nato alliance. Relations with China have sunk amid Trump’s chaotic trade war.
“If Trump follows through with his threats, US military emissions will absolutely rise, and this will cause a ripple effect,” said Crawford, author of the book The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of US Military Emissions.
“We’re already seeing lots of escalatory rhetoric, with fewer off-ramps and less commitment to resolving conflicts. The allies or former allies of the US have increased their military spending, so their emissions will go up. As adversaries and potential adversaries of the United States increase their military activity, their emissions will go up. It’s very bad news for the climate.”
The Pentagon is the largest single fossil fuel consumer in the US, already accounting for about 80% of all government emissions. In March, the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, wrote on X: “The @DeptofDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”
Trump has promised $1tn in defence spending for 2026 – which if approved by Congress would represent a 13% rise on the 2025 Pentagon budget amid unprecedented cuts to almost every other federal agency, including those that research and respond to the climate crisis. His military ambitions sit alongside orders to terminate climate research at the Pentagon and a broader assault on climate action across government, while also taking steps to boost fossil fuel extraction.
The only chance to save anything is in presenting hard facts. Without facts, logical action can't be taken. THAT is doom. Guenther seems to be pedaling a degree of hopium for fear of turning off those who can't handle the truth. Others, well-intended perhaps like McKibben do the same. That our news sources are too corrupt and mired in selling the consumption that is killing us is primary. Brainwashed people can't be brought up to speed.
The green renewable economy will never happen, another hard truth. It can't be built without fossil fuels which are approaching the end of economic viability to extract, and bear primary responsible for killing us. The green economy was a lie all along, at best a bridge to a low energy, low consumption world. It depends on mining and competes with agricultural and drinking water; one ton of raw lithium ore requires 500,000 gallons of water to process and mining invariably pollutes precious groundwater. It's just another form of living beyond our means.
The planet was designed to do just so much, and the subsistence lifestyles of the Indigenous is truly the only sustainable model. We will no longer live like gods on Earth.
In the end, belief is always trumped(no pun intended) by the data and the data is clear. The relative stability of the last 10k years is over and we can no longer depend on that stability to support stable human communities, this of course occurring at the same time our species through our hubris and ignorance fomenting ongoing and deepening overshoot. There is no turning back now, with the vast majority of humans responding with denial and entrenchment, yet another positive feedback loop of accelerating unraveling. Placing and keeping your house in order, and frankly i refer pretty much exclusively to your emotional and spiritual house is now of critical value. How do you maintain your kindness and your center when around you the world is burning and innocents are suffering…at our hand?
Yes, the earth and its critters will suffer unimaginable pain, but in time, the earth will renew and life here will continue on this incredible planet. A few million years from now there will be little left to show that Homo sapiens was ever here.
I agree, Richard. And yes, time will tell.
But I also now think even the conversation is now becoming almost meaningless. Those percentages of believers and doubters will probably stay much the same for the next decade. Nothing meaningful is going to change because most people don'r want it to, not least because for most people, the gap between the 'academic' catastrophe-version of climate science, and the daily reality of a few hotter summer days, is too great.
Even worse, there are many, many people in northern countries that are thinking, "So we'll have a climate like the South of France? With vineyards and warm seas?? Bring it on!"
Even when we talk about 2 billion humans dying by 2050, once people realise that most of those will be old anyway, or in Africa or some other far away place, and mostly foreigners, they turn off and don't really care. Even I think to myself, 2 billion fewer people would help the planet, but 3 billion fewer people would be 'better'! (And even then, that would still be twice the human population on Earth than when I was born in the 1950's!)
For those of us that avidly follow your evidence, science and opinions, Richard, you are a treasured resource, but we are a small minority, and many of us know the depressing effects of this knowledge. It is challenging to deal with TEOTWAWKI and go on living an ordinary life amidst ordinary people, who often seem much happier for their lack of knowledge.
I suppose what I am saying is that I have reached the 'Acceptance' stage, and feel relatively comfortable with it. No more denial, no real anger anymore, even my negotiations seem to have faded away. Still periods of depression, but that's perhaps as much about my own age and my own imminent demise as about the planet's.
Which will come first? That now seems to be the biggest question for me. That, and which I'd prefer.
Well said. I think and feel the same.
Card carrying doomer here.
Same...
I'm 58. I've been a doomer since I was 20 and made decisions then that I have stuck to (no car, no kids, consuming the minimum, buying used, living in small spaces, etc.). Even as a young person way back in the 1980s, I could not relate in any way to the world around me -- the fast pace, the stuff, the inequality, the greed. I never saw it as permanent or lasting. The disconnection between humans and nature/the planet struck me as mentally ill.
>>> Who do you BELIEVE?
I'm with you on this Richard, thanks for all your work!
