Scientists are sounding the alarm that a crucial component of the planet’s climate system is in gradual decline and could one day reach a tipping point that would radically alter global weather patterns.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a system of ocean currents that circulate water in the Atlantic Ocean like a conveyor belt, helping to redistribute heat and regulate global and regional climates. New research, however, warns that the AMOC is weakening under a warming climate, and could potentially suffer a dangerous and abrupt collapse with worldwide consequences.
“This is bad news for the climate system and humanity,” researchers from Utrecht University’s Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research wrote in a new study published in the journal Science Advances.
You should try to understand others more, instead of building strawmen to give yourself an excuse to feel smug without challenging your ideas. Among the larger concerns that people have with the messaging on climate change is how the world’s largest polluters, China and India, are always completely ignored. It strikes people that, if it really were such a massive and immediate threat, then it would be completely irrational to ignore the massive contributions those economies are making to the problem.
Canada, for example, could completely stop existing tomorrow and it wouldn’t make even the smallest dent in global emissions. On top of that, life in a winter climate such as ours requires significantly more emissions simply to sustain the basics required for living, such as heat, and yet many of the very same people talking about the dangers of climate change are also importing massive quantities of people from nations with warm climates where people can much more easily live with little to no emissions.
All things considered, the arguments presented simply do not sound honest to many people.
But on the other hand China and India are the largest polluters because people everywhere on Earth demand to consume more and more. If you renew your wardrobe every year or buy every slightly interesting junk you see in Alibaba then you are a part of the problem.
Moreover not believing in climate change is very different from not believing the main polluters aren’t this or that.
That’s my point though. when you hand wave away every dissenting voice the way the commenter I replied too did, you’re not understanding a very large segment of opposition to climate change initiatives, and therefore are incapable of meaningfully engaging on the issue. And there are those who encourage this behaviour in an attempt to isolate us within partisan silos, to make it impossible for anyone to be an active participant in issues which affect us all.
I was the original commenter heh. I am not against engaging in meaningful discussions especially if both sides can keep their cool and are genuinely interested in the discussion. I agree that usually the most straightforward way is some sort of synthesis because in reality complete conversion of one large group to another side is very slow if not impossible.
But, making a joke about it does not nullify the possibility of such discussions, atleast for me. Because making a joke about even a politically charged topic doesnt necessarily mean I am a blind supporter of one side or the other.
ps: I am sure if you find the right community somewhere in reddit, you will also encounter tons of jokes against climate change supporters. That does not really anger me or want me to stay away from discussing with these people.
You’re right. Climate change is a massive problem, but countries with small populations can’t do much about it. Canada, in particular, has little room to maneuver: massive country, extremely cold climate, small population. Canada’s actions in regard to mitigating climate change are mostly about “leading by example” (to the degree that anyone cares what Canada does) and solidarity with others who care.
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China and India are better than Canada if you look at per capita. Also how does that change anything? Because some other countries are worse, we just shouldn’t do anything?
Ontop of that, China is heavily investing in nuclear and public transportation, what’s our excuse?
It’s because “these economies” are everyone’s economies.
The world outsourced its slave labor and environmental disregard for regulations to two places, and you think it’s sus that the world is hush hush on criticizing themselves?
Yes I do think it’s sus when the very same people who are screaming about an impending apocalypse, and the need to hamstring every other economy, pretend to see nothing at all wrong with China and India producing such vast quantities of emissions. It’s sus as fuck.
The scientists pointing out the impending collapse of ecological systems and the corporate regulators seeking revolving doors to lobbying gigs are very different people with very different aims.
The scientists at the oil companies wrote alarmist research at the same time the marketing people were downplaying environmental concerns. Different people in different roles have different motivations and objectives.
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Kinda funny to call out a logical fallacy and then immediately commit an ad hominem (whataboutism) fallacy. Your argument does not change the fact that this is happening and that we aren’t doing everything we can to prevent it. No one involved in this issue is ignoring that China and India are part of the problem, there’s just nothing we can do short of war or economic pressures. War is out of the question because no one would survive to fix the planet anyway, so economic pressure it is, which would once again require us to do something.