The key graphs that you have presented previously are the correlations in the historical record between GHGs and the Earth’s global temperature. There are significant lag times between dialling up GHG levels and the stabilization of the Earth’s climate at those GHG levels.
What we have done is dialled the thermostat WAY WAY UP and what we are now experiencing is an oven that is in “pre-heat” mode. Stopping all fossil fuel use today won’t stop the pre-heat cycle.
I do understand why most people refuse to accept where we are at now, and it will remain the case until we start having massive crop failures. Those are coming, soon.
Ironic that it's crop failures that'll be the first thing to really hit when if we converted to a plant based economy we could have started sucking out some of the co2 from the atmosphere even without reducing emissions.
Yet, still the propaganda abounds that exploiting animals in 'holistic management' will somehow save the world. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/the-green-washing-of-white-priviledge
Big hurdles:
1. We've all seen Hollywood 'end of the world' versions. What we're facing is NOT going to be a one dramatic shot Armageddon.
2. For at least a decade we've been conditioned to think of this in terns of "by the end of the century",= not effecting us.
3. We are not at all good at comprehending events that are NOT linear. Climate crisis is anything but linear, with such a complex intermingling of sometimes very disparate factors that it is hard for even the best experts to untangle/factor in. Too bloody many unknowns.
4. No matter what evidence to the contrary, this is seen as different problems and degrees of severity between northern ("developed world") vs southern hemispheres.
Good comment
Shitloads of people on the titanic probably refused to believe the situation until they got yanked underwater and began actively drowning.
That’s how this will unfold.
The "modern" world is unsustainable therefore it will not be sustained. Adapt or die.
She's not considering the structural incentives of the current socio-economic system nor that climate shift is "just" one of the major symptoms of the cancer which is ecological overshoot, being the results of the ways we collectively tell and believe each other stories of economic and human "progress". You're not the only one, they're even very professional economy-oriented people who documented a polycollapse in the 2030ies: https://www.arkh3.com/resources/leading-through-the-polycollapse-a-guide-to-systemic-foresight-for-vuca-native-strategy
Would you happen to own a digital copy of the book? It's been recently out so it's not on the book download sites and I have no money to spare. =( I've read its summary and the idea presentation seems sound and articulated.
I did buy a copy, which I am studying to re-evaluate my own assumptions and foresight. However I know the authors and they have put much of their work, minds and heart into the book that I would not give the pdf version away, sorry (nothing personal). It is also not a reading to put in everybody's hands, it does force you to face our long dark much sooner and much more real than anything I have studied so far.
Could you please share your impressions? Do they give out a date for 2C?
Marcelo, from their webpage, there's an executive summary here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F1YlpQM38nbOe_OPmHQvg3bp9AFVPq6w/view
Thanks. I've read it.
Thanks. I've already read it.
I just returned from a car trip from NC to upstate NY. Not a single bug splatter on the windshield on the outward trip, one or two on the return trip. Many of the vast fields of the Shenandoah Valley in both VA and PA looked dry and underproductive. Corn 3 feet tall is already tasseling. Other plantings were 4-6" high. Worrying for sure.
Good observations on the insects
There’s one aspect of human behavior I try to get into play that isn’t about what people do but how they think. If instead of thinking of ourselves as primordial sinful, if we see ourselves as divine creatures in a holy universe - look at the stars for some instant confirmation and then find out about Hubble showing that to us scientifically - we’d be one family taking care of each other. My focus is on shifting mass consciousness to give us the best chance to get the best results humanity could get now.
I fear the good doctor's words will age like a glass of milk left outside in this heat. hot, rotten, filled with a few dead bugs and a strange mold slime creeping up the rim.
In addition to the mainstreamers being arrogant condescending cunts, they are ignorant of much of what else is going down on this planet - if it was only climate change techno industrial civilization would still be toast. The thing is climate change is but one of many predicaments and thousands of serious problems that are under the Overshoot umbrella. Even without climate change biodiversity loss is a major crisis that would prove existential or at least result in the collapse of techno industrial civilization and a mass human die back. The there is ocean acidification and you can forget about using that "we fixed the hole in the ozone" narrative, cause we did not. And it goes on and on with the smörgåsbord of damages 8 billion plus humans and their ever expanding waste streams cause to the biosphere.
Idiots with degrees in 'communications" are just propagandists and none of them understand (nor care if they did), that life on this planet is governed by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology not their hopey think tank narratives or plans for their precious offspring. Make no mistake they are just as much a part of the US empire's propaganda team as is Hollywood and the MSM. Notice their silence on the US empires forever wars including feeding their 2 main proxies Ukraine and Israel? If humans were serious about stopping or slowing climate change global peace is essential - it can't happen as long as the US empire exists. Thing is that America would go bankrupt overnight if peace broke out. In addition to the millions employed, directly and indirectly, the US military is the single biggest institutional employer on the planet.
Any American that talks about "fighting climate change" and does not start with shutting down the US empire, can go fuck themselves. Twice.
~~~
*How the US became the biggest military emitter and stopped everyone finding out*
A.reza Sabri 4 weeks ago America, Europe, Middle East, Slider Leave a comment 461 Views
Academic Neta Crawford warns that if Donald Trump follows through on his threats of war, emissions will soar and the planet will pay the price
Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries
Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year
The climate impact of Donald Trump’s geopolitical ambitions could deepen planetary catastrophe, triggering a global military buildup that accelerates greenhouse gas emissions, a leading expert has warned.
The Pentagon – the US armed forces and Department of Defense (DoD) agencies – is the world’s largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for at least 1% of total US emissions annually, according to analysis by Neta Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War project at Brown University.
Over the past five decades, US military emissions have waxed and waned with its geopolitical fears and ambitions. In 2023, the Pentagon’s operations and installations generated about 48 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) – more planet-warming gases than emitted by entire
countries including Finland, Guatemala and Syria that year.
Now, once again, the US military carbon footprint is on the cusp of rising significantly as Trump upends the old geopolitical order in his second presidency. In the first 100 days of his second term, Trump threatened military action in Panama, Greenland, Mexico and Canada, dropped bombs on Yemen and increased military sales to Israel, which has intensified its military assault on Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen and Lebanon.
Trump has also aligned the US with former adversaries including Russia, while hurling direct or thinly veiled threats at former allies including Ukraine and the entire Nato alliance. Relations with China have sunk amid Trump’s chaotic trade war.
“If Trump follows through with his threats, US military emissions will absolutely rise, and this will cause a ripple effect,” said Crawford, author of the book The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of US Military Emissions.
“We’re already seeing lots of escalatory rhetoric, with fewer off-ramps and less commitment to resolving conflicts. The allies or former allies of the US have increased their military spending, so their emissions will go up. As adversaries and potential adversaries of the United States increase their military activity, their emissions will go up. It’s very bad news for the climate.”
The Pentagon is the largest single fossil fuel consumer in the US, already accounting for about 80% of all government emissions. In March, the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, wrote on X: “The @DeptofDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”
Trump has promised $1tn in defence spending for 2026 – which if approved by Congress would represent a 13% rise on the 2025 Pentagon budget amid unprecedented cuts to almost every other federal agency, including those that research and respond to the climate crisis. His military ambitions sit alongside orders to terminate climate research at the Pentagon and a broader assault on climate action across government, while also taking steps to boost fossil fuel extraction.
.
https://tiis.org/index.php/2025/06/03/how-the-us-became-the-biggest-military-emitter-and-stopped-everyone-finding-out/
The only chance to save anything is in presenting hard facts. Without facts, logical action can't be taken. THAT is doom. Guenther seems to be pedaling a degree of hopium for fear of turning off those who can't handle the truth. Others, well-intended perhaps like McKibben do the same. That our news sources are too corrupt and mired in selling the consumption that is killing us is primary. Brainwashed people can't be brought up to speed.
The green renewable economy will never happen, another hard truth. It can't be built without fossil fuels which are approaching the end of economic viability to extract, and bear primary responsible for killing us. The green economy was a lie all along, at best a bridge to a low energy, low consumption world. It depends on mining and competes with agricultural and drinking water; one ton of raw lithium ore requires 500,000 gallons of water to process and mining invariably pollutes precious groundwater. It's just another form of living beyond our means.
The planet was designed to do just so much, and the subsistence lifestyles of the Indigenous is truly the only sustainable model. We will no longer live like gods on Earth.
In the end, belief is always trumped(no pun intended) by the data and the data is clear. The relative stability of the last 10k years is over and we can no longer depend on that stability to support stable human communities, this of course occurring at the same time our species through our hubris and ignorance fomenting ongoing and deepening overshoot. There is no turning back now, with the vast majority of humans responding with denial and entrenchment, yet another positive feedback loop of accelerating unraveling. Placing and keeping your house in order, and frankly i refer pretty much exclusively to your emotional and spiritual house is now of critical value. How do you maintain your kindness and your center when around you the world is burning and innocents are suffering…at our hand?
Yes, the earth and its critters will suffer unimaginable pain, but in time, the earth will renew and life here will continue on this incredible planet. A few million years from now there will be little left to show that Homo sapiens was ever here.
Group no 5 for me, please.
So a doomer for sure. But then again, most evidence say that we are probably doomed by now.
For me this still feels better than being in one of the other four groups, groups where pure fantasy seem to play no small part.